Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek and Latin

This page translates Kern fragments 350-363 from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta. Kern places these under Spuria vel dubia, "spurious or doubtful." They are not secure Orphic fragments. Some are late reports, some are misattributions, some belong to other poets or theological corpora, and several are notices from Renaissance writers. They are included here because Kern printed them in the numbered fragment sequence, but their doubtful status is part of the translation.

Translation

Kern Fr. 350 — The Great Works

Kern says that an Orphic poem called Great Works never existed. Proclus, commenting on Hesiod's Works and Days, reports that some people understand the "silver" race as belonging to Earth, saying that in the Great Works silver traces its genealogy from Earth.

Kern says this does not concern Orpheus. It belongs instead to the pseudo-Hesiodic Great Works.

Kern Fr. 351 — Hera and Aphrodite

Plotinus says:

If, according to intellect, we rank the male gods among the gods, and if, according to their souls, we speak of their female powers, since soul is present with each intellect, then in this way the soul of Zeus would again be Aphrodite.

He adds that priests and theologians bear witness to this account when they bring Hera and Aphrodite into the same identity and say that the star of Aphrodite in heaven belongs to Hera.

Kern notes that Hera-Aphrodite was worshipped at Sparta.

Kern Fr. 352 — Persephone's Lower Path

Hippolytus, reporting a Naassene interpretation, says that the lower mysteries of Persephone are "small," and that the road leading there is broad, spacious, and carries those who are perishing toward Persephone. He then quotes the poet:

But beneath her
there is a secret path,

hollow,
muddy;

it is best
for leading the way

to the lovely grove
of much-honored Aphrodite.

Kern records that Preller and Dieterich suspected the verses were Orphic, that Rohde disagreed, and that Meineke attributed them to Parmenides.

Kern Fr. 353 — Heavenly, Starry, and Abyssal Matter

Olympiodorus says that those who attach this lower matter to the heavenly things are called "sons" because they guard matter and do not allow it, although fluid, to be wholly destroyed. He then says that Orpheus also says:

of heavenly matter,
and starry,
and abyssal.

The same verse occurs in John Lydus, where the oracles say:

Fountain nymphs
and all water spirits,

chthonic hollows,
airy and half-lit,

monthly watchers
and surveyors

of all heavenly matter,
and starry,
and abyssal.

Kern prints the notice among doubtful material and compares related Orphic Hymns, magical papyri, and Chaldean-oracular language.

Kern Fr. 354 — Tears, Laughter, Gods, and Mortals

Proclus says that myths do not make the gods weep, but make them laugh unceasingly. Tears symbolize the gods' providence toward mortal and perishable things; laughter symbolizes the divine activity by which the whole universe is filled and always moved in the same way.

He therefore says that when creations are divided into gods and humans, laughter is assigned to the birth of divine things, and tears to the composition of human beings or living things:

From your tears
came the race
of much-suffering humans.

But when you smiled,
you caused the holy race
of gods to spring up.

Proclus continues that the same symbolic division applies to heavenly things and the things beneath the moon, and also to generations and destructions beneath the moon. For this reason, leaders of sacred rites command that both laughter and tears be enacted at appointed times in the mysteries.

Kern also compares a Leiden magical papyrus in which God laughs seven times: seven gods are born from the laughter; at the first laugh light appears, at the second water and earth, at the third Mind-Hermes, at the fourth the power that sows all things, at the fifth Moira, at the sixth Kronos, and at the seventh God laughs and weeps, and Tyche comes into being.

Kern Fr. 355 — The Middle That Unites and Divides

Damascius says:

The middle both brings together and divides. Therefore this divinity too is at once connective and separative, as the Oracles say and as Orpheus composed.

Kern Fr. 356 — The Upright Hexameter

The prolegomena attributed to Longinus on Hephaestion give an example which some suppose to be by Orpheus, while others suppose it to be from the Pythia. It speaks about epic verses:

The upright verse
is six-part,

of four
and twenty measures.

Kern adds that Alcidamas attributes a similar verse on numbers to Musaeus, and that Orpheus is elsewhere called the inventor of the hexameter.

Kern Fr. 357 — The Falling Leader

The Gudian Etymologicum explains archos, "leader," from ago, "I lead," and quotes "the Theologian" in verse:

For when the leader falls,
the whole army
falls to the ground.

Kern says that "the Theologian" here is not Orpheus, but Gregory of Nazianzus.

Kern Fr. 358 — The Star of Zeus and the Malefics

Tzetzes says that people born under the portions of Zeus' star receive royal or leading births, unless a malefic star bears witness:

either painful Phaenon,
or Ares,
rouser of battle.

Kern says that the line is brought in by Tzetzes without an author and is not given to Orpheus. It belongs to Maximus' poem On Nativities, a poet who often excerpted Orphic poems.

Kern Fr. 359 — Gods from Chaos

The work transmitted as Pseudo-Apuleius' On Orthography, really by Caelius Rhodiginus, says:

Although Orpheus, Linus, and Hesiod said that the gods burst forth from Chaos at the beginning, many of our own writers also follow them.

Kern Fr. 360 — The Eumenides

The same work says:

In Latin we call the Eumenides "Furies." Aeschylus was the first to imagine that they had hair entwined with serpents. According to Eudemus, they were daughters of Acheron and Night; according to Orpheus, of Pluto and Proserpina.

Kern compares the Orphic Hymn to the Eumenides.

Kern Fr. 361 — Sweet-Bitter Love

Marsilio Ficino, commenting on Plato's Symposium, says:

Plato calls Love a bitter thing. Orpheus too names him sweet-bitter.

Kern Fr. 362 — The Fate of Narcissus

Ficino, again on Plato's Symposium, says:

The soul alone is so enticed by the charms of bodily form that it sets aside its own form, and, forgetting itself, follows the form of the body, which is the shadow of its own form.

From this comes that most cruel fate of Narcissus in Orpheus.

Kern Fr. 363 — Aquatic Powers

Ficino, in an appendix to his commentary on Plato's Timaeus, says:

Orpheus and the poets sing of certain aquatic powers.

Kern compares the fragment on Achelous as water, and says he deliberately passes over other excerpts from Ficino repeated by Abel.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), frr. 350-363, under the title Spuria vel dubia, "spurious or doubtful." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witnesses translated here are Proclus, Plotinus, Hippolytus, Olympiodorus, John Lydus, Damascius, the prolegomena attributed to Longinus on Hephaestion, the Gudian Etymologicum, Tzetzes, Caelius Rhodiginus under the name Pseudo-Apuleius, and Marsilio Ficino. The English preserves Kern's doubts and rejections where the attribution is insecure or false.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 350 — The Great Works

Kern:

Carmen Orphicum Μεγάλα Ἔργα nunquam extitisse ... Procl. ad Hesiodi Op. et Dies vs. 126 ... spectat non ad Orpheum, sed ad Pseudo-Hesiodi Μεγάλα Ἔργα.

Kern Fr. 351 — Hera and Aphrodite

Plotinus, Enneads 3.5.8:

εἰ κατὰ μὲν τὸν νοῦν τοὺς ἄρρενας τάττομεν τῶν θεῶν, κατὰ δὲ τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν τὰς θηλείας λέγομεν, ὡς νῷ ἑκάστῳ ψυχῆς συνιούσης, εἴη ἂν καὶ ταύτῃ ἡ ψυχὴ τοῦ Διὸς ἡ Ἀφροδίτη πάλιν, μαρτυρούντων τούτῳ τῷ λόγῳ ἱερέων τε καὶ θεολόγων, οἳ εἰς ταὐτὸν Ἥραν καὶ Ἀφροδίτην ἄγουσι καὶ τὸν τῆς Ἀφροδίτης ἀστέρα ἐν οὐρανῷ Ἥρας λέγουσιν.

Kern Fr. 352 — Persephone's Lower Path

Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.43:

μικρά ... ἐστὶ τὰ μυστήρια τὰ τῆς Περσεφόνης κάτω ... καὶ ὁ ποιητὴς φησίν·

αὐτὰρ ὑπ' αὐτὴν ἐστὶν ἀτραπιτὸς ὀχριόεσσα,

κοίλη, πηλώδης· ἡ δ' ἡγήσασθαι ἀρίστη

ἄλσος ἐς ἱμερόεν πολυτιμήτου Ἀφροδίτης.

Kern Fr. 353 — Heavenly, Starry, and Abyssal Matter

Olympiodorus, on Plato's Alcibiades:

ὕλης οὐρανίης τε καὶ ἀστερίης καὶ ἀβύσσου.

John Lydus, De mensibus 3.8:

Νύμφαι πηγαῖαι καὶ ἐνύδρια πνεύματα πάντα

καὶ χθόνιοι κόλποι τε καὶ ἠέριοι καὶ ὕπαυγοι

μηναῖοι πάσης ἐπιβήτορες ἠδ' ἐπιμῆται

ὕλης οὐρανίας τε καὶ ἀστερίας καὶ ἀβύσσων.

Kern Fr. 354 — Tears, Laughter, Gods, and Mortals

Proclus, on Plato's Republic:

δάκρυα μὲν σέθεν ἐστὶ πολυτλήτων γένος ἀνδρῶν,

μειδήσας δὲ θεῶν ἱερὸν γένος ἐβλάστησας.

Leiden magical papyrus, as compared by Kern:

καὶ ἐγέλασεν ὁ θεὸς ἑπτάκις.

γελάσαντος δὲ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν θεοὶ ἑπτά.

Kern Fr. 355 — The Middle That Unites and Divides

Damascius, De principiis 198:

ἡ γὰρ μεσότης καὶ συνάγει καὶ διακρίνει· διὸ καὶ ἡ θεότης ἥδε συναγωγὸς ἅμα ἐστὶ καὶ διακριτική, ὡς καὶ τὰ λόγια λέγει καὶ Ὀρφεὺς ἐποίησεν.

Kern Fr. 356 — The Upright Hexameter

Longinus, prolegomena on Hephaestion:

παράδειγμα τεθήσεται, ὃ τινὲς μὲν Ὀρφέως, τινὲς δὲ τῆς Πυθίας ὑπολαμβάνουσι ... περὶ γὰρ τῶν ἐπῶν λέγουσα·

ὄρθιον ἑξάμερες τεττόρων καὶ εἴκοσι μέτρων.

Kern Fr. 357 — The Falling Leader

Gudian Etymologicum:

ἀρχός· ὡς ἀπὸ τοῦ ἄγω ἀγός, ὁ ἡγεμών, καὶ ὁ θεολόγος εἰς τὰ ἔπη·

καὶ γὰρ ἄγου πίπτοντος ὅλος στρατὸς ἐς χθόνα πίπτει.

Kern:

ὁ θεολόγος non Orpheus, sed Gregorius Nazianzenus.

Kern Fr. 358 — The Star of Zeus and the Malefics

Tzetzes, Exegesis in Iliadem:

καὶ οἱ ἐν Διὸς ἀστέρος μοίραι τεχθέντες βασιλικὰς ἢ ἡγεμονικὰς κληροῦνται γενέσεις, εἰ μὴ κακοποιὸς ἀστὴρ μαρτυρεῖ·

ἢ Φαίνων δύσκλητος ἢ Ἄρης ἐγρεκύδοιμος.

Kern:

Sine auctore a Tzetza affertur, non Orpheo datur.

Kern Fr. 359 — Gods from Chaos

Caelius Rhodiginus under the name Pseudo-Apuleius, De orthographia:

quamquam Orpheus, Linus et Hesiodus deos ex Chao ab initio erupisse dixerint, quos et plerique ex nostris sequuntur.

Kern Fr. 360 — The Eumenides

Caelius Rhodiginus under the name Pseudo-Apuleius, De orthographia:

Eumenides in latino nos Furias dicimus ... quas Aeschylus primus finxit implicitos serpentibus crines habere. Filiae, secundum Eudemum, Acheruntis et Noctis fuerunt ... Orpheus Plutonis et Proserpinae.

Kern Fr. 361 — Sweet-Bitter Love

Marsilio Ficino, commentary on Plato's Symposium:

Amorem Plato rem amaram vocat ... hunc et Orpheus γλυκύπικρον, i.e. dulce-amarum, nominat.

Kern Fr. 362 — The Fate of Narcissus

Marsilio Ficino, commentary on Plato's Symposium:

anima inquam sola ita corporalis formae blanditiis delinitur, ut propriam posthabeat speciem, corporis vero formam, quae suae umbra est, sui ipsius oblita sectetur. hinc crudelissimum illud apud Orpheum Narcissi fatum.

Kern Fr. 363 — Aquatic Powers

Marsilio Ficino, appendix to the commentary on Plato's Timaeus:

numina quaedam aquatica Orpheus et poetae canunt.