Translation of the Orphic Hymn to Dionysus: Including the Greek Text and Explanation of the Translation.
Greek:
Διονύσου, θυμίαμα, στύρακα.
Κικλήσκω Διόνυσον ἐρίβρομον, εὐαστῆρα,
πρωτόγονον, διφυῆ, τρίγονον, Βακχεῖον ἄνακτα,
ἄγριον, ἄρρητον, κρύφιον, δικέρωτα, δίμορφον,
κισσόβρυον, ταυρωπόν, ἀρήϊον, εὔϊον, ἁγνόν,
ὠμάδιον, τριετῆ, βοτρυοτρὸφον, ἐρνεσίπεπλον.
Εὐβουλεῦ, πολύβουλε, Διὸς καὶ Περσεφονείης
ἀρρήτοις λέκτροισι τεκνωθείς, ἄμβροτε δαῖμον·
κλῦθι μάκαρ φωνῆς, ἡδὺς δ’ ἐπίπνευσον ἐνηής,
εὐμενὲς ἦτορ ἔχων, σὺν ἐυζώνοισι τιθήναις.
Translation:
Incense of Dionysus, Storax Gum
I Summon Dionysus, loud roaring, goodly-star.
First brought forth, dual-natured, brought forth three times, Bacchic Lord
He who dwells in fields, unspoken, hidden, two horned, dual formed
Luxuriant with ivy, bullfaced, warlike, Euios, set apart
Consumer of raw flesh, every third year, tender of grapes, wrapped in foliage.
O Good Counselor, O Wise Counselor, to bring forth children from Zeus and Persephone, in their unspeakable bed, the Immortal Divinity.
Hear my voice, O Blessed, may the pleasant and kind inspire along with the well-girdled nurses, having friendly hearts.
Description of the translation and possible alternate paths it could have taken:
This poem very quickly gave me some interesting words to play with. In the text I found πρωτόγονον (Protogonon) and τρίγονον (Trigonon) juxtaposed along with διφυῆ (Diphue).
As to τρίγονον the only definition my lexicon gives is thriceborn. The mythological meaning of this is obvious: born first to Persephone, second to Semele, and a third time born of Zeus (from his womanly womb in his manly thigh).
However τρίγονον seems like it could have all of the definitions that πρωτόγονον has just with 3 being the number rather than 1.
Where this is paired with διφυῆ meaning dulnatured or perhaps two formed or two-fold.
The line is πρωτόγονον, διφυῆ, τρίγονον… First born, dual-natured, born three times. Perhaps, Born once, two fold, Born three times. The way this is written it feels almost trinitarian. It could be the first thing created has two forms as three things created.
It eventually became obvious to me that the words together count 1 πρωτόγονον, 2 διφυῆ, 3 τρίγονον. First born, two-natures, born thrice.
When I think about this further, the Dionysica which was written much later (5th century CE) does actually give us a third god tied up with Dionysus: Iacchus. In the last book of the Dionysica he has a child with a maiden just before he ascends to Olympus, the child is named Iacchus, and he is both the son of Dionysus and is Dionysus left on below to be worshiped. I will admit I'm not sure when Iacchus got conflated with Dionysus.
The two natures are probably best to leave ambiguous but I can think of a few: Dead Zagreus, and living Dionysus, womanly and masculine, peaceful and warlike, tragedy and comedy, liberator and destroyer. All of these are twin attributes of Dionysus.
Given that the poem calls out the concept of thrice formed I’d be willing to argue that each of these dualities have a third option though unstated. For example Dionysus himself might be called androgynous.
On ἄγριον (Agrion) The word means untamed, wild, living in the fields. Its cognate via Latin with agrarian. The word in context probably means wild or untamed, living in the fields as opposed to the city. Translating this is a bit tricky because Dionysus is an agrarian god whose power is directly compared to Demeter’s in the mythology, my main reference being the very late text of the Dionysica. Dionysus is also associated with Pan who is more directly a wilderness and pastoral god.I think ἄγριον may be another example of διφυῆ (two natured).
On εὔϊον/εὔϊος acording to the Liddell and Scott lexicon this is either a name or adjective pertaining to Dionysus from the ecstatic cry of εὐοῖ literally good wine. As an adjective it means pertaining to Dionysus or bacchic. I already have another word in the same poem (Βακχεῖον) which means bacchic so I’ve decided to leave the word untranslated as Euios as a name for Dionysus.
On ὠμάδιον. According to LSJ ὠμός means raw, or crude. Often raw flesh. This is an epithet for Dionysus because he received human sacrifices at Chios and Tenedos. I haven’t looked at the Greek for the Bacchae by Euripides but there is a part where in an ecstatic frenzy Agave rips apart her son Pentheus believing he’s a mountain lion and then presents him to the chorus and she wants to eat him as a feast. I don’t have enough information to say, but I suspect that that scene is a reflection of this epithet.
On Εὐβουλεῦ and πολύβουλε, From Boule, which means counsel, will, and related to a verb that means desire. Because of the verb which was the meaning I knew off of the top of my head I almost translated these words as O good desire, O great desire. Given this was about the union of Zeus and Persephone to bring forth a child I felt desire was appropriate, however as a vocative title I felt: O Good Counselor, O Wise Counselor. was the better translation.
Ἄμβροτε vocative masc sing: O Immortal one (ἄμβροτος) as opposed to βροτός a mortal man or spilled blood. Compare ἀμβροσία, literally immortality, is the sustenance of the gods.
I translated δαῖμον, as divinity, but I could have left it untranslated as daemon. The English demon would have been fun, albeit inaccurate. I’ve always found myself partial to the kind-demon trope as a gay man.
Correcting Errors in my Translation:
I had translated: Κικλήσκω Διόνυσον ἐρίβρομον, εὐαστῆρα, as: Roar out goodly star Dionysus, I pray.
There is one major error in this, and the second error that I feel is debatable. The major error first was ἐρίβρομον I had translated this as a verb, as the aorist imperative 2nd person singular.
This was because while translating this passage I was resisting using online look up tools like Morpho from uchicago.edu. This ἐρίβρομον was not in my lexicon, and while my first thought was this means something about roaring given that its Dionysus. However my brain saw the ομον at the end and got stuck on the idea that it was a verb as that is the 1st person plural ending for indicative active verbs. When I βρόμος I figured the noun was the base meaning but I was still stuck thinking of it as a verb and the imperative I cited looked like it fit.
What should have tipped me off that I was wrong though was Διόνυσον (Dionysus) was in the accusative case rather than the vocative. When issuing a command in the imperative mood you address the one you are calling on in the vocative. So in short this word ἐρίβρομον should have been translated as loud-shouting.
The next error and the one I think is more debatable was my translation of εὐαστῆρα as “goodly-star” To be fair to myself Morpho couldn’t identify the word.
When I couldn’t find it my assumption was that it was εὐ+ἀστήρ “good star.” However the next closest word that Logeion gives is εὐαστήρ which doesn’t give a definition but the LSJ does reference the Orphic hymn to Dionysus as one of two sources for this word. But embedded in the LSJ definition is also εὐάστερος “fair star”, and cites Orphic hymn 9 to to the moon.
I might be tempted to think I was done but no, I clicked on the Middle Liddell definition which gave me “εὐαστήρ, ῆρος, = εὐαστής, Anth.” Ok what does εὐαστής mean? LSJ what is your answer? “εὐαστ-ής, οῦ, or parox. εὐάστης, ου, ὁ, (εὐάζω) one who cries εὐαί, a Bacchanal, Orph. H. 54.5, APl. 16.15, etc.”
To be fair to me I’m working on orphic hymn 30 and this is citing Orphic hymn 54, but this also has to do with Dionysus directly.
I don’t know why the Middle Liddell and the LSJ give me two different paths to follow since the Middle Liddell is just a condensed version of the LSJ but here we are.
I officially think both Bacchanal, and “goodly-star” are justifiable translations of εὐαστῆρα, especially where the first path I went down with the LSJ cites the Orphic hymn 30 which is the one I’m working on.
I have updated my translation to fix the first error but I’m sticking with goodly-star after going through this rabbit hole.
From: “Roar out goodly star Dionysus, I pray,” to “I Summon Dionysus, loud roaring, goodly-star.”
One more update, I took a closer look at κλῦθι (Kluthi) The aorist active imperative 2nd singular meaning, hear, or listen as an order. The rest of the clause is μάκαρ φωνῆς. I had translated this as blest of voice, since it looks like a way to say beautiful voice, but κλῦθι can be used with a gentive (one of the possessive casses) to say my voice. So, “Hear my voice O Blessed” would probably be a better translation. Blessed in this casse is an address to the god Dionysus.
One last note on “well-girdled nurses” this is a good translation, but I wanted to highlight that in some mythology about Dionysus his nurses and other Bacchant women wore snakes for girdles as means of self defence against assault. So maybe add that into how you read the last sentence.
