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 HymnsX. To Physis · Lines 1–10

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X. To Physis · Lines 1–10

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Ancient Greek

p. 46

X. ΦΥΣΕΩΣ

θυμίαμα ἀρώματα

Ὦ Φύσι, παμμήτειρα θεά, πολυμήχανε μῆτερ,

οὐρανίη, πρέσβειρα, πολύκτιτε δαῖμον, ἄνασσα,

πανδαμάτωρ, ἀδάμαστε, κυβερνήτειρα, παναυγές,

παντοκράτειρα, τετιμέν’ ἀεί, πανυπέρτατε δαῖμον,

ἄφθιτε, πρωτογένεια, παλαίφατε, κυδιάνειρα,

ἐννυχίη, πολύπειρε, σελασφόρε, δεινοκάθεκτε,

ἄψοφον ἀστραγάλοισι ποδῶν ἴχνος εἱλίσσουσα,

ἁγνή, κοσμήτειρα θεῶν ἀτελής τε τελευτή,

κοινὴ μὲν πάντεσσιν, ἀκοινώνητε δὲ μούνη,

αὐτοπάτωρ, ἀπάτωρ, ἀργής, πολύγηθε, μεγίστη,

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: X. To Physis

p. 47

X. To Physis

fumigation from aromatics

O Physis, all-mother goddess, mother of many devices,

heavenly, eldest, daimon of many foundings, mistress,

all-subduer, unsubdued, helmswoman, all-shining,

all-ruler, ever honoured, most high daimon,

imperishable, first-born, spoken of from of old, giver of glory to men,

of the night, of much experience, light-bearing, hard to hold,

whirling the noiseless track of your feet on their ankle-joints,

holy, orderer of the gods, and an end that does not end,

common to all, and alone sharing with none,

self-fathered, fatherless, bright, of much gladness, greatest,

Rubric.Aromatic herbs, as for the Stars and the Moon — and the commonest offering in the collection, some twenty-two hymns carrying it. Physis is among the most abstract addressees here, though Dikaiosyne at LXIII and Nomos at LXIV are as abstract.

1.Φύσις — nature itself, made a goddess and addressed in the vocative. Twenty-nine lines follow without a single finite verb in them. The hymn holds off all three it has — ἐσσί and τεύχεις at 28, λίτομαι at 29 — until the last three lines, so that twenty-seven lines of address stand with nothing to govern them.

8–10.Three paradoxes in three lines: an end that does not end (ἀτελής τε τελευτή), common to all yet sharing with none (κοινή … ἀκοινώνητε), self-fathered and fatherless (αὐτοπάτωρ, ἀπάτωρ). The hymn does not resolve them, and does not treat them as difficulties.

Construal.A reader coming from the Stoics or from later Platonism will hear a doctrine of immanent nature in lines 27–28, and may well be right about where those words came from: πρόνοια and ἀίδιος ζωή at 27, αὐτάρκεια at 13, are the school vocabulary. The rest of the hymn is conventional cult compounding in παν-, πολυ- and -τειρα, which is not philosophical at all. And what the hymn does with any of it is ask for a good harvest.

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.