Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragments 187-188 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The group gathers Proclus' Orphic witnesses on Artemis, Hecate, Kore, Persephone, and Athena: virginity preserved within Kore, Artemis as a life-giving and perfecting power, Artemis-Hecate, Kore's threefold rule, and divine companies around the moon and sun.

Translation

Kern Fr. 187 — Artemis and Athena in Kore

Proclus, commenting on Plato's Cratylus, says that Artemis in Kore, and Athena, always preserve the same virginity. Artemis is characterized according to Kore's abiding power, Athena according to her power of return, while the generative power has received the middle rank within her.

They say that Kore desires virginity because her form is contained in the life-generating source. She understands the fountainhead virtue and establishes the ruling and upward-leading virtue; she dishonors every material mingling, although she brings forth the fruits of such material mingling:

Unfinished in marriage, and untried

in the whole reach of child-bearing labor,

she loosens things through to their limits.

So Orpheus says.

Proclus adds that she seems to send out the births and processions of things, but also to bring their completions upon them. She perfects souls through the life according to virtue, and gives mortal living beings their restoration into form.

Kern Fr. 188 — Artemis-Hecate and the Threefold Kore

Proclus says that Artemis has a strong union both with encosmic Hecate and with Kore. This is clear to those who have compared even a little with Orpheus. From these things it is clear that Leto also is contained in Demeter, who brought forth Kore together with Zeus, and also encosmic Hecate; for Orpheus has also called Artemis Hecate:

And then Hecate, leaving again the limbs of the child,

the daughter of fair-haired Leto, went up to Olympus.

So it is no wonder if elsewhere we have called the Artemis within Kore Hecate.

Proclus also says that Kore is so named because of the purity of her essence and her undefiled superiority in the acts of bringing forth. She has first, middle, and final leadership. According to her own summit she is called Artemis by Orpheus; according to the middle center, Persephone; and according to the limit of the ordering, Athena.

Again, Proclus says that Plato hands down three properties of our lady Artemis: the undefiled, the cosmic-ordering, and the upward-leading. Because of the first, the goddess is said to desire virginity; because of the second, by which she is perfective, she is said to be guardian of virtue; and because of the third, she is said to hate the impulses that make generation.

Of these three, the first especially fits the procession of the goddess, according to which she received her being in the life-giving triad of the principles, whether this divinity is called Hecatic, as the theurgists say, or Artemis, as Orpheus says. Established there, she is filled with undefiled powers from the implacable gods. She looks to the source of virtue and embraces that source's virginity, for that source too does not send out the maiden, as the oracle says. Understanding that source, she establishes the ruling virtue and is lifted above every communion, every yoking, and every procession according to generation.

Proclus compares this with the divine orders around the heavenly bodies. If particular souls have been sown around them, some around the sun, some around the moon, and others around each of the remaining bodies, and if daimons before the souls fill out the herds whose leaders they are, then each of the spheres is rightly called a cosmos. The theologians teach this when they say that there are gods in each sphere before the daimons, some under the leadership of another god. Thus, concerning our lady the moon, they say that there are certain Hecate goddesses in her, and Artemis. Concerning King Helios and the gods there, they hymn Dionysus there:

Seated beside Helios, watching the pure pole.

They also hymn Zeus there, Osiris, solar Pan, and the others; the books of the theologians and theurgists are full of them. From all this, Proclus says, it is clear how true it is that each of the wandering bodies is a herd-leader, with many gods filling out its own revolution.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), frr. 187-188, 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. 187 — Proclus

Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Cratylus:

ἐπεὶ ἥ γε Ἄρτεμις ἡ ἐν αὐτῆι καὶ ἡ Ἀθηνᾶ τὴν παρθενίαν ἀεὶ τὴν αὐτὴν διασώζουσι· καὶ γὰρ ἡ μὲν κατὰ τὸ μόνιμον αὐτῆς, ἡ δὲ κατὰ τὸ ἐπιστρεπτικὸν χαρακτηρίζεται· τὸ δὲ γεννητικὸν μέσην ἐν αὐτῆι τάξιν ἔλαχεν. ἐπιθυμεῖν δ᾽ αὐτὴν τῆς παρθενίας φασί, ἐπειδὴ τὸ εἶδος αὐτῆς ἐν τῆι ζωιογόνωι περιέχεται πηγῆι, καὶ νοεῖ τὴν πηγαίαν ἀρετὴν καὶ ὑφίστησι τὴν ἀρχικὴν καὶ ἀναγωγόν, καὶ τὴν ἔνυλον ἀτιμάζει πᾶσαν μεῖξιν, καίτοι ἐκφοροῦσα τοὺς καρποὺς τῆς τοιαύτης ἐνύλου μείξεως·

ἀτελὴς <τε> γάμων καὶ ἄπειρος ἐοῦσα

παιδογόνου λοχίης πάσης ἀνὰ πείρατα λύει,

φησὶν Ὀ.· καὶ ἔοικεν τὰς μὲν γενέσεις καὶ τὰς προόδους τῶν πραγμάτων ἐκπέμπεσθαι, τὰς δὲ τελειότητας ἐπιφέρειν αὐτοῖς, καὶ τὰς μὲν ψυχὰς διὰ τῆς κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν ζωῆς τελεσιουργεῖν, τοῖς δὲ θνητοῖς ζώιοις τὴν εἰς τὸ εἶδος ἀποκατάστασιν χορηγεῖν.

Kern Fr. 188 — Proclus

Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Cratylus:

ὅτι δὲ πολλὴ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος καὶ ἡ πρὸς τὴν ἐγκόσμιον Ἑκάτην ἕνωσις καὶ ἡ πρὸς τὴν Κόρην, φανερὸν τοῖς καὶ ὀλίγα τῶι Ὀρφεῖ παραβεβληκόσιν, ἐξ ὧν δῆλον, ὅτι καὶ ἡ Λητὼ περιέχεται ἐν τῆι Δήμητρι τῆι καὶ τὴν Κόρην ὑποστησαμένη τῶι Διὶ καὶ τὴν ἐγκόσμιον Ἑκάτην, ἐπεὶ καὶ τὴν Ἄρτεμιν Ἑκάτην Ὀ. κέκληκεν·

ἡ δ᾽ ἄρα δὴ Ἑκάτη παιδὸς μέλη αὖθι λιποῦσα

Λητοῦς εὐπλοκάμοιο κόρη προσεβήσατ᾽ Ὄλυμπον·

ὥστ᾽ οὐδὲν θαυμαστόν, εἰ καὶ τὴν ἐν τῆι Κόρηι Ἄρτεμιν Ἑκάτην ἐν ἄλλοις κεκληκαμεν.

Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Cratylus:

προσαγορεύεται δὲ καὶ Κόρη διὰ τὴν καθαρότητα τῆς οὐσίας καὶ τὴν ἄκραντον ἐν ταῖς ἀπογεννήσεσιν ὑπεροχήν. ἔχει δὲ πρώτην τε καὶ μέσην καὶ τελευταίαν ἡγεμονίαν, καὶ κατὰ μὲν τὴν ἀκρότητα ἑαυτῆς Ἄρτεμις καλεῖται παρ᾽ Ὀρφεῖ, κατὰ δὲ τὸ μέσον κέντρον Περσεφόνη, κατὰ δὲ τὸ πέρας τῆς διακοσμήσεως Ἀθηνᾶ.

Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Cratylus:

ὅτι τῆς δεσποίνης ἡμῶν Ἀρτέμιδος τρεῖς ὁ Πλάτων παραδίδωσιν ἰδιότητας, τήν τε ἄκραντον καὶ τὴν κόσμιον καὶ τὴν ἀναγωγόν· καὶ διὰ μὲν τὴν πρώτην παρθενίας ἐρῶν λέγεται ἡ θεός, διὰ δὲ τὴν δευτέραν, καθ᾽ ἣν τελεσιουργός, ὡς ἀρετῆς ἔφορος εἶναι λέγεται, διὰ δὲ τὴν τρίτην, καθ᾽ ἣν μισῆσαι λέγεται τὰς γενεσιουργοὺς ὁρμάς. καὶ μάλιστα τῶν τριῶν ἡ πρώτη ἐφαρμόζει τῆι τῆς θεοῦ προόδωι, καθ᾽ ἣν ἐν τῆι ζωιογόνωι τῶν ἀρχῶν τριάδι τὴν ὕπαρξιν ἔλαχεν, εἴτε Ἑκατικὴ προσαγορευομένη θεότης, ὡς οἱ θεουργοὶ φασιν, εἴτε Ἄρτεμις, ὡς Ὀρφεύς. ἔχει γὰρ ἱδρυμένη πεπλήρωται μὲν ἀκράντων δυνάμεων ἀπὸ τῶν ἀμειλίκτων θεῶν, εἰς δὲ τὴν τῆς ἀρετῆς βλέπει πηγὴν καὶ τὴν παρθενίαν αὐτῆς ἀσπάζεται· καὶ γὰρ ἐκείνη τὸ παρθένον οὐ προΐησιν, ὡς φησι τὸ λόγιον· νοοῦσα δ᾽ ἐκείνην ὑφίστησιν καὶ τὴν ἀρχικὴν ἀρετήν, καὶ ἐξήιρηται πάσης κοινωνίας καὶ συζεύξεως καὶ τῆς κατὰ τὴν γένεσιν προόδου.

Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Timaeus:

εἰ δὲ καὶ μερικαὶ ψυχαὶ περὶ αὐτοὺς ἐσπάρησαν, ἄλλαι μὲν περὶ ἥλιον, ἄλλαι δὲ περὶ σελήνην, ἄλλαι δὲ περὶ ἕκαστον τῶν λοιπῶν, καὶ πρὸ τῶν ψυχῶν δαίμονες συμπληροῦσι τὰς ἀγέλας ὧν εἰσιν ἡγεμόνες, δῆλον, ὅτι καλῶς εἴρηται κόσμον ἑκάστην εἶναι τῶν σφαιρῶν, καὶ τῶν θεολόγων ἡμᾶς ταῦτα διδασκόντων, ὅταν περὶ ἕκαστον θεοὺς ἐν αὐτοῖς εἶναι πρὸ τῶν δαιμόνων ἄλλους ὑπὸ τὴν ἄλλου τελοῦντας ἡγεμονίαν, οἷον καὶ περὶ τῆς δεσποίνης ἡμῶν τῆς σελήνης, ὅτι καὶ ἡ Ἑκάτη θεαί τινές εἰσιν ἐν αὐτῆι καὶ ἡ Ἄρτεμις, καὶ περὶ τοῦ βασιλέως Ἡλίου καὶ τῶν ἐκεῖ θεῶν, τὸν ἐκεῖ Διόνυσον ὑμνοῦντες·

Ἡελίοιο πάρεδρος ἐπισκοπέων πόλον ἁγνόν,

τὸν Δία τὸν ἐκεῖ, τὸν Ὄσιριν, τὸν Πᾶνα τὸν ἡλιακόν, τοὺς ἄλλους, ὧν αἱ βίβλοι πλήρεις εἰσὶ τῶν θεολόγων καὶ τῶν θεουργῶν· ἐξ ὧν ἁπάντων δῆλον, ὅπως ἀληθὲς καὶ τῶν πλανωμένων ἕκαστον ἀγελαρχῆν εἶναι πολλῶν θεῶν συμπληρούντων αὐτοῦ τὴν ἰδίαν περιφοράν.