The Orphic Hymns

by Unknown

  2 meadow in Tartaros: While the “psukhai” (“spirits, souls”) of the dead are portrayed as wandering on asphodel meadows (e.g., Odyssey 11.539), Tartaros is usually envisioned as a distinct place, where the Titans and Typhon, after being defeated by Zeus, are imprisoned (Hesiod Theogony 717–733 and 868; see also OH 37.3+n). It is in effect the Alcatraz of mythology. Tartaros was originally a vaguely personified primordial being with whom Earth mated to produce Typhon (Hesiod Theogony 119 and 820–822; see also OH 16i). Sacred meadows also appear in the Bacchic gold tablets as part of the special dispensation the initiate receives after death (nos. 3, 27; see also OH 29i and OH 87.12n). Orphic fragment 340 distinguishes the “beautiful meadow” by the river Acheron (see note to line 10), whither those who did good deeds while alive go after they die, from Tartaros, whither the malefactors go by way of Kokytos (see also OH 71.2n). Another meadow that has chthonic connections is the one where Persephone was picking flowers before being abducted by Hades; it is mentioned in line 13.

  3 Chthonic Zeus: A common periphrasis for Hades, who is rarely mentioned by name (see also OH O.12+n). The expression does not imply that Zeus and Plouton are the same person, but rather that Plouton is lord of his own element, the depths of the earth, and by extension of the whole earth (see line 6 and note). Similarly, Poseidon is called “sea-dwelling Zeus” at OH 63.15. Hades is also known as Aidoneus, as well as by a number of epithets that essentially function as titles (such as the list given in lines 11–12). This scruple reflects ancient belief that calling a divinity by name might draw their attention to the one invoking them, and Hades, in his capacity as the lord of death, is a god one normally wishes to avoid as long as possible (cf. OH 87.11–12). Our initiates must nevertheless propitiate him, as he would have the power to keep them from a blessed afterlife (compare lines 17–18).

  4 holder of the keys to the whole earth: Hades’ portrayal as one who holds the keys to the underworld can represent his power to keep the dead locked up and his ability to prevent them from returning to the land of the living (Pausanias 5.20.3). In this case, however, the keys are more likely intended to be symbolic of the god’s power to give or withhold the wealth of the earth, as is made clear by the employment of the name Plouton in this context; see also OH 25.1 and OH 29.4.

  6 yours is the third portion: See OH 17.7n.

  9 of windless, and of impassive Hades: Just as it is in the use of the word “Tartaros” at line 2 (and see note), a blurring between person and place is seen in the usage of the word “Hades,” which designates both the god and the realm he rules (see also line 15). Hades is often described by adjectives and phrases that indicate the lack of something: other typical examples include “tearless” and “without laughter.” The underworld is often seen as the inverse of the land of the living. Comparable is Odysseus’ sojourn to the land of the dead in book 11 of the Odyssey. The psukhai cannot speak, until they drink blood, considered by the early Greeks to be one of the vital forces that make life possible (another one being air; see also OH 66.9+n). There is also an inversion of social custom here. Normally a host provides for the strangers who come to their door, but in this situation Odysseus, although a visitor, must provide for his hosts—and not the hosts themselves at that, but their subordinates.

  10 Acheron: The “river of woe,” it is sometimes specially designated as the one which the psukhai must cross to reach Hades proper; see also note to line 2.

  12 Euboulos: The name means “of good counsel” and is another form of the name Eubouleus; see OH 41.8n.

  12–15: The beginning part of the abduction of Persephone. “Attic cave” and “Eleusis” are clearly intended to evoke the Eleusinian Mysteries, the most famous mystery cult in antiquity and the one with the most participants (see OH 40i).

  16 you alone were born to judge: Usually the judges of the dead are prestigious heroes. The most important ones are Minos, king of Krete, his brother Rhadamanthys, and Aiakos, all sons of Zeus (see, e.g., Plato Gorgias 523a–524a). Sokrates at his trial even adds Triptolemos, one of the Eleusinian heroes (Plato Apology 41a), a detail perhaps embellished to play to the sympathy of his judges, of whom some were doubtlessly initiates in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Of course, Hades and Persephone are often depicted as exercising their executive prerogatives, as numerous figures in mythology appeal to them to allow them return to the land of the living, such as Orpheus himself, when he requested to bring back Eurydike (see also OH 87.9n).

  19. To Zeus the Thunderbolt

  The display of light and sound during a powerful thunderstorm is an awesome sight to behold, even to the modern mind, which of course knows there are rationally grounded scientific principles that explain the meteorological phenomena it perceives. How much more it must have captured the imagination of the ancients when the previously serene skies suddenly and inexplicably exploded in a violent eruption of elemental fury! It is no wonder that a god who wields the thunderbolt would hold a prominent place in any pantheon, and for the Greeks this is in the hands of the chief deity Zeus. In myth, thunder and lightning are supplied to him by his uncles, the Kyklopes, of whom there are three: Brontes (Thunderer), Steropes (Flash), and Arges (Brightness). These Kyklopes gave the thunderbolt to Zeus out of gratitude for his releasing them from the underworld (Hesiod Theogony 139–146, 501–506; Apollodoros 1.1.2 and 1.2.1; Orphic fragment 228). They are usually portrayed as smiths (e.g., Orphic fragment 269, where they are the teachers of Hephaistos and Athene) and so ought to be distinguished from the unsophisticated rustic race of Kyklopes that Odysseus encounters on his journeys. Zeus uses his great power to defeat the enemies of order and civilization; see, e.g., the similar depictions of his might in the Titanomachy and the defeat of Typhon in Hesiod Theogony 687–710 and 839–868. The lightning bolt of Zeus also makes short work of mortals who transgress boundaries and commit hubris, such as Asklepios, the son of Apollon, who effaced the line between life and death by resurrecting men from the dead (see OH 67i). The weapon sometimes kills unwillingly: in the story of Dionysos’ birth, Semele is destroyed by the thunderbolt of a reluctant Zeus bound by an oath (see OH 44i). We find this story adopted into Orphic mythology, which further relates that the Titans are again kerblasted by the lightning of Zeus, this time for their murder of Dionysos (see OH 37i). In cult, Zeus is worshipped, as he is addressed here, as Keraunios (Thunderbolt) and also Kataibates (Descender); in fact, both had an altar at Olympia (Pausanias 5.14.7, 10). Those who died by lightning strike were often accorded special honors after death (see OH 20i).

  Our hymn focuses on the physical manifestation of the thunderbolt itself in a surprisingly vivid and extended description that fills almost the entire hymn. Like a painter, the poet guides our eye from the appearance of the bolt in the sky, through its dizzying descent, and down to its epiphany on the surface world. It thus encompasses the same collocation of realms as found in other hymns in the collection (see OH 10.14–16n and in particular OH 15.3–5+n) and thus accentuates the cosmological significance of Zeus’ power. Another similarity to OH 15 is that the element fire is emphasized, as it is in the companion hymn that follows. This hymn begins a series that is arranged on the same principle of the four elements that defined the order of OH 15–19 (see OH 15i). Kleanthes also praises the power of Zeus’ thunderbolt, stressing that it is the tool Zeus employs to steer the world with reason (Hymn to Zeus 9–13); compare also the statement that “thunderbolt directs everything,” attributed to Herakleitos (Kirk, Raven, and Schofield 1983, no. 220).

  16–17: Possibly a vague reference to the birth of Protogonos as reported by the Rhapsodies, where the egg out of which he is born is also called a “cloud” and a “bright robe” (Orphic fragment 121; see also OH 21i).

  20. To Astrapaios Zeus

  This hymn forms a pair with the previous one to Zeus the Thunderbolt. It is shorter, but they have a number of similarities: stress on fire, atmospheric description, and detail of sound. “Astrapaios” means “of lightning,” and, strictly speaking,
refers to the gleam of light that accompanies the thunderbolt. The Greeks sharply distinguished between the sound of thunder, the flash of lightning, and the physical bolt itself (see West 1971, p. 207), and so it is perhaps surprising there is no hymn for Zeus of the Thunder included in this sequence. Thunder, however, is personified and mentioned in the opening address to Mousaios (see OH O.38+n), and as a physical phenomenon thunder appears in this hymn and the previous one, as well as the first one dedicated to Zeus, either explicitly or implicitly (see OH 15.9; OH 19.6, 9, 14–15; cf. OH 20.3). OH 19 and OH 20 essentially refer to the same aspect of Zeus, although they do not fully overlap. Zeus as cosmic begetter appears in this hymn (line 5; cf. OH 15.3–5). He is not invoked to bring a myriad of blessings, as in the previous hymn (OH 19.20–23), but rather to give the initiate a “sweet end to... life.” It is interesting to note that, while there are a number of hymns in the collection that ask in one way or another for a noble end of life, the only ones where the addressee is asked to bring a sweet one is here and in OH 73 to Daimon, who is probably being identified with Zeus (see OH 73i; cf. also OH 86.12). It may have particular point here since there was special religious significance attached to death by lightning. In fact, some of the Bacchic gold tablets seem to refer to being killed by Zeus’ lightning; see nos. 5, 6, 7, and Graf/Johnston 2007, pp. 125–127. Their suggestion—that the initiates are expressing hope of being purified in death and enjoying the same special status in the underworld as the heroes—may be at work in this hymn as well (see further OH 87.12n). The idea, of course, is not that the initiates wish to be struck by lightning but that their efforts in following the cult would effectively purify their psukhē in preparation for death. Fire often has importance as a purifying agent in Greek religion, and it is significant that Zeus is addressed as “pure” in the opening line of this hymn (see also OH 15.8+8–9n). The “sweetness” of the end of life might then be proleptic.

  21. To the Clouds

  This hymn corresponds to the hymn to Hera; see OH 16i. This goddess has a connection with clouds in mythology, which might have strengthened the association in our composer’s eyes. When the mortal Ixion makes advances on Hera, Zeus creates a cloud doppelganger of his wife, with whom Ixion then has relations. He is punished in the underworld for this outrage, tied to a flaming wheel that endlessly spins throughout eternity. The cloud, though, becomes pregnant and gives birth to the centaurs (see Apollodoros, epit. 1.20). In this hymn, the Clouds are represented, in a similar way Hera is portrayed in hers, purely as meteorological phenomena that produce rain and are the loci for thunder and lightning. There were a number of explanations for these manifestations of weather in antiquity. Anaximander speculated that they occur when wind breaks through a cloud (Kirk, Raven, and Schofield 1983, nos. 129–131); Anaximenes added that clouds themselves are formed when the air is condensed and that further condensations eventually squeeze out rain (Kirk, Raven, and Schofield 1983, no. 158). Herakleitos contended that thunder comes from the crashing of winds and clouds, lightning from the kindling of the clouds, and rain from their quenching (Diels and Kranz 1951–52, 22A14), while Anaxagoras attributed thunder to the collision of clouds, and lightning to their friction (Diogenes Laertius 2.9). The Sokrates in Aristophanes’ Clouds explains thunder and rain as the result of clouds, filled with water, colliding and lightning as the result of a dry wind, caught inside a cloud and breaking forth (367–411). These details have probably been cobbled together from Pre-Socratic theories by Aristophanes, if not outright invented, to set up a number of scatological and political jokes. The founder of Stoicism, Zeno, appears to have been unsure whether lightning, thunder, and the thunderbolt itself were the result of the friction or the striking of the clouds occasioned by the wind (SVF 1.117). The explanation in our hymn seems closest to Aristophanes’, and there are a number of verbal reminiscences of his work that suggest direct influence; compare also Sokrates’ “Hymn to the Clouds” at 263–274 of that play. That the Clouds are already “filled with blazing thunder” perhaps alludes to the relationship between Zeus, who is identified with the thunderbolt in OH 19, and his wife Hera. The Stoics, when allegorizing Zeus as fire and Hera as air, note that the fire is the superior, active principle, with air being subject to it and passive (see SVF 2.1066, 1070, 1075). The Clouds in this hymn do seem quite passive, even impregnated; that they are invoked to send rain at the end (6–7) is not necessarily a contradiction, since this is a conventional formulation. It is repeated verbatim at the end of OH 82 (see also OH 82.4n). For the belief that the clouds were born from the sea, see OH 22.8n. In the Orphic Rhapsodies, the egg out of which Protogonos is born is called a “cloud” as well as a “bright robe” (Orphic fragment 121; see also OH 19.16–17n and West 1983, p. 202).

  22. To the Sea

  Sea is here identified with the Titaness Tethys, the wife of Okeanos. For their role in traditional and Orphic cosmogony, see OH 83i. That she and her husband might have had a more important role in certain Orphic accounts of creation might explain why our composer has opted to identify the sea with her, as opposed to another primeval watery figure such as Pontos. The male/female pattern we see employed as a way to group hymns elsewhere in the collection is not used here (but note that Tethys and Okeanos appear together at OH O.26–27). Perhaps the reason is to be found in Okeanos’ association with death; see OH 83i. Their daughters, the Okeanids, are identified with the Nymphs to whom OH 51 is addressed (and also see line 8).

  This hymn, along with the next three, form a group that is associated with water and is the third in the series that repeats the pattern of elements found in OH 15–18 (see OH 15i). It is also interesting to note that this hymn follows the one to the Clouds just as the hymn to Okeanos follows three separate ones to the winds, which receive prominent notice here and in the previous hymn. For the connection between sea, air, and clouds, see note to line 7.

  2 dark-veiled: The same epithet is used of Tethys at OH O.26.

  7 mother of Kypris: Kypris is another name for Aphrodite, who in one version is born out of the sea; see OH 3.2n and OH 55i.

  7 mother of dark clouds: The idea that the clouds and winds are “born” from the sea goes back to the Pre-Socratics. Xenophanes mentions this explicitly (Kirk, Raven, and Schofield 1983, no. 183), and it seems implicit in Anaximander (Kirk, Raven, and Schofield 1983, no. 129). Aristophanes is probably alluding to this doctrine when he makes Okeanos the father of the Clouds (Clouds 271 and 277); see also OH 82.4n. For the weather phenomena produced by clouds, see OH 21i.

  8 mother of every spring round which nymphs swarm: Aside from creation myths where Okeanos and Tethys are considered the first (or first progenitors) of all, they are credited with being the parents of smaller bodies of water. Hesiod lists some of the three-thousand rivers (male) and three-thousand springs (female) that are their brood (Theogony 337–370). Like other personified water divinities, their human form may be loosely considered separate from the actual physical body of water. In the theogony sung by Orpheus at Apollonios of Rhodes Argonautika 1.495–512, the Okeanid Eurynome becomes the consort to Ophion, and this pair of gods precedes Kronos and Rhea as the rulers of Olympos (see also OH 83i).

  9–10: A common request of sea divinities in our collection; see OH 17.9–10n.

  23. To Nereus

  According to Hesiod, Nereus is the oldest child of Pontos, a male personification of the sea and a child of Earth (Theogony 233–236). Hesiod describes this divinity as being particularly honest, gentle, and mindful of lawful things. His main importance in myth, other than being the father of the Nereids (see following hymn) is his identification with “the Old Man of the Sea” (e.g., at Pausanias 3.21.9), a role he shares with other figures, particularly Proteus (see OH 25i). He plays no role elsewhere in Orphic cult, and his inclusion here seems to be entirely because of his daughters, with whom he forms another male/female pairing (see OH 14.8–9n).

  5–7: Like his son-in-law Poseidon, Nereus is connected with earthquakes. “Demeter�
�s sacred throne” is a kenning for the earth. The theme of winds continues from the previous two hymns. Here they are locked up under the earth, and it seems that their violent motion thus constrained is imagined to be the cause of earthquakes. This might be intended as an interesting twist to the story of the bag of winds that Aiolos, warden of the winds, gives to Odysseus (Odyssey 10.1–75). All of the winds are contained in the bag except for the gentle west wind Zephyros (see OH 81+3–4n) that conveys Odysseus’ ship home. However his men, not knowing the bag’s contents, but thinking that Odysseus was hiding something good from them, foolishly open the bag, thus letting all the violent winds out (similarly, Pandora; see Wolkow 2007). These promptly blow the ship back to Aiolos, who refuses further assistance to the beleaguered Odysseus. Comparable, too, is the imprisonment of Typhon in Apollodoros’ version of his battle with Zeus (1.6.3). This creature has wind associations and, although imprisoned below Mount Etna by Zeus, is the source of its volcanic activity; see also OH 16i and cf. OH 32.12n.