Opening The Orphic Hymns — Orpheus in Plato Scroll…
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Orpheus · Thomas Taylor (1792)
Eighty-seven Greek hymns invoking the gods of the Orphic mystery rite — from Hecate at the threshold to Death at the close — rendered into English heroic couplets by Thomas Taylor the Platonist (1792). The hymns were chanted at the Orphic Mysteries with a fumigation of incense appropriate to each god; Taylor's verse keeps their grave, invocatory cadence. Einodian Hecate, Trivia, lovely dame, Of earthly, wat’ry, and celestial frame, Sepulchral, in a saffron veil array’d, Pleas’d with dark ghosts that wander thro’ the shade; Persaea, solitary goddess, hail! The world’s key-bearer, never doom’d to fail; In stags rejoicing, huntress, nightly seen, And drawn by bulls, unconquerable queen; Leader, nymph, nurse, on mountains wand’ring, hear The suppliants who with holy rites thy power revere, And to the heardsman with a fav’ring mind draw near. O Venerable Goddess, hear my pray’r, For labour …
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