Orphic Hymns

The Orphic Hymns are a collection of eighty-seven ancient Greek hymns addressed to various deities, which were attributed in antiquity to the mythical poet Orpheus. They were composed in Asia Minor (located in modern-day Turkey), most likely around the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD, and were used in the rites of a religious community which existed in the region. The Hymns are among the few extant works of Orphic literature (the tradition of texts attributed to Orpheus in antiquity), and recent scholars have viewed the collection as being Orphic in nature.

Illustration of a bronze tablet from Pergamon, Asia Minor, dating to the 3rd century AD. An inscription mentions the goddess Melinoe, who is otherwise known only from the Orphic Hymns.^[1]

The collection of eighty-seven hymns is preceded by a proem, in which Orpheus addresses the legendary poet Musaeus, and calls upon around seventy deities to be present. The individual hymns in the collection, all of which are brief, typically call for the attention of the deity they address, before describing them and highlighting aspects of their divinity, and then appealing to them with a request. The descriptions of deities consist primarily of strings of epithets, which make up a substantial portion of the hymns' content, and are designed to summon the powers of the god. The deity featured most prominently in the collection is Dionysus, who is the recipient of eight hymns, and is mentioned throughout the collection under various names. Most of the deities featured in the Hymns are derived from mainstream Greek mythology, and a number are assimilated with one another.

The Orphic Hymns seem to have belonged to a cult community from Asia Minor which used the collection in ritual, and probably held Dionysus as their central god. The rite in which the Orphic Hymns featured was the teletḗ (τελετή, a term which usually refers to a rite of initiation into mysteries), and this ceremony appears to have taken place at night-time. Most hymns specify an offering to be made to the deity, which was probably burned during the performance of the hymn. Scholars have noted the apparent lack of Orphic doctrines in the Hymns, though certain themes and references have been interpreted as pointing to the presence of Orphic thought in the collection.

No external references to the Orphic Hymns survive from antiquity, and they are first mentioned by the Byzantine writer John Diaconus Galenus (who has been dated to the 12th century AD). From perhaps as early as the 5th century AD, the Orphic Hymns were preserved in a codex which also included works such as the Orphic Argonautica and the Homeric Hymns. The first codex containing the Orphic Hymns to reach Western Europe arrived in Italy in the first half of the 15th century, and in 1500 the first printed edition of the Hymns was published in Florence. During the Renaissance, a number of scholars believed that the collection was the genuine work of Orpheus himself, while in the late 18th century a more sceptical wave of scholarship argued for a dating in late antiquity. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of inscriptions were discovered in Asia Minor, leading to the ritual function of the collection being established among classicists and historians of religion.

Composition and attribution

Provenance and date

The sanctuary of Demeter from the city of Pergamon in Asia Minor, where inscriptions to a number of deities addressed in the Orphic Hymns were discovered^[2]

It is widely accepted in modern scholarship that the Orphic Hymns were composed in Asia Minor (located in modern-day Turkey).^[5] The most significant piece of evidence linking the collection to this region is the inclusion of deities – such as Mise, Hipta, and Melinoe – who are attested only in western Asia Minor, and whose presence in inscriptions from the area indicate they were the subject of worship there.^[6] The prominence given in the collection to deities associated with the sea, as well as the concern displayed towards the sea and its perils, indicate that the Hymns were probably composed somewhere near to the coast of Asia Minor.^[7]

In 1911, Otto Kern postulated that the Hymns originated from the city of Pergamon (near the western coast of Asia Minor), on the basis of a number of inscriptions, dedicated to deities addressed in the Hymns, which had been discovered in the sanctuary of Demeter in the city.^[8] Evaluating Kern's hypothesis in her 2001 study of the Hymns, Anne-France Morand concludes that, although an origin in Pergamon cannot be ruled out, the city cannot be definitively identified as the collection's place of provenance, given that the epigraphic evidence connected with the Hymns originates from throughout western Asia Minor.^[9] There is near-universal agreement in modern scholarship that the Orphic Hymns were composed for use by a religious community, which existed in the region and used the collection in ritual.^[10] Kern argued that this group existed in Pergamon at the sanctuary of Demeter,^[11] a view which Morand dismisses, as the site of the cult's activity was more likely private (and sanctuaries were generally public).^[12]

Estimates for the date of the Orphic Hymns' composition have varied widely,^[13] though most have fallen between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD.^[14] Among recent scholars, the collection has typically been dated to around the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD.^[15] Studies of the collection's vocabulary suggest a date around the 3rd to 5th centuries AD,^[16] and attempts to date the Hymns based upon the perceived influence of certain forms of philosophical thought have been largely inconclusive.^[17] No references to the Orphic Hymns survive from antiquity,^[18] though modern scholars have largely avoided arguing for a date on this basis.^[19]

Gabriella Ricciardelli, who supports a date in the 2nd or 3rd century AD, points to the prominence of the worship of Dionysus (who occupies a central role in the collection) in Asia Minor around this time.^[20] Morand places the Hymns between the 2nd and 5th centuries AD,^[21] though this dating has been criticised for placing undue weight upon the similarity of the collection's vocabulary with that of the 5th-century poet Nonnus.^[22] In Radcliffe Edmonds's estimation, the collection contains a number of passages taken from earlier works, and may have been a "synthesis of earlier and contemporary works, organized by an Orphicist of the time".^[23] Daniel Malamis, who argues that a date in the 1st century AD (or even the 1st century BC) should not be ruled out, suggests that the work may have been composed as an analogue to the Orphic Rhapsodies,^[24] a theogony attributed to Orpheus, typically dated to between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD.^[25]

The identity of the poet who produced the collection is unknown,^[26] though most scholars agree that the Hymns were the product of a single author.^[27] On the basis of stylistic differences from the rest of the collection, some scholars have argued that certain hymns may have been added to the collection at a later date;^[28] Ricciardelli points to the hymn to the Moirai (Hymn 59), as well as those to Hermes Chthonius (Hymn 57), Mother Antaia (Hymn 41), and Aphrodite (Hymn 55), as examples of such hymns.^[29] Certain passages from other hymns are potentially interpolations, including two lines from the hymn to Nyx (Hymn 3), which may have been taken from an earlier Orphic hymn to the goddess.^[30]

Attribution to Orpheus

Roman mosaic of Orpheus, the mythical poet to whom the Orphic Hymns were attributed, from Palermo, 2nd century AD^[31]

The collection's attribution to the mythical poet Orpheus is found in the title (which varies across the surviving manuscripts).^[32] This title sits above the proem,^[33] an address to the legendary poet Musaeus of Athens (a kind of address found in other works), which marks the collection as a work of Orpheus.^[34] In antiquity, literary works were attributed to Orpheus as a way of attaching to them a special kind of authority, marking them as innovative, or deviant from the standard tradition.^[35] For the Hymns, their ascription to Orpheus would have placed them even earlier than Homer, whom Orpheus was believed to have preceded.^[36] The collection is written in the first-person voice of Orpheus, with the proem itself being the address he gives to Musaeus.^[37] In the rest of the collection, there are several passages which indicate the work was written as though composed by Orpheus:^[38] Orphic Hymn 76 to the Muses mentions "mother Calliope",^[39] and Orphic Hymn 24 to the Nereids refers to "mother Calliope and lord Apollo", alluding to the parentage of Orpheus (whose mother was said to be Calliope, and his father, at times, Apollo).^[40]

The Orphic Hymns are among the few extant works of Orphic literature, the tradition of texts attributed to Orpheus in antiquity which dealt with certain themes and myths distinct from those in mainstream Greek literature.^[41] A number of scholars have brought into question how "Orphic" the Hymns can be considered, partly because of the apparent absence of references to known Orphic myths, with Henri-Dominique Saffrey [fr] in 1994 characterising them as being "Orphic only in name".^[42] Recent scholars such as Morand and Jean Rudhardt [fr], however, see the Hymns as markedly Orphic in nature, displaying characteristics that are typical of Orphic texts and borrowing from the Orphic literary tradition in a number of places.^[43] The Hymns contain a number of poetic formulae (recurring phrases used to express common ideas)^[44] which are known to been present in the Orphic Rhapsodies, and the order of the hymns in much of the collection appears to be a reflection of that theogony's narrative (though it is unclear whether these features were derived from the Rhapsodies themselves, or from earlier Orphic poems which the theogony drew upon).^[45] Marie-Christine Fayant sees allusions in the collection to myths known to have appeared in Orphic theogonies, such as the dismemberment of Dionysus and Zeus's swallowing of the hermaphroditic deity Protogonos;^[46] she also argues that in the content of the Hymns one can observe a cosmogony which is similar to that found in the Hieronyman Theogony, a theogony attributed to Orpheus (and possibly dating to the 2nd century BC), with which she believes the author of the Hymns was probably familiar.^[47]

The Orphic Hymns are the most important surviving representative of the genre of hymnic literature attributed to Orpheus.^[48] Examples of hymns ascribed to Orpheus are attested at least as early as the 5th century BC,^[49] and the limited surviving evidence for this genre points to such works having been short hymns which contained strings of epithets, and were created for ritual use (or were ritualistic in their manner of address).^[50] In Malamis's view, the author of the collection of eighty-seven hymns was probably familiar with earlier Orphic hymns, and chose to produce a work which was similar in content and style.^[51]

Structure and style

Learn now, Mousaios, a mystical and most holy rite,
a prayer which surely excels all others.

Μάνθανε δή, Μουσαῖε, θυηπολίην περισέμνην,
εὐχήν, ἢ δή τοι προφερεστέρη ἐστὶν ἁπασέων.

— Proem, lines 1–2, translated by Apostolos Athanassakis and Benjamin Wolkow^[52]

The collection begins with a text, often referred to as the proem or prologue,^[53] in which Orpheus addresses Musaeus, who is often described as his student or son in Greek literature.^[54] The proem has fifty-four lines, including the final ten which make up the hymn to Hecate (which is attached without separation or a title).^[55] The opening two lines of the proem are a dedication in which Orpheus asks Musaeus to learn the rite (thuēpolíē, θυηπολίη) and prayer (eukhḗ, εὐχή). The latter refers to the address which follows on lines three to forty-four, in which around seventy different deities are called upon to attend the rite, as well as the libation (spondḗ, σπονδή) (referring to the ceremony in which the Hymns would have played a role).^[56] The purpose of this prayer is seemingly to name and devote a hymn to all the gods,^[57] although it addresses numerous deities not mentioned in the collection itself, and omits others who are subjects of hymns.^[58] Partly on the basis of this difference in the deities mentioned, as well as the presence of the word thuēpolíē (which does not appear in the rest of the collection)^[59] at the beginning and end of the proem, Martin Litchfield West posits that the proem was originally a separate Orphic poem.^[60] The idea that the proem and the rest of the collection were of distinct origins has been the more commonly held view among scholars,^[61] though Morand has recently argued for their common authorship, pointing to the similarities in the usage of epithets, and in the way deities are characterised between the two.^[62]

In addition to the proem, the Orphic Hymns consist of eighty-seven brief poems,^[63] which range from six to thirty lines in length.^[64] In the surviving manuscripts, the hymn addressed to Hecate is appended to the proem,^[65] though modern editions present it separately, as the first hymn of the collection.^[67] The hymns follow a sequence which moves from birth to death:^[68] the second hymn is addressed to Prothyraia, a goddess associated with birth, while the last is dedicated to Thanatos (Death), and ends in the word gêras (γῆρας, 'old age').^[69] The collection is also arranged in such a way that primordial deities appear in the earliest hymns, and later gods are found further on;^[70] the first hymns are addressed to deities who feature in Orphic cosmogony, such as Nyx (Hymn 3), Uranus (Hymn 4), Aether (Hymn 5), and Protogonos (Hymn 6).^[71] Deities who possess similarities or are associated with one another are often placed in adjacent hymns, such as the astronomical divinities – the Stars, Sun (Helios), and Moon (Selene) (Hymns 7–9) – or Zeus and Hera (Hymns 15–16), who are linked through their marriage.^[72] The ordering of hymns also appears to correspond to the narrative of one or more Orphic theogonies, with a number of parallels to the Orphic Rhapsodies in particular.^[74] Fayant sees a chiastic structure in the sequence of the hymns, dividing them into five groups of deities (centred around a Dionysian core): primordial and cosmic gods (Hymns 3–14), divinities presiding over human activities (Hymns 28–43), Dionysus and his retinue (Hymns 44–58), divinities concerned with the lives of humans (Hymns 59–77), and, once again, cosmic gods (Hymns 78–84).^[75] Malamis argues for a tripartite structure in which the sections open with hymns to Hecate, Hermes, and Hermes Chthonius, respectively (Hymns 1, 28, 57), all of whom are associated with boundaries.^[76]

Each individual hymn in the collection has three internal parts: the invocation, the development, and the request.^[78] In some hymns, especially those shorter in length, these three parts can be difficult to distinguish, and may not occur in order.^[79] The invocation is brief, typically appears at the start of the hymn, and is designed to gain the attention of the hymn's addressee.^[80] It names the deity, and usually calls upon them with a verb, which may be in the imperative,^[81] though sometimes no such verb is present, in which case the god is simply named.^[82] The development (also referred to as the amplification)^[83] makes up the main, central portion of the hymn, and is the longest section;^[84] it follows immediately from the invocation, with the point at which it begins often being difficult to distinguish.^[85] It consists mostly of descriptions of the deity, particularly in the form of numerous epithets, and may discuss different features or aspects of the god, as well as include information such as their familial relations, or locations in which they were worshipped;^[86] the purpose of this section is to gratify the deity so that they choose to make themselves present.^[87] The request (also referred to as the prayer)^[88] generally finishes the hymn, and is usually only around one or two lines in length.^[89] It opens with several verbs which typically ask for the god to listen to what the speaker has to say, and for them to be present.^[90] The content of the request varies across the collection: some hymns ask the deity to come favourably, some ask for their presence at the mystery, or to accept a sacrifice;^[91] others ask for certain outcomes, such as health, prosperity, or wealth,^[92] which in some instances are specific to the god, such as the request for the Clouds to bring rain, or for Hygieia to ward off illnesses.^[93]

1    Πρωτόγονον καλέω [...]                                  [...] διφυῆ, μέγαν, αἰθερόπλαγκτον,       ὠιογενῆ, χρυσέαισιν ἀγαλλόμενον πτερύγεσσι,       ταυροβόαν, γένεσιν μακάρων θνητῶν τ’ ἀνθρώπων,       σπέρμα πολύμνηστον, πολυόργιον, Ἠρικεπαῖον, 5    ἄρρητον, κρύφιον ῥοιζήτορα, παμφαὲς ἔρνος,       ὄσσων ὃς σκοτόεσσαν ἀπημαύρωσας ὁμίχλην       πάντη δινηθεὶς πτερύγων ῥιπαῖς κατὰ κόσμον       λαμπρὸν ἄγων φάος ἁγνόν, ἀφ’οὗ σε Φάνητα κικλήσκω       ἠδὲ Πρίηπον ἄνακτα καὶ Ἀνταύγην ἑλίκωπον. 10  ἀλλά, μάκαρ, πολύμητι, πολύσπορε, βαῖνε γεγηθὼς       ἐς τελετὴν ἁγίαν πολυποίκιλος ὀργιοφάντης. Protogonos I call, [...]                                                            ] – Invocation                        [...] twin-sexed, great, roaming the ether,       ⌉ – Development egg-born, rejoicing in golden wings, bullroarer, birth of the blessed and of mortals, seed much-minded, of many rites, Erikepaios, unspoken, hidden rusher, all-radiant shoot; who undimmed the dark mist from the eyes, whirling in beating of wings through the cosmos bringing light, bright, pure: whence I call you Phanes and Priapos the king, and quick-glancing Antauges. But blessed, much-minded, much-seeded, come joyful        ⌉ – Request to the holy rite, our all-varied hierophant.

The text of Hymn 6 to Protogonos, with Daniel Malamis's translation. The three parts of the hymn are marked.[94]

For the most part, the hymns in the collection are unified in their style and language.^[95] They are written in dactylic hexameter, the metre of Homeric poetry,^[96] and display a consistency in metrical composition.^[97] According to Rudhardt, in terms of vocabulary and grammar, the Hymns find a "distant model" in the works of Hesiod and Homer, but also contain a number of words and forms from later literature, spanning from the 5th-century BC to the first centuries AD.^[98] In particular, the language of the collection bears similarity to that of late works such as Nonnus's Dionysiaca, the Greek Magical Papyri, and several poems from the Greek Anthology.^[99] The most distinctive feature of the Hymns is their use of concatenations of epithets, which constitute a large part of their content.^[100] They also make extensive use of phonic repetition,^[101] as well as forms of wordplay, such as etymologies of the names of gods.^[102] Other notable stylistic elements include the frequent use of compound adjectives as epithets, the tendency to juxtapose contrasting descriptions of deities, and the use of asyndeton (the omission of conjunctions).^[103]

Religious significance

It is largely accepted in modern scholarship that the Orphic Hymns were religious in function, and were used in rites by a cult which existed in Asia Minor.^[104] According to Morand, this group performed initiations into some form of mysteries.^[105] The term boukólos (βουκόλος, 'cowherd') is found in the Hymns, a religious title which is often used elsewhere to refer to worshippers of Dionysus, and is connected to Orpheus in some contexts.^[106] The use of the word boukólos and the prominence of Dionysus in the collection indicate that he was the central god of the cult which used the Hymns,^[107] and a number of scholars describe the group as Dionysian or Bacchic.^[108] Within the collection itself, Morand sees a number of different members of the group's religious hierarchy as being mentioned:^[109] the mústai (μύσται), the regular members of the cult (and the group mentioned most frequently);^[110] the neomústai (νεομύσται), the "new initiates";^[111] the mustipóloi (μυστιπόλοι), who were probably members involved in initiations and ritual activity;^[112] and the orgiophántai (ὀργιοφάνται), who seem to have been members involved in initiation rites (similarly to the mustipóloi), and who may also have been responsible for displaying holy objects.^[113] Richard Martin criticises Morand's reading of a religious hierarchy in these terms, characterising it as "treating hymnic vocabulary as hard evidence".^[114]

Most of the hymns in the collection contain a specification of an offering to be made to the deity, which is given as part of the title of the hymn;^[116] only eight hymns lack such an offering in the title.^[117] During the reciting of a hymn, its specified offering would probably have been burned.^[118] The offerings most commonly specified are spices, frankincense, storax, manna, and myrrh;^[119] in some cases a combination of offerings is asked for.^[120] Several hymns specify a unique offering to be given to the deity, such as torches to Nyx, saffron to Aether, poppies to Hypnos, and grain (excluding beans or herbs) to Earth; Orphic Hymn 53 to Amphietes asks for a libation of milk in addition to an offering.^[121] While in a few cases there is a recognisable link between a deity and their offering, as with torches for Nyx (the goddess of the night) or grain for Earth, for most of the hymns there is no clear reasoning behind the choice of offering.^[122] Deities which are associated with each other, however, will sometimes be given the same offering.^[123] The absence of animals from the offerings may be related to the supposed prohibition of animal sacrifice in Orphic belief.^[124]

The ceremony in which the Hymns played a role was the teletḗ (τελετή),^[125] a term which usually refers to a rite of initiation into mysteries.^[126] Within the Hymns, there are numerous references to the teletḗ,^[127] including several mentions of the pántheios teletḗ (πάνθειος τελετή), an initiation rite to all the gods.^[128] This rite appears to have occurred at night-time, and may have included the playing of a tambourine at points.^[129] The Hymns also contain several instances of the term órgion (ὄργιον), which may refer to sacred objects which featured in the rite.^[130] According to Fritz Graf, the placement of the hymn to Hecate (Hymn 1) at the beginning of the collection may reflect the placement of a hekataion (a representation of a triple-shaped Hecate)^[131] at the entrance of the building in which the rite took place, which participants would have walked past before it began;^[132] in addition, he argues that the presence of the hymn to Nyx (Hymn 3) early in the collection indicates that the Hymns accompanied a nocturnal ritual which began at dusk and lasted through the night.^[133] Graf also sees the request to be "good to meet", made of several deities in the collection, as a reflection of the terror which initiates would have felt during the rite at the prospect of encountering a deity who was hostile, as such an experience was supposedly capable of driving one to madness.^[134]

[...] offshoot of Gaia and starry Ouranos, [...]

Γαίης τε βλάστημα καὶ Οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος

— Hymn 19 to Cronus, line 6, translated by Daniel Malamis.^[135] This expression is also found in the "Orphic" gold tablets.^[136]

Scholars have noted in the Orphic Hymns the apparent dearth of Orphic doctrines,^[137] certain religious ideas believed to have been present in now-lost Orphic poems.^[138] As a whole, the collection shows little concern for the afterlife, and at no point references the idea of metempsychosis (the transmigration of the soul), which is often associated with Orphism;^[139] according to Paul Veyne, the Hymns are essentially uninterested in what happens after death, being concerned only with "this world".^[140] In her study of the Hymns, Morand analyses the references to souls, and the roles played by memory and purity, as well as the parallels between the Hymns and similar evidence such as gold tablets which have been considered "Orphic". After reviewing this evidence, she concludes that it is "compatible with Orphism".^[141] Throughout the collection, there is no explicit mention of any major Orphic myth,^[142] including the story of the dismemberment of Dionysus by the Titans,^[143] which has often been considered the central myth of Orphism;^[144] one element of the myth, however, the so-called "Orphic anthropogony", may be alluded to in the hymn to the Titans, which calls its addressees the "ancestors of our fathers".^[145] The Hymns also make no concrete prescriptions as to a certain way of life, though the absence of meat in the offerings could imply a prohibition of animal sacrifice, and the explicit disallowing of beans in the offering to Gaia may similarly indicate a ban on eating beans,^[146] both of which could suggest an Orphic way of life.^[147] In addition, the idea of purity holds significance in the Hymns, with the hymn to Eros asking the god to come to the initiates and "banish from them vile impulses",^[148] which potentially indicates adherence to some form of sexual ethics.^[149]

Deities in the Hymns

[...] the dreadful winged weapon, heart-quaking, hair-raising,
sudden, thunderous, pure, invincible bolt,
all-devouring onrush in eddies of infinite roaring,
unbreakable, sullen, unfaceable hurricane,
sharp, celestial bolt of the blazing Descender, [...]

πτηνὸν ὅπλον δεινόν, κλονοκάρδιον, ὀρθοέθειρον,
αἰφνίδιον, βρονταῖον, ἀνίκητον βέλος ἁγνόν,
ῥοίζου ἀπειρεσίου δινεύμασι παμφάγον ὁρμήν,
ἄρρηκτον, βαρύθυμον, ἀμαιμάκετον πρηστῆρα,
οὐράνιον βέλος ὀξὺ καταιβάτου αἰθαλόεντος,

— Hymn 19 to Zeus Keraunios, lines 8–12, translated by Daniel Malamis^[135]

One of the most distinctive characteristics of the Orphic Hymns is the strings of epithets which constitute a substantial portion of their content.^[150] In contrast to the Homeric Hymns, in which the middle part of individual hymns often presents a narrative involving the god, in the Orphic Hymns the development section consists mostly of these concatenations of epithets;^[151] references to myths are never more than allusions,^[152] and these strings of epithets are themselves the typical means through which the collection refers to myths.^[87] The purpose of these chains of epithets is to acquire the attention of the god and to summon their powers.^[153] To this end, and to gain the goodwill of their addressee, a variety of appellations are used, each of which serves to highlight an aspect of the deity, such as elements of their power, locations of worship, or their part in myths.^[154] In addition, epithets will frequently be applied to more than one deity, contributing to the tendency of the collection to bring together separate gods.^[155] A number of the epithets in the collection are derived from earlier literature, especially the works of Homer and Hesiod,^[156] while others are neologisms,^[157] some of which, though without prior attestation, are references to the deity's role in an existing myth;^[158] others still are allusions to known cult titles of the god, which were used in certain geographical locations.^[159] According to Rudhardt, while the paratactic clusters of epithets in the Hymns may seem to indicate "rudimentary thought", within them is contained a sort of syntax, where adjacent terms bear relation to each other in subtle ways.^[160]

Mosaic of Dionysus, the deity featured most prominently in the Orphic Hymns, from the House of Poseidon in Zeugma, 3rd century AD^[161]

Of the deities featured in the Orphic Hymns, Dionysus is given the place of greatest prominence.^[162] He is the recipient of eight separate hymns (more than any other deity),^[163] which address him in various manifestations, and constitute the central portion of the collection.^[165] Numerous deities in the collection are related to or associated with Dionysus,^[166] and he is explicitly mentioned in twenty-two of the eighty-seven hymns, often using an epithet.^[167] The collection refers to myths about Dionysus which are known within the mainstream Greek tradition (though these references are seemingly to unusual variants of these stories), as well as to myths without attestation elsewhere.^[168]

The Hymns display particular concern for one part of Dionysus's mythology, the story of his three births.^[169] There exist two main traditions around the birth of Dionysus: the standard version, in which he is the child of Zeus and Semele, and an Orphic version, in which he is born to Zeus and his daughter, Persephone.^[170] The Orphic Hymns reference both of these parentages, mentioning the birth of Eubuleus (a name for Dionysus) to Zeus and Persephone in an "unspeakable union", and later calling Semele the mother of Dionysus;^[171] according to Rudhardt, this is not an inadvertent inclusion of contradictory versions, but a deliberate reference to a system in which Dionysus has two consecutive mothers.^[172] In Rudhardt's view, these two successive births can only be explained by the Orphic myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus – in which Dionysus, the infant son of Zeus and Persephone, is ripped apart and eaten by the Titans, and then subsequently reincarnated – which would, in the Hymns, place Persephone as his first mother and Semele as his second.^[173] His third birth is from the thigh of the Phrygian god Sabazios (here closely linked to Zeus), who stitches the young child there after his birth from Semele.^[174]

Relief of Protogonos, an Orphic god found in the Hymns, from Modena, 2nd century AD^[175]

Most of the gods mentioned in the Orphic Hymns are known within mainstream Greek mythology.^[176] The only deity in the collection typically held as Orphic is Protogonos,^[177] the "first-born" god who emerges from an egg, also referred to as Ericepaios, Phanes, Priapus, and Antauges;^[178] he is addressed in Orphic Hymn 6, which portrays him in a manner derived directly from the Orphic tradition.^[179] Zeus is the recipient of three hymns, and is depicted in a manner largely in line with his characterisation in the standard Greek tradition,^[180] though Fayant sees Orphic Hymn 15 as alluding to the Orphic myth of Zeus's swallowing of Protogonos (which is known to have appeared in Orphic theogonies).^[181] Rudhardt argues that Protogonos and Zeus, along with Dionysus, should be understood as aspects of a single, tripartite Orphic deity.^[182] The collection also references the myth of Persephone's abduction, alluding to her capture by Pluto in a meadow and later describing Mother Antaia (a name of Demeter) as searching in the underworld for her lost daughter.^[183] Heracles, who is portrayed quite differently from traditional depictions, is made both a Titan and a solar deity.^[184] Several gods addressed in the Orphic Hymns – Mise, Hipta, and Melinoe – have little or no literary attestation beyond the Hymns, and were unknown outside the collection until their discovery in inscriptions from Asia Minor.^[185] This epigraphic evidence, which is roughly contemporaneous with the Hymns,^[186] indicates deities such as Mise and Hipta were not invented by the collection's author.^[187] The Hymns also contain several references to well-known foreign deities such as Men, a god worshipped in Asia Minor, and the Egyptian goddess Isis.^[177]

A number of the gods featured in the Hymns are identified with one another.^[188] Through attributing similar characteristics to two different deities, the collection can bring these gods closer to each other, almost to the point of them merging;^[189] these pairs of gods are not completely assimilated, however, as each deity, while adopting features of the other god, still retains their own individual characteristics.^[190] Although Jane Ellen Harrison, writing at the beginning of the 20th century, saw this identifying tendency as conferring upon the collection an "atmosphere of mystical monotheism",^[191] this idea of a monotheistic bent to the Hymns has been rejected by more recent scholars.^[192] Giulia Sfameni Gasparro argues that the collection should instead be understood as henotheistic, revolving around the chief deity of Dionysus, who is simultaneously singular and multifarious.^[193] Two deities who are prominently identified with one another in the collection are Dionysus and Protogonos: both are described at times as possessing bull-like features, or as being "dual" or "double" in nature, and Dionysus, in his own hymn, is at one point directly addressed as "Protogonos".^[194] Other examples of deities who are identified with each other in the Hymns include Artemis and Hecate,^[195] Rhea and the Mother of the Gods,^[196] and Demeter and Mother Antaia.^[197] Scholars have also noted the similarity between how deities are identified in the Hymns and other works of Orphic literature,^[198] with the collection seeming to follow an existing Orphic tradition in linking certain pairs of gods.^[199]

Transmission and scholarship

Textual history

A page from the Leidensis BPG 74C manuscript, which dates to the 15th century, and is part of the φ (phi) family.^[200] This page contains the first 18 lines of the proem.

There are no extant references to the Orphic Hymns from antiquity;^[201] hymns attributed to Orpheus are mentioned in works such as the Derveni papyrus (4th century BC) and Pausanias's Description of Greece (2nd century AD), though these almost certainly do not refer to the collection of eighty-seven hymns.^[202] The earliest definite reference to the Hymns comes from the Byzantine writer John Diaconus Galenus, who has been dated to the 12th century AD.^[204] Galenus mentions the collection thrice in his commentary on Hesiod's Theogony,^[205] referring to epithets from the hymns to Helios and Selene,^[206] and quoting lines from those to Helios and Hecate;^[207] he notes "Orpheus" as the source in all three citations,^[208] and at one point mentions fragrances in reference to the collection, indicating he possessed a manuscript which contained offerings.^[209] Although no extant references to the Hymns exist before Galenus, the collection would have been known in literary circles in the centuries following its composition, and it may have influenced later works such as the Orphic Argonautica (4th century AD) and the Dionysiaca of Nonnus (5th century AD).^[210]

At some point between the 5th to 13th century AD, the Orphic Hymns were collected into a single codex, which also contained the Homeric Hymns, the Orphic Argonautica, and the Hymns of Callimachus and Proclus.^[211] The earliest known codex containing the Orphic Hymns to arrive in Western Europe was brought to Venice from Constantinople by Giovanni Aurispa in 1423,^[212] and shortly afterwards, in 1427, Francesco Filelfo brought to Italy another codex containing the collection; both of these manuscripts are now lost.^[214] The surviving codices, of which there are around forty, all date between about 1450 and 1550, and often include the Orphic Argonautica, the Homeric Hymns, Hesiodic works, and the Hymns of Callimachus and Proclus.^[215]

Most (or perhaps all) of the extant codices descend from a single archetype, denoted in scholarship by the siglum Ψ (psi),^[217] which probably dated to the 12th or 13th century,^[218] and was a paper manuscript with text written in minuscule;^[220] it arrived in Italy in the first half of the 15th century,^[221] and may have been the manuscript transported by Aurispa to Venice.^[222] From this manuscript were derived four apographs (or transcribed copies) – namely φ (phi), θ (theta), A, and B, in chronological order of transcription – which were produced as the archetype gradually suffered damage.^[223] Various further manuscripts are descended from the subarchetypes φ and θ,^[224] with both manuscripts being recoverable only from these descendants,^[225] while A and B, which omit the Homeric Hymns (and in the latter case the Hymns of Callimachus also), are preserved in surviving editions.^[226] Another extant manuscript, h, is of less clear origin, and may not have derived its text from Ψ; West suggests that in one hymn it takes from a separate source.^[227]

In the latter part of the 15th century, Marsilio Ficino, a Neoplatonist, translated the Orphic Hymns into Latin as a youth, seemingly producing the first translation of the collection, though it remained unpublished.^[228] The editio princeps of the Hymns was produced in Florence in 1500 by Filippo Giunta;^[229] this codex, denoted in scholarship by the siglum Iunt, is descended from φ.^[230] This was followed by the publication of an edition by the Aldine Press in 1517, and the first printing of a translation (into Latin) of the collection in 1519, written by Marcus Musurus.^[231] By the end of the 16th century, a total of six editions had been published,^[232] including the 1566 edition by Henri Estienne.^[233] Estienne's volume remained the standard edition of the text for the following two centuries, until the publication, in 1764, of Johann Matthias Gesner's Orphica, which included a number of corrections that had been put forward by 18th-century scholars.^[234]

Editions of the Hymns from prior centuries were surpassed by the version of the text in the voluminous 1805 collection of Orphic literature by Gottfried Hermann.^[18] Hermann proposed over 170 corrections to the text of the Hymns, and his edition was the first to contain a critical apparatus.^[235] He was also the first scholar to split the hymn to Hecate from the proem, presenting it as the first hymn in the collection,^[236] a choice which almost all subsequent editions have followed.^[237] The first complete English translation of the collection was produced in 1787 by the Neoplatonist Thomas Taylor, and the first complete German translation, by David Karl Philipp Dietsch, was published in 1822.^[238] Hermann's edition of Orphic literature was followed in 1885 by that of Jenő Ábel [de], whose edition of the Hymns was pilloried by subsequent scholars, particularly for its lack of consideration of the manuscript tradition.^[239] The critical edition by Wilhelm Quandt (to which Paul Maas contributed)^[240] was published in 1941, followed in 1955 by its second edition.^[241] Quandt sought to provide an accurate reconstruction of Ψ, with the exception of a number of what he perceived to be spelling errors in the archetype, which he corrects;^[242] his rendering of Ψ has served as the basis of subsequent editions.^[216] Recent versions of the Hymns include the 1977 English translation by Apostolos Athanassakis, the first since Taylor's,^[243] the 2000 edition, with Italian translation and commentary, by Gabriela Ricciardelli,^[244] and the 2014 Budé edition by Marie-Christine Fayant, with French translation and commentary.^[245]

Reception and scholarship

But as was the custom of the ancient Theologians, Orpheus so wove the mysteries of his doctrines into the fabric of myths, and disguised them with a cloak of poetry, that anyone reading his hymns would believe there is nothing in them but the most unadulterated stories and trifles.

Sed qui erat veterum mos Theologorum, ita Orpheus dogmatum mysteria fabularum intexit involucris, et poetico velamento dissimulavit, ut si quis legat illius hymnos, nihil subesse credat praeter fabellas nugasque meracissimas.

— Pico della Mirandola on the Hymns, as translated by Daniel Malamis^[246]

In the mid 15th century, following the arrival of the codex brought by Aurispa to Venice, the Orphic Hymns seem to have attained a level of popularity amongst the educated of Renaissance Italy.^[247] This attention to the work may have been due to the Greek scholar and Neoplatonist Gemistos Plethon, who visited Florence around this time;^[248] Plethon is known to have been familiar with the Orphic Hymns,^[249] having produced an autograph of a selection of the hymns^[250] (a codex which scholars have identified as the source of the h family of manuscripts).^[251] Ficino, whose work may have been influenced by Plethon, believed that the Hymns were the genuine writings of Orpheus,^[249] and appears to have had a liking for singing their contents, believing that the collection was capable of "bringing the human soul into alignment with the harmonies of the heavens".^[252] Subsequent Renaissance writers, such as Pico della Mirandola, viewed the Hymns as having deep theological doctrines hidden within them, and saw the various gods they mention as merely aspects of a single, underlying god.^[253]

In the 1540s, Agostino Steuco and Giglio Gregorio Giraldi put forward the idea that the collection was the work of another Orpheus, who supposedly lived long after the original Orpheus was believed to have existed.^[254] Daniel Heinsius, writing in 1627, attributed the collection to the Athenian Onomacritus (6th to 5th century BC), to whom Orphic poetry had sometimes been ascribed in antiquity, and this idea of the Onomacritan authorship of the Hymns became the dominant view in the 17th century.^[255] By 1689, Henri Estienne had expressed scepticism towards this attribution, while in the mid-18th century Jean-Baptiste Souchay [fr] wrote that Onomacritus had simply modified the dialect of the Orphic Hymns to Ionic Greek, but that they were genuinely written by Orpheus,^[256] having been produced earlier than the 5th century BC.^[257]

In the late 18th century, the Göttingen school of history lambasted the idea that Orphic literature was a product of early antiquity; Johann Gottlob Schneider argued, on the basis of their lack of mention among ancient authors, that the Orphic Hymns were produced in late antiquity (probably in the 3rd century AD) for use in the debate over Orphism and Orpheus at that time between Christian and Neoplatonic apologists.^[258] Schneider decried the Hymns as a "hogwash of mystical sayings and allegorical prattlings", while his contemporary, Christoph Meiners, described their style as horridus, and supported a late dating, viewing the collection as containing a kind of confused Stoicism.^[259] Around the same time, in 1780, Dietrich Tiedemann argued that the individual hymns in the collection were of highly diverse origins and dates,^[260] with the surviving collection of Orphic Hymns simply being a compilation.^[261] In contrast to this sceptical approach, Taylor, writing in his translation of the Hymns, adopted a mystical view of the collection, and claimed they had belonged to the Eleusinian Mysteries (a Greek mystery cult from Eleusis).^[262]

At the start of the 19th century, scholars such as Georg Friedrich Creuzer and Friedrich Sickler believed that the Hymns, while composed in (or possibly after) the Hellenistic period, were a later rendering of a much earlier collection.^[263] Christian Lobeck, writing in his 1829 work Aglaophamus, held that the collection was composed by an individual from the Byzantine era,^[264] and rejected the idea of them belonging to a cult community, believing that their author produced them as a scholarly exercise.^[265] Several decades later, Christian Petersen posed a challenge to Lobeck's view, arguing that the collection showed a strong influence of Stoic thought, as indicated by the appearance of certain Stoic personifications, and the tendency to treat deities as though they are aspects of nature.^[266] On the basis of this perceived Stoic influence, he dated the collection to around the 1st or 2nd centuries AD.^[14]

In the late 19th century, excavations in western Asia Minor brought to light epigraphic evidence which led to the establishment of the idea that the Orphic Hymns had been liturgical in function.^[267] The discovery, around the time of Petersen's work, of inscriptions containing the word boukólos (βουκόλος) (a religious title which appears in the Hymns), led Rudolf Schöll to postulate in 1879 that the Hymns had belonged to a Bacchic mystery group.^[268] Around a decade later, Albrecht Dieterich, in a study of the Hymns recognised by scholars as definitively establishing their ritual nature,^[269] concluded that the collection belonged to a cult community which engaged in mysteries, and judged that this group possessed an internal hierarchy.^[270] He dated the collection to around the 1st or 2nd centuries BC,^[271] and locates its origins to a coastal region of either Asia Minor or Egypt (with him favouring the city of Alexandria as its location).^[272] Ernst Maass, writing in 1895, claimed that the term boukólos referred to Orpheus himself,^[273] while, ten years later, Zdenko Baudnik studied in detail the Stoic characteristics of the Hymns, and supported the idea of an Alexandrian origin.^[274]

Around the beginning of the 20th century, the discovery of inscriptions in western Asia Minor to deities featured in the Hymns, such as Hipta, Erikepaios, and Melinoe, led Otto Kern to conclude in 1910 that the collection was composed in Asia Minor, for use by a Dionysian cult;^[275] a year later, he argued that the Hymns originated specifically from Pergamon, and that the cult community which used them existed at the sanctuary of Demeter in the city, where inscriptions to a number of deities addressed in the collection had been discovered.^[277] His view that the Hymns originated in Asia Minor received widespread acceptance, though his argument that their location could be narrowed down to Pergamon was treated with greater scepticism.^[278] Kern later argued, in 1940, that the surviving collection is the product of an originally Dionysian work having been edited by a Stoic interpolator, who attached the proem and further hymns.^[279]

Following the publication of Kern's papers on the location of the Hymns' composition, scholars such as Felix Jacoby and W. K. C. Guthrie argued that the collection belonged to an Orphic society,^[280] though the latter considered it improbable that the group was "Orphic in the strict sense of accepting the whole body of Orphic dogma".^[281] In 1930, Leonard van Liempt studied the collection's vocabulary, concluding that it was similar to that used in 3rd- and 4th-century AD poetry.^[282] Several years later, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff would judge that the Hymns lacked all poetic merit, and half a century afterwards, in 1983, Martin Litchfield West would dismiss them as evidence merely of "cheerful and inexpensive dabbling in religion by a literary-minded burgher and his friends".^[283] After the publication of Quandt's edition, the Hymns received little attention until towards the end of the 20th century,^[284] when scholarly interest in the collection was rekindled, driven mainly by the work of Jean Rudhardt [fr].^[244] In the wake of Rudhardt's writings, the 21st-century scholarship of the Hymns has, according to Daniel Malamis, moved beyond the view held by scholars such as Wilamowitz and West that they were "trivial or low-brow", with recent scholars focusing in particular on the "ritual and performative aspect" of the collection.^[285]

List of the Orphic Hymns

No.	Title (usually including offering)	Addressee	Identity of Addressee	Lines	Content	Ref.
1	None[287]	Hecate	Sepulchral goddess in Greek religion[288]	10	Connects her with Artemis, associates her with the Moon[289]	[290]
2	"Offering of Prothyraia, storax"	Prothyraia	Epithet of Hecate, Eileithyia, and Artemis[291]	14	Assimilates her with Artemis, celebrates her role in promoting childbirth[292]	[293]
3	"Offering of Nyx, firebrands"	Nyx	Personification of Night in the Theogony[294]	14	Describes her as mother of gods and men, calls her Cypris, an epithet of Aphrodite[295]	[296]
4	"Offering of Ouranos, frankincense"	Uranus	Father of the Titans in the Theogony[297]	9	Emphasises his antiquity, identifies him with the cosmos[298]	[299]
5	"Offering of Aither, saffron"	Aether	Uppermost level of the atmosphere[300]	6	Describes it as the dwelling of Zeus[301]	[299]
6	"Offering of Protogonos, myrrh"	Protogonos	Important god in Orphic literature[302]	11	Portrays him similarly to Orphic tradition, as born from an egg in a burst of light[303]	[304]
7	"Offering of the Stars, spices"	Stars	The stars, treated as divinities[305]	13	Describes them as children of Night, and as controlling human destiny[306]	[307]
8	"Offering for Helios, gum of frankincense"	Helios	God with a cult from at least Homer's time[308]	20	Describes him as a Titan, refers to him under the name Hyperion[309]	[310]
9	"Offering for Selene, spices"	Selene	Daughter of Hyperion in the Theogony[311]	12	Focuses on her astronomical role as the moon, calls her "mother of time"[312]	[313]
10	"Offering of Physis, spices"	Physis	Nature, sometimes a personification in philosophical literature[314]	30	Depicts Physis as a mysterious force which pervades the world[315]	[316]
11	"Offering of Pan, various"	Pan	God who is half-goat, initially from Arcadia[317]	23	Represents him as rustic god, who protects shepherds, and as a cosmic god[318]	[319]
12	"Offering of Herakles, frankincense"	Heracles	Greek hero who performs labours[320]	16	Describes him as a solar deity, seemingly identifies him with Apollo[321]	[322]
13	"Offering of Kronos, storax"	Cronus	Youngest of the Titans[323]	10	Addresses him as controller of the cosmos, and of natural activity[324]	[325]
14	"Offering of Rhea, spices"	Rhea	Titan and mother of Zeus[326]	14	Calls her the daughter of Protogonos, identifies her with Cybele[327]	[328]
15	"Offering of Zeus, storax"	Zeus	Ruler of the cosmos in the Theogony[329]	11	Characterises him similarly to the regular Greek tradition[330]	[331]
16	"Offering of Hera, spices"	Hera	Wife of Zeus, daughter of Cronus[332]	10	Identifies her with the air[333]	[334]
17	"Offering of Poseidon, myrrh"	Poseidon	God of the sea, brother of Zeus[335]	10	Addresses him as ruler of the sea, and as being able to shake the earth[336]	[337]
18	"For Pluto"	Pluto	Name for Hades, originally a separate god[338]	19	Describes him in his role as an underworld god[339]	[340]
19	"Offering of Zeus Keraunos, storax"	Zeus Keraunios	"Zeus the Thunderer"[343]	23	Provides a detailed physical description of the thunderbolt[344]	[345]
20	"Offering of Zeus Astrapeus, gum of frankincense"	Zeus Astrapeus	Zeus "of the lightning"[346]	6	Describes the sight and sound of Zeus's lightning, and its dangerous power[347]	[348]
21	"Offering of the Nephe, myrrh"	Nephe	Clouds[349]	7	Treats them as natural phenomena, producing rain and thunder[349]	[350]
22	"Offering of Thalassa, gum of frankincense"	Thalassa	Sea[351]	10	Identifies her with Tethys[352]	[353]
23	"Offering of Nereus: myrrh"	Nereus	Son of Pontus in the Theogony[354]	8	Associates him with earthquakes[355]	[356]
24	"Offering of the Nereids, spices"	Nereids	Daughters of Nereus and Doris[355]	12	Describes them as revealing the rite of Bacchus and Persephone[357]	[358]
25	"Offering of Proteus, storax"	Proteus	An "Old Man of the Sea" in the Odyssey[357]	25	Describes him as all-knowing, and asks him to give foresight[359]	[360]
26	"Offering of Ge, every seed except beans and spices"	Gaia	Earth, a mother goddess[361]	11	Describes her as providing nourishment,[362] and also treats her as a cosmic body[363]	[364]
27	"Offering of the Mother of the Gods, various"	Mother of the Gods	Cybele, a Phrygian goddess[365]	14	Identifies her with Rhea, as well as Hestia[366]	[367]
28	"Offering of Hermes, frankincense"	Hermes	Son of Zeus and Maia[368]	12	Emphasises his role in the domain of language[368]	[369]
29	"Hymn of Persephone"	Persephone	Daughter of Zeus and Demeter, abducted by Hades[370]	20	Depicts her as dual, as both a fertility goddess and queen of the underworld[371]	[372]
30	"Offering of Dionysos, storax"	Dionysus	God described as being born three times[373]	9	Describes him as son of Zeus and Persephone, identifies him with Protogonos[374]	[375]
31	"Hymn of the Kouretes"	Kouretes[376]	Group of men who noisily dance around the infant Zeus[377]	7	Connects them to mountains, uses epithets which allude to their part in Zeus's infancy[378]	[379]
32	"Offering of Athena, spices"	Athena	Major Greek deity, popular in cult[380]	17	In addition to typical descriptions, associates her with mountains and caves[381]	[382]
33	"Offering of Nike, manna"	Nike	Victory, daughter of Styx and Pallas[383]	9	Associates her with war[384]	[385]
34	"Offering of Apollo, manna"	Apollo	Major Greek god, son of Zeus and Leto[386]	27	Presents a traditional depiction, then addresses him as a cosmic solar god[387]	[388]
35	"Offering of Leto, myrrh"	Leto	Mother of Apollo and Artemis[389]	7	Emphasis her role as mother of her children[390]	[391]
36	"Offering of Artemis, manna"	Artemis	Sister of Apollo, connected with Asia Minor[392]	16	Depicts her traditionally, as a hunting goddess, and goddess of childbirth[395]	[396]
37	"Offering of the Titans, frankincense"	Titans	Twelve offspring of Earth and Sky[397]	9	Describes them as ancestors of all living creatures[399]	[400]
38	"Offering of the Kouretes, frankincense"	Kouretes[401]	Group of men who noisily dance around the infant Zeus[377]	25	Portrays them as being winds, describes them as living on Samothrace[402]	[403]
39	"Offering of Korybant, frankincense"	Corybant	Singular form of "Corybantes", figures who worship Cybele[404]	10	Describes him as capable of dispelling fears[405]	[406]
40	"Offering of Demeter Eleusinia, storax"	Eleusinian Demeter	Major fertility deity, goddess of agriculture[407]	20	Describes her as the first to have harvested crops, calls her "torch-bearing"[408]	[409]
41	"Offering of Mother Antaia, spices"	Mother Antaia	Name for Demeter[410]	10	Describes her search for Persephone in the underworld[412]	[413]
42	"Offering of Mise, storax"	Mise	Goddess attested in Anatolian inscriptions[414]	11	Identifies her with Dionysus, describes her as the daughter of Isis[415]	[416]
43	"Offering of the Horai, spices"	Horae	Personifications of the seasons[417]	11	Connects them with nature, references Persephone's return from the underworld[418]	[419]
44	"Offering of Semele, storax"	Semele	Mother of Dionysus by Zeus[420]	11	Alludes to her death upon witnessing Zeus's true form[421]	[422]
45	"Hymn of Dionysos Bassareus Trieterikos"	Dionysus Bassareus Trieterikos	Manifestation of Dionysus[424]	7	References a "maenadic ritual", mentions Dionysus's thyrsus[425]	[426]
46	"Offering of Liknites, manna"	Liknites	Cult title of Dionysus[428]	8	Associates Dionysus with vegetation, describes Persephone as his nurse[429]	[430]
47	"Offering of Perikionios, spices"	Perikionios	Manifestation of Dionysus[432]	6	Describes his protection of Cadmus's palace[433]	[434]
48	"Offering of Sabazios, spices"	Sabazius	God from Phrygia, honoured in Greek cult[435]	6	Describes him as stitching Dionysus into his thigh[436]	[437]
49	"Offering of Hipta, storax"	Hipta	Goddess mentioned in Lydian inscriptions[438]	7	Describes her as rearing Dionysus, and as glorifying the rite of Sabazios[439]	[440]
50	"(Hymn) of Lysios Lenaios"	Lysios Lenaios	Two epithets of Dionysus[441]	10	Associates Dionysus with vegetation,[442] calls him "Epaphian"[444]	[445]
51	"Offering of the Nymphs, spices"	Nymphs	Young women who are nature divinities[446]	19	Describes them as "nurses of Bacchus", and daughters of Oceanus[447]	[448]
52	"Offering of Trieterikos, spices"	Trieterikos	Dionysus, god of the trieterides[449]	13	Calls Dionysus "of many names", applies numerous epithets to him[450]	[451]
53	"Offering of Amphietes, everything except frankincense, and offer milk"	Amphietes	Dionysus[452]	10	Describes Dionysus as "chthonic", associates him with vegetation[453]	[454]
54	"Offering of Silenos, Satyros, Bakkhai, manna"	Silenus, Satyrs, Bacchae	Figures in the thiasos of Dionysus[453]	11	Describes Silenus as leading the Naiads and Bacchae in the Lenaian rite[455]	[456]
55	"For Aphrodite"	Aphrodite	Goddess of love and sex[457]	29	Calls Necessity her daughter, lists locations of significance to her[458]	[459]
56	"Offering of Adonis, spices"	Adonis	Fertility god, Near Eastern in origin[460]	12	Identifies him with Dionysus, says he is born of Persephone[460]	[461]
57	"Offering of Hermes Chthonios, storax"	Hermes Chthonius	Chthonic Hermes, associated with the dead[462]	12	Calls him the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite[463]	[464]
58	"Offering of Eros, spices"	Eros	One of the earliest gods in the Theogony[465]	10	Describes him as "playing" with gods and mortals, calls him "two-natured"[466]	[467]
59	"Offering of the Moirai, spices"	Moirai	The Fates, often three in number[466]	21	Tells of their cosmic abode, and how they look over mortals[468]	[469]
60	"Offering of the Charites, storax"	Charites	Female deities, often associated with the Horae[470]	7	Calls them daughters of Lawfulness (a Hora)[471]	[472]
61	"Hymn of Nemesis"	Nemesis	Goddess who punishes transgressive mortals[473]	12	Describes her as monitoring the speech and thoughts of mortals[474]	[475]
62	"Offering of Dike, frankincense"	Dike	Hora in the Theogony[476]	11	Refers to her "all-seeing eye", mentions her as having a place on Zeus's throne[476]	[477]
63	"Offering of Dikaiosyne, frankincense"	Dikaiosyne	Goddess difficult to distinguish from Dike[478]	16	Connects her with the image of scales[479]	[480]
64	"Hymn of Nomos"	Nomos	Law, sometimes the father of Dike or Dikaiosyne[481]	13	Describes him as law operating in the cosmic and mortal realms[482]	[483]
65	"Offering of Ares, frankincense"	Ares	God of war[484]	9	Calls him Cypris, an epithet of Aphrodite, and Lyaeus, an epithet of Dionysus[485]	[486]
66	"Offering of Hephaistos, gum of frankincense"	Hephaestus	Blacksmith god, often the son of Zeus and Hera[485]	13	Refers to Hephaestus as the element of fire, in the universe and the body[487]	[488]
67	"Offering of Asklepios, manna"	Asclepius	Divine physician, with some worship[489]	9	Calls him Paean, an epithet of Apollo, calls him Apollo's son[490]	[491]
68	"Offering of Hygeia, manna"	Hygeia	Health, often associated with Asclepius[492]	13	States that she is adored by everyone, except for Hades[493]	[494]
69	"Offering of the Erinnyes, storax and manna"	Erinyes	Female figures who enact vengeance upon criminals[495]	17	Places their home next to the River Styx, describes them similarly to the Moirai[496]	[497]
70	"Offering of the Eumenides, spices"	Eumenides	The "benevolent aspect" of the Erinyes[498]	11	Describes them as even more petrifying than in the previous hymn[499]	[500]
71	"Offering of Melinoe, spices"	Melinoe	Goddess with no literary attestation elsewhere[501]	12	Connects her with Hecate, describes her as Persephone's daughter[502]	[503]
72	"Offering of Tyche, frankincense"	Tyche	Goddess of fortune and fate[504]	10	Says she is born from the blood of Eubuleus, identifies her with Artemis[504]	[505]
73	"Offering of Daimon, frankincense"	Daimon	Figure similar to Tyche[506]	9	Calls him Zeus, applies the epithet ploutodoten ('giver of wealth') to him[507]	[508]
74	"Offering of Leukothea, storax"	Leucothea	Sea goddess[509]	10	Calls her a nurse of Dionysus,[510] asks her to save boats at sea[511]	[512]
75	"Offering of Palaimon, manna"	Palaemon	Sea god, who was originally Melicertes[513]	8	Places him as part of the thiasos of Dionysus[514]	[515]
76	"Offering of the Muses, frankincense"	Muses	Daughters of Zeus and Persephone[516]	12	Describes them as teaching the mysteries[517]	[518]
77	"Offering of Mnemosyne, frankincense"	Mnemosyne	Mother of the Muses by Zeus[519]	10	Describes her as being able to revive memories[520]	[521]
78	"Offering of Eos, manna"	Eos	Dawn, who rises at the edge of the world each morning[522]	13	Describes the light she brings each day, and how she dispels sleep[523]	[524]
79	"Offering of Themis, frankincense"	Themis	One of the Titans, sometimes assimilated with Earth[525]	12	Calls her the first to establish oracular sites and the worship of Bacchus[526]	[527]
80	"Offering of Boreas, frankincense"	Boreas	North wind[528]	6	Describes him as hailing from Thrace[529]	[530]
81	"Offering of Zephyros, frankincense"	Zephyrus	West wind[529]	6	Puts emphasis on the sea[531]	[530]
82	"Offering of Notos, frankincense"	Notus	South wind[532]	7	Asks him to bring clouds which will produce rain[533]	[534]
83	"Offering of Okeanos, spices"	Oceanus	River encircling the world according to Homer[535]	9	Calls him the progenitor of the gods, describes him as encompassing the world[535]	[536]
84	"Offering of Hestia, spices"	Hestia	Goddess of the hearth[537]	8	Contains earth-related phrases which link her with Gaia and Hades[538]	[539]
85	"Offering of Hypnos, with poppy"	Hypnos	Sleep, twin brother of Death in the Iliad[540]	10	Calls him the brother of Death and Oblivion[541]	[542]
86	"Offering of Oneiros, spices"	Oneiros	A "disastrous" Dream[543]	18	Depicted as a bringer of revelations during sleep[544]	[545]
87	"Offering of Thanatos, manna"	Thanatos	Death, brother to Sleep and child of Night[546]	12	Asks him for a long life, describes him as dissolving (ἐκλύης) the bonds of life[547]	[548]

Editions and translations

• Taylor, Thomas (1824) [1787], The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus, C. Whittingham, Chiswick. OCLC 913055190. English translation.
• Hermann, G. (1805), Orphica, Leipzig, C. Fritsch. OCLC 3332126. Internet Archive. Greek edition with Latin critical apparatus.
• Dietsch, David Karl Philipp (1822), Die Hymnen des Orpheus: griechisch und deutsch, Erlangen, Palm und Enke Verlag. OCLC 310526470. German translation with Greek text.
• Abel, Eugenius (1885), Orphica, Leipzig, Sumptibus Fecit G. Freytag. OCLC 983822311. Internet Archive. Greek edition with Latin critical apparatus.
• Plassmann, J. O. (1928), Orpheus: Altgriechische Mysteriengesänge, Jena, Diederichs. OCLC 10027445. German translation.
• Quandt, Wilhelm (1955), Orphei Hymni, Berlin, Weidmann. OCLC 22971774. Greek edition with Latin critical apparatus.
• Charvet, Pascal (1995), La Prière: Les Hymnes d'Orphée, Paris, NiL Éditions. ISBN 2841110265. French translation.
• Athanassakis, Apostolos N. (1977), The Orphic Hymns: Text, Translation, and Notes, Atlanta, Scholars Press. ISBN 0891301194. English translation with Greek text.
• Ricciardelli, Gabriella (2000), Inni Orfici, Milan, Mondadori. ISBN 8804476613. Greek edition with Italian translation.
• Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow (2013), The Orphic Hymns, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9781421408828. Internet Archive. English translation. A revised edition of Athanassakis's 1977 translation.^[549]
• Fayant, Marie-Christine (2014), Hymnes Orphiques, Collection Budé, Paris, Les Belles Lettres. ISBN 9782251005935. Greek edition with French translation.