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 HymnsXXIX. Hymn of Phersephone · Lines 11–20

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XXIX. Hymn of Phersephone · Lines 11–20

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Ancient Greek

p. 110

XXIX. ΥΜΝΟΣ ΦΕΡΣΕΦΟΝΗΣ

εὐφεγγές, κερόεσσα, μόνη θνητοῖσι ποθεινή,

εἰαρινή, λειμωνιάσιν χαίρουσα πνοῇσιν,

ἱερὸν ἐκφαίνουσα δέμας βλαστοῖς χλοοκάρποις,

ἁρπαγιμαῖα λέχη μετοπωρινὰ νυμφευθεῖσα,

ζωὴ καὶ θάνατος μούνη θνητοῖς πολυμόχθοις,

Φερσεφόνη· φέρβεις γὰρ ἀεὶ καὶ πάντα φονεύεις.

κλῦθι, μάκαιρα θεά, καρποὺς δ’ ἀνάπεμπ’ ἀπὸ γαίης

εἰρήνῃ θάλλουσα καὶ ἠπιόχειρ’ ὑγιείῃ

καὶ βίῳ εὐόλβῳ, λιπαρὸν γῆρας κατάγοντι

πρὸς σὸν χῶρον, ἄνασσα, καὶ εὐδύνατον Πλούτωνα.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: XXIX. Hymn of Phersephone

p. 111

XXIX. Hymn of Phersephone

(no fumigation named)

bright-shining, horned, alone longed for by mortals,

of the spring, rejoicing in the meadow breezes,

showing forth your sacred body in green-fruited shoots,

made a bride in an autumn bed of ravishment,

you alone are life and death to much-toiling mortals,

Phersephone; for you feed all things always, and you kill them.

Hear, blessed goddess, and send up fruits from the earth,

flourishing in peace and in gentle-handed health,

and in a life of good fortune that leads a sleek old age down

to your own country, queen, and to greatly able Plouton.

16.φέρβεις … φονεύεις: you feed and you kill, in half a line each, of the same goddess, with γάρ explaining line 15's “you alone are life and death”. The hymn states the doubleness and does not soften it.

12–14.Spring, meadows, green shoots — and then the seizure, placed in autumn (μετοπωρινά at 14). The hymn gives the season and nothing more; that it means the autumn sowing, and so reads the agricultural year as the goddess’s biography, is a construal.

19.λιπαρὸν γῆρας, sleek old age. The Homeric formula stands twice as γήραι ὕπο λιπαρῷ, in Teiresias’ prophecy of a gentle death at Od. 11.136 and again at 23.283; the nearer parallel for the hymn’s own wording is Eurykleia’s wish, γῆράς τε λιπαρόν, at Od. 19.368, and Pindar has λιπαρὸν γῆρας at N. 7.99. κατάγοντι is dative singular and agrees with βίῳ εὐόλβῳ, not with the goddess, who would require κατάγουσα. It is the prosperous life that leads the sleek old age down to her country; the blessing and the grave arrive in one verb.

18.ἠπιόχειρ’ is Abel’s, elided from the dative ἠπιοχείρι to agree with ὑγιείῃ; the codices give the unelided ἠπιόχειρ beside a nominative ὑγίεια, which Hermann made dative. The gentle hand belongs to Health, not to the goddess.

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.