Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragment 233 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The main witness is John Malalas, with parallel material in George Cedrenus and the Suda. The witness gives a late antique account of Orpheus teaching that the human race was shaped from earth and received a rational soul, then quotes Orphic verses on the miserable human race: earthly burden, ignorance of birth and death, failure to recognize approaching evil, and lack of foresight.

Translation

Kern Fr. 233 — The Miserable Human Race

Malalas says that Orpheus said the race of human beings was formed by God himself from earth, and received from him a rational soul, just as all-wise Moses set these things forth. The same Orpheus, in his own book, arranged that through the same three names, but one godhead, all things came to be, and that he himself is all things.

Concerning the miserable race of human beings, the same Orpheus set forth many verses poetically, of which these are a part:

Beasts and birds,
and destructive tribes of mortals.

Explanation: animals and birds, and the consumed peoples among human beings.

Burdens of earth,
images fashioned for nothing.

Explanation: the burden of the earth, a constructed form, not knowing either why they were born or why they die.

They know neither how to perceive
evil as it comes near.

Explanation: they do not perceive evil when it comes against them.

They have no understanding of how to turn away,
and be made secure from wickedness;
nor how to turn far away from evil,
nor, when good is present,
how to turn toward it and act.

Explanation: nor, when good comes, how to turn from evil and master what is noble.

Experienced, yet vainly ignorant,
without forethought.

Explanation: they are carried along as chance meets them, in the deepest ignorance, thinking nothing beforehand.

The same very wise Orpheus set forth many other verses. Timotheus the chronicler set out all these things, saying that Orpheus, so many ages before, spoke of a consubstantial triad that created all things.

Kern compares a parallel passage from a martyrdom of Saint Catherine, where Orpheus is cited against the vanity of those who worship the Greek gods: mortals do not understand evils when they approach, nor what form of wickedness they should strongly turn away from.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), fr. 233, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witnesses translated here are John Malalas, Chronography, with related material in George Cedrenus, the Suda, and a martyrdom of Saint Catherine, as printed by Kern.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 233 — John Malalas

John Malalas, Chronography:

τὸ δὲ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένος εἶπεν ὑπ' αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ πλασθέντα ἐκ γῆς καὶ ψυχὴν ὑπ' αὐτοῦ λαβόντα λογικήν, καθὼς Μωσῆς ὁ πάνσοφος ἐξέθετο ταῦτα. ὁ δὲ αὐτὸς Ὀρφεὺς ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ βίβλῳ συνέταξεν, ὅτι διὰ τῶν αὐτῶν τριῶν ὀνομάτων, μιᾶς δὲ θεότητος, τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο, καὶ αὐτός ἐστι τὰ πάντα.

περὶ δὲ τοῦ ταλαιπώρου γένους τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὁ αὐτὸς Ὀρφεὺς ἐξέθετο ποιητικῶς στίχους πολλούς, ὧν μέρος εἰσὶν οὗτοι·

θῆρές τε οἰωνοί τε βροτῶν τ' ἀλιτήρια φῦλα,

ἑρμηνεία· θηρία, ὄρνεά τε, τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὰ καταναλισκόμενα ἔθνη.

ἄχθεα γῆς, εἴδωλα τετυγμένα, μὴ διὰ μηδέν.

ἑρμηνεία· τὸ βάρος τῆς γῆς, εἶδος κατεσκευασμένον, μηδὲ διὰ τί ἐγεννήθησαν μηδὲ διὰ τί ἀποθνήσκουσιν

εἰδότες, οὔτε κακοῖο προσερχομένοιο νοῆσαι
γινώσκοντες.

ἑρμηνεία· οὔτε κακοῦ ἐρχομένου κατ' αὐτῶν αἰσθανόμενοι

φράδμονες, οὔτε ποῖον μάλ' ἀποστρέψαι κακότητος
ἀσφαλίσασθαι, οὔτε ἀπὸ μακρόθεν πολὺ ἀποστρέψαι ἐκ τοῦ κακοῦ

οὔτ' ἀγαθοῦ παρεόντος ἐπιστρέψαι καὶ εἶρξαι,

ἑρμηνεία· οὔτε ἀγαθοῦ ἐρχομένου ὑποστρέψαι ἐκ τοῦ κακοῦ καὶ κρατῆσαι καλόν.

ἴδριες, ἀλλὰ μάτην ἀδαήμονες, ἀπρονόητοι.

ἔμπειροι. ἑρμηνεία· ἀλλ' ὡς ἔτυχεν ἅμα ἀμαθεστάτως φέρονται, μηδὲν προεννοούμενοι.

καὶ ἄλλους δὲ πολλοὺς στίχους ἐξέθετο ὁ αὐτὸς σοφώτατος Ὀρφεύς. ταῦτα δὲ πάντα ἐξέθετο ὁ σοφώτατος Τιμόθεος χρονογράφος, λέγων τὸν αὐτὸν Ὀρφέα πρὸ τοσούτων χρόνων εἰπόντα τριάδα ὁμοούσιον δημιουργῆσαι τὰ πάντα.

Kern compares the martyrdom of Saint Catherine:

ὃν δ' ἔφης Ὀρφέα καὶ μάλα τὴν ὑμῶν τῶν τούτους σεβομένων ἐλέγχει παράνοιαν. ἐν ᾗ γὰρ βίβλῳ τὴν αὐτοῦ θεογονίαν, ὡς ἔφης, καὶ κόσμου κτίσιν ἐξέθετο, ἐν αὐτῇ καὶ περὶ τῆς ὑμῶν οὕτω καθυπεσήμανεν ματαιότητος·

οὔτε κακοῖς προσερχόμενοι νοῆσαι φῶτες
οὔτε ποῖον μάλα προτρέψαι κακότητος ἔχουσιν.