The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns

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

Explore the Lexicon

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The HymnsLXXVI. To the Mousai · Lines 1–6

Swipe or use the arrow keys.

English Page · Branch 126 of 147

LXXVI. To the Mousai · Lines 1–6

Book Mode

Ancient Greek

p. 246

LXXVI. ΜΟΥΣΩΝ

θυμίαμα λίβανον

Μνημοσύνης καὶ Ζηνὸς ἐριγδούποιο θύγατρες,

Μοῦσαι Πιερίδες, μεγαλώνυμοι, ἀγλαόφημοι,

θνητοῖς, οἷς κε παρῆτε, ποθεινόταται, πολύμορφοι,

πάσης παιδείης ἀρετὴν γεννῶσαι ἄμεμπτον,

θρέπτειραι ψυχῆς, διανοίης ὀρθοδότειραι,

καὶ νόου εὐδυνάτοιο καθηγήτειραι ἄνασσαι,

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LXXVI. To the Mousai

p. 247

LXXVI. To the Mousai

fumigation from frankincense

Daughters of Mnemosyne and of loud-thundering Zeus,

Pierian Mousai, of great renown, of splendid fame,

most longed for by mortals, to whomever you may come, of many forms,

begetting the blameless excellence of all education,

nurses of the soul, straight-givers of the understanding,

and queens, guides of the greatly able mind,

4–6.παιδείη, διάνοια, νόος, ἀρετή — the vocabulary is a schoolmaster's, not a poet's. These Mousai are not asked for song: they beget the excellence of education, nurse the soul, give the understanding straight and guide the mind; the arts they are named after appear only as their names in lines 8–10. The hymn to Mnemosyne that follows continues in the same register, with λογισμός, reasoning, and μνήμη. Two of the four abstract words in these lines are editorial in form — Abel's Ionic διανοίης for διανοίας, Hermann's uncontracted νόου for νοῦ — but the words themselves are the manuscripts'.

5, 2.θρέπτειραι ψυχῆς — nurses of the soul. θρέπτειραν stands two hymns back at LXXIV.2, of Leukothea as nurse of Dionysos, and neither place carries an apparatus entry on that word — though this line has one on διανοίης, which is Abel's. The same agent-noun serves once for a goddess who raised a god and once for goddesses who raise a faculty; the collection also has θνητῶν θρέπτειρα at XL.7 and βιοθρέπτειρα at XXVII.13. The collection's habit of taking a physical office and applying it to the inner life is the same habit that gives these Mousai a curriculum.

1, 3.Two entries of the kind that names no editor: at 1 the codices read θυγατέρες where the text prints θύγατρες, and at 3 the lemma is bare — κε] καί codd. — so that the correction is Abel's own, adopted silently. The second is a metrical repair: οἷς καί παρῆτε will not scan where οἷς κε παρῆτε will.

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.