Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek and Latin
This page translates Kern fragments 139-142 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The group follows the Titan succession with Kronos as ruler among mortals and as lord of the silver race: Proclus preserves the Orphic threefold ordering of human life into golden, silver, and Titanic races, then joins Kronos to the ageless cycle in which old age is stripped away and the hair grows black again.
Translation
Kern Fr. 139 — Kronos Rules Among Mortals
Lactantius says:
Orpheus, who was later than Saturn's times, openly records that Saturn reigned on earth and among human beings:
First of all Kronos ruled over earth-dwelling men;
and from Kronos himself was born great lord Zeus, far-thundering.
Kern Fr. 140 — The Three Human Races
Proclus says:
Orpheus the theologian handed down three races of human beings.
The first was the golden race, which he says Phanes established.
The second was the silver race, over which he says greatest Kronos ruled.
The third was the Titanic race, which he says Zeus formed from the limbs of the Titans.
He understood that in these three terms every form of human life is contained. Either it is noetic and divine, planted in the very highest beings; or it turns back toward itself, knows itself, and loves this kind of life; or it looks toward worse things and wants to live with them, though they are irrational.
So, since human life is threefold, the first kind comes from Phanes, who joins everything that thinks to the intelligible beings. The second comes from Kronos, the first, the myth says, crooked-counseled and making all things turn back toward themselves. The third comes from Zeus, who teaches the care for secondary things and the ordering of worse things, for this is proper to demiurgy.
Kern Fr. 141 — Kronos Over the Silver Race
Proclus says:
Orpheus says that Kronos reigns over the silver race, calling those who live according to pure reason "silver," just as he calls those who live according to mind alone "golden." But Hesiod, wishing to show the change in human life, makes the silver race of human beings slack.
Kern Fr. 142 — The Ageless Kronian Order
Proclus says:
The theologians say that agelessness belongs to this order, the Kronian order. The non-Greeks say this, and so does Orpheus, the theologian of the Greeks; for he too mystically says that the hairs of the Kronian face are always black and never grow gray.
I marvel at Plato's inspired mind, which shows forth the same things about this god as those who travel in his track. For in the Kronian circuit he says that souls let go of old age and turn back toward youth, stripping away the gray and having black hair. "For the white hairs of the older people turned black," he says, "and the cheeks of those whose beards were growing were made smooth and returned to the age that had passed." So speaks the Eleatic Stranger.
Orpheus too sets down similar things about the god:
[...], under Zeus Kronion,
to be allotted an immortal lifetime, and the dewy,
fragrant locks of a pure beard, never at all
mingled with the white bloom of feeble old age,
but holding rich-grown down about the temples.
Colophon
This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), frr. 139-142, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.
The source witnesses translated here include Lactantius' Latin testimony and Proclus' Greek witnesses as printed by Kern.
Source Text
Kern Fr. 139 — Lactantius
Lactantius, Divine Institutes:
O. qui a temporibus eius fuit recentior, aperte Saturnum in terra et apud homines regnasse commemorat:
πρώτιστος μὲν ἄνασσεν ἐπιχθονίων Κρόνος ἀνδρῶν
ἐκ δὲ Κρόνου γένετ᾽ αὐτὸς ἄναξ μέγας εὐρύοπα Ζεύς.
Kern Fr. 140 — Proclus
Proclus, on Plato's Republic:
ὁ μὲν θεολόγος Ὀρφεὺς τρία γένη παραδίδωκεν ἀνθρώπων· πρώτιστον τὸ χρυσοῦν, ὅπερ ὑποστῆσαι τὸν Φάνητά φησιν· δεύτερον τὸ ἀργυροῦν, οὗ φησιν ἄρξαι τὸν μέγιστον Κρόνον· τρίτον τὸ Τιτανικόν, ὃ φησιν ἐκ τῶν Τιτανικῶν μελῶν τὸν Δία συστήσασθαι.
συννοήσας ὡς ἐν τρισὶν ὅροις τούτοις πᾶν εἶδος περιέχεται τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ζωῆς. ἢ γὰρ νοερόν ἐστιν καὶ θεῖον, αὐτοῖς τοῖς ἀκροτάτοις τῶν ὄντων ἐνιδρυμένον, ἢ πρὸς ἑαυτὸ ἐπιστρέφεται καὶ νοεῖ ἑαυτὸ καὶ ἀγαπᾷ τὴν τοιαύτην ζωήν, ἢ πρὸς τὰ χείρονα βλέπει καὶ μετ᾽ ἐκείνων ἐθέλει ζῆν ἀλόγων ὄντων.
τριττῆς οὖν οὔσης τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ζωῆς τὸ μὲν πρώτιστον ἀπὸ τοῦ Φάνητός ἐστιν, ὃς πᾶν τὸ νοοῦν συνάπτει τοῖς νοητοῖς, τὸ δὲ δεύτερον ἀπὸ τοῦ Κρόνου τοῦ πρώτου, φησὶν ὁ μῦθος, ἀγκυλομήτου καὶ πάντα πρὸς ἑαυτὰ ποιοῦντος ἐπιστρέφειν, τὸ δὲ τρίτον ἀπὸ Διὸς τοῦ τῶν δευτέρων προνοεῖν καὶ διακοσμεῖν τὰ χείρονα διδάσκοντος· τοῦτο γὰρ ἴδιον δημιουργίας.
Kern Fr. 141 — Proclus
Proclus, on Hesiod's Works and Days:
ὁ μὲν Ὀρφεὺς τοῦ ἀργυροῦ γένους βασιλεύειν φησὶ τὸν Κρόνον, τοὺς κατὰ τὸν καθαρὸν λόγον ζῶντας ἀργυροὺς λέγων ὥσπερ τοὺς κατὰ νοῦν μόνον χρυσοῦς· ὁ δὲ Ἡσίοδος ἐθέλων τὴν μεταβολὴν ἐνδείξασθαι τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ζωῆς τὸ ἀργυροῦν γένος τῶν ἀνθρώπων ποιεῖ ῥάθυμον.
Kern Fr. 142 — Proclus
Proclus, Platonic Theology:
τῶν δὲ θεολόγων τὸ ἀγήρων τῇ τάξει ταύτῃ, τῇ Κρονίᾳ, προσήκειν λεγόντων, ὡς οἵ τε βάρβαροι φασί, καὶ ὁ τῶν Ἑλλήνων θεολόγος Ὀρφεύς — καὶ γὰρ οὗτος ἀεὶ μελαίνας τὰς τοῦ Κρονίου προσώπου τρίχας μυστικῶς λέγει, καὶ μηδαμῶς γίγνεσθαι πολιὰς — θαυμάζω τὸν τοῦ Πλάτωνος ἔνθεον νοῦν τὰ αὐτὰ περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ τούτου τοῖς καθ᾽ ἴχνος αὐτοῦ πορευομένοις ἐκφαίνοντα.
ἐν γὰρ τῇ Κρονίᾳ περιόδῳ τὸ γῆρας ἀφιέναι φησὶ τὰς ψυχάς, ἐπὶ δὲ τὸ νέον ἀνακάμπτειν, καὶ τὸ πολιὸν μὲν ἀφαιρεῖν, τὰς δὲ τρίχας μελαίνας ἴσχειν. τῶν γὰρ πρεσβυτέρων αἱ λευκαὶ τρίχες ἐμελαίνοντο· τῶν δὲ γενειώντων αἱ παρειαὶ λειαινόμεναι, εἰς τὴν παρελθοῦσαν ὥραν καθίσταντο. ταῦτα μὲν ὁ Ἐλεάτης ξένος. ὁ δέ γε Ὀρφεὺς τὰ τούτοις ὅμοια περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ διατάττεται·
ὑπὸ Ζηνὶ Κρονίωνι
ἀθάνατον αἰῶνα καμεῖν, καθαροῖο γενείου
διερὰς χαίτας εὐώδεας, οὐδὲ
— ἠπεδανοῖο μιγήμεναι ἄνθει λευκῷ·
ἀλλ᾽ ἐριθηλέα λάχνην.
Kern's restored form:
[...], ὑπὸ Ζηνὶ Κρονίωνι
ἀθάνατον τ᾽ αἰῶνα λαχεῖν, καθαροῖο γενείου
καὶ διερὰς χαίτας εὐώδεας, οὐδέ τι πάμπαν
γήραος ἠπεδανοῖο μιγήμεναι ἄνθει λευκῷ,
ἀλλὰ περὶ κροτάφοισιν ἔχειν ἐριθηλέα λάχνην.