Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragments 164-166 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The group gives one of the central Rhapsodic scenes: before making the cosmos, Zeus enters Night's oracle, receives the principles of demiurgy, asks how all things can be both one and separate, and is told to bind the whole with a golden chain from the aether.

Translation

Kern Fr. 164 — Zeus Enters Night's Oracle

Proclus says:

Before Socrates touches the whole subject, he turns to invocations and prayers to the gods, imitating in this too the maker of the universe. For before the whole demiurgy, that maker is said to enter the oracle of Night, to be filled there with divine thoughts, to receive the principles of demiurgy, to dissolve all difficulties, if it is lawful to say so, and indeed to call upon his father for the conception of the demiurgy.

For the theologian makes him speak to Night:

Mother, highest of gods, immortal Night, tell me this:

how must I establish the strong-minded beginning of the immortals?

And he hears from her the answer translated in the next fragment.

Kern Fr. 165 — All Things One and Each Apart

Proclus says:

Zeus contains the wholes and all things, and according to these oracles of Night he establishes all encosmic things, both the gods and the portions of the universe, in a monadic and noeric way. Night speaks to him when he asks:

How will all things be one for me, and each one separate?

Enclose all things all around in unspeakable aether;

in the middle of it put Heaven,

and in it boundless Earth, and in it the Sea,

and in it all the signs with which Heaven is crowned.

Kern Fr. 166 — The Golden Chain

Proclus says:

This is the strong bond, as the theologian says: stretched through all things and held together by the golden chain. For upon it Zeus establishes the golden chain according to Night's instructions:

But when you stretch the strong bond around all things,

hang a golden chain from the aether.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), frr. 164-166, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witnesses translated here are from Proclus as printed by Kern.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 164 — Proclus on Plato's Timaeus

Proclus, on Plato's Timaeus:

πρὶν δὲ ἅψηται τῆς ὅλης πραγματείας, ἐπὶ θεῶν παρακλήσεις καὶ εὐχὰς τρέπεται, μιμούμενος καὶ ταύτηι τὸν τοῦ παντὸς ποιητήν, ὃς πρὸ τῆς ὅλης δημιουργίας εἴς τε τὸ χρηστήριον εἰσιέναι λέγεται τῆς Νυκτὸς κἀκεῖθεν πληροῦσθαι τῶν θείων νοήσεων καὶ τὰς τῆς δημιουργίας ἀρχὰς ὑποδέχεσθαι καὶ τὰς ἀπορίας ἁπάσας, εἰ θέμις εἰπεῖν, διαλύειν καὶ δὴ καὶ τὸν πατέρα παρακαλεῖν εἰς τὴν τῆς δημιουργίας σύλληψιν. πρὸς μὲν γὰρ τὴν Νύκτα τῶι θεολόγωι πεποίηται λέγων·

μαῖα, θεῶν ὑπάτη, Νὺξ ἄμβροτε, πῶς, τάδε φράζε,

πῶς χρὴ μ᾽ ἀθανάτων ἀρχὴν κρατερόφρονα θέσθαι;

Kern Fr. 165 — Proclus on Plato's Timaeus

Proclus, on Plato's Timaeus:

τὰ τοίνυν ὅλα περιέχων ὁ Ζεὺς καὶ πάντα μοναδικῶς καὶ νοερῶς κατὰ τούτους τοὺς χρησμοὺς τῆς Νυκτὸς ὑφίστησι πάντα τὰ ἐγκόσμια, θεούς τε καὶ τὰς μοίρας τοῦ παντός. λέγει γοῦν πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡ Νὺξ ἐρωτήσαντα·

πῶς δέ μοι ἕν τε τὰ πάντ᾽ ἔσται καὶ χωρὶς ἕκαστον;

αἰθέρι πάντα πέριξ ἀφάτωι λάβε, τῶι δ᾽ ἐνὶ μέσσωι

οὐρανόν, ἐν δέ τε γαῖαν ἀπείριτον, ἐν δὲ θάλασσαν,

ἐν δὲ τὰ τείρεα πάντα τά τ᾽ οὐρανὸς ἐστεφάνωται.

Kern Fr. 166 — Proclus on Plato's Timaeus

Proclus, on Plato's Timaeus:

καὶ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ κρατερὸς δεσμός, ὡς φησιν ὁ θεολόγος, διὰ πάντων τεταμένος καὶ ὑπὸ τῆς χρυσῆς σειρᾶς συνεχόμενος· ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶι γὰρ ὁ Ζεὺς τὴν χρυσῆν ὑφίστησι σειρὰν κατὰ τὰς ὑποθήκας τῆς Νυκτός·

αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν δεσμὸν κρατερὸν περὶ πάντα τανύσσηις,

σειρὴν χρυσείην ἐξ αἰθέρος ἀρτήσαντα.