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 expresses accomplishment or completion.
- In the Orphic HymnsNature alone accomplishes what has been decided at X.24.
- TranslationThe English varies between accomplishing and coming to term, appropriately following the object and setting.
- A place to readNature accomplishes what has been decided.
- English renderings
- accomplish or bring to term
Meaning
The verb expresses accomplishment or completion. Although its family includes ritual terms, its three primary uses here are not all equivalent to initiate. Nature's action, the worshippers' observance of birth, and Dionysos's coming to term must be read separately.
Use in the book
Nature alone accomplishes what has been decided at X.24. The agent is the goddess and the object is τὸ κριθέν, not a person undergoing initiation. In Semele's hymn, by contrast, ritual participants accomplish or enact the fruitful birth-pang of her Bacchos (XLIV.8). The surrounding table and mysteries make a commemorative ritual setting clear, while the verb alone does not tell us the ceremony's precise actions.
The Sabazios hymn says Dionysos was sewn into the thigh so that he might emerge τετελεσμένος (XLVIII.3). Completed or brought to term fits that gestational setting. Initiated would introduce a special ritual interpretation beyond what the birth sentence requires. The possible missing-line discussion in the apparatus is a separate editorial matter, not a recovered continuation that can be treated as printed verse.
Places to read
- Hymn X · Line 24Nature accomplishes what has been decided.
- Hymn XLIV · Line 8Participants enact Bacchos’s fruitful birth-pang.
- Hymn XLVIII · Line 3The completed child comes forth from the thigh.
Translation
The English varies between accomplishing and coming to term, appropriately following the object and setting. The visually close τελεοῦται in Death's hymn belongs to the separately indexed τελειόω/τελεόω formation. The lexical family is connected, but neither similar spelling nor common completion-language licenses merging the forms or their counts.
Attested forms
τελέουσα; τελῶσιν; τετελεσμένος
Occurrence inventory
3 in total. X.24; XLIV.8; XLVIII.3