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 HymnsXXIII. To Nereus · Lines 1–8

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XXIII. To Nereus · Lines 1–8

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Ancient Greek

p. 90

XXIII. ΝΗΡΕΩΣ

θυμίαμα σμύρναν

Ὦ κατέχων πόντου ῥίζας, κυαναυγέτιν ἕδρην,

πεντήκοντα κόρῃσιν ἀγαλλόμενος κατὰ κῦμα

καλλιτέκνοισι χοροῖς, Νηρεῦ, μεγαλώνυμε δαῖμον,

πυθμὴν μὲν πόντου, γαίης πέρας, ἀρχὴ ἁπάντων,

ὃς κλονέεις Δηοῦς ἱερὸν βάθρον, ἡνίκα πνοιὰς

ἐν μυχίοις κευθμῶσιν ἐλαυνομένας ἀποκλείεις·

ἀλλά, μάκαρ, σεισμοὺς μὲν ἀπότρεπε, πέμπε δὲ μύσταις

ὄλβον τ’ εἰρήνην τε καὶ ἠπιόχειρ’ ὑγίειαν.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: XXIII. To Nereus

p. 91

XXIII. To Nereus

fumigation from myrrh

O you who hold the roots of the deep, the dark-gleaming seat,

glorying in fifty daughters along the wave

in dances of fair children, Nereus, daimon of great renown,

floor of the sea, limit of the earth, beginning of all things,

you who shake Deo's sacred foundation whenever you shut up

the winds driven into the innermost hiding-places;

but, blessed one, turn earthquakes away, and send the initiates

prosperity and peace and gentle-handed health.

5–6.Earthquakes caused by wind pent within the earth — a physical theory, not a mythological image. Aristotle argues for it at Meteorologica II.8, against the rival accounts he reviews in II.7; the version with the wind trapped in hollows is Anaxagoras's (365a19 ff.), and the pneumatic explanation became the dominant one only later (Lucretius 6.535 ff.; Seneca, NQ VI.12 ff.). Here it is attached to a sea-god, the winds being shut in beneath the sea's floor.

5.Δηώ is Demeter; her “holy foundation” is the earth itself. The hymn names the goddess to mean the ground.

7.ἀπότρεπε: the prayer is explicitly for earthquakes to be turned away — the most concrete of the collection's apotropaic requests, after sickness and ruin at XII.14–16, the κῆρες at XIV.14, and the lightning sent into the sea at XIX.18–19. It is the only one that follows a line explaining the mechanism.

4.πυθμήν, πέρας, ἀρχή in one line — floor, limit, beginning. The words are spatial and the last is not, and the hymn does not choose.

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.