Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragments 193-194 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The group stays with Kore after the weaving fragments: first in one isolated verse on the unfinished loom, then in Proclus' account of the communion between Kore's life-giving series and Apollo's solar series.

Translation

Kern Fr. 193 — Kore at the Unfinished Loom

Tzetzes preserves one Orphic line:

She moved along the loom, an unfinished, flowered labor.

Kern Fr. 194 — Kore and Apollo's Fire-Bright Children

Proclus says that there is much communion between these two series, meaning the Koric series and the Apollonian series.

The former, he says, is a henad of the middle triad of principles, and has projected life-generating powers from herself. Apollo, for his part, turns the solar principles back into one union, holding the three-winged principle, as the oracle says.

The solar principles received their existence immediately after the life-generating principles. Therefore, in Orpheus, when Demeter hands the kingdom to Kore, she says:

At once, going up to Apollo's blooming bed,
you will bear splendid children, their faces blazing with fire.

How could this happen, Proclus asks, unless there were much communion between these gods?

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), frr. 193-194, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witnesses translated here are Tzetzes and Proclus as printed by Kern. Fr. 193 is a single verse preserved by Tzetzes; fr. 194 is Proclus' quotation and interpretation from the Commentary on Plato's Cratylus.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 193 — Tzetzes

Tzetzes, Exegesis on the Iliad:

ἱστὸν ἐποιχομένη ἀτελῆ πόνον ἀνθεμόεσσαν

Kern Fr. 194 — Proclus

Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Cratylus:

πολλὴ γάρ ἐστιν ἡ κοινωνία τῶν δύο τούτων σειρῶν, τῆς Κορικῆς λέγω καὶ τῆς Ἀπολλωνιακῆς· ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἑνίς ἐστιν τῆς μέσης τριάδος τῶν ἀρχῶν καὶ ζωιογονικὰς προβέβληται δυνάμεις ἀφ' ἑαυτῆς· ὁ δὲ τὰς ἡλιακὰς ἀρχὰς εἰς μίαν ἕνωσιν ἐπιστρέφει, κατέχων τὴν τρίπτερον ἀρχήν, ὡς τὸ λόγιόν φησι. προσεχῆ δὲ τὴν ὑπόστασιν ἔλαχον αἱ ἡλιακαὶ ἀρχαὶ μετὰ τὰς ζωιογονικάς· διὸ καὶ παρ' Ὀρφεῖ ἡ Δημήτηρ ἐγχειρίζουσα τῆι Κόρηι τὴν βασιλείαν φησίν·

αὐτίκ' Ἀπόλλωνος θαλερὸν λέχος εἰσαναβᾶσα
τέξεαι ἀγλαὰ τέκνα πυρὶ φλεγέθοντα προσώποις.

τοῦτο δὲ πῶς ἂν γένοιτο μὴ πολλῆς οὔσης τῆς κοινωνίας τῶνδε τῶν θεῶν;