The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns

Name: The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns
Author: Attributed to Orpheus

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The HymnsLX. To the Charites · Lines 1–11

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LX. To the Charites · Lines 1–11

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Ancient Greek

p. 200

LX. ΧΑΡΙΤΩΝ

θυμίαμα στύρακα

Κλῦτέ μευ, ὦ Χάριτες μεγαλώνυμοι, ἀγλαότιμοι,

θυγατέρες Ζηνός τε καὶ Εὐρυνόμης βαθυκόλπου,

Ἀγλαΐη Θαλίη τε καὶ Εὐφροσύνη πολύολβε,

χαρμοσύνης γενέτειραι, ἐράσμιαι, εὔφρονες, ἁγναί,

αἰολόμορφοι, ἀειθαλέες, θνητοῖσι ποθειναί·

οὔτε γὰρ ἠελίου ταχιναὶ φλόγες οὔτε σελήνης

καὶ σοφίης ἀρετῆς τε καὶ ἐργασίμου θρασύτητος

εὐχέρει’ οὔτε βίου λιπαρῆς περικαλλέος ἥβης

ὑμῶν χωρὶς ἐγείρει εὐφροσύνας βιότοιο·

εὐκταῖαι, κυκλάδες, καλυκώπιδες, ἱμερόεσσαι·

ἔλθοιτ’ ὀλβοδότειραι, ἀεὶ μύστῃσι προσηνεῖς.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LX. To the Charites

p. 201

LX. To the Charites

fumigation from storax

Hear me, O Charites of great renown and splendid honour,

daughters of Zeus and of deep-bosomed Eurynome,

Aglaia and Thalia and Euphrosyne rich in blessing,

mothers of gladness, lovely, kindly, holy,

of shifting form, ever-blooming, longed for by mortals;

for neither the swift flames of the sun, nor of the moon,

and of wisdom and excellence and workmanlike daring

the readiness, nor of life's sleek and lovely youth,

rouses, apart from you, the joys of living;

prayed-for, circling, bud-faced, stirring desire;

may you come, givers of prosperity, gentle to the initiates always.

6–9.These four lines are not this hymn's. Abel's apparatus says Vss. 6—9 ex hymno LXIX. huc transposuit Ruhnken — Ruhnken transposed them here out of hymn LXIX — and Abel prints them in the text with no bracket or mark of any kind. Without the apparatus a reader of the page would take the hymn for an eleven-line poem. The hymn as the manuscripts give it runs 1–5 and then 10–11, seven lines: an address, the three names, the epithets, and a closing prayer. The imported passage is a long negative period — neither sun nor moon, nor wisdom, nor youth, rouses joy without you — and it is argumentative in a way the surrounding lines are not. Three of its words are themselves conjectures (σοφίης and λιπαρῆς Hermann's, εὐχέρει’ Wiel's for the codices' εὔχαρι), so the sentence that carries the argument has been repaired as well as moved.

2.Εὐρυνόμη is Schrader's, for the codices' εὐνομίης. The manuscripts make the Charites daughters of Zeus and Good Order; the printed text makes them daughters of Zeus and the Okeanid, which is Hesiod's genealogy (Theogony 907–909, where Eurynome bears Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia). The conjecture brings the hymn into line with Hesiod, and the line it displaces would have suited the collection too, since Eunomia is named as one of the Horai at XLIII.2.

5, 10.ἀειθαλέες, ever-blooming, is the Horai's at XLIII.5, in the line Ὧραι ἀειθαλέες, περικυκλάδες — whose second epithet is the compounded form of the κυκλάδες given to the Charites at line 10 here. The pair is divided between the Charites' first and last strings of epithets. XLIII.7–8 has the Moirai and the Charites dancing together to bring Phersephone up to the light; in this block their two hymns stand side by side.

About This Reading Edition

The eighty-eight Orphic Hymns and the Prayer to Musaeus, in Ancient Greek and English, with the supplied critical apparatus, explanatory notes, introduction, glossary and editorial matter.

Historical Text and Translation

Orphic Hymns, attributed to Orpheus. Greek text after Eugenius Abel, Orphica (Leipzig and Prague, 1885), pages 57–102.

About Diotimos Editions

This historical edition credits Diotimos Editions as its English translator.

Rights

The ancient Greek source and the 1885 Abel edition are public-domain material. The supplied new English translation and editorial matter are published with the site owner’s authorization. Both supplied original files remain unchanged.