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 HymnsLXV. To Ares · Lines 1–8

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LXV. To Ares · Lines 1–8

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Ancient Greek

p. 216

LXV. ΑΡΕΟΣ

θυμίαμα λίβανον

Ἄρρηκτ’, ὀβριμόθυμε, μεγασθενές, ὄβριμε δαῖμον,

ὁπλοχαρής, ἀδάμαστε, βροτοκτόνε, τειχεσιπλῆτα,

Ἆρες ἄναξ, ὁπλόδουπε, φόνοις πεπαλαγμένος αἰεί,

αἵματί τ’ ἀνδροφόνῳ χαίρων, πολεμόκλονε, φρικτέ,

ὃς ποθέεις ξίφεσίν τε καὶ ἔγχεσι δῆριν ἄμουσον·

στῆσον ἔριν λυσσῶσαν, ἄνες πόνον ἀλγεσίθυμον,

ἐς δὲ πόθον νεῦσον Κύπριδος κώμους τε Λυαίου,

ἀλλάξας ἀλκὴν ὅπλων εἰς ἔργα τὰ Δηοῦς.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LXV. To Ares

p. 217

LXV. To Ares

fumigation from frankincense

Unbreakable, of mighty spirit, great in strength, mighty daimon,

delighting in arms, unsubdued, man-slayer, stormer of walls,

Ares lord, loud with arms, for ever stained with slaughter,

rejoicing in man-killing blood, stirrer of battle, dreadful,

you who long for the Museless strife with sword and with spear;

halt the raging strife, let go the pain that grieves the heart,

and incline to longing for the Kyprian and the revels of Lyaios,

exchanging the force of arms for the works of Deo.

6–8.The hymn asks the war-god to stop being one. Five lines of epithets for slaughter are answered by three imperatives — στῆσον, ἄνες, νεῦσον — and what he is to turn to is named: the desire of the Kyprian, the revels of Lyaios, and the works of Deo — Aphrodite, Dionysos and Demeter, love, wine and the harvest. The closing line puts it as an exchange, ἀλλάξας, with ἀλκή, the fighting strength, as the thing traded. The three gods have hymns of their own in the collection, and Aphrodite's stands ten places back at LV. Note that the Dionysos of the three is reached through a conjecture: Λυαίου is Lennep's for the codices' λυαίους.

5.δῆριν ἄμουσον — the Museless fight. The adjective is the collection's own verdict on its addressee: war is what the Muses are not in. It stands just past the middle of the hymn and is the hinge on which the petition turns.

1, 3.Two of the god's opening epithets are not transmitted as printed. The codices give ὀμβριμόθυμε in line 1, and Abel prints ὄβριμε for their ὄμβριμε later in the same line; at line 3 ὁπλόδουπε, loud with arms, is Pierson's for the codices' δολόδουπε. Neither word is common: δολόδουπος is registered in Pape from this passage alone, with Pierson's conjecture noted, and ὁπλόδουπος stands in the lexica because it was conjectured here — so the argument for Pierson is sense and not lexical existence. He has ten entries in this apparatus in all, the first at III.6, and this is his only one in this block.

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.