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 HymnsXLVI. To Liknites · Lines 1–8

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XLVI. To Liknites · Lines 1–8

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Ancient Greek

p. 158

XLVI. ΛΙΚΝΙΤΟΥ

θυμίαμα μάνναν

Λικνίτην Διόνυσον ἐπ’ εὐχαῖς ταῖσδε κικλήσκω,

Νύσιον, ἀμφιθαλῆ, πεποθημένον, εὔφρονα Βάκχον,

νυμφῶν ἔρνος ἐραστὸν ἐυστεφάνου τ’ Ἀφροδίτης,

ὅς ποτ’ ἀνὰ δρυμοὺς κεχορευμένα βήματα πάλλες

σὺν νύμφαις χαρίεσσιν ἐλαυνόμενος μανίῃσι,

καὶ βουλῇσι Διὸς πρὸς ἀγαυὴν Φερσεφόνειαν

ἀχθεὶς ἐξετράφης φίλος ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσιν.

εὔφρων ἐλθέ, μάκαρ, κεχαρισμένα δ’ ἱερὰ δέξαι.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: XLVI. To Liknites

p. 159

XLVI. To Liknites

fumigation from manna

Liknites Dionysos I call with these prayers,

of Nysa, blooming on both sides, longed for, kindly Bakchos,

beloved shoot of the nymphs and of fair-crowned Aphrodite,

you who once through the thickets kept shaking danced steps

with the graceful nymphs, driven by frenzies,

and by the counsels of Zeus, to noble Phersephoneia

brought, were reared to manhood, dear to the immortal gods.

Come kindly, blessed one, and receive the offerings that please you.

Title.Λικνίτης, of the λίκνον — a genuine Delphic cult title: Plutarch, De Iside 35, has the Hosioi sacrifice in Apollo’s shrine “whenever the Thyiads wake Liknites”. The winnowing-fan as the infant’s cradle is well attested as an object of the procession (Servius on Georgics 1.166, the mystica vannus Iacchi, and the liknon-bearing iconography), but the explicit story of Dionysos laid in one comes from Proclus and is late and Orphic rather than classical common knowledge. The title names a cult object; the hymn says nothing about it, and gives instead a childhood among the nymphs.

6–7.Dionysos is taken to Persephone and reared by her — the child handed to the queen of the dead, in two lines and with no reason given. The same relation lies behind XXIX.8, where Persephone is mother of Eubouleus, and XXX.6–7, where Dionysos is begotten of Zeus and Phersephone. πρὸς ἀγαυήν is Pierson’s; the codices read πρός τ’ αὐτήν, which names no one.

3.νυμφῶν ἔρνος … τ’ Ἀφροδίτης: a shoot of the nymphs and of Aphrodite, who is nowhere in the usual accounts of his parentage. The collection has already made Night Kypris at III.2 and Tethys the mother of Kypris at XXII.7; parentage in these hymns is a way of joining cults, not a genealogy to be reconciled.

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.