Prayer to Apollo

A modern LABRYS text (see greek-agathodaimon-001), the bridegroom's prayer.

The opening here is the same as in the new-moon hymn, word for word: "I remember and do not forget Apollo Hekatos … come, blessed Paean … you who look down from above …" (greek-apollon-noumenios-001). A common blank, cut to half the length.

The ending is unexpected: "Come to me who pray, and scatter dread disease and suffering." At a wedding, deliverance from illness is requested.

This can be read two ways. The charitable reading: Apollo here is Apotropaios, the averter, and the bridegroom is asking that the household to come be kept from misfortune in general — an invocation of that kind on the threshold of a new family is entirely apt.

But the seam is visible. The same petition — "end the heavy sickness … grant health" — stands in the hymn to Asclepius from the same book, written for the health ceremony (greek-asklepios-001). It looks as though an ending from another rite has been attached to the common opening.

This is worth noting without reproach: composite texts look exactly like this, and telling the blank from the insertion is ordinary work with any service book, ancient or modern.