First Hymn to Telesphorus
Telesphorus · AsclepiusThe first of two hymns to Telesphoros cut on one Athenian stele of the third century. The stone carries a whole service of health in sequence: a hymn to Asklepios, Ariphron's paian to Hygieia, then two hymns to Telesphoros — this one in anapaests and the hexameter hymn that follows it (greek-telesphoros-002). They were most likely sung one after another, as a daily round.
Telesphoros — "the bringer of fulfilment" — is the hooded boy who attends Asklepios. His cult reached Attica only in the second century AD, so this is a young god being given a pedigree after the fact: the hymn calls him the son of "the god who looses pain" and sets him beside Paian.
The petition stands in the dual: "raise up", "having thrust away", both said of two. The address is not to Telesphoros alone but to the pair — Asklepios and his boy work together, and the grammar holds that more precisely than any gloss could.
"About whom Doom once stood" — the Ker is death, closing in on the infant. The god of recovery was himself once at the point of death; hence his power to lead a mortal "into fair light" out of deep suffering.
The opening of the hymn is broken. The first five lines of the stone are almost all lacuna, and what stands in square brackets is not words but a count of lost letters. Only the second half reads continuously. The text follows AIO 3516, which follows IG II³ 4, 939; the translations are editorial.