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 HymnsXXXV. To Leto · Lines 1–7

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XXXV. To Leto · Lines 1–7

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Ancient Greek

p. 128

XXXV. ΛΗΤΟΥΣ

θυμίαμα σμύρναν

Λητοῖ κυανόπεπλε, θεὰ διδυματόκε, σεμνή,

Κοιαντίς, μεγάθυμε, πολυλλίστη βασίλεια,

εὔτεκνον Ζηνὸς γονίμην ὠδῖνα λαχοῦσα,

γειναμένη Φοῖβόν τε καὶ Ἄρτεμιν ἰοχέαιραν,

τὴν μὲν ἐν Ὀρτυγίῃ, τὸν δὲ κραναῇ ἐνὶ Δήλῳ·

κλῦθι, θεὰ δέσποινα, καὶ ἵλαον ἦτορ ἔχουσα

βαῖν’ ἐπὶ πάνθειον τελετὴν τέλος ἡδὺ φέρουσα.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: XXXV. To Leto

p. 129

XXXV. To Leto

fumigation from myrrh

Leto of the dark robe, goddess, bearer of twins, august,

daughter of Koios, great-hearted, much-besought queen,

who obtained the child-blessed, fruitful birth-pang of Zeus,

who bore Phoibos and Artemis the arrow-pourer,

her in Ortygia, and him in rocky Delos;

hear, goddess mistress, and holding a gracious heart

come to the rite of all the gods, bringing a sweet end.

Whole hymn.Seven lines, four of them (2–5) pure genealogy: father, the birth, the children, the two birthplaces. The shortest hymn since XXXI, and among the plainest so far — no paradox, no cosmology, no double nature, nothing to construe. It stands between the Apollo and Artemis hymns and appears to exist in order to place them.

5.τὴν μὲν ἐν Ὀρτυγίῃ, τὸν δὲ κραναῇ ἐνὶ Δήλῳ. This is not the collection speaking for itself: the line is verbatim Homeric Hymn 3.16, and the line before it takes ἄρτεμιν ἰοχέαιραν from 3.15. The separated birthplaces are therefore not this hymn’s peculiarity but a quotation of the most prestigious source for the Delian birth, which is itself where the split comes from. Ortygia is in any case sometimes an old name for Delos (Strabo), and there is another at Ephesus. The hymn’s seven lines contain the longest verbatim borrowing from Homer so far.

3.λαχοῦσα is Abel’s text against the codices’ λαβοῦσα — he names no editor for it, so the change is either his own or unattributed. “Obtained as her portion” rather than “received”; the lottery colour of λαγχάνω is available but not obligatory, and nothing in the note should rest on 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.