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 HymnsLXXXVI. To Oneiros · Lines 1–9

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LXXXVI. To Oneiros · Lines 1–9

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Ancient Greek

p. 272

LXXXVI. ΟΝΕΙΡΟΥ

θυμίαμα ἀρώματα

Κικλήσκω σε, μάκαρ, τανυσίπτερε, οὖλε Ὄνειρε,

ἄγγελε μελλόντων, θνητοῖς χρησμῳδὲ μέγιστε·

ἡσυχίῃ γὰρ ὕπνου γλυκεροῦ σιγηλὸς ἐπελθών,

προσφωνῶν ψυχαῖς θνητῶν νόον αὐτὸς ἐγείρεις,

καὶ γνώμας μακάρων αὐτὸς καθ’ ὕπνους ὑποπέμπεις,

σιγῶν σιγώσαις ψυχαῖς μέλλοντα προφαίνων,

οἷσιν ἐπ’ εὐσεβίῃσι θεῶν νόος ἐσθλὸς ὁδεύει,

ὡς ἂν ἀεὶ τὸ καλὸν μᾶλλον, γνώμῃσι προληφθέν,

τερπωλαῖς ὑπάγῃ βίον ἀνθρώπων προχαρέντων,

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LXXXVI. To Oneiros

p. 273

LXXXVI. To Oneiros

fumigation from aromatics

I call upon you, blessed one, of outstretched wing, baneful Oneiros,

messenger of what is to come, greatest oracle-singer to mortals;

for in the stillness of sweet sleep you come silent,

speaking to the souls of mortals, and yourself wake the mind,

and yourself send secretly, in sleep, the purposes of the blessed,

in silence to silent souls showing forth what is to come,

to whom, for their acts of piety, the gods' good mind makes its way,

so that the good, ever the more, taken up beforehand in their purposes,

may lead on with delights the life of men who have rejoiced in advance,

LXXXVI.Eighteen lines, the longest hymn in the last two blocks, and the only place in the collection where dreams are named at all: ὄνειρος and its cognates occur nowhere else in the eighty-eight hymns. οὖλε in line 1 is the Homeric epithet of the Dream Zeus sends to deceive Agamemnon (Iliad 2.6, οὖλον ὄνειρον); the hymn opens by calling its god baneful and then spends seventeen lines asking him to be otherwise.

5, 8, 17.The hymn is built on γνώμη, purpose — the rendering this edition uses for γνώμη everywhere but XXXIX.7, where an older designs still stands, and which two lines of Blocks 3 and 10 still borrow for εὔφρονι βουλῇ (XIV.12, LIX.20). Both are final-run repairs. The god puts the gods' purposes into the sleeper, the sleeper's own purposes take the good up beforehand, and the god is asked to come with straight purposes. Line 17's γνώμαις ὀρθαῖς is LXIV.9's γνώμαις ὀρθοτάταις of Nomos, one degree down.

8–11.The hardest passage in the block, and the English here follows a construal reached only at verification. The good, anticipated in their purposes, leads their life on with delights (8–9); and the god himself declares a rest from evils (10), so that by prayers and sacrifices they may loose the anger of the lords (11). τῶν δὲ κακῶν ἀνάπαυσιν is the object of ἐνίσπῃ, thrown forward before its own ὅπως as verse regularly throws it. The alternative — making ἀνάπαυσιν a second object of ὑπάγῃ in 9 — was tried first and abandoned: one cannot lead on a respite, and it leaves ἐνίσπῃ with nothing to say. The manuscripts at line 11 read τε πόλον θύσαντες, which is not construable; Abel prints θυσίαις τε and names no editor. The English keeps the suspension across the four lines rather than breaking the period, because the syntax is the hymn's subject: how a warning gets from a god into a waking man.

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.