Prayer to Tyche and Artemis

A modern LABRYS text (see greek-agathodaimon-001) from the Orphic hymn to Tyche.

The goddess is here identified with Artemis — "Artemis reigning over rich domains" — which is why the deities field names both. The identification is Orphic in method: the collection merges deities by setting their names in one series, and the accumulation of names produces the fusion by itself (orphic-trietericus-001).

"Born of the blood of Eubouleus" — the same son of Zeus and Persephone whom the hymn to Dionysus describes as begotten "in an unspeakable bed" (orphic-dionysus-002). Fortune is derived from the child of the underworld: chance comes from below.

And beside it stands tymbidia, of the tomb. Fortune and the grave are named in one series of epithets.

Most important is how her operation is described. "From you flows the variety of mortal life: to some you give a rich abundance of possessions, to others a dreadful poverty." The hymn does not claim that the goddess is just; arbitrariness is named as her nature and is not excused.

Compare the prayer to Plouton from the same book: "you alone requite deeds, seen and unseen" (greek-plouton-001). In one service book stand a god who judges and a goddess who does not, and this gave the compilers no difficulty. The ancients lived in a world where both powers act at once, and did not require them to agree.