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 HymnsLV. To Aphrodite · Lines 20–28

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Facing Pages · Branch 95 of 147

LV. To Aphrodite · Lines 20–28

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Ancient Greek

p. 184

LV. ΕΙΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΝ

ἢ καὶ κυκνείοισιν ὄχοις ἐπὶ πόντιον οἶδμα

ἐρχομένη χαίρεις κητῶν κυκλίῃσι χορείαις,

ἢ νύμφαις τέρπῃ καλυκώπισιν ἐν χθονὶ Δίῃ,

θυιὰς ἐπ’ αἰγιαλοῖς ψαμαθώδεσιν ἅλματι κούφῳ·

εἴτ’ ἐν Κύπρῳ, ἄνασσα, τροφῷ σέο, ἔνθα καλαί σε

παρθένοι ἄδμηται νύμφαι τ’ ἀνὰ πάντ’ ἐνιαυτὸν

ὑμνοῦσιν, σέ, μάκαιρα, καὶ ἄμβροτον ἁγνὸν Ἄδωνιν.

ἐλθέ, μάκαιρα θεά, μάλ’ ἐπήρατον εἶδος ἔχουσα·

ψυχῇ γάρ σε καλῶ σεμνῇ ἁγίοισι λόγοισιν.

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LV. To Aphrodite

p. 185

LV. To Aphrodite

(no fumigation named)

or on cars of swans over the swell of the sea

coming, you rejoice in the wheeling dances of the sea-beasts,

or delight in the bud-faced nymphs on the divine earth,

a thyiad on the sandy shores, with a light leap;

or in Cyprus, queen, your nurse, where fair

unwedded maidens and nymphs through all the year

hymn you, blessed one, and immortal holy Adonis.

Come, blessed goddess, with a form most lovely;

for I call you with an august soul, in consecrated words.

26.Ἄδωνιν. Adonis was named once before, in the proem, among the powers summoned to the rite; his own hymn follows immediately as LVI. The last word of this hymn is the subject of the next.

27–28.The hymn does not end where the page does. Lines 27–28 stand at the head of p. 88, above the heading of LVI — the same shape as the failure that truncated Hymn XIX in Block 4, and caught here only by opening the next page. The close is unusual in its own right: the collection's one petition that asks for nothing but the god's presence and describes the worshipper's own state, ψυχῇ … σεμνῇ ἁγίοισι λόγοισιν.

22.καλυκῶπισιν, bud-faced — Wiel’s, for the codices’ κυανώπισιν, dark-eyed. The word Abel prints is the one the collection gave the Nereids at XXIV.1, καλυκώπιδες; the word the manuscripts give is not used anywhere else in the book. (The first reading of this edition printed the manuscripts’ word in the text by mistake; see the corrections file.)

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.