Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragments 231-232 from the Orphic Sacred Discourses in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies. The witnesses are Proclus and Olympiodorus: Proclus compares Plato's thousand-year cycle with Orpheus' three-hundred-year circuit of purified souls, and Olympiodorus quotes an Orphic verse in which Dionysus releases worshippers from painful labors and boundless frenzy.

Translation

Kern Fr. 231 — Three Hundred Years Under Earth

Proclus says:

Plato, for such reasons, assigns a thousand years to the souls under Pluto. Orpheus, however, after three hundred years, leads them from the places under the earth and from the courts of justice there back again into generation. In this too he makes the three hundreds a token of the complete circuit of human souls, as they are purified for the lives they have lived and turn back toward generation.

Kern Fr. 232 — Dionysus the Releaser

Olympiodorus says that Dionysus is the cause of release; therefore the god is also called Lyseus, the Releaser. Orpheus says:

Human beings will send complete hecatombs
in all the seasons of the circling year,
and will complete the rites, seeking release
from lawless forebears. But you, holding power for them,
will release those whom you wish
from painful labors and from boundless frenzy.

Kern notes that the line about release from lawless forebears belongs with the Orphic teaching on the inborn fault of the human race, whose authors are the Titans.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), frr. 231-232, in the section headed "Hieroi logoi en rhapsodiais ka'." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witnesses translated here are Proclus on Plato's Republic and Olympiodorus on Plato's Phaedo, as printed by Kern.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 231 — Proclus

Proclus on Plato's Republic:

καὶ ὁ μὲν Πλάτων διὰ τοιαύτας αἰτίας ἀποδίδωσι τὴν χιλιάδα ταῖς ὑπὸ τῷ Πλούτωνι ψυχαῖς, ὁ δὲ Ὀρφεὺς διὰ τριακοσίων αὐτὰς ἐτῶν ἀπὸ τῶν τόπων ἄγει τῶν ὑπὸ γῆς καὶ τῶν ἐκεῖ δικαιωτηρίων αὖθις εἰς γένεσιν, σύνθημα καὶ οὗτος ποιούμενος τὰς τρεῖς ἑκατοντάδας τῆς τελείας περιόδου τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ψυχῶν καθαιρομένων, ἐφ' οἷς ἐβίωσαν ἐπιστρεφόμεναι τὴν γένεσιν.

Kern Fr. 232 — Olympiodorus

Olympiodorus on Plato's Phaedo:

ὅτι ὁ Διόνυσος λύσεώς ἐστιν αἴτιος· διὸ καὶ Λυσεὺς ὁ θεός, καὶ ὁ Ὀρφεύς φησιν·

ἄνθρωποι δὲ τεληέσσας ἑκατόμβας
πέμψουσιν πάσηισι ἐν ὥραις ἀμφιετηίσιν
ὄργια τ' ἐκτελέσουσι λύσιν προγόνων ἀθεμίστων
μαιόμενοι· σὺ δὲ τοῖσιν ἔχων κράτος, οὕς κ' ἐθέληισθα,
λύσεις ἔκ τε πόνων χαλεπῶν καὶ ἀπείρονος οἴστρου.

Kern adds on verse 3:

λύσις προγόνων ἀθεμίστων refers to the inborn fault of the human race, whose authors are the Titans.