Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragment 223 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The witness is Proclus on Plato's Republic, distinguishing the soul-cycle of irrational animals from human souls: animal souls fly around in the air until rebirth, while Hermes leads immortal human souls below the earth.

Translation

Kern Fr. 223 — Animal Souls in the Air

Proclus says that Orpheus makes clear that there is a kind of ensouling proper to irrational animals, and that it does not come only from human souls:

When the souls of beasts and winged birds
dart forth, and sacred lifetime leaves them,
no one leads their soul to the house of Hades.
There it flies about by itself, to no purpose,
until another body snatches it up, mingled with the gusts of wind.
But whenever a human being leaves the light of the Sun,
Cyllenian Hermes leads immortal souls down
to the huge hollow of the earth.

Through these lines, Proclus says, Orpheus wants human souls to pass into the place below the earth for purification and punishment, and into the prisons of requital. The souls of irrational animals, by contrast, fly around there in the air until they are bound again into other bodies.

If the ensoulings of irrational animals came only from human souls, Proclus says, Orpheus would have had to say that Hermes leads all souls down to Hades, either to be purified or to be punished. Plato does this too, leading the souls that come from irrational animals, but are human souls, into the place under the earth, and then sending them from there again into other choices of lives, as Proclus says he has shown earlier.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), fr. 223, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witness translated here is Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Republic, as printed by Kern.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 223 — Proclus

Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Republic:

ὅτι δὲ καὶ ἰδία τῶν ἀλόγων τίς ἐστιν ψύχωσις, ἀλλ' οὐκ ἀπὸ μόνων τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ψυχῶν, δηλοῖ λέγων ὁ Ὀρφεύς·

αἱ μὲν δὴ θηρῶν τε καὶ οἰωνῶν πτεροέντων
ψυχαὶ ὅτ' ἀίξωσι, λίπηι δέ μιν ἱερὸς αἰών,
τῶν οὔ τις ψυχὴν παράγει δόμον εἰς Ἀίδαο,
ἀλλ' αὐτοῦ πεπότηται ἐτώσιον, εἰς ὅ κεν αὐτὴν
ἄλλο ἀφαρπάζηι μίγδην ἀνέμοιο πνοῆισιν·
ὁππότε δ' ἄνθρωπος προλίπηι φάος ἠελίοιο,
ψυχὰς ἀθανάτας κατάγει Κυλλήνιος Ἑρμῆς
γαίης ἐς κευθμῶνα πελώριον·

δι' ὧν τὰς μὲν ἀνθρωπίνας ψυχὰς βούλεται χωρεῖν εἰς τὸν ὑποχθόνιον τόπον καθάρσεως ἕνεκα καὶ κολάσεως καὶ εἰς τὰ δεσμωτήρια τῆς τείσεως, τὰς δὲ τῶν ἀλόγων αὐτοῦ περί τὸν ἀέρα πωτᾶσθαι, μέχρις ἂν εἰς ἄλλα σώματα πάλιν ἐνδεθῶσιν. εἰ δ' ἦσαν καὶ αἱ τῶν ἀλόγων ψυχώσεις ἀπὸ ψυχῶν ἀνθρωπίνων μόνων, πάσας ἔδει φάναι τὸν Ἑρμῆν εἰς Ἅιδου κατάγειν ἢ καθαρθησομένας ἢ κολασθησομένας· ὥσπερ καὶ Πλάτων ποιεῖ καὶ τὰς ἐκ τῶν ἀλόγων, ἀνθρωπίνας δὲ οὔσας ψυχὰς εἰς τὸν ὑπὸ γῆς τόπον ἀπάγων καὶ πάλιν ἐκεῖθεν στέλλων εἰς ἄλλας βίων αἱρέσεις, ἃ δὴ πρότερον ἐπεδείξαμεν.