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The Orphic Hymns
the Orphic tradition · Hymn 51, lines 17–18 · Pour out a healthful stream
51.17
The Orphic Hymns 51.17 · Pour out a healthful stream
The prayer: come to the rites, and pour out healthy water through the growing seasons.
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ἔλθετʼ1
élthet’
come
ἐπʼ2
ep’
to
ἱεροῖς3
hieroîs
the rites
εὐφήμοις4
euphḗmois
of good omen
with a
κεχαρηότι5
kecharēóti
rejoicing
θυμῷ6
thymôi
heart
, χέουσʼ7
chéous’
pouring
ὑγιεινὸν8
hygieinòn
a healthful
νᾶμα9
nâma
streamrunning water
ἐν10
en
in
ὥραις11
hṓrais
the seasons
ἀεξιτρόφοισιν12
aexitróphoisin
that nurse growth
. come to the rites of good omen with a rejoicing heart, pouring a healthful stream in the seasons that nurse growth.
come to the rites of good omen with a rejoicing heart, pouring a healthful stream in the seasons that nurse growth.
Interpretation
come to the holy rites of good omen with a rejoicing heart, pouring out a healthful stream in the seasons that nurse growth.
The prayer asks the Nymphs for what they are: water. Nāma is running water, the flow of a spring, and it is to be hygieinos, "good for health", poured out "in the seasons that nurse growth", the Seasons of Hymn 43 once again. Springs and health went together in Greek belief. Pausanias tells of a spring in Elis, sacred to Nymphs called the Ionides, where bathers were cured of aches and pains.
52.1
The Orphic Hymns 52.1 · Many-named, raving Bakcheus
A hymn to Dionysus as Trieterikos, the god of the festival held every other year, made almost entirely of titles, many of them gathered from the hymns just before it.
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Of Trieterikos. Incense: aromatics. I call you, blessed one, many-named, raving Bakcheus, bull-horned, Lenaios, fire-born, Nysian, Releaser, nursed in the thigh, Liknites, fire-breathing and leader of the rites,