For those who are curious to read about the Orphic hymns, I have made a number of extracts below. Not only are they a concise and excellent introduction to the ancient mythology, but they have unquestionable literary merit. They were highly regarded during the Renaissance, when Ficino and his circle of friends enjoyed setting and singing them to music. Ficino himself made a translation of them from the Greek, and his biographer says that he "sang them to the lyre in the ancient style with remarkable sweetness." Athanassakis and Wolkow (2013) draw attention to “the relative purity of language and nearly flawless hexameter” of the hymns.
There appears to be no English prose-translation in the public domain, so I give one of my own for this little hymn. (Free to use under CC BY 4.0.)
-
Transcript:
A hymn to Ares. The fumigation from frankincense.
Unbreakable, strong-willed, mighty, courageous daemon,
Arms-loving, unconquerable, man-killing stormer of walls,
Lord Ares, rattling with armour, ever bespattered with blood,
Rejoicing in deadly slaughter, raising the turmoil of war, inspiring terror,
You who long for coarse battle with swords and spears:
Put an end to raging strife; relieve suffering that grieves the heart;
Incline to the yearning of Aphrodite, and the revels of Dionysus,
Exchanging the force of arms for the works of Demeter,
Loving peace, that rears up youth, the bestower of bliss.
Ἄρεος, θυμίαμα λίβανον.
Ἄρρηκτ', ὀμβριμόθυμε, μεγασθενές, ἄλκιμε δαῖμον,
ὁπλοχαρής, ἀδάμαστε, βροτοκτόνε, τειχεσιπλῆτα,
Ἆρες ἄναξ, ὁπλόδουπε, φόνοις πεπαλαγμένος αἰεί,
αἵματι ἀνδροφόνωι χαίρων, πολεμόκλονε, φρικτέ,
ὃς ποθέεις ξίφεσίν τε καὶ ἔγχεσι δῆριν ἄμουσον·
στῆσον ἔριν λυσσῶσαν, ἄνες πόνον ἀλγεσίθυμον,
εἰς δὲ πόθον νεῦσον Κύπριδος κώμους τε Λυαίου
ἀλλάξας ἀλκὴν ὅπλων εἰς ἔργα τὰ Δηοῦς,
εἰρήνην ποθέων κουροτρόφον, ὀλβιοδῶτιν
-
"The Orphic Hymns stand as a particular example of a very old genre that survived throughout antiquity. A hymn is essentially a poem sung in praise of a god, often with a request or prayer.
…
The Orphic Hymns constitute a distinct collection, and should be seen as one part of a vast ancient literature that modern scholars label 'Orphic'... 'Orphic' is a sort of catch-all term that is used to designate anything and everything directly or indirectly connected to Orpheus. And who this figure was leads to even more ambiguity. We do not know if he ever existed. Traditionally he was from the wilds of Thrace, a foreigner to the Greeks, and a bard of great renown, sometimes thought to be even earlier than Homer and Hesiod. He was so proficient with his stringed instrument, the lyre, that he could sway inanimate objects and even bring the lord and lady of the dead to tears... He knew of secret rites, usually those of Dionysus, and particularly those dealing with the salvation of the soul after death, and these he taught to his fellow man in the form of mysteries.
…
A date of composition cannot be assigned to the Hymns with any certainty. A few ancient sources make direct or oblique references to Orphic hymns, but they need not refer to our Hymns.
…
They may have existed quite early and gone unnoticed. After all, antiquity treated the much older Homeric hymns with astonishing indifference. Those scholars who place the composition of the Orphic Hymns within the first four centuries of our era are probably closer to the truth. The relative purity of the language and the nearly flawless hexameter would argue for the earlier part of this period.” (Athanassakis & Wolkow, 2013.)
"In a letter written when he was nearly 60, Ficino looks back over a lifetime of cultural achievements in his native city: 'This age, like a golden age, has brought back to light those liberal disciplines that were practically extinguished: grammar, poetry, oratory, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and the ancient singing of songs to the Orphic lyre.' He is referring to both his own and his friends' well-attested skill at improvising or composing musical settings for the hymns of Orpheus, which he himself had translated from the Greek." (Voss 2002:227.)
Thomas Taylor, the first modern commentator on the Hymns, was convinced that they were used in the Eleusinian Mysteries, and written by Orpheus himself. He provides an elaborate argument for this opinion (1824:xxxiii). One of his reasons is a quotation from Pausanias, in which that writer refers to the Orphic hymns as “few and short,” just like our collection.
“Whoever has devoted himself to the study of poetry knows that the hymns of Orpheus are all very short, and that the total number of them is not great. The Lycomidae know them and chant them over the ritual of the mysteries. For poetic beauty they may be said to come next to the hymns of Homer, while they have been even more honoured by the gods.” (Pausanias 9:30.)
-
Evening Fall (Harp) by Kevin Macleod is licensed under CC BY 3.0
