Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek and Latin
This page translates Kern fragments 211-213 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The group continues the Dionysian sequence after the mirror and the Titans: Apollo gathers the divided Dionysus into unity, the Sun is interpreted through Zeus, Dionysus, and Apollo, and the mystic winnow of Iacchus becomes a sign of purification and the soul of the world.
Translation
Kern Fr. 211 — Apollo Gathers Dionysus
Olympiodorus asks how Plato could not be echoing those Orphic matters when he says this: Dionysus is torn apart by the Titans, but is made one by Apollo. Therefore Plato speaks of being gathered together and assembled; that is, passing from the Titanic life to the single-formed life.
Kore too, Olympiodorus says, is led down into Hades, but is led back up again by Demeter and dwells where she had been before.
Proclus says that the number seven comes to soul from higher causes. The triad comes from the intelligible causes, and the heptad comes from the intellectual causes; but the heptad also comes from these gods, so that the division into seven portions may carry a sign of the Dionysiac series and the mythic dismemberment.
For soul had to participate in Dionysiac intellect. As Orpheus says, Hipta bears the god on her head, and soul is divided according to him. The harmony among those portions is a symbol of the Apollonian order, for in the myth Apollo is the god who gathers and unifies the divided limbs of Dionysus according to the Father's will.
In his commentary on the First Alcibiades, Proclus adds that, in his view, just as Orpheus sets the Apollonian monad over royal Dionysus, turning him away from advance into the Titanic multitude and from rising out of the royal throne, and guarding him undefiled in unity, so the personal good daemon of Alcibiades corresponds to Apollo.
Kern Fr. 212 — The Sun, Dionysus, and Apollo
Olympiodorus says that the monad of the young god leads the mystical account. The philosophical proof, since it unfolds the secret account, is led by the multitude of the gods, whom Plato conversely calls young. Plato makes their king the Sun, who has much communion with Dionysus through the mediation of Apollo, according to Orpheus.
It is better, Olympiodorus says, to make the Sun king as Zeus; to make him Dionysus as divided about the cosmos; and to make him Apollo as the middle one, gathering the Dionysiac division and standing beside Zeus.
Kern Fr. 213 — The Mystic Winnow
Servius says that Varro called the rites of Iacchus "mystic" because the rites of Father Liber belonged to the purification of the soul. Human beings were purified in his mysteries as grain is purified by winnowing-fans.
This is why Isis is said to have placed the limbs of Osiris, torn apart by Typhon, upon a sieve. For Father Liber is the same god; in his mysteries there is a winnowing-fan because, as Servius has said, he purifies souls. Liber is named from freeing, and Orpheus says that he was torn apart by the Giants.
The third Vatican Mythographer gives a related interpretation. The story says that the Giants found Bacchus drunk, tore him limb from limb, buried the pieces, and that a little later he rose again alive and whole.
The disciples of Orpheus are said to have interpreted this fiction by declaring that Bacchus should be understood as nothing other than the soul of the world. As philosophers report, although this soul is, as it were, divided limb by limb through the bodies of the world, it nevertheless always seems to make itself whole again, emerging from bodies and shaping itself, while it always remains one and the same and suffers no division of its simplicity. They are also said to have represented this story in his sacred rites.
Colophon
This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), frr. 211-213, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.
The source witnesses translated here are Olympiodorus, Proclus, Servius, and the Vatican Mythographers as printed by Kern.
Source Text
Kern Fr. 211 — Olympiodorus and Proclus
Olympiodorus, Commentary on Plato's Phaedo:
πῶς δὲ ἄρα οὐ τὰ Ὀρφικὰ ἐκεῖνα παρωιδεῖ νῦν ὁ Πλάτων, ὅτι ὁ Διόνυσος σπαράττεται μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν Τιτάνων, ἑνοῦται δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος; διὸ συναγείρεσθαι καὶ ἀθροίζεσθαι, τουτέστιν ἀπὸ τῆς Τιτανικῆς ζωῆς ἐπὶ τὴν ἑνοειδῆ. καὶ ἡ Κόρη δὲ κατάγεται μὲν εἰς Ἅιδου, ἀνάγεται δὲ πάλιν καὶ οἰκεῖ, ἔνθα πάλαι ἦν, ὑπὸ τῆς Δήμητρος.
Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Timaeus:
ἥκει μὲν οὖν τῆι ψυχῆι καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ὑπερτέρων αἰτίων οὗτος ὁ ἀριθμός, ὥσπερ καὶ ἡ τριάς, αὕτη μὲν ἀπὸ τῶν νοητῶν, ἐκεῖνος δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν νοερῶν, ἥκει δὲ καὶ ἀπὸ τούτων τῶν θεῶν, ἵνα τὸν μὲν εἰς ἑπτὰ μοίρας μερισμὸν ἔχηι σύνθημα τῆς Διονυσιακῆς σειρᾶς καὶ τοῦ μυθευομένου σπαραγμοῦ — καὶ γὰρ ἔδει νοῦ μετέχουσαν αὐτὴν Διονυσιακοῦ καί, ὡς Ὀρφεύς φησιν, ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς φέρουσαν τὸν θεὸν διηιρῆσθαι κατ' ἐκεῖνον —, τὴν δὲ ἐν ταύταις ταῖς μοίραις ἁρμονίαν ἔχει τῆς Ἀπολλωνιακῆς τάξεως σύμβολον· καὶ γὰρ ἐν ἐκείνοις ὁ συνάγων καὶ ἑνίζων τὰ μερισθέντα τοῦ Διονύσου μέλη κατὰ τὴν βούλησιν τοῦ πατρὸς οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ θεός.
Proclus, Commentary on the First Alcibiades:
καὶ μοι δοκεῖ, καθάπερ Ὀρφεὺς ἐφίστησι τῶι βασιλεῖ Διονύσωι τὴν μονάδα τὴν Ἀπολλωνιακήν, ἀποτρέπουσαν αὐτὸν τῆς εἰς τὸ Τιτανικὸν πλῆθος προόδου καὶ τῆς ἐξαναστάσεως τοῦ βασιλείου θρόνου, καὶ φρουροῦσαν αὐτὸν ἄχραντον ἐν τῆι ἑνώσει.
Kern Fr. 212 — Olympiodorus
Olympiodorus, Commentary on Plato's Phaedo:
ὅτι τοῦ μὲν μυστικοῦ λόγου μονὰς ἡγεῖται ἡ τοῦ νέου θεοῦ, τῆς δὲ φιλοσόφου ἀποδείξεως, ἅτε ἀνελιττούσης τὸν ἀπόρρητον λόγον, τὸ πλήθος τῶν θεῶν, οὓς ἀντιστρόφως ὁ Πλάτων νέους καλεῖ, τὸν δὲ βασιλέα αὐτῶν ποιεῖ τὸν Ἥλιον, ὃς πολλὴν ἔχει πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον κοινωνίαν διὰ μέσου τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος κατ' Ὀρφέα. κάλλιον δὲ τὸν Ἥλιον ὡς μὲν Δία βασιλέα ποιεῖν, ὡς δὲ Διόνυσον περὶ τὸν κόσμον διηιρημένον, ὡς δὲ Ἀπόλλωνα μέσον, συνάγοντα μὲν τὴν Διονυσιακὴν διαίρεσιν, τῶι δὲ Διὶ παριστάμενον.
Kern Fr. 213 — Servius and the Vatican Mythographers
Servius, Commentary on Vergil's Georgics:
'mystica' autem 'Iacchi' ideo ait, quod Liberi patris sacra ad purgationem animae pertinebant, et sic homines eius mysteriis purgabantur, sicut vannis frumenta purgantur. hinc est quod dicitur Osiridis membra a Typhone dilaniati Isis cribro superposuisse: nam idem est Liber pater, in cuius mysteriis vannus est, quia, ut diximus, animas purgat, unde et Liber ab eo, quod liberet, dictus est, quem Orpheus a gigantibus dicit esse discerptum.
Vatican Mythographer III:
ut autem paulo altius ordiri videamur, habet fabula, Gigantes Bacchum inebriatum invenisse, et discerpto eo per membra, frusta sepelisse, et eum paulo post vivum et integrum resurrexisse. quod figmentum discipuli Orphei interpretati leguntur, nihil aliud Bacchum quam animam mundi intelligendum asserentes; quae ut ferunt philosophi quamvis quasi membratim per mundi corpora dividatur, semper tamen se redintegrare videtur, corporibus emergens et se formans, dum semper una eademque perseverans nullam simplicitatis suae patitur sectionem. hanc etiam fabulam in sacris eius repraesentasse leguntur.