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Attributed to Orpheus

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 HymnsVI. To Protogonos · Lines 1–11

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VI. To Protogonos · Lines 1–11

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Ancient Greek

p. 32

VI. ΠΡΩΤΟΓΟΝΟΥ

θυμίαμα σμύρναν

Πρωτόγονον καλέω διφυῆ, μέγαν, αἰθερόπλαγκτον,

ᾠογενῆ, χρυσέῃσιν ἀγαλλόμενον πτερύγεσσι,

ταυροβόαν, γένεσιν μακάρων θνητῶν τ’ ἀνθρώπων,

σπέρμα πολύμνηστον, πολυόργιον, Ἠρικεπαῖον,

ἄρρητον, κρύφιον, ῥοιζήτορα, παμφαὲς ἔρνος,

ὄσσων ὃς σκοτόεσσαν ἀπημαύρωσας ὁμίχλην

πάντῃ δινηθεὶς πτερύγων ῥιπαῖς κατὰ κόσμον

λαμπρὸν ἄγων φάος ἁγνόν, ἀφ’ οὗ σε Φάνητα κικλήσκω

ἠδὲ Πρίηπον ἄνακτα καὶ Ἀνταύγην ἑλίκωπον.

ἀλλά, μάκαρ, πολύμητι, πολύσπορε, βαῖνε γεγηθὼς

ἐς τελετὴν ἁγίην πολυποίκιλον ὀργιοφάνταις.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: VI. To Protogonos

p. 33

VI. To Protogonos

fumigation from myrrh

Protogonos I call, twofold in nature, great, wandering the aither,

egg-born, glorying in golden wings,

bellowing like a bull, origin of the blessed and of mortal men,

much-remembered seed, of many orgia, Erikepaios,

unspeakable, hidden, rushing, all-shining shoot,

you who scattered the dark mist from the eyes

when you whirled everywhere through the kosmos on beating wings

bringing bright holy light — from which I call you Phanes

and lord Priapos and Antauges of the flashing eye.

But, blessed one, of many counsels, of many seeds, come rejoicing

to the consecrated rite, most various, for those who show the orgia.

Rubric.Myrrh, σμύρνα — the offering given to the first-born god.

1–2.διφυής, twofold, and ᾠογενής, egg-born: the Orphic first god, hatched from the cosmic egg and containing both sexes. This is the hymn in which the collection’s theology is least disguised.

4.Erikepaios — a name of the first god, non-Greek and of disputed origin; an Anatolian Dionysos-cult is the usual guess, with Semitic and Babylonian derivations also proposed and none secure. It is attested in the Gurôb papyrus (3rd c. BC) and in the Rhapsodic theogony, and may lie behind the password ἀνδρικεπαιδόθυρσον on the gold leaf from Pherai — but it appears on no gold leaf itself. Abel prints Leopardus’s restoration; the manuscripts give nonsense (εὕρηκε παιάν), itself evidence that scribes no longer recognised the name.

8–9.Four names for one god in two lines: Protogonos, Phanes, Priapos, Antauges. Φάνης is derived in the line itself from φάος, the light he brings — the hymn gives its own etymology as it goes.

11.ὀργιοφάνται, those who show the ὄργια: another office of the performing group — probably, though not on the same footing as the βουκόλος of I.10, which inscriptions attest as a title while this word occurs only twice in all of Greek. The rite is called πολυποίκιλος, “most various” — many-coloured, of many parts.

Construal.Proclus and Damascius made Phanes the pivot of the Orphic theogony and read the egg, the wings and the two natures as a metaphysical sequence — expounding the Rhapsodies, not this hymn. That reading belongs to Volume VI. What the hymn itself does is name the god four times and ask him to come to a ceremony.

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.