Hymn to Asclepius
Asclepius · Apollo · HygieiaEight lines, and two places in them are worth noting.
Θέλγων ἀνθρώπων πολυαλγέα πήματα νούσων — charming away the much-paining afflictions of men's diseases. The verb thelgō, to still by incantation, to enchant, is the very one used of healing in the Homeric hymn to Asclepius (homeric-asclepius-001), written some eight centuries earlier. Between the two texts lies the whole history of Greek medicine, Hippocrates included, and the word has not changed: treatment is still filed under enchantment.
Ὑγίειαν ἔχων σύλλεκτρον ἀμεμφῆ — having Hygieia as his blameless bedfellow. But in the physicians' oath Hygieia is his daughter (hippocrates-oath-001). The genealogies of abstract deities were not fixed, and this corpus preserves both depositions without reconciling them: Health is Healing's daughter or his wife, according to who is speaking.
Βιοτῆς τέλος ἐσθλὸν ὀπάζων — granting a good end of life. Almost every hymn in the collection closes with this request, and it betrays whom they were sung for: a community of initiates asking not only for health but for a good death, and caring more about the second.