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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

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The HymnsLIV. To Silenos, Satyros and the Bakchai · Lines 1–11

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LIV. To Silenos, Satyros and the Bakchai · Lines 1–11

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Ancient Greek

p. 178

LIV. ΣΙΛΗΝΟΥ ΣΑΤΥΡΟΥ ΒΑΚΧΩΝ

θυμίαμα μάνναν

Κλῦθί μευ, ὦ πολύσεμνε τροφός, Βάκχοιο τιθηνέ,

Σιληνῶν ὄχ’ ἄριστε, τετιμένε πᾶσι θεοῖσι

καὶ θνητοῖσι βροτοῖσιν ἐπὶ τριετηρίσιν ὥραις,

ἁγνοτελές, γεραρός, θιάσου νομίου τελετάρχα,

εὐαστής, φιλάγρυπνε σὺν εὐζώνοισι τιθήναις,

Ναΐσι καὶ Βάκχαις ἡγούμενε κισσοφόροισι·

δεῦρ’ ἐπὶ πάνθειον τελετὴν Σατύροις ἅμα πᾶσι

θηροτύποις, εὔασμα διδοὺς Βάκχοιο ἄνακτος,

σὺν Βάκχαις ληναῖα τελεσφόρα σεμνὰ προπέμπων,

ὄργια νυκτιφαῆ τελεταῖς ἁγίαις ἀναφαίνων,

εὐάζων, φιλόθυρσε, γαληνιόων θιάσοισιν.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LIV. To Silenos, Satyros and the Bakchai

p. 179

LIV. To Silenos, Satyros and the Bakchai

fumigation from manna

Hear me, most august nurse, foster-father of Bakchos,

far the best of the Silenoi, honoured by all the gods

and by mortal men at the trieteric seasons,

of holy rites, stately, lord of the rite of the pastoral company,

crier of euhoi, lover of sleeplessness, with the fair-girdled foster-mothers,

leader of the Naiads and of the ivy-bearing Bakchai;

come here to the rite of all the gods with all the Satyrs,

beast-shaped, giving the euhoi-cry of Bakchos the lord,

escorting with the Bakchai the august rites of the vat that bring to fulfilment,

showing forth in consecrated rites the orgia that shine by night,

crying euhoi, lover of the thyrsos, serene among the companies.

Title, and 1.Three addressees in one heading — Silenos, Satyros and the Bakchai — and a line that looks harder than it is. τροφός is common in gender, masculine as well as feminine, and πολύσεμνε is a two-termination compound, so there is no gender clash in the line at all. What Abel has done is print the nominative τροφός for a vocative, against the codices’ regular τροφέ — a licence he takes four more times in these seven hymns (εὔκαρπος L.4, οὐρεσίφοιτος and νεβριδοστόλος LII.10, γεραρός LIV.4). What is worth remarking is that τροφός is the fixed word for the women who nurse Bakchos in this very block — Hippa at XLIX.1, the nymphs at LI.3 — and is here given to a male. The English keeps “nurse” for that reason.

5.The whole line is d'Orville's, for the codices' φιλάγρυπνε νεάζων οἷσι σιληνοῖς. Nothing of the fair-girdled nurses is in the manuscripts here; they come in with the conjecture, and they come in from LIII.6 and LII.8, where they are transmitted.

6, 9.Naiads and Bakchai at 6, Bakchai and the ληναῖα at 9: the hymn moves its company from the springs to the vat in three lines. ληναῖα as a neuter plural is the festival name, and the edition renders it from ληνός because the same hymn-group has ἐπιλήνιος and ληναῖος at L — but see the note at L.1, 5: the Athenian festival’s own etymology is disputed, and “rites of the vat” is the likelier sense here, not a settled fact about the Lenaia.

Apparatus heading.Abel heads the apparatus for this hymn `LXIV.` — an intrusive X where `LIV.` is meant. The running head at the top of the same page prints ΛΙΙΙ. ΛΙΥ. ΛΥ and the text heading below it ΛΙΥ, both without the X, and the apparatus heading two lines above reads ΛΙΙΙ. The sixth misprint found in this edition; recorded, not adopted.

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.

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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.