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 wordThe verb covers appearing and making something appear.
- In the Orphic HymnsProthyraia is unseen herself yet evident through all her works (II.7).
- TranslationThe supplied English makes several choices among shown, manifest and reveal.
- A place to readAn unseen agent becomes evident through works.
- English renderings
- appear, show or reveal
Meaning
The verb covers appearing and making something appear. Its active, middle and passive formations must be read with their agents and objects: a deity may become manifest, reveal origins, or show a favourable face. The same English appear cannot carry all those constructions unchanged.
Use in the book
Prothyraia is unseen herself yet evident through all her works (II.7). Aphrodite and the Nymphs are both manifest and unseen, while Demeter is chthonic and also manifest (LV.10; LI.7; XL.12). The contrasts are related but not identical. In Prothyraia the evidence of action helps explain visibility; elsewhere the paradox is left more compressed.
Proteus reveals the beginnings of nature, and Meilinoe is asked to show initiates a kind and sacred face (XXV.2; LXXI.12). The latter petition follows frightening apparitions, making the desired change of appearance central to the prayer. Palaimon's adopted φαινομένου instead agrees with the arising storm, not with the god (LXXV.7); the reported nominative would change that attachment.
At LXXXVI.13–14 φαίνοι is a third-person optative in a negative construction, with the explicit subject ὄψις ὀνειρήεσσα, the dream-vision, in the next line. The relation between that negative assertion and the following purpose-clause about release from pain still requires care. A translation must not quietly turn it into an uncomplicated second-person promise by Dream.
Places to read
- Hymn II · Line 7An unseen agent becomes evident through works.
- Hymn XXV · Line 2Proteus actively reveals beginnings.
- Hymn LXXI · Line 12A favourable face is requested after frightening appearances.
- Hymn LXXV · Line 7The adopted participle belongs to the storm.
- Hymn LXXXVI · Line 13The negative optative requires syntactic care.
Translation
The supplied English makes several choices among shown, manifest and reveal. Those are contextual interpretations, not separate Greek lemmas. The apparatus-linked changes of attachment and verbal person are especially important because they can alter who appears or who makes something known while leaving a familiar English word on the page.
Attested forms
ἐφάνη; ἔφηνεν; φαίνῃ; φαίνοι; φαινόμεναι; φαινομένη; φαινομένου; φαίνουσα; φανεὶς
Occurrence inventory
10 in total. II.7; XV.3; XXV.2; XL.12; L.6; LI.7; LV.10; LXXI.12; LXXV.7; LXXXVI.13