Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek and Latin

This page translates Kern fragments 28-30, including Kern's associated 28a and 29a witnesses. The group preserves Eudemus' report that Orphic theology begins from Night, Apollonius' poetic scene of Orpheus singing the world's first ordering, a Latin notice of successive divine reigns, and Philodemus' report on Chrysippus' Stoic interpretation of Orphic material.

Translation

Kern Fr. 28 — Eudemus on the Orphic Theogony

The theology recorded by the Peripatetic Eudemus as Orpheus' theology passed over the whole intelligible realm in silence, since it is utterly unspeakable and unknowable by the way of exposition and declaration.

It made its beginning from Night. Homer also, though he did not make the genealogy continuous, establishes his line from her. Eudemus should not be accepted when he says that Homer begins from Ocean and Tethys, for Homer plainly knows Night as so great a goddess that even Zeus reveres her: "for he feared to do things displeasing to swift Night."

Let Homer himself, then, also begin from Night.

Hesiod, when he records that Chaos came into being first, seems to me to have called the ungraspable and wholly unified nature of the intelligible "Chaos," and then to bring forth Earth first from that as a kind of beginning of the whole race of gods.

Unless, perhaps, Chaos is the second of the two principles, and Earth, Tartaros, and Eros are the threefold intelligible: Eros standing for the third term, viewed as return, for Orpheus also names it this way in the Rhapsodies; Earth standing for the first, as the first thing fixed in a solid and substantial state; and Tartaros standing for the middle, as already somehow stirred toward distinction.

Kern Fr. 28a — Chrysippus on Night

In the first book On Nature, Chrysippus says that Night is the first goddess.

Kern Fr. 29 — Orpheus Sings the Ordering of the World

Orpheus lifted his lyre in his left hand and began to test a song.

He sang how earth, heaven, and sea, once fitted together with one another in a single form, were each divided apart by destructive strife; how the stars, the moon, and the paths of the sun always hold their fixed signs in the aether; how the mountains rose; and how ringing rivers, with their own nymphs, and all creeping things came into being.

He sang how first Ophion and Eurynome, daughter of Ocean, held the rule of snowy Olympus; how, by force and by arms, Ophion yielded his honor to Kronos, and Eurynome yielded hers to Rhea, and they fell into the waves of Ocean.

The others then ruled among the blessed Titan gods, while Zeus was still a child, still thinking childish thoughts, and still dwelt in the Dictaean cave. The earth-born Cyclopes had not yet strengthened him with thunder, lightning, and the thunderbolt, for these things give glory to Zeus.

Kern Fr. 29a — Successive Divine Reigns

Nigidius says in the fourth book On the Gods that some divide the gods and their kinds by times and ages. Among them Orpheus places first the reign of Saturn, then Jupiter's, then Neptune's, and after that Pluto's.

Some, including the Magi, say that Apollo's reign will come. In this, one must see whether they mean the burning, or what is called the conflagration.

Kern Fr. 30 — Chrysippus Reconciles Orphic Material

In the second book On the Gods, Chrysippus tries to bring into harmony with his own doctrines the things attributed to Orpheus and Musaeus, and the things found in Homer, Hesiod, Euripides, and other poets, as Cleanthes also did.

"All is aether," that is, Zeus; the same one is both father and son. In the first book he even wrestles with the claim that Rhea is both mother and daughter of Zeus.

He makes the same harmonizing interpretations in the work On the Graces, where he says that Zeus is law, and that the Graces are our beginnings and the reciprocations of benefactions.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), frr. 28-30 and the associated 28a and 29a witnesses, in the early-fragments section of the printed collection. Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witnesses translated here are Damascius reporting Eudemus on the Orphic theology, Philodemus reporting Chrysippus, Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica 1.494-511, the scholia on Apollonius, and the scholia on Vergil preserving Nigidius.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 28 — Damascius, On First Principles 124

ἡ δὲ παρὰ τῷ Περιπατητικῷ Εὐδήμῳ ἀναγεγραμμένη ὡς τοῦ Ὀρφέως οὖσα θεολογία πᾶν τὸ νοητὸν ἐσιώπησεν, ὡς παντάπασιν ἄρρητόν τε καὶ ἄγνωστον τρόπῳ τῷ κατὰ διέξοδόν τε καὶ ἀπαγγελίαν, ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς Νυκτὸς ἐποιήσατο τὴν ἀρχήν, ἀφ' ἧς καὶ Ὅμηρος, εἰ καὶ μὴ συνεχῆ πεποίηται τὴν γενεαλογίαν, ἵστησιν· οὐ γὰρ ἀποδεκτέον Εὐδήμου λέγοντος, ὅτι ἀπὸ Ὠκεανοῦ καὶ Τηθύος ἄρχεται, φαίνεται γὰρ εἰδὼς καὶ τὴν Νύκτα μεγίστην οὕτω θεόν, ὡς καὶ τὸν Δία σέβεσθαι αὐτήν· "ἅζετο γὰρ μὴ Νυκτὶ θοῇ ἀποθύμια ῥέζοι." ἀλλ' Ὅμηρος μὲν καὶ αὐτὸς ἀρχέσθω ἀπὸ Νυκτός· Ἡσίοδος δέ μοι δοκεῖ πρῶτον γενέσθαι τὸ Χάος ἱστορῶν τὴν ἀκατάληπτον τοῦ νοητοῦ καὶ ἡνωμένην παντελῶς φύσιν κεκλῆκεν Χάος, τὴν δὲ Γῆν πρώτην ἐκεῖθεν παράγειν ὡς τινὰ ἀρχὴν τῆς ὅλης γενεᾶς τῶν θεῶν· εἰ μὴ ἄρα Χάος μὲν τὴν δευτέραν τοῖν δυοῖν ἀρχῶν, Γῆν δὲ καὶ Τάρταρον καὶ Ἔρωτα τὸ τριπλοῦν νοητόν, τὸν μὲν Ἔρωτα ἀντὶ τοῦ τρίτου, ὡς κατὰ ἐπιστροφὴν θεωρουμένην· τοῦτο γὰρ οὕτως ὀνομάζει καὶ ὁ Ὀρφεὺς ἐν ταῖς ῥαψῳδίαις· τὴν δὲ Γῆν ἀντὶ τοῦ πρώτου, ὡς πρώτην ἐν στερεῷ τινι καὶ οὐσιώδει καταστήματι παγεῖσαν, τὸν δὲ Τάρταρον ἀντὶ τοῦ μέσου, ὡς ἤδη πως εἰς διάκρισιν παρακεκινημένον.

Kern Fr. 28a — Philodemus, On Piety, on Chrysippus

ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ περὶ Φύσεως τὴν Νύκτα θεὰν φησὶν εἶναι πρωτίστην.

Kern Fr. 29 — Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1.494-511

αὐτὰρ ὅ γ' Ὀρφεὺς

λαιῇ ἀνασχόμενος κίθαριν πείραζεν ἀοιδῆς.

ἤειδεν δ' ὡς γαῖα καὶ οὐρανὸς ἠδὲ θάλασσα,

τὸ πρὶν ἐπ' ἀλλήλοισι μιῇ συναρηρότα μορφῇ,

νείκεος ἐξ ὀλοοῖο διέκριθεν ἀμφὶς ἕκαστα·

ἠδ' ὡς ἔμπεδον αἰὲν ἐν αἰθέρι τέκμαρ ἔχουσιν

ἄστρα σεληναίη τε καὶ ἠελίοιο κέλευθοι·

οὔρεά θ' ὡς ἀνέτειλε, καὶ ὡς ποταμοὶ κελάδοντες

αὐτῇσιν νύμφῃσι καὶ ἑρπετὰ πάντ' ἐγένοντο.

ἤειδεν δ' ὡς πρῶτον Ὀφίων Εὐρυνόμη τε

Ὠκεανὶς νιφόεντος ἔχον κράτος Οὐλύμποιο·

ὡς τε βίῃ καὶ χερσὶν ὁ μὲν Κρόνῳ εἴκαθε τιμῆς,

ἡ δὲ Ῥείῃ, ἔπεσον δ' ἐνὶ κύμασιν Ὠκεανοῖο·

οἱ δὲ τέως μακάρεσσι θεοῖς Τιτῆσιν ἄνασσον,

ὄφρα Ζεὺς ἔτι κοῦρος, ἔτι φρεσὶ νήπια εἰδώς,

Δικταῖον ναίεσκεν ὑπὸ σπέος, οἱ δέ μιν οὔπω

γηγενέες Κύκλωπες ἐκαρτύναντο κεραυνῷ

βροντῇ τε στεροπῇ τε· τὰ γὰρ Διὶ κῦδος ὀπάζει.

Kern Fr. 29a — Scholion on Vergil, Eclogue 4.10

Nigidius de diis lib. IV: quidam deos et eorum genera temporibus et aetatibus dispescunt, inter quos et Orpheus primum regnum Saturni, deinde Iovis, tum Neptuni, inde Plutonis; nonnulli etiam, ut magi, aiunt, Apollinis fore regnum: in quo videndum est, ne ardorem, sive illa ecpyrosis appellanda est, dicant.

Kern Fr. 30 — Philodemus, On Piety, on Chrysippus

ἐν δὲ τῷ δευτέρῳ περὶ Θεῶν τὰ τε εἰς Ὀρφέα καὶ Μουσαῖον ἀναφερόμενα καὶ τὰ παρ' Ὁμήρῳ καὶ Ἡσιόδῳ καὶ Εὐριπίδῃ καὶ ποιηταῖς ἄλλοις, ὡς καὶ Κλεάνθης, πειρᾶται συνοικειοῦν ταῖς δόξαις αὐτῶν. ἅπαντα τ' ἐστὶν αἰθήρ, ὁ αὐτὸς ὢν καὶ πατὴρ καὶ υἱός, ὡς καὶ ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ μάχεσθαι τὸ τὴν Ῥέαν καὶ μητέρα τοῦ Διὸς εἶναι καὶ θυγατέρα. τὰς δ' αὐτὰς ποιεῖται συνοικειώσεις καὶ ἐν τῷ περὶ Χαρίτων, ἐν ᾧ τὸν Δία νόμον φησὶν εἶναι καὶ τὰς Χάριτας τὰς ἡμετέρας καταρχὰς καὶ τὰς ἀνταποδόσεις τῶν εὐεργεσιῶν.

Source Colophon

Source edition: Otto Kern, Orphicorum fragmenta, Berlin: Weidmann, 1922, pp. 97-101.

Public scan: https://archive.org/details/orphicorumfragme00orphuoft

The Greek and Latin text above normalizes obvious OCR and font-display noise against Kern's printed page images and omits Kern's apparatus notes. It preserves Kern's fragment numbering and witness labels.