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 HymnsI. To Hekate · Lines 1–10

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I. To Hekate · Lines 1–10

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Ancient Greek

p. 18

I. ΕΙΣ ΕΚΑΤΗΝ

Εἰνοδίην Ἑκάτην κλῄζω, τριοδῖτιν, ἐρεμνήν,

οὐρανίην χθονίην τε καὶ εἰναλίην, κροκόπεπλον,

τυμβιδίην, ψυχαῖς νεκύων μεταβακχεύουσαν,

Πέρσειαν, φιλέρημον, ἀγαλλομένην ἐλάφοισι,

νυκτερίην, σκυλακῖτιν, ἀμαιμάκετον βασίλειαν,

θηρόβρομον, ἄζωστον, ἀπρόσμαχον εἶδος ἔχουσαν,

ταυροπόλον, παντὸς κόσμου κληδοῦχον ἄνασσαν,

ἡγεμόνην, νύμφην, κουροτρόφον, οὐρεσιφοῖτιν,

λισσομένοις κούρην τελεταῖς ὁσίῃσι παρεῖναι

βουκόλῳ εὐμενέουσαν ἀεὶ κεχαρηότι θυμῷ.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: I. To Hekate

p. 19

I. To Hekate

(no fumigation named)

Einodian Hekate I call, of the three ways, dark,

of heaven, of earth and of the sea, saffron-robed,

of the tomb, revelling among the souls of the dead,

Perseia, lover of solitude, delighting in deer,

of the night, keeper of dogs, queen not to be withstood,

roaring with beasts, ungirt, of a form none can assail,

bull-driver, key-holder of the whole kosmos, mistress,

leader, bride, nurse of the young, walker on the mountains,

that the maiden be present at the pure rites of those who beseech her,

gracious to the oxherd, with a heart ever rejoicing.

I.Hymn I carries no fumigation rubric — one of ten hymns without one, by direct count of the finished text: I, XVIII, XXIX, XXXI, XLV, L, LV, LXI, LXIV and LXXXVIII. (This note has twice been corrected as the reading advanced. It first gave the list as 18, 29, 30, 50, 55, 61 and 64 — XXX has a rubric and did not belong, XXXI and XLV were missing; it then gave nine, the text having been read only to LXIV; the tenth, LXXXVIII, arrived with the last block. Seventy-eight hymns carry a rubric.) In the manuscripts it runs on from the Prayer without a break, and Sanctamandus and Canterus were the first to separate the two (Abel’s note). The division is editorial. Editions keeping the older arrangement therefore print a proem of fifty-four lines — the forty-four preceding plus Hekate’s ten — and it is that undivided poem Thomas Taylor translated in 1787, running on into Hekate, whom he asks as “Leader and nurse” to “be present to our rites” two lines before his close. Taylor’s English reaches sixty-four lines because he works in rhyming couplets and expands; the Greek beneath it is fifty-four. This edition follows Abel’s division but records it as a division, since the collection as its users had it opened at the crossroads.

1.ἐρεμνήν, “dark”, is Wiel’s conjecture, which Abel prints and this edition follows. The received text since Gesner reads ἐραννήν, “lovely”, and every modern translation opens the collection that way. The manuscripts give a word that is not Greek, so the first epithet of the first hymn is an editorial choice between two guesses, and the collection begins either in darkness or in loveliness depending on which is taken. (Our two collations of Abel’s apparatus differed over whether the rejected reading there is ἐραννήν or the manuscripts’ ἐραυνήν; the disagreement is recorded rather than resolved.)

1.Einodia, “of the road”, and τριοδῖτις, “of the three ways” — Hekate at the fork, where her image stood and where offerings were left. The hymn opens with her location, not her nature.

7.κληδοῦχος, key-holder, is at home in temple administration — κλειδοῦχοι of sanctuaries are attested in inscriptions — and is also a standing epithet of guardian deities, Hekate among them. Here it is extended to the whole kosmos.

10.βουκόλος, oxherd, was a grade of officer in Bacchic associations, attested in their inscriptions. The hymn ends by asking the goddess to be gracious to an officer of the group performing it, designated by his title. That the collection is therefore the liturgy of a real association, rather than a literary exercise, is the standard modern reading of such details and not something the line itself states. The title recurs at XXXI.7, in a line otherwise identical to this one.

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.