Actaeon heaping up the glowing ashes for you,<br> And cooked ewe-lambs for you every day.<br> But you hit him and turned him into a wolf,<br> His own herd-boys hunt him down<br> And his dogs tear at his haunches.<br><nowiki>"</nowiki>Actaeon, torn apart by dogs incited by Artemis, finds another Near Eastern parallel in the Ugaritic hero Aqht, torn apart by eagles incited by Anath who wanted his hunting bow. The virginal Artemis of classical times is not directly comparable to Ishtar of the many lovers, but the mytheme of Artemis shooting Orion, was linked to her punishment of Actaeon by T.C.W. Stinton; the
Actaeon Greek context of the mortal's reproach to the amorous goddess is translated to the episode of Anchises and Aphrodite. Daphnis too was a herdsman loved by a goddess and punished by her: see Theocritus' First Idyll. In Greek Mythology, Actaeon is thought by many, including Hans Biedermann, to symbolize ritual human sacrifice in attempt to please a God or Goddess. In the case of Actaeon, the dogs symbolize the sacrificers and Actaeon symbolizes the sacrifice. Actaeon also may symbolize a human curiosity or irreverence. The myth is seen by Jungian psychologist Wolfgang Giegerich as a symbol of spiritual transformation and/or