From the book
The Orphic Collection, Volume I: The Hymns
Attributed to Orpheus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe verb means to share knowledge or to be conscious of something.
- In the Orphic HymnsDikaiosyne is called ἄθραυστος τὸ συνειδός immediately after her clear judgments have been praised.
- TranslationThe translation's 'unbroken in conscience' makes the ethical force explicit.
- A place to readRead τὸ συνειδός with the unbroken/breaking contrast and the qualification in the following line.
- English renderings
- conscious knowledge and conscience
Meaning
The verb means to share knowledge or to be conscious of something. At LXIII.5 it appears only in the substantivized perfect participle τὸ συνειδός, literally that which is conscious or aware. English 'conscience' is a useful contextual rendering, but it is narrower than the whole Greek range. The phrase, not an independently occurring noun for a moral faculty, is the expression to look for in the hymn.
Use in the book
Dikaiosyne is called ἄθραυστος τὸ συνειδός immediately after her clear judgments have been praised. On the natural accusative-of-respect construction, she is unbroken in conscious knowledge or conscience. The surrounding verbs matter: she herself is unbroken, yet she breaks those who refuse her yoke. The word thus participates in a contrast between the integrity of just judgment and the destructive consequences of rejecting it.
The next line limits the objects of that breaking to those who have not submitted to her rule. Reading the phrase in isolation would miss both this qualification and its connection with καθαραῖς γνώμαις, 'pure judgments,' in LXIII.4. The passage gives ethical consciousness a divine voice, but it does not set out a theory of how human conscience originates or how it differs from every other faculty of mind.
Places to read
- Hymn LXIII · Line 5Read τὸ συνειδός with the unbroken/breaking contrast and the qualification in the following line.
Translation
The translation's 'unbroken in conscience' makes the ethical force explicit. 'Conscious knowledge' keeps the connection with knowing more audible. These are interpretive alternatives within the local construction, not two different printed readings. The phrase occurs once in the supplied Greek verse corpus; the article and participle remain visible together even though ordinary articles have no separate lexicon essays.
Attested forms
συνειδός
Occurrence inventory
1 in total. LXIII.5