The Three Orphic Hymns to Zeus
New adaptations of three Orphic hymns plus a little commentary
The Orphic hymns are an inestimably valuable survival of the ancient Hellenic religious world. Containing hymns used by the Dionysus-centric Orphic cult during their rites, they are the largest and most detailed condensed collection of ancient Hellenic prayers currently known. There are currently two major firsthand translations of the Orphic hymns, those of Apostolos Athanassakis and Thomas Taylor. These works inhabit opposite ends of the stylistic spectrum; On the one hand, Athanassakis’ translation is quite literal and therefore useful for a more academic study. Taylor’s translation, meanwhile, is indeed written by and for a reader who is actually engaging in the worship of these hymns’ subjects. He is liberal with poetic adaptations and adheres strictly to metered verse. Although this makes for compelling reading, dated language and slightly shuffled composition can make the meaning of the words less accessible to unfamiliar readers. Because of this, I’ve spent the last few days taking select Orphic hymns (In their existent English translations) and attempting to adapt them into a new English prose which balances contemporary legibility with poetry, and, most importantly, a tone of genuine devotion which serves the very purpose of these hymns. I will be providing some commentary on each of these hymns, as well as links to PDFs of the two original translations by Athanassakis and Taylor at the bottom. Now, let us speak of Zeus, the king of the gods.
Orphic Hymn 15 - Zeus
Zeus, Highly honored, invincible God,
We offer our prayers, redeemer and cleanser,
Basileios whose crown brings light
To all that is divine and clear.
.
Mother Earth and towering mountains
And the sea and swirling stars
Array themselves in harmony
Beneath your thundering sceptre
.
Saturnian Jove, come clothed in the lightning,
Strong-hearted God, come wielding Thunder,
Uniter, creator, beginning and end,
Pantokrator, Father, Increaser, World-Shaker,
.
Purifying, nourishing, hear us, God
Sustaining life with many forms,
May you grant us spotless health
And with Eirene on your arm
Grant peace and wealth and cheerful honor
.
This hymn is the most basic and pleasant of the three, a general song of praise recounting some of the many functions Zeus serves in His cosmos with a focus on growth and generation. The references to purity and cleanliness are likely connected to this function of generation, as healthy creation requires clean ground and a clean source.
Orphic Hymn 19 - Thundering Zeus
Father Zeus, how sublime is the course which you drive
Through the fiery cosmos as it shrinks from your might,
Lofty, aithereal, your bottomless thundering
Shakes all the seats of the heavenly thrones.
.
The blaze of your fulmen illumines the rainclouds,
You drive storms and tempests and tireless gales,
Hurling the torrent of shrieking bolts;
Might and horror, burning missiles,
Pounding hearts and causing hairs to stoutly bristle
.
Holy and invincible, Sudden crash and endless spiral,
Driving, unbreakable, booming, omnivorous,
Irresistibly sharp smoking shafts of the gale,
Swooping down with fearful flashes,
Your celestial thunder’s rolling shine is mirrored
In the eyes of men and routing beasts
.
O blessed God who wields the thunder,
Shredding heaven’s silken girdle,
The furious waves and the stout windy summits
Bear witness to you, acclaiming you Sovereign
.
So may you, O God, receive in your power
The prayers and gifts which we give in your honor,
May you nurture our youths and, from your own abundance,
Grant lives ever-blooming with health and with cheer,
Blooming with wealth and with thoughts free of fear
.
This hymn adheres to a trend in the Orphic corpus of using violent, almost shocking imagery to induce a sense of awe and other-ness of the God in the worshipper. This is a thoroughly Dionysian practice and is on display in many of the hymns which refer to Dionysus - which is a lot, more than any other god by a wide margin. Zeus with his three hymns may actually be the runner-up to Dionysus, who has over ten.
Critics may assert that there is a sort of “demonic” or possible even “evil” character to this practice, but it is clear that the purpose of it is to remind mortals of our place in the cosmos. A philosophic interpretation of the practice would posit that it is in fact the incompleteness and smallness of man, not the malice of any God, which causes these magnificent forces to seem harmful when seen on the small scale of individual humans’ affairs.
Orphic Hymn 20 - Zeus Astrapaios
I call upon you, great and pure,
Resounding and illustrious,
You whose blazing, rushing fire
Shines through the aither and flashes in clouds
With the ear-splitting clap of the striker and victor
.
Incomparable God, wrathful and pure,
I call upon you, lord of lightning,
All-father, ruler, Basileios, judge,
May you look upon me kindly,
And make my life’s end proud and sweet
.
This last hymn is again partly a celebration of raw inhuman power, yet tempered slightly with the serenely worshipful tone of the first of the three hymns. What is of most interest here is the last line, the only instance in the Jovian hymns of calling upon the god specifically to make death easy. Such requests occur frequently throughout the Orphic corpus, especially when addressing liminal or chthonic deities. Also perhaps of some interest is that hymns 19 and 20 come not only after the first hymn to Zeus, 15, but also after the hymns to Poseidon and Hades, gods who are considered by many to be themselves aspects of a tripartite Zeus.
And finally, links to the original English translations:
Post-script: I have recently gained dozens, I think nearly a hundred, Hindu followers thanks to a thread of mine blowing up on their side of twitter. If any of you read this, I hope you enjoyed the opportunity to share in some of the genuine religiosity of European peoples before christianity wrenched us away from our shared polytheist heritage. If any of you wished to offer puja to Zeus, I can assure you that he is still present and will appreciate the gesture. In turn, I offer my thanks to Siva, Krsna, and Agni for maintaining our ritual connection to the gods on at least some portion of this earth.