Hymn to Dionysus Lysios

Dionysus Lysios, the Releaser, and the root ly- runs through the whole hymn: lysie, releasing; pausiponon, ending toil; philalypon, grief-loving. A request for release is the commonplace of this collection, and here the god is named directly after it.

Παυσίπονον θνητοῖσι φανεὶς ἄκος — a remedy revealed to mortals that puts an end to toil. Akos is a medicine; wine is described in the vocabulary of healing, as Asclepius is described in the vocabulary of enchantment (orphic-asclepius-001). For the ancients these are neighbouring departments.

Χάρμα βροτοῖς φιλάλυπον — joy to mortals, "grief-loving". The compound is strange and occurs nowhere else; the Orphic hymns coin such words by the dozen, and they sometimes have no settled sense. Here it seems to say that the gladness of wine and sorrow keep company — but the rendering is unavoidably a guess.

Διμῆτορ — of two mothers, Semele and Zeus' thigh. Ῥηξίχθον — earth-breaker: the vine shoot forcing through the soil. The god is named after what his plant looks like in spring.