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 HymnsLXXXI. To Zephyros · Lines 1–6

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LXXXI. To Zephyros · Lines 1–6

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p. 262

LXXXI. ΖΕΦΥΡΟΥ

θυμίαμα λίβανον

Αὖραι ποντογενεῖς Ζεφυρίτιδες, ἠερόφοιτοι,

ἡδύπνοοι, ψιθυραί, καμάτου ἀνάπαυσιν ἔχουσαι,

εἰαριναί, λειμωνιάδες, πεποθημέναι ὅρμοις,

σύρουσαι νηυσὶ τρυφερὸν πόρον, ἠέρα κοῦφον·

ἔλθοιτ’ εὐμενέουσαι, ἐπιπνείουσαι ἀμεμφεῖς,

ἠέριαι, ἀφανεῖς, κουφόπτεροι, ἠερόμορφοι.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LXXXI. To Zephyros

p. 263

LXXXI. To Zephyros

fumigation from frankincense

Breezes born of the sea, Zephyr-breezes, walkers in air,

sweet-blowing, whispering, holding rest from toil,

of the spring, of the meadows, longed for by the harbours,

drawing for ships a delicate passage, a light air;

may you come with favour, breathing upon us, blameless,

of the air, unseen, light-winged, of the form of air.

LXXXI.The only hymn in the collection addressed to a plurality that is not a class of divinities but a plural of the god himself: not Zephyros but the Ζεφυρίτιδες αὖραι, the west breezes. The grammar stays feminine plural throughout, and the English follows it.

1.ποντογενεῖς, “born of the sea”, is Abel's, unattributed; the manuscripts read παντογενεῖς, “born of all things”. The choice decides whether the hymn begins at sea or in the cosmos, and Abel gives no reason for it in the apparatus.

1.The apparatus prints Hermann's reading as ἠεροφοῖτοι (sic) while the verse above prints ἠερόφοιτοι. The two forms differ only in accent. This is not a slip but a habit. Of the eighteen entries in the whole collection that carry a sic — seventeen with the bare (sic), and XVIII.18 with the fuller (sic, errore?) — every one has a lemma that differs from the line as Abel prints it — by accent here and at XXXII.2, XXXIV.4 and LXXXVII.11; by case at IV.3, XLV.5, L.1 and LIV.4; by nu-movable at XXXII.6, LXXI.4 and three lines below at LXXXI.4; by elision at LXXVII.3; and by spelling, gender or word at VII.2, XVIII.18, XLIII.7, LVI.2, LIX.15 and LIX.17. The (sic) marks a form Abel is reproducing as its editor gave it, against the form his own line requires. The converse does not hold: divergences without (sic) occur too, as at LXIII.3, LXXI.7 and LXXIX.7.

2.The manuscripts read θανάτου, “rest from death”; Abel prints καμάτου, “rest from toil”, unattributed. The phrase then matches III.6, where Nyx has πόνων ἀνάπαυσιν, and LXXXV.5, where Hypnos has κόπων ἀνάπαυσιν — three rests from labour, given to Night, to these breezes and to Sleep. That the emendation produces the collection's own formula is the strongest argument for it, and it is not one Abel makes.

4.πόρον] ὅρμον codd. — a lemma with no editor named, as at LXXVI.3. Abel prints πόρον, “passage”; the manuscripts have ὅρμον, “anchorage”, which line 3 has already used. — The first entry on this line is a second (sic): νηυσίν (sic) in the apparatus against νηυσὶ in the verse, the nu-movable dropped. Two of the collection's eighteen sic entries stand in this one six-line hymn.

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.