Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragment 167 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. After Night's oracle and the golden chain, Zeus swallows Protogonos-Erikepaios, the firstborn Phanes, so that the whole cosmos and all its gods are gathered again inside Zeus before being made anew.

Translation

Kern Fr. 167 — Zeus Swallows Protogonos-Erikepaios

Proclus says:

Orpheus shows these things too when he says that the intelligible god is swallowed by the demiurge of the wholes. Plato says that the demiurge looks toward the paradigm, showing intellection through sight; but the theologian says that Zeus leaps upon the intelligible god and swallows him, as the myth says.

So then, having swallowed the strength of Protogonos Erikepaios,

he held the body of all things in his own hollow belly,

and mixed the god's power and might with his own limbs.

Therefore all things came together again inside Zeus:

the breadth of wide Aether and Heaven's shining height,

the barren Sea and the seat of glorious Earth,

great Ocean and Earth's lowest Tartara,

rivers and the boundless sea, and all other things,

all the deathless blessed gods and goddesses,

whatever had been born and whatever was to be thereafter:

all became one, and together they grew in Zeus' belly.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), fr. 167, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witness translated here is Proclus as printed by Kern.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 167 — Proclus on Plato's Timaeus

Proclus, on Plato's Timaeus:

ταῦτα δὲ καὶ ὁ Ὀρφεὺς ἐνδεικνύμενος καταπίνεσθαι τὸν νοητὸν θεὸν ἔφατο παρὰ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ τῶν ὅλων· καὶ ὁ μὲν Πλάτων βλέπειν εἰς τὸ παράδειγμα τὸν δημιουργὸν ὑπέθετο, τὴν νόησιν διὰ τῆς ὁράσεως ἐνδεικνύμενος, ὁ δὲ θεολόγος καὶ οἷον ἐπιπηδᾶν αὐτὸν τῶι νοητῶι καὶ καταπίνειν, ὡς ὁ μῦθος ἔφησεν·

ὣς τότε Πρωτογόνοιο χαδὼν μένος Ἠρικεπαίου

τῶν πάντων δέμας εἶχεν ἑῆι ἐνὶ γαστέρι κοίληι,

μεῖξε δ᾽ ἑοῖς μελέεσσι θεοῦ δύναμίν τε καὶ ἀλκήν,

τοὔνεκα σὺν τῶι πάντα Διὸς πάλιν ἐντὸς ἐτύχθη,

αἰθέρος εὐρείης ἠδ᾽ οὐρανοῦ ἀγλαὸν ὕψος,

πόντου τ᾽ ἀτρυγέτου γαίης τ᾽ ἐρικυδέος ἕδρη,

Ὠκεανός τε μέγας καὶ νείτατα Τάρταρα γαίης

καὶ ποταμοὶ καὶ πόντος ἀπείριτος ἄλλα τε πάντα,

πάντες τ᾽ ἀθάνατοι μάκαρες θεοὶ ἠδὲ θέαιναι,

ὅσσα τ᾽ ἔην γεγαῶτα καὶ ὕστερον ὁππόσ᾽ ἔμελλεν,

ἓν γένετο, Ζηνὸς δ᾽ ἐνὶ γαστέρι σύρρα πεφύκει.