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 HymnsXLIX. To Hipta · Lines 1–7

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XLIX. To Hipta · Lines 1–7

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Ancient Greek

p. 164

XLIX. ΙΠΠΑΣ

θυμίαμα στύρακα

Ἵππαν κικλήσκω, Βάκχου τροφόν, εὐάδα κούρην,

μυστιπόλον, τελετῇσιν ἀγαλλομένην Σάβου ἁγνοῦ

νυκτερίοις τε χοροῖσιν ἐριβρεμέταο Ἰάκχου.

κλῦθί μευ εὐχομένου, χθονίη μῆτερ, βασίλεια,

εἴτε σύ γ’ ἐν Φρυγίῃ κατέχεις Ἴδης ὄρος ἁγνὸν

ἢ Τμῶλος τέρπει σε, καλὸν Λυδοῖσι θόασμα·

ἔρχεο πρὸς τελετὰς ἱερῷ γήθουσα προσώπῳ.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: XLIX. To Hipta

p. 165

XLIX. To Hipta

fumigation from storax

Hipta I call, nurse of Bakchos, euhoi-crying maiden,

keeper of the mysteries, glorying in the rites of holy Sabos

and in the night-dances of loud-roaring Iakchos.

Hear me as I pray, chthonic mother, queen,

whether in Phrygia you hold the holy mountain of Ida

or Tmolos delights you, a fair seat for the Lydians;

come to the rites, rejoicing with a sacred face.

1.Abel prints Ἵππα, and this edition transliterates the form he prints everywhere else; here it does not. The goddess is Hipta, with a tau, in the Lydian inscriptions and in all modern discussion of her, and she is one of the three deities — with Mise (XLII) and Meilinoe (LXXI) — on whom the argument for the collection's western Asia Minor provenance rests. A reader who met her as Hippa would not recognise the name the argument turns on. She is named twice: here and at XLVIII.4, in the hymn to Sabazios, where she stands beside Tmolos. (The volume read Hipta at XLVIII.4 and in this hymn's title but Hippa in this line until the final run.)

Title, and XLVIII.4.Hipta gets her own hymn, immediately after the one that named her. At XLVIII.4 she was a place to arrive at, beside Tmolos; here she is the addressee, and lines 5–6 give the same Anatolian geography back — Ida in Phrygia, Tmolos in Lydia. She is attested on four Lydian stones of the first to third centuries AD, three of them naming Sabazios with her, and line 2 names Σάβος in turn. The two hymns are a pair, and the pairing is the collection's own.

2.Σάβου: Sabos, the short form of Sabazios, whose hymn stands one place back. Almost the whole of line 3 is Hermann's, for the codices' χοροῖσι περιβρεμέτοις ἰάχοισι, in which there is no Iakchos at all — the name is got by redividing the manuscripts' words. The Eleusinian cry and the Phrygian nurse are joined here by an emendation.

4.χθονίη μῆτερ, βασίλεια. This is not the hymn promoting a nurse: three of the four Lydian stones call her Μήτηρ Ἱπτα, Mother Hipta, so μῆτερ is her own title in cult and the hymn is agreeing with the inscriptions. χθονίη and βασίλεια are the collection’s own register for Rhea, the Mother of the Gods, Demeter and Antaia, and those it does add. Note also that the edition prints the name as Abel does, Ἱππαν; the Lydian stones spell it Ἱπτα.

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.