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 HymnsXXVII. To the Mother of the Gods · Lines 1–7

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 53 of 147

XXVII. To the Mother of the Gods · Lines 1–7

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Ancient Greek

p. 100

XXVII. ΜΗΤΡΟΣ ΘΕΩΝ

θυμίαμα ποικίλα

Ἀθανάτων θεότιμε θεῶν μῆτερ, τροφὲ πάντων,

τῇδε μόλοις, κράντειρα θεά, σέο, πότνι’, ἐπ’ εὐχαῖς,

ταυροφόνων ζεύξασα ταχύδρομον ἅρμα λεόντων,

σκηπτοῦχε κλεινοῖο πόλου, πολυώνυμε, σεμνή,

ἣ κατέχεις κόσμοιο μέσον θρόνον, οὕνεκεν αὐτὴ

γαῖαν ἔχεις θνητοῖσι τροφὰς παρέχουσα προσηνεῖς.

ἐκ σέο δ’ ἀθανάτων τε γένος θνητῶν τ’ ἐλοχεύθη,

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: XXVII. To the Mother of the Gods

p. 101

XXVII. To the Mother of the Gods

fumigation from various substances

God-honoured mother of the immortal gods, nurse of all,

may you come, accomplisher goddess, at the prayers made to you,

having yoked the swift-running chariot of bull-slaying lions,

sceptred one of the famed pole, of many names, august,

you who hold the middle throne of the kosmos, since you yourself

possess the earth, supplying kindly nourishment to mortals.

From you the race of immortals and of mortals was brought to birth,

Rubric.ποικίλα, various substances — the second such rubric, after Pan at XI.

3, 11.ταυροφόνων … λεόντων, bull-slaying lions, and the τύμπανον at 11: the Anatolian equipment of the Mother. This is the place where the manuscripts themselves give the lion-chariot. At XIV.2 the lion is Hermann’s conjecture — the codices there read ἥτ’ ἐπὶ ταυροφόρον … τιταίνεις, with no lion — and this line is very likely what he conjectured from. Rhea was addressed in the same furniture thirteen hymns earlier; the collection nowhere remarks on the doubling.

5.ἣ κατέχεις κόσμοιο μέσον θρόνον, the middle throne of the kosmos. The epithet is the datum; that the central seat is what lets the goddess be called Hestia four lines later — the hearth at the centre — is a construal. It is an ancient one, however, not a modern editor’s: Euripides used ἑστία of the earth (fr. 944), and Philolaus called the centre of the kosmos the hearth. What the hymn itself does is set the two lines four verses apart and say nothing.

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.