A good review could be written for each of the longer Homeric Hymns (5 of the 33 that have survived to us). They are certainly a good addition, and sometimes even an original contribution, to the narrative material of Greek mythology. For me, the Hymn to Hermes was further proof that literature (in the broadest sense of the word) was already at a very high level even in early Greece (7th-6th century BCE). However, with the Hymn to Hermes, it should be noted that it is sometimes also placed in the early 5th century BCE (thus, at the beginning of the Golden Age).
Anyway, I'm talking about the content. The hymn tells the story of the birth of the god Hermes, son of Zeus and the nymph Maia. And apparently, from the very beginning, he was a striver, determined to secure his place among the other gods on Olympus. Barely a few days old, he makes this clear to his mother: “If my father will not allow me, then I shall try—it is in my power—to be the leader of thieves; and if the son of glorious Leto comes in search of me, I think something else even worse will happen to him, for I shall go to Pytho, to break my way inside his great abode.” Leto's son is Apollo, whose herd of sacred cattle Hermes promptly steals and leads away. A confrontation ensues, during which Hermes lies outright, much to Apollo's amusement. Then follows a full-blown trial before the supreme god Zeus, with both words and counter-words, during which Hermes once again shows his most cunning side, and—through Apollo's benevolence—a solution is found.
The hymn belongs to the classical genre in which the divine order of the universe is disrupted by a challenger, and Zeus ultimately restores that order through decisive action or a compromise. Strikingly, the challenger here is an exceptionally talkative baby of just a few days old, seeking knowledge and recognition, a variation on the famous Prometheus myth. But it's above all the comical and even absurd element that takes center stage here. Hermes acts extremely cunning, sly, and even mischievous, both in acts as in words. It's simply delightful how he invokes rhetorical casuistry to conceal his theft, even making a universally respected deity like Apollo look foolish.
In the Iliad, I'd already noticed that the Ancient Greeks were quite adept at using words and language to achieve their goals, and didn't shy away from deception, a twist of words, or an omission of crucial information. And of course, in the Odyssey the protagonist is a master (the-man-of-a-thousand-ruses) of this skill. But in the Hymn to Hermes, this is much more concisely delivered, and with much more humorous effect. Simply delightful!