The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns

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

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The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The HymnsLXIII. To Dikaiosyne · Lines 9–16

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Facing Pages · Branch 108 of 147

LXIII. To Dikaiosyne · Lines 9–16

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Ancient Greek

p. 210

LXIII. ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΥΝΗΣ

θυμίαμα λίβανον

εἰρήνῃ χαίρουσα, βίον ζηλοῦσα βέβαιον·

αἰεὶ γὰρ τὸ πλέον στυγέεις, ἰσότητι δὲ χαίρεις·

ἐν σοὶ γὰρ σοφίη ἀρετῆς τέλος ἐσθλὸν ἱκάνει.

κλῦθι, θεά, κακίην θνητῶν θραύουσα δικαίως,

ὡς ἂν ἰσορροπίῃσιν ἀεὶ βίος ἐσθλὸς ὁδεύῃ

θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων, οἳ ἀρούρης καρπὸν ἔδουσι,

καὶ ζῴων πάντων, ὁπόσ’ ἐν κόλποισι τιθηνεῖ

γαῖα θεὰ μήτηρ καὶ πόντιος εἰνάλιος Ζεύς.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LXIII. To Dikaiosyne

p. 211

LXIII. To Dikaiosyne

fumigation from frankincense

rejoicing in peace, zealous for a steadfast life;

for you hate the larger share always, and rejoice in equality;

for in you wisdom reaches the good end of excellence.

Hear, goddess, breaking the badness of mortals justly,

that by even balances a good life may always travel on

of mortal men, who eat the fruit of the ploughland,

and of all living things, as many as they nurse in their bosoms —

Gaia the mother goddess, and Zeus of the deep salt sea.

Placement.The third of the three consecutive hymns on justice noted at the end of Block 10 — Nemesis, Dike, Dikaiosyne — and the one that argues. LXI invoked a power that watches, LXII an eye that judges; this one has a thesis, stated at line 10 and again at 13, and a mechanism for it. Four words of the equality vocabulary stand in sixteen lines: ἐξ ἰσότητος (2), πλάστιγξι, the scale-pans (7), ἰσότητι (10) and ἰσορροπίῃσιν, even balances (13). ἐξ ἰσότητος is the phrase LXII.5 used of Dike — on a footing of equality, not into equality — and here it opens the hymn's second line. Neither place carries an apparatus entry on those two words, so the repetition is the collection's.

16.πόντιος εἰνάλιος Ζεύς — the Zeus of the deep, the one who is of the sea. This is Poseidon, named by a periphrasis rather than by his name, and set beside Gaia as the second of the two who nurse living things; the verb τιθηνεῖ is singular with a compound subject, as regularly. The collection has a hymn to Poseidon at XVII, where he is named outright; here the god is reached by description, the way the underworld gods are reached by euphemism.

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.