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 HymnsLXXXIV. To Hestia · Lines 1–8

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LXXXIV. To Hestia · Lines 1–8

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Ancient Greek

p. 268

LXXXIV. ΕΣΤΙΑΣ

θυμίαμα ἀρώματα

Ἱστίη εὐδυνάτοιο Κρόνου θύγατερ βασίλεια,

ἣ μέσον οἶκον ἔχεις πυρὸς ἀενάοιο, μεγίστου,

τούσδε σὺ ἐν τελεταῖς ὁσίαις μύστας ἀναδείξαις,

θεῖσ’ αἰειθαλέας, πολυόλβους, εὔφρονας, ἁγνούς·

οἶκε θεῶν μακάρων, θνητῶν στήριγμα κραταιόν,

ἀιδίη, πολύμορφε, ποθεινοτάτη, χλοόμορφε·

μειδιόωσα, μάκαιρα, τάδ’ ἱερὰ δέξο προθύμως,

ὄλβον ἐπιπνείουσα καὶ ἠπιόχειρ’ ὑγίειαν.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LXXXIV. To Hestia

p. 269

LXXXIV. To Hestia

fumigation from aromatics

Hestia, queen, daughter of greatly able Kronos,

you who hold the mid-house of the ever-living and greatest fire,

may you yourself show forth these men as initiates in the pure rites,

making them ever-blooming, rich in blessing, kindly, holy;

O house of the blessed gods, mighty support of mortals,

everlasting, of many forms, most longed for, of green form;

smiling, blessed one, receive these sacred offerings readily,

breathing in prosperity and gentle-handed health.

LXXXIV.Hestia is named once before this hymn, and in a way this hymn contradicts: at XXVII.9 the Mother of the Gods is “named Hestia” (Ἱστίη αὐδαχθεῖσα), the same spelling, the identification made outright. Here Hestia is Kronos's daughter — that is, the Mother's child. The collection holds both without comment, as it holds Dionysos's several parentages. Both lines carry an apparatus entry on the name, and the same one: the manuscripts have ἑστία at XXVII.9 and ἱστία here, and Hermann's Ἱστίη is printed in both places — so the identity of spelling that makes the contradiction visible is itself editorial.

1.εὐδύνατος, “greatly able”, in its seventh and last appearance: XXIX.20 (Plouton), XXXIII.1 (Nike), XXXVIII.20 (the Kouretes), LXXIV.2 (Leukothea), LXXVI.6 (the mind), LXXVII.5 (reasoning) and Kronos here. It is transmitted in all seven, and no apparatus entry falls on the word in any of the seven: the two entries standing on those lines (LXXVI.6 νόου, LXXXIV.1 Ἱστίη) concern other words, and the other five lines carry no entry at all. That bears on LXXVI.10, where Abel alone prints Εὐνομίῃ for the manuscripts' εὐδυνάτῃ: his conjecture removes the collection's own word from the one place the manuscripts offer it in the dative. The rendering greatly able is settled at this block; XXIX.20, XXXIII.1 and XXXVIII.20 still read mighty and are listed for repair.

2.ἀενάοιο, of the hearth-fire. The collection uses ἀέναος twice elsewhere, both times of water or of the earth (X.22, XXXIX.1), where this edition renders it ever-flowing. Of a fire the word means ever-living, and the English says so; the two senses are listed for the final run. The manuscripts spell it ἀεννάοιο.

3–4.The manuscripts read θήσω ἀειθαλέας, “I shall make them ever-blooming” — the speaker doing the making. Hermann's θεῖσ’ gives the participle to the goddess, and with Abel's ὁσίαις at line 3 the whole sentence changes hands. Two editors' readings in consecutive lines turn a vow into a petition.

5.θνητῶν στήριγμα κραταιόν, “mighty support of mortals”, is XVIII.7 word for word, where it is said of Plouton. The hearth and the house of the dead are given the identical half-line, and it occurs nowhere else in the collection. — οἶκε, “O house”, is Dorville's, for the manuscripts' οἳ καί; the goddess is addressed as the building she occupies. Dorville stands twice before this, at XVI.6 and LIV.5.

8.Porson — Richard Porson, 1759–1808, Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge — appears here and nowhere else in the whole apparatus. His correction of the manuscripts' ἠπιόχειρον ὑγείαν restores ἠπιόχειρ’ ὑγίειαν, which is XXIII.8 verbatim and XXIX.18 in the dative: the collection's own formula, recovered from a line that had lost it. It is the strongest argument for the emendation, and Abel does not make it.

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.

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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.