Night and Cosmogony in the Orphic Hymns

Abstract

Abstract: The Orphic Hymns came into being in the early Roman Imperial age, but their mythological genealogy and verbal style inherited the ancient Greek traditions, namely, relying heavily on the citations from Hesiod and Homer while maintaining certain typical features of the orphic theogonies. Within the three major traditions of the Greek mythology, Homer and Hesiod regarded respectively Oceanus and Gaia as the ancestor of the Olympian gods, whereas the orphic eudemian theogony saw the goddess of the night (Nyx) as the origin of all gods. The image of Nyx in the orphic hymns carries the characteristics of both the creator deity and the city-state patron deity. Nyx is the primordial goddess in the narrative of cosmogony, and plays an indispensable role in the theocratic myths as well. The fact that Nyx is presented in these hymns in a hybrid of multiple mythological genealogies, the assimilation to several other deities, and a mixed use of the epithets demonstrates how the anonymous author of the orphic hymns understood the tradition and innovation in Hellenistic poetry, and strove to integrate diverse religious influences and philosophical trends during the early period of the Roman Empire.

Key words: Orphic Hymns, Night(Nyx), Greek theogony, Greek cosmogony

Wu Yaling. Night and Cosmogony in the Orphic Hymns[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2021, 43(5): 152-164.

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