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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 HymnsXV. To Zeus · Lines 1–11

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XV. To Zeus · Lines 1–11

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Ancient Greek

p. 68

XV. ΔΙΟΣ

θυμίαμα στύρακα

Ζεῦ πολυτίμητε, Ζεῦ ἄφθιτε, τήνδε τοι ἡμεῖς

μαρτυρίην τιθέμεσθα λυτήριον ἠδὲ πρόσευξιν.

ὦ βασιλεῦ, διὰ σὴν κεφαλὴν ἐφάνη τάδε ῥεῖα,

γαῖα θεὰ μήτηρ ὀρέων θ’ ὑψηχέες ὄχθοι

καὶ πόντος καὶ πάνθ’, ὁπόσ’ οὐρανὸς ἐντὸς ἐέργει·

Ζεῦ Κρόνιε, σκηπτοῦχε, καταιβάτα, ὀβριμόθυμε,

παντογένεθλ’, ἀρχὴ πάντων πάντων τε τελευτή,

σεισίχθων, αὐξητά, καθάρσιε, παντοτινάκτα,

ἀστράπιε, βρονταῖε, κεραύνιε, φυτάλιε Ζεῦ·

κλῦθί μευ, αἰολόμορφε, δίδου δ’ ὑγίειαν ἀμεμφῆ

εἰρήνην τε θεὰν καὶ πλούτου δόξαν ἄμεμπτον.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: XV. To Zeus

p. 69

XV. To Zeus

fumigation from storax

Zeus much honoured, Zeus imperishable, this absolving testimony

we lay before you, and this prayer.

O king, through your head these things came easily to light:

Earth the mother goddess, and the high-sounding ridges of the mountains,

and the sea, and all that heaven encloses within;

Zeus son of Kronos, sceptred, descending in thunder, of mighty spirit,

all-begetting, beginning of all things and end of all,

earth-shaker, increaser, purifier, shaker of everything,

god of the lightning, of the thunder, of the thunderbolt, Zeus of growth;

hear me, of shifting form, and grant health blameless

and peace the goddess and the blameless glory of wealth.

3.“Through your head these things came to light.” This is the Orphic Zeus in whom all things are held and out of whom they come to light again. The Derveni papyrus expounds the same theology and quotes the verse that is this line's nearest parallel — Ζεὺς κεφαλή, Ζεὺς μέσσα, Διὸς δ’ ἐκ πάντα τέτυκται (col. XVII). What Zeus swallows in the Derveni poem is disputed: the phallus of Ouranos, or the first-born god; only the Rhapsodies unambiguously have him swallow Phanes. The hymn states none of it — half a line, and it moves on.

7.ἀρχὴ πάντων πάντων τε τελευτή is repeated word for word from Ouranos at IV.2 — though repetition on this scale is routine here, and ἀρχή with τελευτή is in any case a standing Orphic tag of Zeus himself.

7.The second half of this line is IV.2 verbatim, of Ouranos — see the note there. Sky and Zeus are given the same formula, eleven hymns apart.

9.Four titles in one line, and the last turns from weather to growth. Ps.-Aristotle catalogues the three thunder-epithets together as Zeus's (De Mundo 401a15–17). Of them only κεραύνιος is securely attested in cult; ἀστράπιος occurs nowhere outside these Hymns, the epigraphically attested form being Ἀστραπαῖος — which is what the codices give here, before Hermann's emendation. φυτάλιος answers to φυτάλμιος, a genuine cult epithet of Zeus and of Poseidon.

Variant.Abel prints in brackets a different close preserved in the codex Thryllitianus, replacing lines 7–11. It drops the thunder-titles entirely and asks instead for a sound mind, health, peace, and a life always flourishing in good spirits — and it opens αὐτοπάτορ, “self-fathered”, the word used of Physis at X.10. Two endings for one hymn, one cosmological and one domestic. Which the association used is not recoverable.

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.