[…] For some say, at Dracanum; and some, on windy Icarus; and some, in Naxos, O Heaven-born, Insewn; and others by the deep-eddying river Alpheus that pregnant Semele bare you to Zeus the thunder-lover. And others yet, lord, say you were born in Thebes; but all these lie. The Father of men and gods gave you birth remote from men and secretly from white-armed Hera. There is a certain Nysa, a mountain most high and richly grown with woods, far off in Phoenice, near the streams of Aegyptus […] “and men will lay up for her many offerings in her shrines. And as these things are three, so shall mortals ever sacrifice perfect hecatombs to you at your feasts each three years.” The Son of Cronos spoke and nodded with his dark brows. And the divine locks of the king flowed forward from his immortal head, and he made great Olympus reel. So spake wise Zeus and ordained it with a nod. Be favorable, O Insewn, Inspirer of frenzied women! we singers sing of you as we begin and as we end a strain, and none forgetting you may call holy song to mind. And so, farewell, Dionysus, Insewn, with your mother Semele whom men call Thyone.
Homer · The Homeric Hymns Ὁμηρικοὶ ὕμνοι
Homer, The Homeric Hymns 1.1–21: Hymn 1 to Dionysus (fragment)
Only a fragment of the first hymn to Dionysus survives. It rejects the places that claim to be his birthplace, among them Dracanum, Icarus, Naxos, the river Alpheus and Thebes, and says that Zeus bore him secretly, far from men and from white-armed Hera, on a mountain called Nysa. The surviving lines end with the promise of sacrifice in his honour.
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English translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914). Original text: Hugh G. Evelyn-White (ed.), Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, Loeb Classical Library, London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1914 (Greek text as digitised by Perseus).
Greek text and translation from the Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Perseus Digital Library); translation public domain. Introductions, summaries and notes © GreekMythology.com.
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