Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragment 225 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The witness is Plutarch on the date-palm as a notably long-lived plant, with one Orphic line comparing a living span to the high-haired shoots of palms.

Translation

Kern Fr. 225 — The Palm's Long Life

Plutarch says that the date-palm is among the most long-lived of plants, as the Orphic verses somewhere also bear witness:

A living thing equal to the high-haired shoots of palms.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), fr. 225, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witness translated here is Plutarch, Table Talk, as printed by Kern.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 225 — Plutarch

Plutarch, Table Talk:

ὁ δὲ φοῖνιξ μακρόβιον μέν ἐστιν ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα τῶν φυτῶν, ὥς που καὶ τὰ Ὀρφικὰ ταῦτα μεμαρτύρηκε·

ζώιον δ' ἴσον ἀκροκόμοισιν φοινίκων ἔρνεσσιν.