Prayer to Hermes

A modern LABRYS text (see greek-agathodaimon-001) for the new moon, and it is borrowed neither from the Orphic nor from the Homeric collection: it is composed on its own, briefly and to the point.

The main thing here is "protector of this house". Hermes is called a household deity, and rightly: at the entrance of an Athenian house stood a herm — a stone pillar with the god's head — and offerings were made before it. He guarded the door.

Hence also "of the road". The herm at the threshold is the boundary between house and street, and the god who stands at it belongs to both at once: he is a messenger because he travels the roads, and he is the guardian of the house because the house ends where he stands.

The Homeric double hymn states the same thought, setting Hermes beside Hestia (homeric-hestia-hermes-001): she is the motionless centre, he is the door, and a house needs both. The compilers of this book have reproduced that division without announcing it: the hymn to Hestia opens the household rite (greek-hestia-labrys-001), and the ode to Hermes stands within it.

"With this modest libation" — the measure is honestly named. Little was offered at the new moon: the month began not with a festival but with domestic routine.