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The Orphic Hymns Paperback – July 31, 2013

by Apostolos N. Athanassakis (Translator), Benjamin M. Wolkow (Translator)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 133 ratings
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The best-selling English translation of the mysterious and cosmic Greek poetry known as the Orphic Hymns.

At the very beginnings of the Archaic Age, the great singer Orpheus taught a new religion that centered around the immortality of the human soul and its journey after death. He felt that achieving purity by avoiding meat and refraining from committing harm further promoted the pursuit of a peaceful life. Elements of the worship of Dionysus, such as shape-shifting and ritualistic ecstasy, were fused with Orphic beliefs to produce a powerful and illuminating new religion that found expression in the mystery cults. Practitioners of this new religion composed a great body of poetry, much of which is translated in The Orphic Hymns.

The hymns presented in this book were anonymously composed somewhere in Asia Minor, most likely in the middle of the third century AD. At this turbulent time, the Hellenic past was fighting for its survival, while the new Christian faith was spreading everywhere. The Orphic Hymns thus reflect a pious spirituality in the form of traditional literary conventions. The hymns themselves are devoted to specific divinities as well as to cosmic elements. Prefaced with offerings, strings of epithets invoke the various attributes of the divinity and prayers ask for peace and health to the initiate. Apostolos N. Athanassakis and Benjamin M. Wolkow have produced an accurate and elegant translation accompanied by rich commentary.

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  1. Print length
    280 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Johns Hopkins University Press
  4. Publication date
    July 31, 2013
  5. Dimensions
    6.13 x 0.67 x 9.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1421408821
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1421408828
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Book Description

The best-selling English translation of the mysterious and cosmic Greek poetry known as the Orphic Hymns.

About the Author

Apostolos N. Athanassakis (ATHENS, GR) is professor emeritus in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he held the Argyropoulos Chair in Hellenic Studies from 2001 to 2011. Among his many translations is The Homeric Hymns.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Johns Hopkins University Press; First Edition (July 31, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1421408821
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1421408828
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 0.67 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 133 ratings

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
133 global ratings
The best translations of the OH for modern readers!
5 Stars
The best translations of the OH for modern readers!
Love the cover art. Love the rose petal finish of the book cover. These are some of the most beautiful translations of the Orphic Hymns available today. The index is thorough and the footnotes are invaluable. These are especially moving when accompanied with music and sung in the traditional manner.
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Top reviews from the United States

Mike
5.0 out of 5 stars It’s an amazing resource
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2024
Verified Purchase
I use these hymns for prayer. There is a lot of work that went into the translation that was more accurate than the Thomas Taylor version (though also much less lyrical). There is a lot of information about the cultural context of the hymns and the translation as well as religious meaning and mythology. There’s also some literary dissection in the work. Overall it’s amazing, I wish it was cheaper though but there is a shockingly small amount of accurate translations of ancient Greek text. As far as I’m aware this and Thomas Taylor are the only translations for the Orphic Hymns in English.
2 people found this helpful
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Bobby
5.0 out of 5 stars The best translations of the OH for modern readers!
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2023
Verified Purchase
Love the cover art. Love the rose petal finish of the book cover. These are some of the most beautiful translations of the Orphic Hymns available today. The index is thorough and the footnotes are invaluable. These are especially moving when accompanied with music and sung in the traditional manner.
Customer image
Bobby
5.0 out of 5 stars The best translations of the OH for modern readers!
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2023
Love the cover art. Love the rose petal finish of the book cover. These are some of the most beautiful translations of the Orphic Hymns available today. The index is thorough and the footnotes are invaluable. These are especially moving when accompanied with music and sung in the traditional manner.
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Stefano Nikolaou
5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Primary Source on Orphism
Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2016
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The date of the Orphic Hymns is disputed but they seem to date from the late Hellenistic or Roman periods.

Athanassakis presents a readable translation that isn' t bogged down by too many notes. The nature of Ophism is subject to many modern theories and if they were thrown in as part of the translation then that would only confuse things.

It is well worth it for anyone interested in Greco-Roman religion to have a copy of this book on their shelf.
8 people found this helpful
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Lyssa
5.0 out of 5 stars Best Translation By Far
Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2013
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This translation of the Orphic Hymns is the best I've found by far. With small improvements over Athanassakis' 1977 translation, the 2013 edition far outstrips the traditionally used Thomas Taylor text. Where Taylor is determined to force the original Greek into rhyming verse and changes the names of the deities to their Roman equivalents, Athanassakis is true to the original Greek and the intention of the writing. I cannot recommend this highly enough. Any studies of the Orphic Hymns should come from his text.
17 people found this helpful
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Sanjay C. Patel
4.0 out of 5 stars Orphic hymns - connected to India’s Rig Veda?
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2014
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This is a very accurate and authentic translation into English of some ancient Greek Orphic hymns. There are about 36 in this collection.

Some sources such as Plato mention “hymns of Orpheus” but we cannot be sure that these are the same hymns. Some scholars place the current 36 hymns at around second to fourth century.

Supporting this is the fact that there is nothing remotely Christian about the hymns even though they are highly syncretic and include beliefs from all the surrounding faiths. The hymns are highly pagan. They reference divinities hardly known to Greece in the West. Many of these divinities or Asiatic Gods are from the East – Asia minor, Turkey.

A maximum number of hymns are dedicated to Dionysos – seven. Zeus follows with three. Dionysos was Orphism’s supreme God. In fact, Dionysos was the most popular God of the Hellenistic era. And Orphism appears to have spread almost everywhere.

It is not known whether Orpheus – the originator of Orphism – was historical or mystical. According to tradition he was not from Greece but Thrace. He was a renowned bard from a period possibly earlier than Homer and Hesiod. He played a stringed instrument called a lyre. His music was so mesmerizing that even inanimate objects swayed by its sound.

It is apparent that Orphic mythology was a kind of syncretism and extension of the major mythologies of Homer and Hesiod.

There is also apparently a great influence of Stoicism on Orphic beliefs. This is displayed in hymns dedicated to Ether, the Stars, Physis and others. These are all personifications of natural elements like the Rig Veda. Orphism also held on to Hesiod’s Sky, Kronos, and Zeus.

Indeed, this is the main reason why I have studied these hymns. It has been acknowledged ever since Max Müller that there is an equivalence between Dyaus in the Rig Veda of India and Zeus of Greece. Zeus is 800 BC, whilst Dyaus is between 1000-1900 BC.

This is one of the great and astonishing connections of ancient history that the West rarely wants to talk about. In the media, in the news, and in blockbuster movies Zeus is mentioned countless times. But rarely is it mentioned that "Great" Zeus is nothing but the ancient Rig Vedic God Dyaus, who is still in some ways revered in India.

Western parochialism and religious bigotry is suffocating the truth: in ancient times East and West had very similar and overlapping beliefs. Even the names of their gods were equivalent.

Indeed, the cosmogony of Orphism overlaps with the cosmogony of Vedanta and the Puranas which in turn overlap with the cosmogony of the Torah. In fact, there are 43 extraordinary parallels between the cosmic beliefs of ancient yogis in India and those of ancient Israelites. These go beyond chance.

Full disclosure: I’m a peer-reviewed researcher on connections between ancient yoga and the Bible, as well as between yoga and modern science. ~ Sanjay C Patel, SanjayCPatel.com
23 people found this helpful
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ethan williams
5.0 out of 5 stars perfect
Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2020
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if i could give this more than 5 stars, i would! i love this book! perfect, absolutely love it!
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H. B. Baldwin
5.0 out of 5 stars Orphius as Homer
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2015
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This is one of the few books I've found that has the Orphic mysteries in it. As important as Eleusis in its influence the cult of Orphius was as moving as that of its Athenian counterpart and as influential on Greek society and the concept of saving ones soul.
3 people found this helpful
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Hector M. Lugo
5.0 out of 5 stars Looked for this for years...
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2013
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Finally, this is available. I own his Homeric Hymns translations, and they are wonderful, and now I have these on my kindle... Love these hymns, and his use of English is superb as, unlike older translations, the translation is not so flowery that it detracts from the actual hymns themselves...
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Maldoror
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Passionate
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 19, 2023
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I have several different translations of 'The Orphic Hymns', including the childlike version recently published by Hadaen Press (again this is only my opinion but even the artwork in that book looks like it was drawn by Hergé, where you have a depiction of Orpheus looking like Tintin himself and which you can colour in as well!) and so personally I've found that the Athanassakis translation to be easily the most beautiful. He does not try to squeeze them into the form of the iambic pentameter, which is not in keeping with their translation from Greek to English and a rhythm and style which I believe curtails the beauty, meaning and flowing of the original text. Again this is just my opinion but I would recommend any translation by Athanassakis including his wonderful translation of Hesiod's 'Theogony'.
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pierre desrochers
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on August 1, 2018
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impeccable
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木村 点
5.0 out of 5 stars 脱Thomas Taylor
Reviewed in Japan on January 8, 2018
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今まで、オルペウスの讚歌に関する翻訳はThomas Taylorによるものが圧倒的に多かったように思います。
私が持っている版のTaylor訳は、韻文で、語順や行数に関してもかなり自由に変えてあり、固有名詞も英訳されており、fに似たlong-sを使って組版されているものでした。
Taylor訳が悪いとか劣っているというのではなく、非英語圏の人間にとっては、翻案されたまったく別のものという印象さえ受けます。
英文を検討して意味をくみ取るよりは、原文を探してきて読んだ方が早いのではないか??と思えるくらいに、私の英語力では読みこなせないものでした。

こうして他の訳文の選択肢ができたということは、非常に喜ばしいことだと思います。
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Jadziya
5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and well-written
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 29, 2021
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I appreciate this translation much more than the one that is commonly circulated which has heavily romantic language because it has helped me to understand the Orphic hymns more as devotional texts.
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Demetrios
3.0 out of 5 stars 3rd Edition Needed
Reviewed in Canada on October 3, 2015
Verified Purchase
The translation is not bad but the format of the book needs improving. For starters, it would have been nice for the Greek text to be included. Second, rather than just using endnotes, a commentary format would have been better with footnotes instead.
2 people found this helpful
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