Ourania, illustrious, laughter-loving queen, sea-born, night-loving, of awful mien; crafty, from whom Ananke first came, producing, nightly, all-connecting dame. 'Tis thine the world with harmony to join, for all things spring from thee, O power divine. The triple Moirai are ruled by thy decree, and all productions yield alike to thee: whatever the heavens, encircling all, contain, earth fruit-producing, and the stormy main, thy sway confesses, and obeys thy nod, awful attendant of Bakkhos God. Goddess of marriage, charming to the sight, mother of the Erotes, whom banquetings delight; source of Peitho, secret, favouring queen, illustrious born, apparent and unseen; spousal Lukaina, and to men inclined, prolific, most-desired, life-giving, kind. Great sceptre-bearer of the Gods, 'tis thine mortals in necessary bands to join; and every tribe of savage monsters dire in magic chains to bind through mad desire. Come, Kyprogenes, and to my prayer incline, whether exalted in the heavens you shine, or pleased in odorous Syria to preside, or over the Aigyptian plains thy care to guide, fashioned of gold; and near its sacred flood, fertile and famed, to fix thy blest abode; or if rejoicing in the azure shores, near where the sea with foaming billows roars, the circling choirs of mortals thy delight, or beauteous Nymphai with eyes cerulean bright, pleased by the sandy banks renowned of old, to drive thy rapid two-yoked car of gold; or if in Kypros thy famed mother fair, where Nymphai unmarried praise thee every year, the loveliest Nymphai, who in the chorus join, Adonis pure to sing, and thee divine. Come, all-attractive, to my prayer inclined, for thee I call, with holy, reverent mind.
Commentarius · Commentary
Aphrodite Ourania in the Orphic hymn is not a goddess of attraction but a cosmic power. On the make-up and origin of this collection, see orphic-amphietus-001.
Ὑπεζεύξω δέ τε κόσμον καὶ κρατέεις τρισσῶν μοιρῶν — you have yoked the cosmos beneath you and you rule the three portions. The three portions are sky, earth and the deep of the sea, as the following lines explain; but trissai moirai also reads as the three Fates, and both senses live in the line.
Most remarkable of all is δολοπλόκε μῆτερ ἀνάγκης, guile-weaving mother of Necessity. This is not Homeric mythology: in Orphic cosmogony Ananke is a first principle, and to call Aphrodite her mother is to put desire before compulsion. First longing, out of it necessity, out of necessity the ordering of the world. An entire cosmogony is set out in one epithet.
The whole hymn turns on the image of a yoke: zeukteira, she who yokes; hypezeuxō, you have yoked beneath you; gamostole, she who arrays marriages. Marriage, intercourse and the structure of the universe are described by one word — the word for harnessing oxen.
Adonis, Peitho and the nymphs, named in the deities field, stand in the untranslated part — the list of places where the goddess may be found.
Fons · Source
AuthorAnonymous (Orphic corpus)
WorkOrphic Hymns
Section55
PeriodHellenistic to Roman imperial (3rd c. BC – 2nd c. AD)
OccasionOrphic hymn to Aphrodite Ourania — invocation of the celestial Aphrodite as cosmic harmony and ruler of Fates, with appeals across all her cult sites
