In heaven, on earth, and in the sea, saffron-cloaked,
Tomb spirit, reveling in the souls of the dead,
Daughter of Perses, haunting deserted places, delighting in deer,
Nocturnal, dog-loving, monstrous queen,
Devouring wild beasts, ungirt, of repelling countenance.
You, herder of bulls, queen and mistress of the whole world,
Leader, nymph, mountain-roaming nurturer of youth, maiden,
I beseech you to come to these holy rites,
Ever with joyous heart and ever favoring the oxherd.
^_^ beautiful
ReplyDeleteI love that hymn, but the translation there is unfortunately terrible. The Athanassakis one is much closer to the Greek (for instance, the gist is that She is 'reveling like a Bacchante' which was a common metaphor, not actually celebrating the Bacchanalia):
ReplyDeleteLovely Hecate of the roads and crossroads I invoke;
In heaven, on earth, and in the sea, saffron-cloaked,
Tomb spirit, reveling in the souls of the dead,
Daughter of Perses, haunting deserted places, delighting in deer,
Nocturnal, dog-loving, monstrous queen,
Devouring wild beasts, ungirt, of repelling countenance.
You, herder of bulls, queen and mistress of the whole world,
Leader, nymph, mountain-roaming nurturer of youth, maiden,
I beseech you to come to these holy rites,
Ever with joyous heart and ever favoring the oxherd.
@forestdoor - Thank you for the clarification. That was the first translation I had stumbled across in, Hekate in Ancient Greek Religion by Robert Von Rudloff
ReplyDeleteI just googled 'Athanassakis Orphic hymns' and found a copy of the translations for download.