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 HymnsXVIII. To Plouton · Lines 11–19

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XVIII. To Plouton · Lines 11–19

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Ancient Greek

p. 76

XVIII. ΕΙΣ ΠΛΟΥΤΩΝΑ

ὃς κρατέεις θνητῶν θανάτου χάριν, ὦ πολυδέγμον·

Εὔβουλ’, ἁγνοπόλου Δημήτερος ὅς ποτε παῖδα

νυμφεύσας λειμῶνος ἀποσπαδίην διὰ πόντου

τετρώροις ἵπποισιν ὑπ’ Ἀτθίδος ἤγαγες ἄντρον

δήμου Ἐλευσῖνος, τόθι περ πύλαι εἰσ’ Ἀίδαο.

μοῦνος ἔφυς ἀφανῶν ἔργων φανερῶν τε βραβευτής,

ἔνθεε, παντοκράτωρ, ἱερώτατος, ἀγλαότιμε,

σεμνοῖς μυστιπόλοις χαίρων ὁσίοις τε σεβασμοῖς·

ἵλαον ἀγκαλέω σε μολεῖν κεχαρηότα μύσταις.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: XVIII. To Plouton

p. 77

XVIII. To Plouton

(no fumigation named)

you who rule over mortals for death's sake, O receiver of many;

Euboulos, you who once took the child of holy Demeter

to wife, torn from the meadow, and across the sea

with four horses carried her down to the Attic cave

of the deme of Eleusis, where the gates of Hades are.

You alone were born the judge of deeds unseen and seen,

god-filled, all-ruling, most sacred, of splendid honour,

rejoicing in the august celebrants and in pure acts of reverence;

gracious I call you to come, gladdened, to the initiates.

11.πολυδέγμων, “receiver of many”, is a genuine euphemistic epithet of the god of the dead — Homeric Hymn to Demeter 17, 31, 404, 430 and Lycophron 700 — though poetic rather than attested in cult. Abel prints Ruhnken's correction; the manuscripts give πολυδαῖμον.

12–15.The longest stretch of narrative so far — four lines, where VI.6–8 managed three: the rape of Persephone, and the descent at Eleusis. Note what it claims, that the gates of Hades are in the Attic deme itself. A cave sanctuary of Plouton, the Ploutonion, did stand inside the Eleusinian precinct, and has been argued to be the place of Persephone's ἄνοδος — but this hymn is the clearest text for that, and the identification is otherwise an inference from the architecture and the reliefs, so the hymn cannot be said to be corroborated by it. The mythographic tradition is against the hymn in any case: the Homeric Hymn to Demeter sets the seizure in the Nysian plain and brings Persephone to Eleusis only after.

12.Εὔβουλος, “of good counsel”, is one of the standard euphemistic names of the god below (Hesychius glosses Εὐβουλεύς as Plouton). Not exclusively his, though: Eubouleus is also an Eleusinian figure in his own right and an epithet of Dionysos — including in this collection, at XXX.6.

16.βραβευτής, arbiter — the later prose form of βραβεύς, the umpire who awards the prize at the games, but in use a judge or arbitrator (Isaeus 9.35, Plato Prot. 338b, Aristotle Rhet. 1376b20). The athletic colouring is etymological; the sense here is judgement, of deeds seen and unseen.

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.