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Oxford Univer$ity Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University'$
objecti\'e of excellence in research, scholar$hip. and education b)' publi$hing worldwide.
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University Press, at the addreS$ above.
987654321
Printed b)' LSC Communications in the United States of America.
About t he Cover
The Sh ield of Achilles-a hypothetical recon$truction by Kathleen Vail
The Shield of Achilles is described in Homer'$ Iliad (18.474-608) and has excited the imagination of
artists and schol:1rs $ince at least the nineteenth century. Achille$' divine a rmor was made by Heph:tiSt0$
him$elf out of gold, $ilver, b ronze. and tin. Homer uses the fantastic artifact t0 depict the cosmic and
human order: scenes of war and peace, and jO)' and grief, filled the $hield just a$ they fill the$e page$.
The images, arr.mged in concentric band$. presumabl)' evoked the detailed low reliefs engraved in
metalwork, especial!)' in the so.called ..orientalizing" or Daedalic $tyle (8th-7th cents. BCE), which
inspires thi$ rend ition. The im:'lginary shield i$ too drn:'lmic for static artwork t0 adequate!)' represent.
It takes us fn">m the cosmic elements in the central scene (earth a nd se:1. hea\'en and st11rs) t0 t he life
of human communities in the $urrounding rings. In two cities, one at peace and one at war, we see a
wedding (Y.lrt)', a judgment over a blood cr ime, men invoked in war prepar.1tion$ and b1tttles, and those
dedicated t0 agriculture and its festivities. Sea w".1ves surround the shield's outer rim, a$ Greeks and
'M esopotamians belie,·ed the Ocean encircled the inhabited world.
+ To my childre n, A lfonso and Sa rah +
CONTENTS
+
List of l'l1aps xv
List of Fig ures xv
Introduction xv11
Acknowledgments xxv
Note on Text Arrangement, T ransliterations, and Chronology xxvtt
About the Ed itor xxix
Contributors xxx
Time line xxxi i
i\<!aps xl iii
EGYPTIAN
1.3. Egyptian Cosmogon ies 23
1.3.a. The l'l1emphite T heology: E nding of the Shabako Stone 24
1.3.b. "A Hym n to Life": Coffin Te.YI! Spell 80 26
1.3.c. Excerpt from The Teachingsfor Meriknre 29
ISRAELITE
1.4. God's Creation, from the Book of Genesis 1 29
+ IX
x + CONTENTS
GREEK
1.5. Hesiod's Theogo,!Y 32
1.6. The Demiurge, from Plato's Ti111ae11s 49
1.7. Orphic Cosmogony: The Derveni Papyrus 54
1.8. Short Cosmogony in Apollonios of Rhodes' A1go11a111ika 56
PHOENICIAN
1.9. Phoenician Cosmogonies 57
1.9.a. Philon ofByblos: Excerpts from the Phoenida11 History 57
1.9.b. Phoenic ian Cosmogonies 1'11entioned by Damaskios 63
ROMAN
1.10. Creation 1'11yth in Ovid's Mela111orphoses, Book 1 64
1.11. Two Short Cosmogon ies, from Virgil'sAe11eidand Eclog11es 66
1.11.a. A "Tyrian" Cosmogony, from Ae11eid, Book 1 66
1.11.b. Cosmic Song of Silenus, from Edog11es 6 67
ISRAELITE
2.3. Adam and Eve, from Genesis 2-3 94
2.4. The Story of Noah, from Genesis 6-9 97
GREEK
2.5. Hesiod's Prometheus, Pandora, and Five Races of Mankind,
from IVorks a11d Dll)'S 100
2.6. The Creation and Attributes of Mank ind, from Plato's
Protagoras 105
2.7. Deu kalion and Pyrrha: The Greek Flood, from Apollodorus'
Library 108
ROMAN-LATE GREEK
2.8. The Ages of 1'11ankind and the F lood, from Ovid, Metmnorpboses,
Book 1 112
CONTENTS + XI
ANATOLIAN
3.4. Hittite l\1yths 149
3.4.a. Anatolian l\1yth of !!h!)'a11ka 150
3.4.b. The Hurro-H ittite K11marbi yrcle 154
CANAANITE
3.5. Ugaritic Epic Poems 176
3.5.a. The Baal (}de 177
3.5.b. TheAqbal Epic 191
ISRAELITE
3.6. Yah,veh as a Storm God: Psalm 29 199
3.7. David and Goliath: 1 Samuel 17 201
GREEK
3.8. Homer's Gods and Heroes in Battle: Iliad, Book 5 204
3.9. Apollo's Journey: The Ho1J1eric H;•m1110Apollo 234
3.10. Dionysos' l\1any Faces 247
3.10.a. The Ho1J1eric H;•1m1 lo Diol!J'SOS 248
3.10.b. The Opening of Euripides' Bacthae 250
3.10.c. Dionysos' Birth and \'{/anderings, from Apollodorus'
Library 252
3.11. Jason and the Argonauts, from Apollodorus' Library 254
3.12. Argive Heroes: Bellerophon, Perseus, and Herakles, from
Apollodorus' Library 262
3.12.a. Bellerophon and the Chimaera 264
3.12.b. Perseus' Adventures 265
3.12.c. Herakles' Life and Labors 268
3.13. The Theban Saga: Oed ipus and the Seven against Thebes, from
Apollodorus' Library 286
XII + CONTENTS
ANAT O LIAN
4.2. T he Hurro-Hittite Soi(g of Rekose (Destruction of the
City of Ebia) 301
ISRAELITE
4.3. Cain and Abel: Genesis 4 310
4.4. TheTowerof Babel: Genesis 11 311
4.5. Abraham's Test, from Genesis 22 312
4.6. l'v[oses and the Israelites' Exodus, from the Book of Exodus 313
MESOPOTAl'l1IAN
4.7. T he Sargon Legend 319
4.7.a. The Sumerian Sargon Legend 320
4.7.b. The Neo-Assyrian Sargon Birth Legend 322
GREEK-PERSIAN
4.8. Birth of Cyrus the Great, from Herodotos' Hisloriu 322
GREEK
4.9. The Foundation of Cyrene 326
4.9.a. Herodotos on the Foundation of Cyrene 326
4.9.b. Cyrene in Pindar, Iy1bia11 Ode 5 329
4.10. Athens and Atlantis, from Plato's Ti111ae111and Krilias 333
4.11. T heseus: An Athenian Civic Hero 346
4.11.a. Theseus' Exploits, from Apollodorus' Library 346
4.11.b. T he Unification of Attica, from Plutarch's LiftofThue11s 353
4.12. Kadmos, Europa, and the Foundation of Thebes 355
4.12.a. The Foundation of Thebes, from Apollodorus' Library 355
4.12.b. T he "Rape of Eu ropa" and the Foundation of T hebes, from
Ovid, Meta111orpbosu, Books 2-3 357
PHOENICIAN-WESTERN l'l1EDITERR ANEAN
4.13. Tyre's Foundation Story, from Nonnos' Dio1t)'Jioka 361
4.14. The Foundation of Carthage 364
4.14.a. Carthage's Foundation Legend, from Justin , Epito111e of
Trog111 364
4.14.b. The Da,vn of Carthage in Virgi l's Ae,,eid, Book 1 367
4.15. Gargoris and Habis: Cu lture Heroes in Iberia, from Justi n, Epito111e of
Trog11s 372
CONTENTS + XIII
ROMAN
4.16. The Foundation of Rome 375
4.16.a. Beginnings of Rome, from Livy's History of Ro,ne, Book 1 375
4.16.b. Romu lus and Remus, from Plutarch's Lift of Ro,n11h1s 381
GREEK-ROJ\1AN
5.4. Aphrodite and Anch ises: The Homeric Hy111n to Aphrodite 394
5.5. i\,[edea and Jason, from Euripides' Medea 401
5.6. T he Origins of Love According to Aristophanes, from Plato's
.l)'lll/JOJilllll 406
5.7. Teiresias: A Transgendered Seer, from Apollodorus' Library 409
5.8. "Hymn to Venus," from Lucretius' De n,11111 na/11ra 411
5.9. Aeneas and Dido, from Virgi l's Aeneid, Books 1 and 4 41 2
5.10. Pasiphae and t he Cretan Bull 420
5.10.a. l\1inos, Pasiphae, and the Bull, from Apollodorus' Library 420
5.10.b. Pasiphae's Passion, from Ovid's ArsA111atorio, Book 1 421
5.10.c. l\1inos and the Bull, from Ovid's Meta,norphoses, Book 8 422
5.11. T heseus and Ariadne 423
5.11.a. Ariadne's Fate, from Plutarch, LifeofThese111 423
5.11.b. Ariadne to Theseus: Ovid, Heroides 10 424
5.12. Phaedra to Hippolyrus: Ovid, Heroide14 428
5.13. Penelope to Ulysses: Ovid, Heroit!es 1 432
5.14. Hermaphroditus, from Ovid's 1vfeto111orphoses, Book 4 434
5.15. Cephalus and Procris, from Ovid's Meto111orphoses, Book 7 437
5.16. Hyacinth and Apollo, from Ovid's Met01norpho1es, Book 10 441
5.17. Pygmalion's Statue, from Ovid's Meto111orphose1, Book 10 443
5.18. i\<!yrrha and Ci nyras, from Ovid's Mefa,norphoses, Book 10 444
5.19. Caenis-Caeneus, from Ovid's Meto111orphoses, Book 12 448
5.20. Ach illes at Skyros, from Statius' Arhilleid 449
5.21. Cupid and Psyche, from Apuleius, The Golden A11, Books 4-6 457
XIV + CONTENTS
EGYPTIAN
6.4. Great Hymn to Osiris 492
6.5. T he Fight bet\veen Re and Apep, from the Book ofthe Dead 495
GREEK-EGYPTIAN
6.6. Isis and Osiris, from Plutarch's De !side el Osiride 497
GREEK
6.7. Odysseus' Nek;yia in Homer, 0,1;,sse;,, Book 11 503
6.8. The Homeric !-[y,nn lo De1J1e/er 523
6.9. Instructions for the Hereafter: An Orphic Gold Tablet 534
6.10. The Story of Er, from Plato's Rep11blic 536
ROMAN
6.11. Adon is, from Ovid's 1l1eta1J1orphoses, Book 10 541
6.12. Orpheus and Eurydice, from Virgil's Ceorgiu, Book 4 544
6.13. Aeneas' Katab,11i!, from Virgil's Aeneid, Book 6 546
6.14. T he Dream ofScipio, from Cicero's De re p11b/ica 573
6.15. Psyche's Descent to the Underworld, from Apu leius, The Colde11A1s,
Book 6 580
+
Glossary of Techn ical Terms 583
Bibi iography 587
References 599
Figure Credits 609
Index of Places and Characters 611
Color platesfo//o,v page 382
+
LI ST O F MA PS
+
Inside FroJ1t Cover:T he Near East and the Medite rranean in the Late Bronze Age
Inside Batk Cover. The Mediterranean in the Archaic Period, eighth-sixth centu ries BCE
1\•fap 1: The Near East and the Aegean in the Late Bronze Age
1\•fap 2: The Near East during the Assyrian and Babylonian E mpires, eighth-sixth centuries
BCE
1\•fap 3: G reeks and Phoenicians in the Mediterranean, eighth-sixth centuries BCE
1\•fap 4: G reece and the Aegean in Archaic-Classical T imes
1\•fap 5: The Roman E mpire at the Death of Augustus (14 CE)
1\•fap 6: Babylonian \Xlorld Map
1\•fap 7: \Xlo rJd Map According to Hecataeus o f 1\•filetos
LI ST OF FI CUR.ES
+
Figure 1: Osiris as king of the dead and first mummy, painted in Egyptian tomb.
Figure 2: A hare. looking cat o r usolar cat," painted in Egyptian tomb.
Figure 3: lv!csopotamian cylinder seal with bull-man lighting a lion and hero lighting a bull.
Figure 4: lv!csopotamian clay mask of Humbaba.
Figure 5: North-\Xlest Semitic storm god Baal in a stcle from Ugarit.
Figure 6: Neo- Hittite storm god in a stele from Babylon.
Figure 7: Assyrian statue of a hero taming a lion, probably Gilgamesh.
Figure 8: Perseus slaying the Gorgon ]\,fcd usa with the aid of Athena, from Sclinous, Sicily.
Figure 9: Yahweh and Asherah {?) in an ostracon from Kuntillet Ajrud (Sinai).
Figure 10: "Rape of Europa" on a co in fro m the Phoenician city of Sidon.
Figure 11: Dionysos, Hades, and Persephone on a volute crater from Apulia.
Figure 12: Orphic Gold Tablet fro m Petelia (Italy).
Figure 13: Alexander dlc G reat as A mo n o n a tctradrachm.
Figure 14: Herakles ]\,fcJqart on a Carthaginian silver double shekel.
Figure 15: Aeneas o n a denarius of Julius Caesar.
Figure 16: I nterior of the temple of Venus and Roma in Rome.
Figure 17: "Prometheus mosaic" from Edcssa, Syria.
Figure 18: Aphrodite and Cupid in a Byzantine mosaic from Madaba, Jo rdan.
Figure 19: Achilles revealing himself as a man on a Late Roman silver plate.
Figure 20: Adam and Eve banned from Eden in the Sistine Chapel, Rome.
Figure 21: Theseus slaying d, e 1\•finotaur in a Neoclassical sculpture, Paris.
Figure 22: Contest between Athena and Poseidon in the Parthenon replica in Nashville,
Tennessee.
Figure 23: Statue of Prometheus by Paul Manship (1934), New York.
Figure 24: Detail of The Lightning~ Bride, by Elliot Hundley (2011).
+ xv
IN TRODUC TI ON
+
UN LI KE other introductions to classical mythology, this volume sets itself
apa rt by systematically including, alongside more fam iliar Greek and Roman texts,
comparable narratives from the ancient Near East, specifically from 1'11esopotamia,
Egypt, Anatolia, Ugarit, Phoenicia, and Israel. T hese sou rces amount to about one
third of the volume you are holding. T his more comprehensive approach requires
some explanation, especially for readers who might intu itively associate the term
"classical" w ith the literatures of Greece and Rome.
Th is anthology reflects our increasing knowledge of the interconnected cu ltu res
of the ancient world and the g rowing realization that important mythological
narratives of Greece and Rome evolved from and were in dialogue with t hei r
counterparts in the ancient Near East. J'l,(oreover, in the critical and most creative
period, reaching from the m id-second to the late fi rst millenn ium BCE, G reece
and Rome participated in a world whose center of gravity lay to their east, in the arc
from the Ni le to J'l,(esopotamia. T his volume, therefore, proposes a reconsideration
of the "classical." T he Epic of Gilga111e1h, from 1'11esopotamia, was, after all, a true
"classic" in its t ime, requi red reading for all who claimed to be educated . It was
translated into a host of languages and used in schools throughout the Near East
and beyond, and it is now becoming clear that it also directly in fluenced Greek
heroic motifs. Many mythological stories ,ve re shaped in response to each other, not
only within the region where they originated but across languages and peoples and
down through the centuries. Even with the d ramatic changes that Ch ristian ity and
Islam brought, so-called pagan myths and even religious practices adapted to t he
new rel igions and survived.
Why have the Near Eastern masterpieces, t hen, not been considered "classical"?
T he fates of these literatu res were shaped by historical developments. First, t he
more ancient languages of the Nea r East had more t ime in which to change, to be
overridden, and even to be lost, as happened to Sumerian and Akkadian, whereas
more recent ones, such as Greek and Latin , were encoded as the officia l languages
of the nvo halves of the Roman Empire, so their literatu res survived. The Hebrew
Bible obviously has its o,vn remarkable history of transm ission and preservation, but
that also required a continuous investment of effort by later generations. Greek and
Latin texts were copied and used for educational pu rposes in the Greek-speaking
+ XV!l
xv111 + INTRODUCTION
eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) and in the medieval Latin \'{/est. It,vas this part
of the ,vorld in wh ich the modern nations of Europe developed, and it is from them
that our trad itions of scholarship derive, including our notion of the "classical."
By contrast, Mesopotam ian, Egyptian, and other non-Greco-Roman texts
were excluded from this canon, at least in their original languages. By the time
of Thucydides and Herodotos, composers of the first histories, some early
civilizations of the ancient Near East, such as those of Ugarit and the Hittites,
had long since d isappeared, both destroyed in ,vars and unknown to Greeks of
the "classical" period, though the legacies of these lost cultures partly survived in
Anatolia and Syro-Palestine. Later Near Eastern cultures, such as Neo-Assyrian,
Neo-Babylonian, Phoenician, and Egyptian, ,vere eventually subsumed into the
Hellen istic and Roman Empires. Their texts, at least those that survived inscribed
on papyri, stone monumentS, or clay tablets, were buried and had to wait for
millennia before they could be uncovered and deciphered . (Paradox ically, tablets
from these lost cultures were often preserved by the very same Ii res that destroyed
them since the fires "cooked" the sun-dried clay.) T hus, as the great literary
trad itions of the Near East fell into oblivion, the Greek and Latin "classics" were
codified and partially preserved for posterity. Their uninterrupted transm ission in
manuscript form, thanks in large part to the efforts of Arab scholars during the
ninth and tenth centuries CE, ensured that they wou ld be studied and commented
upon. In the process, they exerted po,verful influences on ph ilosophy, literature,
and the artS, inspiring such movements as the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and
Romanticism.
D uring th is long period of time, stretch ing over a thousand years, little was
kno,vn about ancient Near Eastern cultures. I n the \Xlestern view of history, ideas
about the ancient Near East were principally represented by whatever classical
historians (mostly Herodotos) and the Hebrew Bible had to say about them. This
changed dramatically ,vith the beginning of archaeological exploration in the
nineteenth century, enabled first by Napoleon's campaign in Ottoman Egypt
(1798-1801) and the excavation ofl'v[esopotamian sites in the nineteenth century by
European diplomatS and explorers, who thus became the first archaeologists. The
decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs by Jean-Fran~ois Champoll ion in 1822 and
of cuneiform tablets from l'v[esopotamia in the 1850s opened up a whole new phase
in our knowledge of these languages and cultures. Add itional sites, cultures, and
languages, including Hittite and Ugaritic, were d iscovered in the t,ventieth century.
Tablets and even arch ives continue to appear today, enriching our cor pus of Near
Eastern literatures and filling in the blan ks of the mosaic of ancient cultures, forcing
us to reconsider their legacy and mutual interrelations.
But by the time this amazing process of discovery began to peak in the nineteenth
century, the concept of Greco-Roman literature as "classical" ,vas too entrenched
to read ily make room for the "oriental" newcomers. Ancient literature was perceived
as a fundamentally "\Vestern" inheritance. Preconceived dichotomies bet,veen East
and West, rooted entirely in the political and religious developments of the Middle
Ages (especially the confl ict with Islam) and the advent of "modernity" (especially
INTRODUCTION + XIX
the "Eastern question" regarding the d issolution of the Ottoman Empire), greatly
impacted the classification of cultures and literatures. In recent decades, however,
increasing collaboration and dialogue bet,veen the fields of classics and Near
Eastern studies are bringi ng us closer to a more accurate and comprehensive vie,v
of the ancient ,vorld and the different ways in ,vhich its inhabitants, their literatures,
and intellectual traditions interacted.
Independent developments within the field of classical studies have encouraged
such collaboration, though more always remains to be done. Specifically, for the
past half-century classical Greece has gradually ceased to be regarded as a si ngular
exemplar of virtuous qualities such as freedom, democracy, purity, and reason.
Historical scholarship has broken do,vn this notion, and at the same time it has
removed some of the barriers that had been erected around classical culture to keep
it free of "contamination" by the "other," such as the Semitic cultures of the Near
East. One of these barriers ,vas the theory that Greece should be classified among
the I ndo-European cu ltures, together with Celtic, Nord ic, and Aryan-Indian.
\Xlhile it is true that the Greek language is part of the I ndo-European language
fam ily, a genetic model cannot be so easily transferred to its culture as a whole. The
selection of texrs in this volume is premised on scholarship that finds that Greek
mythology developed within its contemporary Eastern l'l1editerranean context and
borrowed extensively from it.
Th is immed iately raises the problematic concept of " influence." There are, of
course, cases of direct influence or simple diffusion, but we are mostly deali ng ,vith
texts that are far apart in time and space: narrative t hemes and elements would
normally have passed through many stages of adaptation and creative reelaboration,
usually oral, before they acquired their final form (i.e., the ,vritten version that ,ve
have). And adaptation means that they ,vould have been thoroughly formatted
to lit their ne,v host culture and the narrative goals of each poet, bard, or writer.
Sometimes the direction of transmission can be ascertained: for example, the
i\,(esopotamian flood story ,vas adopted in ancient Israel and Greece and the Greek
myths were taken up and reworked by the Romans. Still, it is in the variations
and adaptations themselves that we can appreciate the uniqueness of each act of
reception. Every instance, every text, is a unique literary artifact, and many of them
have generated whole d iscipli nes of study. With their fascinati ng sim ilarities and
sharp contrasts, the texrs gathered here represent some of the most famous stories
that have fueled the imaginations of generations across the l'l1editerranean and the
lands of the Fertile Crescent for millenn ia.
The stories we call "myths" were much more than entertaini ng tales. The Greek
,vord H!Jlbos, which was eventually attached to fictional or legendary stories, was in
earlier times used for any speech, utterance, or narrative. For the ancients, what ,ve
call "myths" were stories abo111 gods a11d heroes, stories valued and preserved as part of
the tradition of particular communities, for whom these stories were inseparable
from all central aspecrs of culture. Gods were real. T hey were worshipped, prayed
to, and feared, in a ,vorld organized to a great degree around religious festivals and
daily rituals. Heroes, on the other hand, ,vere central in ancient people's perception
xx + INTRODUCTION
of their remote past and their recent history. They ,vere often part of stories
about city founders, lawgivers, beginnings of institutions, etc. Indeed, in Near
Eastern cultures (for instance in i\,(esopotamia) king listS, rituals, la"' codes,
and historical events ,vere ,vritten do,vn at the same time as epic stories and
cosmogonies. But in Greece before the eighth century BCE no written records
preserved information (except for Linear B texts, ,vh ich apparently were for
purely adm inistrative purposes). Hence, "myths" carried the torch of community
memory for centuries, preserving and reshaping genealogies and ideas of origins
of whole cities and peoples (whether true or invented) and explaining the current
religious order. l\1yths did more than reinforce abstract t heological beliefs; they
explained the role of festivals and ritual practices and provided narratives to
which people pinned their beliefs in the afterlife. However, wh ile myths ,vere the
prime carrier for narratives and beliefs about the gods, ,ve should be cautious
about reading them as ancient "doctrine": these narratives ,vere malleable, and
there ,vas no scripture or official church. Not everyone even believed that Homer
and Hesiod had accurately represented the gods; playwrights and philosophers,
such as Aristophanes, Xenophanes, and Plato, to mention some, ,vere especially
skeptical of the trad itional gods .
Even as mythical narrative gradually became distinct from other historical,
scient ific, ph ilosophical discourse, myths still had a place in the ne,v literary and
intellectual modes, as sho,vn by the self-conscious use of myths in Herodotos,
Livy's histories, and Plato's ph ilosophical dialogues. Far from being discarded in
the light of"reason," narratives called myths could be used to express higher truths,
and in turn myths have continued to be studied as containing "hidden" and deeper
messages for centuries, whether through allegorical interpretations in antiquity and
the l\1idd le Ages or through psychoanalytical, anthropological, and structuralist
approaches (among others) today. T hese multifaceted and porous narratives were
in continuous dialogue with the real ities of people's lives and beliefs: myths helped
to create the mindscapes of ancient peoples, offered some stabi lity to the universe's
ungraspable nature, whi le, in turn, the changing ,vorld continuously reshaped
the myths as needed. Only thi nk of the complex function of literary, visual, and
performative fiction works today (e.g., our relationship to motion pictures) and
how they can be both fictional and still poignantly and deeply real and mean ingful.
Hesiod's l\1uses captured it in a sentence: "We kno,v how to tell many fantasies that
seem real, and we kno,v, if we want, how to sing of real things" (Th. 27-28). The
subject of the use and meaning of myths is vast, and the reader ,viii find suggested
readings in the Bibl iography at the back of this volume.
+
INTRODUCTION + XXIII
Eine Woche später, als Gert Gram kam, war sie so müde und
gleichgültig, daß sie gute Laune vortäuschen konnte. Wenn er ihr
vorgeschlagen hätte, in sein Hotel hinüberzuziehen, so hätte sie es
getan. Sie veranlaßte ihn, mit ihr ins Theater zu gehen, außerhalb zu
Abend zu essen und eines Tages bei schönem Wetter mit ihr nach