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 HymnsLXXI. To Meilinoe · Lines 1–6

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LXXI. To Meilinoe · Lines 1–6

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p. 234

LXXI. ΜΕΙΛΙΝΟΗΣ

θυμίαμα ἀρώματα

Μειλινόην καλέω, νύμφην χθονίην, κροκόπεπλον,

ἣν παρὰ Κωκυτοῦ προχοαῖς ἐλοχεύσατο σεμνὴ

Φερσεφόνη λέκτροις ἱεροῖς Ζηνὸς Κρονίοιο,

ᾗ ψευσθεὶς Πλούτων’ ἐμίγη δολίαις ἀπάτῃσι,

θυμῷ Φερσεφόνης δὲ δισώματον ἔσπασε χροιήν,

ἣ θνητοὺς μαίνει φαντάσμασιν ἠερίοισιν,

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LXXI. To Meilinoe

p. 235

LXXI. To Meilinoe

fumigation from aromatics

I call Meilinoe, chthonic nymph, saffron-robed,

whom beside the outpourings of Kokytos august

Phersephone bore in the sacred bed of Zeus son of Kronos,

with whom, playing false as Plouton, he mingled in crafty deceits,

and in anger drew off the two-bodied flesh of Phersephone,

she who maddens mortals with airy apparitions,

4.One apostrophe decides who fathered her. The codices read Πλούτων, the nominative: deceived, Plouton mingled with her by crafty deceits, and the father is Plouton. Gesner wrote Πλούτων’, the elided accusative, which makes the phrase as Plouton and hands the deed to the unnamed subject of ἐμίγη — who can only be the Ζηνὸς Κρονίοιο of the line above, in the genitive. On the printed text Zeus took Plouton's shape; on the manuscript text there is no disguise and no Zeus. Abel prints Gesner's reading, and the English follows it. The second entry on the line, ἀπάτῃσιν (sic) Hermann] ἀπάταισι, is the standing divergence between Abel's lemma and his own verse, which prints ἀπάτῃσι without the nu: the sic is his flag that the lemma quotes Hermann's form, not his.

5.θυμῷ Φερσεφόνης δὲ δισώματον ἔσπασε χροιήν — and in anger drew off the two-bodied flesh of Phersephone. The line is obscure and the edition does not decode it. θυμῷ may be the anger of the deceiver or Phersephone's own; ἔσπασε is drew, tore, pulled; χροιή is skin, flesh or colouring. δισώματον, two-bodied, is the word the next four lines then explain — a goddess who appears now bright and now dark, in outlandish forms. Abel records nothing on the line, so the difficulty is the collection's and not the transmission's.

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.