Hymn to Dionysus and Persephone

Here the Orphic Dionysus is set out most fully (on the make-up of the collection, see orphic-amphietus-001).

Πρωτόγονον, διφυῆ, τρίγονον — first-born, twice-natured, thrice-begotten. The three births are doctrine, not ornament: from Persephone, from Semele, and from Zeus' thigh. An ordinary Greek knew one Dionysus; an Orphic knew three, and all three were one.

Ἄρρητον, κρύφιον — unspeakable, hidden. The god is declared unnameable in a list of twenty of his names, and there is no contradiction: what is unspeakable is not the name but what lies behind it, and by the name an initiate recognises what is being kept silent.

Ὡμάδιον … ἁγνόν — eater of raw flesh … pure. Two words in succession, with no transition. Tearing the victim and eating raw meat do not breach ritual purity; they constitute it.

And the most important thing is the parentage: Διὸς καὶ Φερσεφονείης ἀρρήτοις λέκτροισι τεκνωθείς, begotten of Zeus and Persephone in an unspeakable bed. Zeus and his own daughter; this is the centre of the Orphic story, and it is not described but labelled with the word "unspeakable". The child is Eubouleus, the same one named in the hymn to Mother Antaia (orphic-demeter-002).