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 HymnsXIX. To Zeus of the Thunderbolt · Lines 1–8

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XIX. To Zeus of the Thunderbolt · Lines 1–8

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Ancient Greek

p. 78

XIX. ΚΕΡΑΥΝΙΟΥ ΔΙΟΣ

θυμίαμα στύρακα

Ζεῦ πάτερ, ὑψίβρομον πυριαυγέα κόσμον ἐλαύνων,

στράπτων αἰθερίου στεροπῆς πανυπέρτατον αἴγλην,

παμμακάρων ἕδρανον θείαις βροντῇσι τινάσσων,

νάμασι παννεφέλοις στεροπὴν φλεγέθουσαν ἀναίθων,

λαίλαπας, ὄμβρους, πρηστῆρας κρατερούς τε κεραυνούς,

παμφλέκτους, κραιπνούς, φρικώδεας, ὀβριμοθύμους,

βάλλων εὐροθίους, φλογερούς, νεφέεσσι καλύπτων

πτηνὸν ὅπλον δεινόν, κλονοκάρδιον, ὀρθοέθειρον,

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: XIX. To Zeus of the Thunderbolt

p. 79

XIX. To Zeus of the Thunderbolt

fumigation from storax

Zeus father, driving the high-roaring, fire-gleaming kosmos,

flashing out the most exalted radiance of the ethereal lightning,

shaking the seat of the all-blessed with divine thunders,

kindling the blazing lightning in streams full of cloud,

squalls, rains, whirlwinds and mighty thunderbolts,

all-burning, swift, shudder-making, of mighty spirit,

hurling them, well-rushing and flaming, covering them with clouds,

a winged weapon, dread, heart-shaking, hair-raising,

Title.Abel heads it Zeus of the Thunderbolt; the manuscripts head it simply Κεραυνοῦ, “of the Thunderbolt”, with no Zeus at all. On the transmitted title the addressee is the weapon, and lines 8–12 are indeed a chain of epithets of the bolt rather than of the god. But Zeus is not displaced: he is addressed throughout, in seven participles governing him (ἐλαύνων, στράπτων, τινάσσων, ἀναίθων, βάλλων, καλύπτων, διαρρήξας) and in the single finite verb the hymn has, ἀφίεις in the last line. The epithets of 8–12 hang from βάλλων at 7: they describe the bolt precisely as the thing Zeus hurls. The next hymn, XX, is headed by Abel Διὸς Ἀστραπίου and by the manuscripts Διὸς Ἀστραπέως — Zeus of the Lightning either way.

6.The line order here is Hermann's. Abel records that before him line 6 stood after line 7 — so the sequence of epithets in this passage is a modern arrangement, not the transmitted one.

8–12.Five lines with no main verb, describing the bolt: winged, heart-shaking, hair-raising, sudden, unconquered, unbreakable, resistless. ὀρθοέθειρος is a hapax, glossed by the lexica as equivalent to ὀρθόθριξ, which bears both a passive sense (“with hair upstanding”) and a causative one; of the bolt it must be causative, “making the hair stand upright”. With κλονοκάρδιον beside it, the hymn is describing what the thing does to a body that hears it.

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.