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The Orphic Hymns
the Orphic tradition · Hymn 30, lines 8–9 · Come with your nurses
30.8
The Orphic Hymns 30.8 · Come with your nurses
The prayer: hear us, and come kindly, with the nymphs who nursed you.
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κλῦθι1
klŷthi
Hear
φωνῆς2
phōnês
my voice
, μάκαρ3
mákar
blessed one
, δʼ4
d’
and
ἐπίπνευσον5
epípneuson
breathe on us
ἡδὺς6
hēdỳs
sweetly
, ἀμεμφής7
amemphḗs
blameless
, ἔχων8
échōn
withhaving
εὐμενὲς9
eumenès
a kindly
ἦτορ10
êtor
heart
, σὺν11
sỳn
with
your
ἐυζώνοισι12
euzṓnoisi
well-girdled
τιθήναις13
tithḗnais
nurses
. Hear my voice, blessed one, and breathe on us sweetly, blameless, with a kindly heart, with your well-girdled nurses.
Hear my voice, blessed one, and breathe on us sweetly, blameless, with a kindly heart, with your well-girdled nurses.
Interpretation
Hear my voice, blessed one, and breathe on us sweetly and without blame, with a kindly heart, together with your well-girdled nurses.
The god is asked to "breathe on" his worshippers, the verb for a wind or a god's spirit coming over someone, and to do it sweetly. He comes with his nurses, tithēnai, the nymphs who brought him up as a child. They are old companions: in the Iliad the Thracian king Lycurgus chases "the nurses of raving Dionysus" down the holy mountain of Nysa.
31.1
The Orphic Hymns 31.1 · Leaping Kouretes, armed dancers
The first hymn to the Kouretes has no incense note. It is one long list of their dance steps and titles.
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A hymn to the Kouretes. Leaping Kouretes, setting down armed steps, stamping, whirling, of the mountains, revelers, lyre-strikers, keeping time, treading with light steps, arms-bearers, guardians, marshals, glorious, companions of the mountain-raving Mother, revealers of the rites;