Orphic poems

The palimpsest manuscript Sin. ar. NF 66 is one of the treasures of the Monastery of Saint Catherine located in the Sinai Peninsula. Nowadays it consists of a few fragmentary parchment sheets, but originally it was a larger codex of ca. 300 folia. Some of these leaves have been purloined from the Sinai and are now kept in Cambridge, Leipzig, and Saint Petersburg, while others have been lost. The codex contained the Lives of Palestinian monastic Saints in Arabic translation and was copied at the Monastery of Mar Saba near Jerusalem in the first quarter of the 10th century. It was later brought, under unknown circumstances, to the Sinai. All preserved folia are palimpsests, with scriptiones inferiores in Greek and Christian Palestinian Aramaic. This article focuses on one of the Greek erased texts – a previously unknown classical text in hexameters of mythological content – and offers its editio princeps. Based on an analysis of codicological and palaeographical features, combined with that of linguistic and stylistic elements, it will be suggested that the Sinai hexameters might originate from the Hieroi Logoi in 24 Rhapsodies, i.e. the longest lost Orphic poem we know of.

This study traces and analyzes the itinerary followed by Argo and her crew, according to the unknown author of Argonautica Orphica: The voyage of the Argonauts from Iolcos to Colchis and their return following a different path, from Phasis River through central Europe to the Atlantic Ocean and then through the Mediterranean Sea. Conclusions are drawn about whether such a voyage could be possible in the remote antiquity and the “problematic” points of the description are pointed out.

Sinaiticus arabicus NF 66 is made up of six fragmentary folia and three tiny parchment scraps. These were originally part of a codex of ca. 300 folia containing the Arabic translation of several lives of monastic Saints connected to the Monastery of Mar Saba. It was copied at Mar Saba (near Jerusalem) in the first quarter of the 10th century and later brought, under unknown circumstances, to St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai. A number of folia from this manuscript are now dispersed, and have been identified in several libraries:
• Leipzig, Univ. gr. 2 [22 folia] = Codex Tischendorf 2
• Saint Petersburg, NLR, gr. 26 [6 folia]
• Cambridge, Add. 1879.5 [a small piece of parchment]
All preserved folia are palimpsests, with scriptiones inferiores in Greek and Christian Palestinian Aramaic. Among the folia with Greek scriptio inferior three different texts can be recognized: one biblical, one grammatical, and one poetical.
This paper focuses on the poetical text in the Sinai manuscript. Based on an analysis of codicological and palaeographical features, combined with that of linguistic and stylistic elements, I will suggest a possible date and authorship for the content of these poetical fragments.

This book explores the representation of the gods in Greek hexameter poetry in its many forms, including epic, hymnic and didactic poetry, from the archaic period to late antiquity. Its twenty-five chapters, written by an international team of experts, trace a broad historical arc, reflecting developments in religious thought and practice, and ongoing philosophical and literary-critical engagement with the nature and representation of the divine and the relationship between humans and gods. They proceed from the poems ascribed to Hesiod and Homer and the so-called Cyclic epics, via the Hellenistic poets Apollonius, Callimachus, Aratus and Moschus, to the poets and poems of the third to sixth centuries CE, including Quintus of Smyrna, Triphiodorus, the Cynegetica, Nonnus, Eudocia, Colluthus, the Argonautica of Orpheus and the Sibylline Oracles. An epilogue explores the reception of the Greek "epic" gods by the Roman poets Virgil and Ovid, and by the English poets Tennyson, Walcott and Oswald.

For the last century, scholars have discussed the existence of one or more Orphic poems about the rape and rescue of Persephone. Today, the Berlin Papyrus BKT 5. 1, pp 7-18 nº I 2, dated to the 2nd-1st B.C.E., is commonly recognized to have traces of an ancient Orphic poem, which we know from various references. The papyrus contains a prose account in which there are some quotations of a poem attributed to Orpheus, but very similar to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (h. Cer.). For this reason the h. Cer. has traditionally served as the main reference for the reconstruction, analysis and study of this poem. My aim is to examine other traditions about the rape of Persephone that might be directly or indirectly reflected in the Berlin Papyrus. For this purpose, I will compare the episode of the rape with other similar accounts within and outside the Orphic tradition.

Con la scoperta del Papiro di Derveni, la secolare storia delle teogonie di ‘Orfeo’ acquisì di colpo una nuova profondità cronologica: quella che allora veniva alla luce era una cosmogonia assai più antica di quanto non lasciasse presumere la tradizione indiretta, una narrazione in esametri che affondava le sue radici nel V (secondo alcuni addirittura nel VI) secolo a.C.
Il carattere frammentario di tale narrazione non permette purtroppo di farsi un’idea precisa del contenuto, rendendo molto spesso congetturale ed ostico qualsiasi tentativo di comparazione con le altre tradizioni cosmogoniche antiche. Protagonista della teogonia di Derveni è Zeus, il quale occupa una posizione di centralità assoluta rispetto alle altre divinità dell’Olimpo: Gli eventi che portarono all’intronizzazione di Zeus non sono del tutto comprensibili: Zeus avrebbe inghiottito l’aidoion, un principio di potenza generativa di natura non chiara, e la conseguenza di tale atto sarebbe stata l’acquisizione della regalità universale, che si dispiegava come unificazione ed interiorizzazione del cosmo nel corpo del nuovo sovrano. Mentre le implicazioni cosmologiche e teologiche di tale rappresentazione della divinità risultano almeno a grandi linee comprensibili, anche grazie alla possibilità di confrontare questo episodio con un suo sviluppo successivo contenuto nelle Rapsodie orfiche, lo stesso non può dirsi riguardo alle vicende precedenti, in particolare alla questione dell’inghiottimento dell’aidoion, che ha costituito (e costituisce) un vero rompicapo per gli studiosi che si sono occupati della teogonia di Derveni. Al di là della proliferazione delle ipotesi ricostruttive (che in questo contributo ricevono una dettagliata analisi filologica), vi è un tratto che emerge dal confronto tra i frammenti del mito di Derveni, il contenuto dell’esegesi del suo commentatore e il sèguito della tradizione orfica: l’esistenza di una linea di sostanziale continuità che comprendeva alcuni tratti profondi dell’immaginario mitico (e poi filosofico) orfico. L’enfasi sul tema della solarità, legato a quello della sessualità e della generazione, ne costituisce un esempio macroscopico, insieme, per esempio, all’interesse per i significati più riposti dei vocaboli, alla passione per l’analisi del linguaggio e per i giochi di parole.

La place que tient Orphée dans la mythologie et la religion gréco-romaines est connue depuis fort longtemps. Ce qu'on savait moins jusqu'à une époque récente, c'est que le chantre thrace n'a jamais disparu de la culture occidentale. On le retrouve en effet dans la littérature pseudépigraphique de l'époque hellénistique et romaine, chez les Pères de l'Église, dans l'art paléochrétien, la philosophie médiévale et les littératures en langues latine et vernaculaires du Moyen Âge. Le livre de John Block Friedman s'interroge sur les raisons de cette survivance et étudie les métamorphoses de la figure mythique au cours quelque dix-huit siècles qui séparent le judaïsme hellénisé de la Renaissance écossaise.
Cet ouvrage ne met pas seulement à disposition des lecteurs francophones un classique des études médiévales, il présente en outre plusieurs traductions françaises inédites de textes écrits originellement en grec, en latin et dans diverses langues vernaculaires du Moyen Âge.
Une postface intitulée "De l'Orphée juif à l'Orfée écossais" propose un bilan des travaux effectués depuis la publication de l'ouvrage et fait le point sur les perspectives qui s'offrent encore aux chercheurs.

Note: The PDF does not exactly match with the printed book and the page references in the index are not right.

Edited and Translated by Brian Duvick 52. The assimilative activity of the demiurgic Intellect is twofold (389a): there is the one with which the Intellect, looking to the intelligible model, institutes the whole cosmos; and the other with which it assigns names proper to each object. Timaeus gave a brief exposition of these matters (36c), but the theurgists and the utterances from the gods themselves teach us more distinctly:1 But the holy name even with unresting whirl leapt into the stellar sphere because of the rushing command of the Father (Or.Chald.87), and another oracle says, The paternal Intellect sowed symbols in the cosmos, By which it contemplates the intelligible things and is made one with ineffable Beauty (Or.Chald.108).2 The lawgiver too, as he looks to the whole cosmos, both transmits the best polity and puts the names that resemble real beings. 1 Proclus generally uses the Chaldaean oracles in support of his own theories or those handed down to him mainly by Syrianus. Proclus himself was initiated into the Chaldaean mysteries, studied the oracles under Syrianus and wrote a commentary of his own on them, which is now lost (Marinus, Proclus sive de Felic., 28, 26). 2 This passage describes the process of assimilative reversion to principles. Procession and reversion are the primary activities of the second and third hypostasis in any given hyparxis. Any real existent thus remains eternally stable, proceeds into the order subsequent to it and reverts back to its principle. See In Crat.16, note 34 and Gersh, A Study of Spiritual Motion, 30-8.

PhD Dissertation, defended in August 2015 / This is a study of Orphic literature that does two things: (1) reconstructs the tradition of Orphic theogonies (four poems about the births of the gods: Derveni, Eudemian, Hieronyman, Rhapsodies); and (2) attempts to explain how the Neoplatonists of later antiquity applied allegorical interpretation to Orphic theogonies, specifically the Rhapsodies.

Through the comparison with Vedic India, based on the methods of the Indo-European poetics, we can prove that, in the Greek syntagma hieròs lógos, which is typical of orphism, the adjective hierós obtains its oldest and most specific meaning, « ritually efficient », while this syntagma contrasts with another one, hierḕn ópa, which is really inherited and thus more expected. So, in this context the word lógos is not chosen because it would be easier, but we should give it a meaning near of « reason », just like in the Presocratic philosophers, according to the general contradistinction between *óps and lógos. This contrast between both aspects of language, the voice and the reason, is also analogically present in India, so that it can’t be a mere chance.

A re-examination of the 'Orphic' gold leaves, starting with the Getty B-text from Thessaly, shows that Zuntz's view that the shorter B-texts from Crete represented the older prototype to which the earlier ms. versions of the longer B-group had added material is correct. A closer look at the dialogic nature of the Getty text points to an aboriginal dialogue between the life-giving Spring and the deceased 'initiate.' To this archetypal version, the bricoleurs added, often incongruently, material relative to a second source of water (a 'Spring of Forgetfulness') to create a more complex philosophical eschatology of metempsychosis.

This chapter assesses the extent to which Hesiod’s Theogony influenced the Derveni poem, establishing which elements from the first poem have been adopted and reworked by the Orphic poet. The conclusion is that, in some cases, the Derveni poet follows Hesiod closely, while in others he diverges from the Theogony in order to temper certain details, to replace some aspects with others, or to emphasise and develop several features that were simply outlined or suggested in the Theogony. The main agenda of the Orphic poem is to highlight Zeus’ central role as organiser and father of the world.

This article tackles the most controversial issue of the Derveni Papyrus: the meaning of the the αἰδοῖον that Zeus swallows in the Orphic poem (fr. 8 Bernabé, col. XIII 4). Two interpretations have been proposed: that it is Uranus’ phallus or that it means ‘venerable’ and is an epithet of the Orphic god Protogonus. A thorough analysis of the remains of the poem, of the commentator’s interpretation and of related texts (archaic and Orphic poetry) demonstrates that the second option has decisive arguments in favour while the first one is marred by serious difficulties.

Abstract: The figure of Dikē in Aeschylus is not exactly the same as in Hesiod: it has a cosmic dimension, it applies also to afterlife for individuals, it does not exclude salvation. These features match several Orphic fragments and testimonies, especially those quoted by philosophers. Therefore an Orphic influence on Aeschylus would make sense. But, beyond Orphism, an Indo-European inheritance is also to be considered.

"According to this paper, the Athenian Neoplatonic idea that there was a deep accordance between Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato about the method and the definition of soul salvation (see Syrianus) is not fully erroneous. It just has to be put in a dynamic perspective instead of a static one. Authentic Orphism may indeed be defined as the cultural process — neither a fixed doctrine nor an organized church —  that leads from the positive valuation of an external memory concerning epic or theogonic old paterns, working as a condition of the kleos aphthiton for heroes and poets, toward the positive valuation of the internal memory which is conceived off as bringing the philosopher’s soul in touch with eternal realities. Orphism does not deny the authority of Homeric or Hesiodic tradition, which makes immortal the names of heroes, but Orphism gradually transfers it inside the soul and thus discovers a new level of immortality, which concerns the ego and is independent from the surviving part of human society, just like the common immortality of soul demonstrated by Plato in the Phaedo does paradoxically not prevent certain souls being more subject to death than other ones (see for example the end of the Timaeus, 90c)! In certain “Orphic” gold tablets, Mnemosyne is not invocated in order to keep alive an oral tradition through succesive generations but for an individual soul to re-assume its own divine origin. This soteriological interpretation of the role payed by memory is confirmed by the cyclical sequence bios thanatos bios found in the Olbia bones fragments (OF 463.1 Bernabé). Such a mental power makes the soul able to escape an ever-lasting re-birth and re-death cycle, just like the anamnèsis in Plato does, athough the divine part of soul is identified only with rationality in Plato, and no longer with any vitalizing spirit correlated with body. The life of soul, according to Plato, is overall an adequate relationship to itself, which is called intellection (nous; Sophist, 249a; Laws X). But Orphism has already overcome the idea that the sole material ritual could work as a sufficient means for salvation. Moreover, there is no historical family tradition in Orphism unlike in the Homeric tradition. There are no Orphēidai like the Homēridai of Chios. Lineage in the Orphic tradition is only ritual and is only a matter of initiation. One self’s connection with Orpheus depends on will and on undertaking of a re-birth ritual, not on blood. The whole humanity is potentially in connection with Orpheus just like the Orphic Zeus contains everything and is contained by everything. For example, Pythagoras was re-enacting Orpheus although he was not Orpheus’ natural son (see Gregory Nagy’s Homer the Preclassic, E§116). In the same way, Plato asserts that every human being has seen the Ideas and can remember them by practicing dialectics. Finally, in Orphism, the self-identification of the rhapsode with the mythical proto-poet occurs during the whole life, and not only during the oral performance. This is why there is a real Orphic “way of life” (vegetarian food, non-violence, saying truth; see Plato, Leges, 782 c-d), and not only an Orphic way of singing. Moreover, since the Orphic poems were written quite early and thus became protected against oral variations, the initiate could not identify himself with Orpheus as a creative poet. The very process of improvisation during an oral performance was forbidden to him. Therefore the ritual and ethic behavior, or the rationalizing interpretation of Orphic poems just like in the Derveni Papyrus, became the only way of re-enacting Orpheus. On one hand Orpheus’ powerful living voice was admitted as definitely remoted in the past, but on the other hand the inner and spiritual life became the most important factor of continuity in the Orphic tradition.
So Orphism might be the analogy-generating tradition in which Plato found the first connection between different kinds of memory and different levels of immortality (see especially Diotima’s speech during the Symposium, 208c-d, 212a). Such a connection was the condition for dialectics, so that it could not be the result a dialectics. Of course, following Plato himself, modern scholars have accepted this hierarchy as a distinctive feature through which one could isolate Plato from other salvation traditions in Greek culture, as if to conceive off the genuine immortality as an instantaneous return to our metaphysical origin were the special innovation of philosophy. But, as we said, Plato might have just continued the process inaugurated by Orphism, and this process might also be not later than the Homeric poetry. Indeed, on the basis of many data excerpted from comparative poetics dealing with Indian and Iranian sacred poetry, we may assume that such a growing complexity of immortality and memory was a permanent trend in some ancient cultures, synchronically organized rather than diachronically, just like the Neoplaonic thinkers believed.
"

Linguistic and literary notes on:
a) the 'Orphic' Gold Leaf from Hipponion;
b) the epigram attributed to Simonides, Page Further Greek Epigrams no. 45;
c) the Greek epigram on the Xanthos Pillar (Hansen, Carmina epigraphica graeca no. 177).
Notes on hiatus and use of the article in Homer.

2013г. е двоен юбилей - 150 години от раждането и 80 години от смъртта на големия гръцки поет Константинос П. Кавафис.
С радост ви осведомявам, че съм превел всичките поеми на Кавафис на български език и се надявам да ги издам през 2013г. в следните 6 книги:
1. К. П. Кавафис, Поеми (1896-1904), 16 поеми
2. К, П. Кавафис, Поеми (1905-1915), 40 +1 поеми
3. К. П. Кавафис, Поеми (1916-1918), 28 поеми
4. К. П. Кавафис, Поеми (1919-1933), 70 поеми
Общо 154 + 1поеми
5. К. П. Кавафис, Непубликувани, (1877?-1923), 75 поеми
6. К. П. Кавафис, Отречени, (1886-1898), 27 поеми

За да осъществя изданието на 6-те книги се нуждая от ... издател.

С надежда

Костас

Roberts, I., & Bracknell Watson, M. (2021). Laid in Flood. Film for Fine Art degree show, Chelsea College of Art, London, 14th - 23rd June. (actor).

A metamorphic orphic metaphor journeying through technoetic opium reveries and oceanic reverence at the plaited umbilical seams of life, death, rebirth and back again. A deliriant collective unconscious, where katabasis meets a seaside holiday by mistake, and the mythopoeic fumbles with shamanism. This is 𝑳𝑨𝑰𝑫 𝑰𝑵 𝑭𝑳𝑶𝑶𝑫, the film.

The late Antique mosaic of Orpheus decorated a small room, approximately 18 m2 in area, connected with two even smaller ones, in 4 m2 and the other 2 m2 in area, belonging most likely to a small funerary chapel (or tomb) discovered in the ancient necropolis by the Damascene Gate in Jerusalem; it was discovered in 1901 by H. Vincent.
The author proposes a new interpretation of the iconographic program of the Orpheus myth used by wealthy Christians in a sepulchral context (see Olszewski M.T. «Orphée endeuillé de la mosaïque funéraire de Jérusalem», in Rey Mimoso-Ruiz, B. ed., Actes du colloque «Orphée entre Soleil et ombre», à l’Institut Catholique de Toulouse du 16 au 17 novembre 2007, Inter Lignes, numéros spécial – mars 2008, pp. 205-214, 226). He also proposes a new interpretation of the role Orpheus played in Roman funerary art, concentrating on the importance of the play on words and the visual and textual punning that was popular in ancient art and especially in funerary art. He rejects the popular interpretation of Orpheus as Christ in the Roman catacombs and proposes to interpret the image as that of Orpheus, bard of the departed souls, without any ahistorical connection with Christ. The program of the mosaic from Jerusalem is thus explained as a play on the words Orpheus-orphanos and Chiron (Chi-Rho) and Pan [Παν(τοκράτωρ)].The frequently used Christian funerary formula of resting in peace, Christ or the Lord corresponds
perfectly with the mood created around the mythical bard.
Orpheus’ universal role as singer and musician moving even the most stony of hearts, extolling the beloved departed, is absolutely justified in the context of a 6th-century Christian tomb. Orpheus is a popular and neutral figure, meaning that in effect it does not constitute a threat to Christian theology and can be tolerated by the educated Christians of Jerusalem.

Resumen: A pesar de que muchas veces hemos oído hablar sobre orfismo, una pátina de confusión
empaña nuestros conocimientos. Parte de ese desconcierto es inevitable: para adentrarse
en el misterio, no hay camino (no hay método). Sin embargo, ¿es posible encontrar un bastón que
nos ayude a caminar en la noche oscura del mito? Aquí, presentamos una somera y rigurosa introducción
al orfismo y un par de hipótesis: el alma lograba escapar de la cadena de las reencarnaciones
por el décalage que órficos y pitagóricos veían en las razones musicales, astronómicas y
matemáticas; su destino final era su origen: la vasija de las almas o pensamiento cósmico.

Abs tract: Although we may have heard of Orphism, however confusion obscures our understanding
of it. Most of it is unavoidable since there is no established path or method to explore the
mystery. Yet, is it possible to find a cane to aid us walking through the dark night of the myth? In
this article, a brief yet rigorous introduction to Orphism will be presented along with a couple of
conjectures namely, that the soul was able to escape from the chain of reincarnations by means of
décalage which Orphics and Pythorageans attributed to musical, astronomical, and mathematical
proportions. Its final destination was its origin: the jar of souls or cosmic thought.

This book offers a concise whole-encompassing definition of Orphism through bringing together all of its main components in a single study, highlighting both parallels and divergences between the Gold Tablets, the Derveni Papyrus and the Orphic Rhapsodies, and a large variety of non-Orphic sources referring to Orphic ideas, practices, or texts. It also includes a reconstruction of the Orphic Rhapsodies along with a translation and commentary.

The journal Trends in Classics and the accompanying Supplementary Volumes publish innovative, interdisciplinary work which brings to the study of Greek and Latin texts the insights and methods of related disciplines, such as narratology, intertextuality, reader-response criticism, and oral poetics. Both publications seek to publish research across the full range of classical antiquity.

In this article I am going to discuss Linos’ connection to the Orphics that can  be noticed in Pausanias’s Description of Greece. That  person has not yet received his deserved place among the masters of Orphics, despite that it appears that he had similar infuence on them as Musaeus did.