Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragments 229-230 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The witnesses are Proclus and Simplicius, who preserve related Orphic lines on ceasing from the cycle of generation and gaining relief from misery. Kern notes that both fragments probably came from the same Orphic poem.

Translation

Kern Fr. 229 — To Cease from the Cycle

Proclus says that the soul leaves behind its first disposition: its attachment to all generation, and the irrational element that makes it generative. It rules the irrational by reason, gives intellect to opinion, and turns the whole soul toward blessed life, away from the wandering that surrounds generation. This is the life which those initiated, according to Orpheus, to Dionysus and Kore pray to obtain:

to cease from the cycle,
and to breathe again from misery.

Proclus had just said:

This one salvation of the soul is set before it by the Demiurge: the ascent back toward the intellectual form of the soul, and the flight from all things that have grown onto us from generation. It releases the soul from the cycle of generation, from much wandering, and from an unaccomplished life.

Kern Fr. 230 — The Wheel of Fate and Generation

Simplicius says that the demiurgic god, who assigns to all beings what accords with worth, binds souls in the wheel of fate and generation. According to Orpheus, it is impossible to be released from that wheel unless one has made gracious those gods

to whom Zeus gave command

to make human souls cease from the cycle
and find relief from misery.

Kern compares fragment 230 with fragment 229 and says that both fragments were probably drawn from the same Orphic poem.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), frr. 229-230, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witnesses translated here are Proclus on Plato's Timaeus and Simplicius on Aristotle's On the Heavens, as printed by Kern.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 229 — Proclus

Proclus on Plato's Timaeus:

τὴν οὖν πρώτην ἕξιν κατὰ τὴν σχέσιν ἀφεῖσα τὴν πρὸς πᾶσαν τὴν γένεσιν καὶ τὸ ἄλογον τὸ ποιοῦν αὐτὴν γενεσιουργόν, λόγῳ μὲν κρατοῦσα τὸ ἄλογον, νοῦν δὲ χορηγοῦσα τῇ δόξῃ, πᾶσαν δὲ τὴν ψυχὴν εἰς τὴν εὐδαίμονα περιάγουσα ζωὴν ἀπὸ τῆς περὶ τὴν γένεσιν πλάνης, ἧς καὶ οἱ παρ' Ὀρφεῖ τῷ Διονύσῳ καὶ τῇ Κόρῃ τελούμενοι τυχεῖν εὔχονται·

κύκλου τ' ἂν λήξαι καὶ ἀναπνεῦσαι κακότητος.

Kern gives the preceding words of Proclus:

μία σωτηρία τῆς ψυχῆς αὕτη παρὰ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ προτείνεται τοῦ κύκλου τῆς γενέσεως ἀπαλλάττουσα καὶ τῆς πολλῆς πλάνης καὶ τῆς ἀνηνύτου ζωῆς, ἡ πρὸς τὸ νοερὸν εἶδος τῆς ψυχῆς ἀναδρομὴ καὶ ἡ φυγὴ πάντων τῶν ἐκ τῆς γενέσεως ἡμῖν προσπεφυκότων.

Kern notes the likely original form of the Orphic verse:

κύκλου τε λήξαι καὶ ἀναπνεῦσαι κακότητος.

Kern Fr. 230 — Simplicius

Simplicius on Aristotle's On the Heavens:

ἐνδεθῆναι δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ τὸ κατ' ἀξίαν πᾶσιν ἀφορίζοντος δημιουργοῦ θεοῦ ἐν τῷ τῆς εἱμαρμένης τε καὶ γενέσεως τροχῷ, οὗπερ ἀδύνατον ἀπαλλαγῆναι κατὰ τὸν Ὀρφέα μὴ τοὺς θεοὺς ἐκείνους ἱλεωσάμενον

οἷς ἐπέταξεν ὁ Ζεὺς

κύκλου τ' ἀλλῆξαι καὶ ἀναψῦξαι κακότητος
τὰς ἀνθρωπίνας ψυχάς.

Kern adds:

Cf. fr. 229. Utrumque fragmentum ex eodem Orphei carmine haustum esse verisimile est.