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Attributed to Orpheus

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 HymnsLXX. To the Eumenides · Lines 1–11

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LXX. To the Eumenides · Lines 1–11

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p. 232

LXX. ΕΥΜΕΝΙΔΩΝ

θυμίαμα ἀρώματα

Κλῦτέ μευ, Εὐμενίδες μεγαλώνυμοι, εὔφρονι βουλῇ,

ἁγναὶ θυγατέρες μεγάλοιο Διὸς χθονίοιο

Φερσεφόνης τ’, ἐρατῆς κούρης καλλιπλοκάμοιο,

αἳ πάντων καθορᾶτε βίον θνητῶν ἀσεβούντων,

τῶν ἀδίκων τιμωροί, ἐφεστηκυῖαι ἀνάγκῃ,

κυανόχρωτοι ἄνασσαι, ἀπαστράπτουσαι ἀπ’ ὄσσων

δεινὴν ἀνταυγῆ φάεος σαρκοφθόρον αἴγλην·

ἀίδιοι, φοβερῶπες, ἀπόστροφοι, αὐτοκράτειραι,

λυσιμελεῖς οἴστρῳ, βλοσυραί, νύχιαι, πολύποτμοι,

νυκτέριαι κοῦραι, ὀφιοπλόκαμοι, φοβερῶπες·

ὑμᾶς κικλήσκω γνώμαις ὁσίῃσι πελάζειν.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LXX. To the Eumenides

p. 233

LXX. To the Eumenides

fumigation from aromatics

Hear me, Eumenides of great renown, with kindly counsel,

holy daughters of great chthonic Zeus

and of Phersephone, the lovely maiden of beautiful hair,

you who look upon the life of all impious mortals,

avengers of the unjust, set over necessity,

dark-skinned queens, flashing out from your eyes

the terrible answering flesh-destroying gleam of light;

everlasting, dread-eyed, turned away, sovereign in yourselves,

limb-loosing with frenzy, grim, of the night, of many dooms,

maidens of the night, snake-tressed, dread-eyed;

I call upon you to draw near with pure purposes.

Heading.ΕΥΜΕΝΙΔΩΝ, of the Kindly Ones — the euphemism, one hymn after ΕΡΙΝΝΥΩΝ, of the Erinyes. The collection hymns the same powers twice running under their two names, and gives them different offerings: storax and manna at LXIX, aromatics here. The two hymns share four words in the transmitted text — τιμωροί (LXIX.7, LXX.5), ὀφιοπλόκαμοι (LXIX.12, LXX.10), νυκτέριαι (LXIX.3, LXX.10) and ἀνάγκαις / ἀνάγκῃ (LXIX.6, LXX.5) — and none of the four carries an apparatus entry at either place, so the repetition is the collection's and not the editors'. What the two hymns do not share is the parentage: LXIX names Tisiphone, Allekto and Megaira and closes by addressing them as θεαὶ Μοῖραι, while this hymn gives them a father and a mother and no names at all.

2–3.μεγάλοιο Διὸς χθονίοιο | Φερσεφόνης τ’ — of great Zeus of the underworld and of Phersephone. XXIX.6 says the same thing from the other side: Phersephone is there called Εὐμενίδων γενέτειρα, mother of the Eumenides, in a line that carries no apparatus entry, as this one does not. The two statements agree in the manuscripts as well as in the printed text. Zeus χθόνιος is the underworld Zeus — Plouton under a title, or Zeus acting below — and the hymn does not distinguish. The collection makes the identification outright elsewhere: XVIII.3 addresses Plouton as Ζεῦ χθόνιε, σκηπτοῦχε, in a line with no apparatus entry, and XLI.7 has χθονίου Διός. So the father named here is the god of Hymn XVIII under the title that hymn itself uses.

4.Three of this line's words are Hermann's. The codices read ἣ πάντων καθορᾷ βίοτον — a singular relative with a singular verb, she who looks upon the life of all — and Abel prints Hermann's plural αἳ … καθορᾶτε. On the manuscript reading the line is about one goddess, and the chain of plural vocatives that surrounds it is interrupted; the emendation brings the line into the chain. θνητῶν ἀσεβούντων, which closes the line, is the manuscripts'. The English follows the printed text, as this edition does throughout, and the note records what the codices have.

9.The codices have one word here and the printed text has two. βλοσυροννύχιαι is the manuscript reading — a single compound — and βλοσυραί is Lennep's, νύχιαι Hermann's, two editors dividing it between them. Wiel does the same thing at LXXIII.1, three hymns on, where the codices' μεγαλανηγήτορα becomes πελάσαι ἡγήτορα. The two entries are the block's evidence for what its manuscripts do to epithet-chains: they run the words together, and the editors pull them apart.

8, 10.φοβερῶπες stands second in the chain at 8 and last in the chain at 10, two lines apart, and neither place carries an apparatus entry. The English keeps the repetition. In the same chain ἀίδιοι at 8, everlasting, is what Abel prints and he records nothing against it; the word gives the Eumenides a duration rather than a quality, and it is the one word of duration in a chain otherwise made of colour, aspect and habit.

1.εὔφρονι βουλῇ closes the first line, as it closes LXXIV.9 in this block, XIV.12 and LIX.20 before it, and LXXIX.11 after it. (This note first said four; the fifth turned up at Block 13 and the note has been amended.) None of the five carries an apparatus entry on the phrase. It is a line-end formula of the collection, used of Rhea, of the Moirai, of Leukothea, of Themis, and here of the Eumenides — five powers, all of them female, three singular and two plural — and in each of the five it stands in a line that asks rather than describes. The register settled βουλή as counsel and γνώμη as purpose at Block 10, and this block keeps both; the earlier blocks were not brought into line, and at XIV.12 and LIX.20 — two of the four places just named — βουλή still stands as purpose. That is a term-consistency repair for the final run, not for this block. Line 11 here has the other word, γνώμαις ὁσίῃσι.

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.