Daniel Malamis provides a comprehensive study, new critical edition, and English translation of the Orphic Hymns, a collection of eighty-seven ancient Greek religious poems with roots in esoteric and mystery ritual traditions. Through the dual lens of philology and poetics, his book not only provides a new edition and translation of the Hymns, but also situates them within the Greek literary tradition, analyzing their poetic strategies, stylistic features, ritual contexts alongside their performance and reception. Malamis is successful in both aims, building his Greek text on exhaustive collation of all surviving Byzantine manuscripts and detailed analysis of the manuscript tradition grounded in a now-lost archetype (“Ψ”). Simultaneously, he explores the intertextual, poetic, and generic affiliations of the Orphic Hymns, was a long-sought academic desideratum as stated almost twenty years ago by Richard Martin when concluding his review of Morand’s monograph.[1]
The translation strives for literal accuracy, preservation of parataxis, and adherence to the densest possible rendering of original epithets and phrases, without unpacking potential ambiguities or multivalences inherent in the original Greek text. Malamis translates and – inevitably – interprets, but he aims for literal closeness over poetic style, so he repeats epithets consistently (rendering compound epithets by a single word in English and avoiding paraphrase when possible).
The critical edition is completed by a large body of notes addressing textual issues, wherein Malamis provides justification for his emendations, editorial choices, and rejections (pages 118-133). Additionally, a ‘Synopsis of Variant Readings’ is provided, offering a comparative perspective on the various proposals put forth by the latest major editors (especially Quandt, Ricciardelli, and Fayant) of the Hymns (pages 134-138).
The main section of the book consists of an extensive study, which unquestionably constitutes the most important contribution. As a matter of fact, these pages represent a development of the author’s doctoral dissertation, which was completed under the supervision of Michael Lambert at Rhodes University in 2022 (now happily enriched by the Greek critical text and its English version). Malamis accepts the contemporary consensus on the Hymns’ composition and function (created in the second or third century AD, in Asia Minor – perhaps Pergamon?, and designed for cultic performance) to follow his own personal approach: to focus on ritual performance and the poetic composition of the text. This contribution is possible by standing on the shoulders of giants such as the editions, translations, and studies of Quandt (Berlin 1955), Bernabé (Hildesheim 1988), Ricciardelli (Milan 2000), Morand (Leiden 2001), Rudhardt (Liège 2008), Fayant (Paris 2014), etc.[2]
The present study thus encompasses the following major sections: 1. Scholarship and Reception —discussing historical interpretations of the hymns from Renaissance occultism through modern critical philology, as well as the key debates in academic discourse on authorship, date, and cultic or literary function. 2. The Collection and the Hymns —analysing the unity, sequence, structure of the collection, but also formal elements such as invocation, the body (eulogia), and prayer. 3. Sound and Patterning —examining in detail of poetic devices (phonic repetition, alliteration, antithesis, metrical and formal patterns, chiastic and symmetrical arrangement). 4. Formulae in the Orphic Hymns —investigating the formulae and intertextual allusions (by means of systematic mapping and quantitative analysis of repeated formulae). In addition, this part traces connections to other Greek hexameters, from Homeric to Hellenistic, Imperial, and Orphic texts. 5. Generic and Poetic Contexts —placing the Hymns among broader ancient Greek genres, as well as analyzing their engagement with other Orphic poetry, hymnic traditions, and ritual contexts.
The Orphic Hymns offers a collection of hymns, unique in their number and completeness (unlike most surviving Greek hymns, which are fragmentary), as well as their apparent association with a cult and esoteric tradition. Malamis argues meticulously and supports his claims with a wide range of evidence, unfolding a highly formalized structure, typically with an invocation / proem, a catalogue of divine attributes (often in asyndetic, paratactic phrases), and a concluding prayer. Furthermore, he highlights their salient poetic features such as alliteration, assonance, phonic and thematic repetition, and the plethora of epithets, thereby bringing the Hymns into meaningful contact with obviously parallel texts, as well as with the oral-traditional composition and its performance. All this enriches our understanding of formulaic phrases and the intratextual / intertextual echoes of the Hymns in relation to other Greek poetry. Specifically, this volume is distinctive in that it systematically catalogues the frequency and distribution of certain poetic devices in tabular data, thus distinguishing itself from prior studies in the Orphic field. The author has employed statistical analyses of formulaic phrases, types of predications, asyndeton, and structural patterns throughout the collection in order to support his literary interpretations empirically.
Malamis’ tightly documented study of the genre should be acknowledged. His in-depth literary analysis treats the category “Genre” flexibly, since the Orphic Hymns participate in several genres simultaneously, and in Antiquity the very notion of “hymn” was itself broad, encompassing various forms of divine address, invocation, and eulogy. Despite the hymns having been most likely composed for ritual cult, their function and use receive less attention. Formal issues often limit the generic classification, and the hymns’ multiple literary traditions (epic, lyric, oracular, theogonic, and philosophical) create a hybrid “hymnic” genre that blends praise with catalogic style, incantatory language, and the presentation of dogma. This maybe the reason why formally sophisticated prosodic elements (formulae, allusion, epithets, etc.) are privileged in the study, while the Orphic theological content implied by the hymns’ philosophical vocabulary and syncretic tendencies in the textual analysis may be underplayed. In any case, the ongoing scholarly treatment of the cultic and performative dimensions of the hymns has been given greater prominence than the debate over the didactic intentions of these poems or their possible use for private philosophical contemplation.
The book concludes with a substantial series of Appendices, which include manuscript lists, detailed structural charts, catalogues of poetic resources, variants, and intertextual parallels with other ancient texts, and quantitative data. These addenda are followed by a comprehensive scholarly Bibliography and by the customary reader-friendly Indexes.
Despite the decline in formalistic and structural studies within the domains of ancient literature and mysteric religions, Malamis’s publication stands as a noteworthy exemplar of a philological study and edition, distinguished by its meticulous and analytical rigor. The study’s integration of quantitative methodologies, philological commentary, and poetic theory serves to transcend the conventional boundaries between traditional editions and literary critical approaches, such as structuralism and sound patterns. It is unfortunate that this innovative emphasis on compositive elements and recurring poetic features has not been applied to – or at least tested with – a case study taken from the surviving verses within the fragments of Orphic or Bacchic literature found elsewhere. For instance, the ancient proverb πολλοὶ μὲν ναρθηκοφόροι, παῦροι δέ τε βάκχοι, “for there are many that carry the thyrsus, but few are the Bacchi” (Orph. fr. 576 Bernabé). This elegant and flawless hexameter (inaccurately quoted by Plato in his Phaedo 69c8: ναρθηκοφόροι μὲν πολλοί, βάκχοι δέ τε παῦροι, and by a significant number of authors after him) fulfils many of the structural and functional characteristics (symmetrical patterns, rhythmic, phonic effects, etc.) identified by Malamis in his research on the Orphic Hymns.[3] This comparative analysis would have revealed connections between the Hymns themselves and other parts of the intricate corpus Orphicum.
In any case, Daniel Malamis’s book constitutes an authoritative and valuable scientific contribution to Orphic scholarship, thereby enabling a more nuanced understanding of the collection of these hymns and of their generic literary status. It sets a new benchmark for future research on the Hymns by integrating textual, statistical, and comparative approaches, particularly in its systematic attention to poetic technique, intertextuality, and the complex, overlapping genres through which the Hymns communicate their vision of the divine.
This monograph will prove to be a necessary reference for any scholar studying the Orphic Hymns (classicists, historians of religion, and anyone interested in Greek poetry, mysteries, and Orphic tradition) because of the remarkable clarity of Malamis’s systematic comparative discussion of the formal elements composing the Orphic Hymns.
Last but not least, the presentation and content meet the customary high standards set by Brill’s Mnemosyne series, thus ensuring a reading experience as pleasant as fruitful.
Notes
[1] The Classical Review 57, No. 1 (2007), pp. 80-82.
[2] -Quandt, Orphei hymni. Berlin: Weidmann 1955.
-Bernabé, Orphei Hymnorum Concordantia. Hildesheim, Zürich & New York: Olms 1988.
-Ricciardelli, Inni orfici. Milano: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla 2000.
-Morand, Études sur les Hymnes orphiques. Leiden: Brill 2001.
-Rudhardt, ‘Recherches sur les Hymnes orphiques’. In Bourgeaud and Pirenne-Delforge (eds.), J. Rudhardt, Opera inedita. Liège: Centre International d’Étude de la Religion Grecque Antique 2008, pp. 159–325.
-Fayant, Hymnes orphiques. Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2014.
It should be noted the sort of damnatio memoriae of the widespread Athanassakis and Wolkow, The Orphic Hymns. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 2013 (2nd edition), only referred to on three occasions by Malamis.
[3] Moreover, one of the few appearances of the term ναρθηκοφόρος can be found in OH 42.1.