Prayer to Hecate

A modern LABRYS text (see greek-agathodaimon-001) — for the ninth day after a death.

The date is ancient: the enata, the ninth-day rites, stood in the sequence of commemorations between the third day and the thirtieth (greek-gaia-eniausia-001). And the deity is rightly chosen: Hekate had charge of crossroads and of passages, and on the last day of the month food was left for her along with offerings to the dead.

The most curious thing is the title. "Hekate Prothyraia", she who stands before the door. In the Orphic collection that name belongs to the goddess of childbirth, who has a hymn of her own, the second in the series (orphic-prothyraea-001): she stands before the door by which a child enters the world, and holds its key.

Here the same name is given to the one who leads a soul out. And this is not a modern confusion but an ancient state of affairs: the Orphic collection opens with Hekate, and Prothyraia follows her, and that order means the door is one. Whoever admits also releases; the key-holder stands at the passage, not at one of its ends.

"Enodia", she of the road, is a genuine Thessalian deity absorbed into Hekate; "saffron-robed" comes from the Orphic hymn to Hekate.

And the request — "lead the soul along the bright paths of the gods" — is of the same cast as the gold leaves of Orphic burials, on which the dead were given directions for the way.