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Feb. 17th, 2008 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The Orphic description of Apollo...it is quite interesting to me. So different from the commonly-thought-of distant, aloof, restrained and removed picture of him....
Come, O blessed Paian, O slayer of Tityos, O Phoibos, O Lykoreus.
A giver of riches are you and an illustrious dweller in Memphis,
O god to whom one cries "ie".
To you, O Titan and Pythian god belong the lyre and seeds and plows.
Grynean, Sminthian, slayer of Pytho, Delphic diviner,
You are a wild, light-bringing and lovable god, O glorious youth.
You shoot your arrows from afar, you lead the Muses into dance,
And, O holy one, you are Bacchos, Didymeus, and Loxias too.
Lord of Delos, eye that sees all and brings light to mortals,
Golden is your hair and clear your oraculr utterances.
Hear me with kindly heart as I pray for people.
You gaze upon all the etheral vastness,
And upon the rich earth you look throught the twilight.
In the quiet darkness of night lit with stars you see earth's roots below,
And you hold the bounds of the whole world.
Yours, too are the beginning and the end to come.
You make everything bloom, and with your versatile lyre you harmonize the poles,
Now reaching the highest pitch, now the lowest and now again with the Doric mode,
Balancing the poles harmoniously, as you keep the living races distinct.
You have infused harmony into all men's lot,
Giving them equal measure of summer and winter.
The lowest notes you strike in the winter, the highest in summer,
And your mode is Doric for spring's lovely and blooming season.
Wherefore mortals call you lord, and Pan, the two-horned god,
Who sends the whistling winds.
For this too, you have the master seal of the entire cosmos.
O, blessed one, hear the supplicant voice of the initiates and save them.
Come, O blessed Paian, O slayer of Tityos, O Phoibos, O Lykoreus.
A giver of riches are you and an illustrious dweller in Memphis,
O god to whom one cries "ie".
To you, O Titan and Pythian god belong the lyre and seeds and plows.
Grynean, Sminthian, slayer of Pytho, Delphic diviner,
You are a wild, light-bringing and lovable god, O glorious youth.
You shoot your arrows from afar, you lead the Muses into dance,
And, O holy one, you are Bacchos, Didymeus, and Loxias too.
Lord of Delos, eye that sees all and brings light to mortals,
Golden is your hair and clear your oraculr utterances.
Hear me with kindly heart as I pray for people.
You gaze upon all the etheral vastness,
And upon the rich earth you look throught the twilight.
In the quiet darkness of night lit with stars you see earth's roots below,
And you hold the bounds of the whole world.
Yours, too are the beginning and the end to come.
You make everything bloom, and with your versatile lyre you harmonize the poles,
Now reaching the highest pitch, now the lowest and now again with the Doric mode,
Balancing the poles harmoniously, as you keep the living races distinct.
You have infused harmony into all men's lot,
Giving them equal measure of summer and winter.
The lowest notes you strike in the winter, the highest in summer,
And your mode is Doric for spring's lovely and blooming season.
Wherefore mortals call you lord, and Pan, the two-horned god,
Who sends the whistling winds.
For this too, you have the master seal of the entire cosmos.
O, blessed one, hear the supplicant voice of the initiates and save them.