The Orphic Hymn to Hekate

The Orphic Hymn to Hekate

 

 

Εἰνοδίην Ἑκάτην κλῄιζω, τριοδῖτιν, ἐραννήν,

οὐρανίην, χθονίαν τε, καὶ εἰναλίην κροκόπεπλον,

τυμβιδίην, ψυχαῖς νεκύων μέτα βακχεύουσαν,

Πέρσειαν, φιλέρημον, ἀγαλλομένην ἐλάφοισιν,

νυκτερίην, σκυλακῖτιν, ἀμαιμάκετον βασίλειαν,

ταυροπόλον, παντὸς κόσμου κληιδοῦχον ἄνασσαν,

ἡγεμόνην, νύμφην, κουροτρόφον, οὐρεσιφοῖτιν,

λισσόμενοις κούρην τελεταῖς ὁσίαισι παρεῖναι

βουκόλῳ εὐμενέουσαν ἀεὶ κεχαρηότι θυμῷ.

 

 

O Hecate of crossroads, come to me!

You rule sky, earth, and sea in saffron robes.

At home among the dead you wildly dance,

o Persian, fond of solitude and deer!

Unconquerable queen of dogs and night,

bull-mistress, key to all the cosmos, queen!

O nymph who nurtures babes and rules the hills,

We pray you, lady, see our sacrifice,

enjoy the incense, smile upon your shepherd

 

 

     The Orphic hymns have been rather neglected by admirers of ancient poetry. They are still to find a place in the Loeb’s Library series and they have attracted very few translators [1] and little comment. Ignoring the priorities of scholarship, though, neo-pagans have adopted the poems, sometimes with the hope that the verses retain magic efficacy. In fact, from the time of their composition these poems have been found in contexts of ritual and cult rather than of literature. For that reason they yield accurate information about ancient religious practice. Yet such data are sometimes self-contradictory. Often, like the book of Genesis, such texts are collages of materials added at different times or for different purposes.

     The book of hymns opens with an invocation to Musaios, the legendary son of Orpheus considered the founder of religious poetry in Greece. Just as in the Indian Vedas, the priestly concern is to define sacrificial procedures. Musaeus is asked to attend “to learn what rites to sacrifice belong,” and only then does the poet invoke a long list of deities including all the Olympians with the exception of Aphrodite as well as a raft of other deities. [2] It looks rather as though the author were anxious not to pass over any powerful figure that might resent the omission. [3]

     The fact that Hekate is the first divinity to receive more than a mention may relate to her role in Orphism which, like most of the other mystery cults of the ancient world as well, is salvationist, promising devotees eternal life. Hekate is often conflated with Diana, Demeter, and Proserpine. Each of these deities has to do with the renewal of life, the first through the annual cycle of animal and vegetable rebirth and the second and third through myths involving their visiting the world of the dead and returning.

     Orphism and Hekate have also strong ties to Dionysos, another deity associated with death and rebirth. Hekate is said to do specifically Bacchic dances, and Orphism is Thracian in origin, as is Sabazios the chief Thracian deity, depicted on horseback, but later identified with Dionysos. [4] Another god absorbed within Dionysos’ cult in antiquity is Zagreus who was identified with rites in which sacrificial animals were torn to pieces and eaten raw reenacting Dionysos’ omophagia by the Titans. Orpheus and Dionysos have in common the pattern of death and rebirth which encourages the worshipper to hope for a similar individual victory over death. [5]

     Hecate is thus woven into a mythic texture preoccupied with rebirth. The fact that her powers are regarded as a gift from Zeus implies her receptiveness in turn to the requests of pious petitioners, and, in fact, this hymn is a prayer, seeking to establish contact with the deity in order to ask for favor. The incense mentioned in the last line is an inducement, as is the praise implicit in the catalogue of divine attributes. This catalogue of titles formally resembles such Catholic prayers as the invocation to Mary called the Litany of Loreto.

     The goddess’ epithets define a capacious but not boundless identity. Of the eighteen attributes in this rhetoric of the divine four are simple honorifics, calling attention to the status of the deity and: leader (ἡγεμόνην), irresistible, (ἀμαιμάκετον), queen (βασίλειαν), and nymph (νύμφην). Her governance in land, sea, and air is sanctioned by Hesiod. [6]

     The terms queen and nymph acknowledge her femininity and draw on the archaic worship of the earth goddess typical of the Neolithic era, assigning Hekate governance of the world of nature. This realm of governance is elaborated as frequenter of mountain wilds (οὐρεσιφοῖτιν), protector of dogs (σκυλακῖτιν), delighting in deer (ἀγαλλομένην ἐλάφοισιν), and bull mistress (ταυροπόλον) [7]. Her association with the earth’s vital energy and the flourishing of game and wild animals in general leads to her role as nurturer of children (κουροτρόφον), [8]

     She is associated in general with hidden things, mysteries signified by solitude (φιλέρημον) and the night (νυκτερίην), and this, together with her role as an intercessor for humans, suggests that she is at home among the dead (τυμβιδίην). Her identification as a witch and her role as an aid in magic arises from this nexus.

     She is identified with crossroads (Εἰνοδίην), in particular with locations where three roads meet (τριοδῖτιν). Americans will think of Robert Johnsons’ “Cross Road Blues” in which the singer prays at a crossroad. Though the interpretation of Johnson’s lyrics remains disputed, it is likely that the setting derives its supernatural associations from the Yoruba orisha Eshu [9]. The tripling parallels Hekate’s representation in art as three figures as well as recalling another figure depicted as three and associated with crossroads and with magic, Diana Trivia. [10] In the most general sense, crossroads suggest boundaries, including the liminal space between heaven and earth, as well as decision points as in the motif of Hercules at the crossroads.

     What I have rendered as Hekate’s saffron robes is in Greek crocus robes (κροκόπεπλον) which recalls the mortal Krokus who, in a doubling of the story of Apollo and Hyakinthus, was transformed into the flower after Hermes accidentally kills him or, in a different version, after he is disappointed in his love for the nymph Smilax. An archaic Minoan fresco on Santorini show women in such crocus/saffron robes gathering the stigmas and offering them to a goddess. Here, too, the focus is on the borderline between human and divine.

     The epithet Πέρσειαν has nothing to do with Persia, but rather refers simply to Hekate’s father, the Titan Perses. [11] Her influence over “sky, earth, and sea” is thus an example of particular favor from Zeus. Her devotees seek to share her auspicious good fortune through seeking her intercession.

     I have noted already the association with Dionysos implied when the goddess is said to dance wildly using the verb βακχεύουσαν which contains Bakkhos’ name and can be used simply to mean to observe his rites. He, like Hekate, is an intercessor deity, who in the account of his myth adopted by the Orphics actually died and was reborn.

     Perhaps Hekate’s followers, like the goddess herself, performed frenzied dances under divine enthusiasm. In these ecstasies, they may have tasted what they were promised by other salvationist cults, eternal blessedness. Indeed the ancient mysteries may have resembled nothing so much as a Pentecostal service.

     A disjuncture exists between the mythic identity of the goddess, though, and the personal prayer. On the one hand the goddess is conceived as the utterly other divine, that which cannot be controlled, linked to death and the eternal turning of the cosmic wheel, while, on the other hand, she has the role of potential grantor of poignant wishes such as those for life after death or for children or riches or the defeat of one’s enemies on the other. A similar pattern exists in other traditions as well. One may see the desire that Buddha sought to overcome embodied in the offerings, often junk foods like Mallomars, offered at his temples. The great gods of the ancient Near East who gather like flies to consume Utnapishtim’s blood sacrifice after the flood resemble the hungry and impotent dead Odysseus attracts with his. Thus while humans seek to obtain the divine gift of immortality, they also endow their gods with an all-too-human desire.

 

 

 

1. In 1787 Thomas Taylor published The Mystical Initiations or Hymns of Orpheus, with a preliminary Dissertation on the Life and Theology of Orpheus. Taylor was a Neoplatonist for whom these texts had a genuine spiritual appeal when read symbolically. He set it as his goal to translate all the untranslated works of the ancient philosophers. A modern translation of The Orphic Hymns was published by Apostolos N. Athanassakis and Benjamin M. Wolkow with an introduction and notes. A version by Stephen Dunn “for the occult practitioner” has also appeared.

 

2. The list includes others gods such as Proserpine, Hades, Dionysos, and Hebe; natural objects such as Gaia, Helios, Mene and the Brontoi; and abstractions such as Eileithyia, Dikaisyne, Eusebia, and Mnemosyne.

 

3. As, for instance, the evil fairy in Perrault’s “La belle au bois dormant.”

 

4. Curiously, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch, and others describe the Jews as worshippers of Dionysos through confusing the name Sabazios with the Hebrew sabaos (of the hosts”).

 

5. To Bertrand Russell (History of Western Philosophy) Pythagoras was a reformer of Orphism as Orpheus was a reformer of the religion of Dionysus.

 

6. Theogony 411 ff.

 

7. The exact meaning is uncertain. It may be associated with bull-herding or driving a bull cart or bull-fighting (perhaps bull-leaping or ταυροκαθάψια as practiced in ancient Crete).

 

8. An epithet she shares with Artemis, Eirena, and Hestia.

 

9. Eshu is also called Èṣù-Elegba and, in the New World Legba and number of variations. He is identified with crossroads, gateways and highways. A trickster, he represents in part the chance element in life. Among other gods also associated with crossroads are Hermes and Herakles and Odin. It would be natural to consider the Christian cross as signifying the meeting place of the divine and human planes.

 

10. Trivia is the earliest recorded epithet for Diana. She is often represented in art as a triple goddess as Hekate is as well. The factor of three is sometimes glossed as suggesting Diana’s three functions: huntress (earth), moon (heaven), and underworld. In Seneca’s play about her Medea calls on Trivia to accomplish her spell.

 

11. The name of Hekate’s Titan father Perses is related to πέρθω meaning to sack or destroy.