From the book
The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns
Attributed to Orpheus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordΚαλέω can summon or invoke someone and can also call a person by a name or title.
- In the Orphic HymnsThe first-person present commonly opens a hymn by making the speech act explicit: the speaker calls Protogonos, Tethys, Nike, Dionysus, Mnemosyne, Themis, or Ocean, accompanied by descriptive accusatives.
- TranslationThe English “call” usefully keeps invocation and naming connected, but the syntax decides which is foregrounded.
- A place to readThe first-person present performs an invocation with descriptive accusatives.
- English renderings
- call; invoke; name
Meaning
Καλέω can summon or invoke someone and can also call a person by a name or title. The poems use both the uncontracted καλέω and contracted καλῶ for the speaker’s “I call.” These forms belong to one verb; their difference need not signal a different kind of invocation.
Use in the book
The first-person present commonly opens a hymn by making the speech act explicit: the speaker calls Protogonos, Tethys, Nike, Dionysus, Mnemosyne, Themis, or Ocean, accompanied by descriptive accusatives. The act of calling gathers the divine name and its requested character into the present utterance. L.10 makes the desired response explicit through an infinitive: Dionysus is called to come pleasantly to the initiates. The conclusion of Aphrodite’s hymn similarly says that the speaker calls with august soul and holy words.
Naming is more prominent where a second designation is supplied. The Mother is called wealth-giver at XXVII.9. Night is to be called Cypris at III.2, with a first-person plural exhortation rather than the usual singular invocation. These clauses should not be reduced to a merely audible shout. Yet the naming relation is local: the verb does not establish that all names applied to a god are interchangeable everywhere. Women in labour calling Prothyraia provide another perspective, presenting invocation as the action of people in need.
Places to read
- Hymn VI · Line 1The first-person present performs an invocation with descriptive accusatives.
- Hymn L · Line 10Calling seeks the god’s arrival to the initiates.
- Hymn XXVII · Line 9A divine recipient is called by a beneficent title.
- Hymn III · Line 2“Let us call” introduces a significant local identification.
- Hymn II · Line 10Women in labour are the people doing the calling.
Translation
The English “call” usefully keeps invocation and naming connected, but the syntax decides which is foregrounded. A title after the verb may be a complement telling what someone is called, whereas the opening accusative normally identifies whom the speaker invokes. Compare κικλήσκω and κλῄζω without erasing their separately attested forms.
Attested forms
καλέουσι; καλέσωμεν; καλέω; καλέων; καλοῦσι; καλῶ
Occurrence inventory
20 in total. Prayer.24; II.10; III.2; VI.1; XI.1; XXII.1; XXVII.9; XXXIII.1; XLII.1; XLIV.11; L.10; LIII.1; LV.28; LXIV.1; LXXI.1; LXXII.1; LXXIV.1; LXXVII.1; LXXIX.1; LXXXIII.1