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 HymnsLXXXVIII. To Ares · Lines 1–9

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LXXXVIII. To Ares · Lines 1–9

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p. 280

LXXXVIII. ΕΙΣ ΑΡΕΑ

Ἄρες ὑπερμενέτα, βρισάρματε, χρυσεοπήληξ,

ὀβριμόθυμε, φέρασπι, πολισσόε, χαλκοκορυστά,

καρτερόχειρ, ἀμόγητε, δορισθενές, ἕρκος Ὀλύμπου,

Νίκης εὐπολέμοιο πάτερ, συνάρωγε Θέμιστος,

ἀντιβίοισι τύραννε, δικαιοτάτων ἀγὲ φωτῶν,

ἠνορέης σκηπτοῦχε, πυραυγέα κύκλον ἑλίσσων

αἰθέρος ἑπταπόροις ἐνὶ τείρεσιν, ἔνθα σε πῶλοι

ζαφλεγέες τριτάτης ὑπὲρ ἄντυγος αἰὲν ἔχουσι·

κλῦθι, βροτῶν ἐπίκουρε, δοτὴρ εὐθαρσέος ἥβης,

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LXXXVIII. To Ares

p. 281

LXXXVIII. To Ares

(no fumigation named)

Ares overmastering, heavy upon the chariot, golden-helmed,

of mighty spirit, shield-bearer, saviour of cities, harnessed in bronze,

strong-handed, unwearying, mighty with the spear, bulwark of Olympos,

father of Nike who wars well, helper of Themis,

tyrant over adversaries, leader of most just men,

sceptred lord of manhood, wheeling your fire-bright circle

among the seven-pathed constellations of the aither, where colts

all ablaze hold you for ever above the third orbit;

hear, helper of mortals, giver of bold youth,

LXXXVIII.Abel prints this hymn and dissents from it in the same breath. His note, the only one of its kind in the book, reads: “This hymn is usually read in the eighth place among those ascribed to Homer. Hermann transferred it here, not rightly, since this poem is of a different colouring from the Orphic hymns.” The edition prints it where Abel prints it, and prints his protest with it, because the position and the protest are both part of the text a reader of Abel meets. What Hermann moved is Homeric Hymn 8, which is itself no older than the late antique Orphic collection and is very probably by Proclus.

LXXXVIII.Three things mark it off from what precedes, and one thing that looks as though it should does not. The one that does not is that Ares already has a hymn: LXV, ΑΡΕΟΣ, eight lines with a frankincense rubric. Repetition is no mark of intrusion in this collection — the Kouretes are hymned twice under the same name (XXXI, XXXVIII), Zeus three times (XV, XIX, XX), Hermes twice (XXVIII, LVII), the Erinyes and Eumenides once each (LXIX, LXX), and Dionysos under seven titles or more. (i) It carries no fumigation rubric: the tenth and last hymn without one. (ii) Its heading is ΕΙΣ ΑΡΕΑ, to with the accusative. Every hymn in the book whose heading departs from the bare genitive is also a hymn without a rubric — the rule holds in that direction without exception, though not in the other, since L (ΛΥΣΙΟΥ ΛΗΝΑΙΟΥ) has a genitive heading and no rubric. (iii) Much of its vocabulary occurs nowhere else: ὑπερμενέτης, βρισάρματος, χρυσεοπήληξ, φέρασπις, πολισσόος, χαλκοκορυστής, ἀμόγητος, δορισθενής, ἕρκος, ἄντυξ, θάρσος and μόθος are all hapax for the collection. This is the weakest of the three, and the count says so. Taking every word of five letters or more that occurs in one hymn only, LXXXVIII has fifty-three in seventeen lines — about 3.12 a line, against a median of about 2.09 across the eighty-nine pieces. Third or fourth: the exact rank moves with how elided forms are counted, and XXXVIII stands very close either way. What does not move is the top of the table. First is LXXX, the hymn to Boreas four places back, at 3.50; second is LXV, the Orphic hymn to Ares, at 3.25. The hymn Abel keeps and the hymn Abel doubts are as strange as one another, and a hymn he does not question is stranger than both. Strangeness of diction cannot carry the argument; the astronomy at 6–8 can. (The first form of this note claimed a bare third place. Two independent counts of the same quantity disagreed on the rank, which is itself the finding: a statistic whose value depends on a tokenising choice must be reported with the choice, or not ranked at all.)

2.The exception to (iii), and a real one. ὀβριμόθυμε is the collection's commonest martial epithet — nine places before this, though nowhere near the commonest epithet of any kind (μάκαρ stands 36 times, μάκαιρα 24, βασίλεια 22) — and the proem gives it to Ares by name at line 10, Ἀρές τ’ ὀβριμόθυμε, in a line whose manuscripts have the same ὀμβρ- spelling that the manuscripts of LXV.1 have. So the imported hymn's second word is the word the collection itself uses of this god, twice. It is the one place where Abel's diversi coloris is hard to maintain.

3.καρτερόχειρ, “strong-handed”, for the third time: Herakles at XII.2, Hephaistos at LXVI.3, Ares here — the collection's three gods of force and craft, and one of the few words this hymn shares with the rest of the book.

4.Themis has her own hymn nine places earlier, at LXXIX, and Nike at XXXIII. This line ties the imported hymn to both, and gives Nike a father the collection had not given her.

6–8.Ares as a planet, wheeling in the third sphere: the seven-pathed constellations are the planetary orbits, and the third is Mars counted inward from Saturn. The collection uses τριτάτης twice elsewhere, and both times of the Homeric division of the world by lot — Poseidon's third share, the sea (XVII.7), and Plouton's, the earth (XVIII.6). Here the third is a place in the sky. That is the clearest single mark in the hymn of a later and more learned hand, and the best support Abel's diversi coloris has.

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.