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The Orphic Hymns
the Orphic tradition · Hymn 77, lines 9–10 · Wake the memory of the rite
77.9
The Orphic Hymns 77.9 · Wake the memory of the rite
The prayer: wake in the initiates the memory of the holy rite, and drive forgetting away from them.
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ἀλλά1
allá
But
, μάκαιρα2
mákaira
blessed
θεά3
theá
goddess
, ἐπέγειρε4
epégeire
wake
μύσταις5
mýstais
in the initiates
μνήμην6
mnḗmēn
the memory
εὐιέρου7
euiérou
of the holy
τελετῆς8
teletês
rite
, δʼ9
d’
and
ἀπόπεμπε10
apópempe
drive away
λήθην11
lḗthēn
forgettingLethe
ἀπὸ12
apò
from
τῶνδʼ13
tônd’
them
. But, blessed goddess, wake in the initiates the memory of the holy rite, and drive away forgetting from them.
But, blessed goddess, wake in the initiates the memory of the holy rite, and drive away forgetting from them.
Interpretation
But, blessed goddess, wake in the initiates the memory of the holy rite, and drive forgetting away from them.
The prayer asks two things: that the initiates remember the rite, and that lēthē, forgetting, be kept away from them. Memory against forgetting was an old theme of the mysteries. Thin gold leaves buried with initiates in southern Italy and in Thessaly, some from around 400 BC, tell the dead soul what to do in the underworld: pass by the first spring, and ask the guardians for the cold water that flows from the lake of Memory, saying "I am a child of Earth and starry Heaven." Pausanias describes something similar at the oracle of Trophonius in Boeotia, where the visitor drank first from a spring called Lethe and then from one called Mnemosyne, so that he would remember what he saw.
78.1
The Orphic Hymns 78.1 · Hear, goddess who brings the day
The hymn to Dawn, sung over frankincense powder. Eos brings the daylight to mortals and runs ahead of the Sun as his herald.
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Of Dawn. Incense: frankincense powder. Hear, goddess, you who bring the light-giving day to mortals, Dawn, bright-shining, blushing red across the world, herald of the great god, the noble Titan,