Prayer to Plouton

A modern LABRYS text (see greek-agathodaimon-001), going back to the Orphic hymn to Plouton — a prayer at a burial.

"Holding the keys of the earth" — kleidouchos. The key recurs constantly in Greek prayer: Prothyraia the key-holder stands at the door of birth (orphic-prothyraea-001), Eros is called "sharp key-holder of all" (greek-aphrodite-eros-wedding-001), Hekate holds the key of the world (greek-hekate-orphic-001). A key signifies not power but access, and the lord of the dead turns out to be a doorkeeper rather than a tormentor.

"Zeus Chthonios" — the Zeus below, a genuine and ancient title. Farmers sacrificed to him for a crop: wealth and death come from one god, because both come out of the ground. Plouton's own name means Wealth.

"You alone requite deeds, seen and unseen" — this, by ancient standards, is new. The Homeric Hades judges no one, he receives; requital for what men could not see appears late, along with the mystery communities that promised initiates a different lot. This line belongs to the stratum of religion in which questions begin to be asked beyond the grave.