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 HymnsLVI. To Adonis · Lines 1–6

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LVI. To Adonis · Lines 1–6

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Ancient Greek

p. 186

LVI. ΑΔΩΝΙΔΟΣ

θυμίαμα ἀρώματα

Κλῦθί μευ εὐχομένου, πολυώνυμε, δαῖμον ἄριστε,

ἁβροκόμη, φιλέρημε, βρύων ὥρῃσι ποθειναῖς,

Εὐβουλεῦ, πολύμορφε, τροφὸς πάντων ἀρίδηλε,

κούρη καὶ κόρε, πασιφαὲς θάλος αἰέν, Ἄδωνι,

σβεννύμενος λάμπων τε καλαῖς ἐνὶ κυκλάσιν ὥραις,

αὐξιθαλές, δίκερως, πολυήρατε, δακρυότιμε,

The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns: LVI. To Adonis

p. 187

LVI. To Adonis

fumigation from aromatics

Hear me as I pray, of many names, best of daimones,

soft-haired, lover of solitude, teeming in the longed-for seasons,

Eubouleus, of many forms, nurse of all, plain to see,

maiden and boy, all-shining shoot for ever, Adonis,

quenched and shining in the fair circling seasons,

swelling the bloom, two-horned, much-loved, honoured with tears,

2.Abel's text and his own apparatus lemma give different forms of this word. The verse prints ὥρῃσι; the lemma prints ὥραισι, with (sic) and Ruhnken's name, against the codices' ᾠδαῖσι. Both were read separately at 3.5×. This is not a misprint but a habit, and the volume already shows it twice over. At XXVI.3 — the same formula, καλαῖς ὥρῃσι βρύουσα against βρύων ὥρῃσι here — Abel's apparatus reads ὥρῃσι Hermann] ὥραισι, so ὥραισι is the form Hermann corrected away; at LIX.15 and LIX.17 in this block his lemmas read ἀέριοι and νυκτέριοι while his text prints the feminines ἠέριαι and νυκτέριαι. The lemma quotes the conjecturer's own spelling; the text gives Abel's normalisation. This edition sets the text form, and the divergence is recorded rather than counted among the misprints.

3.Εὐβουλεῦ, of Adonis. In Abel's printed text the name now stands in six places — XXIX.8 (Phersephone's son), XXX.6 (Dionysos of Zeus and Phersephoneia), XLI.8 (the child Antaia bore), XLII.2 (the seed of Eubouleus, a genitive), LII.4 (the trieteric Dionysos) and here — against one Εὔβουλος, Plouton's, at XVIII.12. But half of the six are the editors'. At XXX.6 the form is Pierson's, at XLI.8 Abel's, and here Hermann's, and in the codices all three read εὔβουλ’ / εὔβουλον / εὔβουλε — that is, the other word. In the transmitted text the tally is four Εὔβουλος to three Εὐβουλεύς, and the neat distinction between a name for Plouton and a name for the Eleusinian and Dionysiac figure is largely a nineteenth-century tidying. Four of the six printed places are Dionysiac; the extension to Adonis here, and to the Eleusinian son at XLI.8, are the two that step outside — and the Adonis one rests on a conjecture.

4.κούρη καὶ κόρε: girl and boy, in two words, of one addressee. The collection has done this before. At XLII.4 Mise is ἄρσενα καὶ θῆλυν, διφυῆ — male and female, of double nature — with the pair and the adjective in the same line; διφυής recurs at VI.1, XXX.2, XXXIX.5 and, in this block, at LVIII.4 of Eros. What is new here is only that the two-gender pair is made of a girl's noun and a boy's rather than of the adjectives. Abel prints κόρε; the codices have κοῦρε, the epic form, which scans the same and means the same. πασιφαές, later in the line, is Wiel's for the codices' σὺ πᾶσιν; θάλος αἰέν, Ἄδωνι is transmitted.

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.