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Attributed to Orpheus

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 HymnsPrayer to Musaeus · Lines 1–11

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Prayer to Musaeus · Lines 1–11

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Ancient Greek

p. 10

ΕΥΧΗ ΠΡΟΣ ΜΟΥΣΑΙΟΝ

Μάνθανε δή, Μουσαῖε, θυηπολίην περισέμνην,

εὐχήν, ἣ δή τοι προφερεστέρη ἐστὶν ἁπασέων.

Ζεῦ βασιλεῦ καὶ Γαῖα καὶ οὐράνιαι φλόγες ἁγναὶ

Ἠελίου, Μήνης θ’ ἱερὸν σέλας Ἄστρα τε πάντα,

καὶ σύ, Ποσείδαον γαιήοχε, κυανοχαῖτα,

Φερσεφόνη θ’ ἁγνὴ Δημήτηρ τ’ ἀγλαόκαρπε

Ἄρτεμί τ’ ἰοχέαιρα, κόρη, καὶ ἤιε Φοῖβε,

ὃς Δελφῶν ναίεις ἱερὸν πέδον· ὅς τε μεγίστας

τιμὰς ἐν μακάρεσσιν ἔχεις, Διόνυσε χορευτά·

Ἀρές τ’ ὀβριμόθυμε καὶ Ἡφαίστου μένος ἁγνὸν

ἀφρογενής τε θεά, μεγαλώνυμα δῶρα λαχοῦσα·

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: Prayer to Musaeus

p. 11

Prayer to Musaeus

Learn now, Musaeus, a rite of sacrifice wholly august,

a prayer, which surely surpasses all others.

Zeus, king, and Gaia, and you holy heavenly flames

of Helios, and sacred radiance of Mene, and all you Stars,

and you, Poseidon, earth-holder, dark-maned,

and Phersephone holy, and Demeter of splendid fruit,

and Artemis arrow-pourer, maiden, and Ieios Phoibos,

you who inhabit the sacred floor of Delphi; and you who hold the greatest

honours among the blessed, Dionysos the dancer;

and Ares of mighty spirit, and the holy strength of Hephaistos,

and foam-born goddess, allotted gifts of great renown;

Title.“Use it with good fortune, companion” is a scribe’s good-luck formula standing at the head of the collection in the manuscripts, not part of the poem. It is kept because it is the first thing a reader of the archetype met.

1.Musaeus — in the Orphic tradition Orpheus’s son or disciple. This frame of instruction from initiator to initiate is the only place in the collection that speaks of teaching rather than of rite. θυηπολίη is a rite of sacrifice, not a prayer merely: the proem announces the whole book as liturgy.

3–44.One sustained catalogue, and one sentence. The verbs of calling are distributed through it — κικλήσκω (15), ἐπικέκλομαι (17), καλέω (24), αὐδῶ (39), κικλήσκω (40) — rather than gathered at the head. The English keeps each where it falls, so the litany accumulates as it does in the Greek.

7.ἤιε: a Homeric epithet of Apollo whose etymology is unsettled — derived variously from the ritual cry (ἤ ἤ, ἰή), from ἵημι (“the archer”), and from ἠΰς. It is left untranslated here because each of the common renderings, “the healer” and “the archer”, commits the line to one guess. — The connective τ’ is not in the manuscripts; Sanctamandus supplied it.

10.The manuscripts read ὀμβρ-; Abel prints ὀβριμόθυμε.

11.Aphrodite, named by epithet alone. Naming a deity by attribute rather than by name is ordinary cult language here, not riddling.

Construal.Proclus and the later Platonists read a catalogue of this kind as a graded scale of divine orders rather than as a list. Whether the composer of the proem intended anything of the sort is not recoverable from the text; what stands here is a list of the gods an association actually invoked. See Volume VI.

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.