Hymns

Come, my clear-voiced lyre, after the Teian song, after the Lesbian strain, to more venerable hymns sound out a Doric ode, not for tender brides laughing with love's laughter, nor for the blooming youth of young men much desired; for the holy, unstained birth-pang of God-conceiving wisdom urges me to a divine song, to ply the strings of the cithara, and bids me flee the honeyed ruin of earthly loves. For what is strength, what is beauty, what is gold, what is fame, and the honors of kings, beside thoughts of God? Let one man drive a horse well, another draw a bow well, another guard a heap of possessions, golden wealth; for another let his hair be his pride, flowing down over his neck, and let someone be much sung among young men and young women for the brilliance of his face;

but may it be mine, without a sound, to draw out an obscure life, obscure as far as others go, but knowing the things that look toward God. And may wisdom be with me, good for youth, good to draw me on into old age, a good queen over wealth; and poverty she will bear without toil, wisdom, laughing, a poverty the bitter cares of life cannot tread. Only let there be enough, as much as suffices to keep me from my neighbors' huts, so that need may not bend me to dark anxieties. Listen also to the cicada's song, who has drunk the dew of dawn. See, my strings cry out unbidden, and a voice flutters round and about me. What song, then, will it bring to birth in me, this divinely wondrous birth-pang?

He, the self-sprung Beginning, steward and father of things that are, unbegotten, enthroned on high above the summits of heaven, exulting in imperishable glory, sits, God unshaken, holy Unity of unities, and first Monad of monads, the simplicities of the summits uniting and begetting in births beyond being; from there, leaping forth herself through the first-sown Form, the Monad, poured out ineffably, took on a triple-crested might. And the Source beyond being is crowned with the beauty of children that have leapt forth from the center and flowed around the center. Stay, my bold lyre, stay, and do not show to the crowds rites not for the uninitiated. Come, sing of things below; the things above silence covers, and Mind now cares only for the intellectual worlds.

For from there, for good, already the source of mortal spirit was divided without division: the imperishable Mind that came down into matter, a fragment broken off from its divine and sovereign parents, small, yet theirs. This Mind, whole and everywhere one, whole entering into the whole, turns the vault of the heavens; and, guarding this whole, in apportioned forms it stands present, divided, one part in the chariots of the stars, another in the choirs of angels; and another, with a downward-sinking bond, found an earthly form, and, set apart from its parents, drew up dark forgetfulness, and with blind cares marveled at the joyless earth, a god gazing on mortal things. Yet there is, there is some light in eyes that are veiled;

there is also, for those who have fallen here, a strength that leads them upward, when, escaping the waves of life, free of care, they set out on the holy paths to the palace of their Parent. Blessed is he who, fleeing the voracious barking of matter, and rising up from earth with a light leap, stretches his step toward God. Blessed is he who, after his lot, after toils, after the bitter cares that delight in earth, has set foot on the paths of Mind and seen the God-illumined depth. It is a labor to stretch the whole heart on the whole wings of loves that lead upward. Only make firm your impulse with impulses that carry toward Mind; and near you will appear the Begetter, stretching out his hands; for a ray running before will light up the paths and spread before you the intelligible plain, the source of beauty.

Come, my soul, drink from the spring that flows with good, entreat the Parent, go up, and do not delay; leave to earth the things of earth; and soon, mingled with the Father, you would dance, God in God.

Light again, again the dawn, again the day shines forth after the night-roaming dark. Again, my heart, sing clear to God in morning hymns, who gave light to the dawn, who gave stars to the night, a dance around the world. Over the back of matter, rich in waves, the ether spread its covering, mounted on the flower of fire, where the glorious moon cuts the last circle; and above the eighth whirl of the star-bearing spirals a flow empty of stars, driving on the folds within its bosom that run the opposite way, dances around the great Mind, which with grey wings roofs over the summits of the King's world. What lies beyond, blessed silence covers, of the intellectual and the intelligible the undivided division. One Source, one Root, a threefold-shining Form has shone;

for where the Father's depth is, there too is the glorious Son, an offspring from the heart, Wisdom, artificer of the world; and the unifying light of the holy Breath has shone. One Source, one Root has sent up a wealth of good things, a sprouting beyond being, seething with fruitful impulses; and of the blessed ones of one substance the ineffable lights shine forth. From there, now within the world, the chorus of immortal lords has sung the glory of the Begetter and the first-sown Form in intellectual hymns. Near the kindly Parents the ageless host of angels, in part gazing toward Mind, plucks the source of beauty, in part gazing toward the circles, governs the depths of the world, drawing the world above down even to the lowest matter, where nature, settling down, gives birth to the throng of daemons, noisy and full of designs.

From there the heroes; from there now the breath, sown about the earth, has given life to the portions of earth in forms of manifold art. And all things hang upon your will; you are the root of things present, of things before, of things to come, of things within. You are father, you are mother, you are male, you are female, you are voice, you are silence, nature begetting nature, you are Lord, the Aeon of the aeon. This much it is right to cry aloud: Hail greatly, root of the world, hail greatly, center of things that are, Monad of immortal numbers, of lords before being. Hail greatly, hail greatly, for with God is rejoicing. To my choirs of hymns stretch out a gracious ear; open the light of wisdom, pour down glorious blessing, pour down the rich grace of a calm life, driving poverty far off and the earthly doom of wealth;

keep diseases from my limbs, and the disordered rush of passions and cares that trouble the mind may you keep from my life, so that the plumage of the mind may not be weighed down by the ruin of earth; but lifting a freed wing, around the mysteries of your Offspring I shall dance, mysteries wholly ineffable.

Come, my soul, to sacred hymns applying yourself, the matter-born frenzies lull to sleep; and arm the mind's vehement impulses. For the King of the gods we weave a crown, a bloodless sacrifice, libations of words. You on the sea, you over the islands, you on the mainlands, and in the cities and on the rugged mountains, and over the famous plains, whenever I set the twin soles of my feet, you, Blessed One, I sing, Begetter of the world. To you the night brings me, the singer, O Lord; to you by day, to you at dawn, to you at evening I bring up hymns.

Witnesses are these, the courses of the grey stars and of the moon; and a great witness, the sun, of the pure stars the president, of holy souls the holy steward. To your courts, to your bosom, the foot that turns away from far-stretching matter I lightened, rejoicing, where I reached your forecourt. Now to the solemn places of your sacred rites, to the holy precincts, as a suppliant I have come; now to the summits of famous mountains as a suppliant I have come; now into the great valley of the desert of Libya I have come, the southern border,

which neither a godless breath defiles, nor does the footprint of city-anxious men mark it, so that to you my soul, pure of passions, having loosed its longings, having ceased from toils, having ceased from laments, angers, strifes, all that feeds death, having shaken them off, with pure tongue and holy mind may render the hymn that is owed. Let there be holy silence in ether and earth; let the sea stand still, and let the air stand still; cease, you breaths of the swift winds, cease, you rushings of the curving surf, outpourings of rivers, springs from the rocks.

Let silence hold the flanks of the world, while the holy hymns are offered in sacrifice. Let it sink beneath the earth, the trail of serpents; let it sink beneath the earth, the winged serpent too, the daemon of matter, the cloud of the soul, delighting in idols, that sets its hounds baying at prayers. You, Father, you, Blessed One, the soul-devouring hounds drive away from my soul, from my prayer, from my life, from my works. And may our libation of the heart be a care to your much-honored ministers, the wise ferrymen of holy hymns. Now I am borne to the starting-line of sacred words;

now there rings a voice around my mind. Blessed One, be gracious to me, Father, be gracious to me, if beyond due order, if beyond my portion, I have touched what is yours. Whose eye, however wise, whose eye, however great, by your lightnings beaten back, will not close? To gaze steadily upon your fires is not lawful even for gods; and the mind, falling from your watchtower, fawns on what is near, while it tries to reach the unreachable, to look upon the radiance in the tireless depth flashing; but stepping off from the untrodden, on the first-appearing Form it fixes the pull of its eye;

from there, taking up for your hymns flowers of light, in boundless winds it seeks to rest its gaze, giving you back again what is yours. For what is not yours, Lord? Of all fathers Father, Self-father, Forefather, Fatherless, Son of yourself, One before One, Seed of things that are, Center of all, Mind before being, Root of the worlds, the primal ones, Light shining all around, wise Truth, Source of wisdom, Mind veiled by your own rays, Eye of yourself, Ruler of the lightning-storm, Begetter of the aeons, living through the aeons, beyond the gods, beyond the minds,

governing the other realm, Mind that begets mind, Channel-maker of gods, Worker of spirit and Nourisher of souls; Source of sources, Beginning of beginnings, Root of roots; you are Monad of monads, Number of numbers, Monad and Number, Mind and the thinking and the thought and what is before the thought; One and all, One through all, and One before all, the Seed of all, Root and branch, Nature in the intellectual realm, female and male. And the initiate mind says this and that, dancing around the ineffable depth.

You are that which begets, you that which is begotten, you that which gives light, you that which is lit, you that which appears, you that which is hidden, light hidden by its own rays; One and all, One by itself and through all. For you were poured forth, ineffable Begetter, to beget a Son, glorious Wisdom, the Craftsman; and, poured forth, you remain, by undivided divisions bringing to birth. I hymn you, Monad, I hymn you, Triad; you are Monad, being Triad, you are Triad, being Monad; and an intellectual division keeps still unsplit what has been divided.

You were poured forth upon the Son by wise Will, and Will herself sprang up in the middle, a nature beyond utterance, the being before being. It is not right to say “second” of what is from you; it is not right to say “third” of what is from the first. Holy Birth-pang, ineffable Offspring, you are the boundary of the natures, of the one that begets and of the one begotten. I revere, of the intellectual realm, the hidden order: something in the middle proceeds and is not brought down. Unutterable Offspring of an unutterable Father, the birth-pang was for your sake, and through the birth-pang you yourself appeared, appearing together with the Father by the Father's Will; and you are ever Will beside your Father.

Not even deep-flowing Time knows the births that are ineffable; nor did aged Aeon learn of the birth that cannot be unwound; with the Father he appeared, Aeon, coming into being, he who will come into being. Over things unutterable who awarded a prize to daring? Of blind mortals with cunning tongues the godless daring! But you are the light-giver of intellectual light; and from crooked deceit you hold up the minds of holy mortals, lest into the darkness of matter they sink. You, Father of the worlds, Father of the aeons, Self-worker of gods, it is holy to praise.

You the intellectual ones sing, O Lord, and you the world-leading, eye-bright starry minds hymn, Blessed One, round whom the glorious body dances. You the whole race of the blessed sings, those around the world, those within the world, those of the zones, and those without zones who govern the portions of the world in wisdom, those who walk around the glorious house-bearers;

whom the angelic band pours forth, and the glorious race of heroes, the works of mortals by hidden paths passing through, [mortal works], and the soul that does not incline and the soul that inclines toward the dark-gleaming masses of earth. You blessed Nature and the offspring of Nature hymn, Blessed One, she whom with life-giving breaths you govern, from your channels sweeping down, rolling onward; for you, of undefiled worlds the Leader, are Nature of natures;

You warm nature, the coming-to-be of mortals, of the ever-flowing an image, so that even the last portion in the world may have its share of life in its alternation; for it was not right that the dregs of the world should vie with its summits; but what has once been ranked in the chorus of things that are will no longer perish; one from another and through one another all things have their enjoyment; from things that perish an everlasting cycle, by your breaths warmed again.

For you, through all things, she sets up choirs, mother Nature, with their own colors, with their own works adorned, and from living creatures of different voices one harmony she leads in unison. To you all things bring ageless praise, dawn and night, lightnings, snows, the blazing heaven and the roots of the earth, water, air, all bodies, all spirits, seeds, fruits, plants and grasses, roots, herbs, cattle and birds, and of swimming fish the shoals.

Look also on a soul of little strength, of little power, in your Libya, at your august holy observances with holy prayers busying herself, a soul round which hovers a cloud of matter; but your eye, Father, cuts through matter. Now my heart, with your hymns grown rich, has quickened my mind with fiery impulses; and you, Lord, shine lights that lead upward. Grant, Father, that, having fled the body, she sink no more into the ruin of earth. And while, of a life spent in matter, in the bonds I remain, may a gentle fortune, Blessed One, nourish me;

and may it not blow as a hindrance to my mind, with grievous cares devouring my life, so that I may not, for the things of God, lack leisure, nor any longer among such things may wallow; escaping from there by your gifts, a garland from pure meadows I weave for you, to you I bring this praise, of undefiled worlds the Leader, and to your wise Son, Wisdom herself, whom from your ineffable bosom you poured forth, and he remains in you though leaping forth from you,

so that he may govern all things by wise breaths, may rule the grey depth of the aeons, may rule the reaches of the rugged world even to the lowest floor of things that are, the earthly portion, shining into holy minds, and may loose the toils and cares of living mortals, accomplisher of good things, driver-away of griefs. What wonder is it that God, the Craftsman of the world, from his own works should ward off dooms? This to you, of the great world the Lord, as payment I have come, a debt from Thrace, where for three years I dwelt in the land beside the royal hall of the earth;

I endured toils, I endured pains of many tears, bearing on my shoulders my motherland. The ground was sprinkled with the sweat of my limbs as they struggled day after day; my bed was sprinkled with the drops of my eyes as they lamented night after night. As many temples as were built, Lord, for your holy rites, to all of them I went, a suppliant, face down, the floor with my eyelids' moisture wetting, that I might not meet with an empty journey;

I entreated the gods who serve you, all who the fertile plain of Thrace hold, and those who, across the strait, the fields of Chalcedon tend, whom with angelic rays you crowned, Lord, your own holy ministers. With me the blessed ones took up my prayers, with me in many toils they shared. Life was not dear to me at that time, because my fatherland was being battered; but it, out of its griefs, you set upright, Lord, you yourself, the ageless, Lord of the world.

When my soul was already worn out, when my limbs were already collapsing, you propped up my strength of joints, into my wretched soul breathing vigor; and for my toils a sweet end was found as my heart desired, for to my labors, Lord, you granted, from long toils, a rest. All that is yours, Blessed One, keep safe for the Libyans to a long thread of time, for the memory of your kindness, and for the sake of the soul that suffered terribly; and to your suppliant give a life unharmed; free me from toils, free me from diseases, free me from cares that feed death;

grant an intellectual life to your minister. Do not on me earthly showers of wealth pour down, Lord, so that I may not, for the things of God, lack leisure; nor let downcast poverty, to my house drawing near, drag down to earth the care of my heart. Both weigh the soul down toward earth; both make the mind forgetful, when you, Blessed One, do not hold out your strength. Yes, Father, of pure wisdom the Source, shine into my mind from your bosom intellectual light; flash into my heart from your might the radiance of wisdom and the holy path that leads to you;

give me as a token your seal, the death-feeding daemons of matter driving from my life and from my prayer; and keep my body sound, by hostile injuries untouched; and keep my spirit undefiled, Lord. Truly, already the dark stain of matter I carry; I am held by longings, by earthly bonds. But you are the Deliverer, you are the Purifier; release me from evils, release me from diseases, release my fetters; your seed I carry, of a noble-born mind the spark, into the depth of matter sunk down;

for you in the world set down the soul, and through the soul in the body mind you sowed, Lord. Your daughter pity, Blessed One; I came down from you to serve on earth for hire; but instead of a hired servant I became a slave; matter with magic arts has bound me. Yet still there is in me some little strength of the hidden eye; not yet all its might has it quenched; but a great flood is poured over it, making blind the eye that sees God. Pity, Father, your suppliant daughter, whom often, on the ascents of mind as she sets out, a longing for greedy matter chokes.

But you, Lord, shine lights that lead upward; kindle a flame and a blaze, the little seed increasing in my inmost flower, its strength. Enthrone me, Father, in the might of light that bears life, where nature lays no hand, from where no longer earth, nor the fated spinning of Necessity brings me back again. Let it leave, let it flee, deceitful Generation, from your servant; and between me, Father, and the earthly turmoil let fire stand in the middle. Grant, Begetter, grant to your minister now intellectual wings to spread;

now let it bear the Father's seal, my suppliant soul, a terror to the hostile daemons, who from the earth's hiding places leaping up breathe into mortals godless impulses, and a token to your pure ministers, who through the glorious world's depths of the fiery ascents are the key-bearers, that for me, of light they may open the gates. And still, a wanderer creeping on the earth, may I not be of the earth; of fiery works here too grant the fruit as witness, true voices, and all that in souls the immortal hope keeps warm. I repent of earthly life:

away with you, ambitions of godless mortals, and powers of cities; away with you, all sweet follies of ruin, and graceless grace, by which the soul, flattered, earth holds as its hireling; she, very wretched, of her own goods has drunk forgetfulness, until she meets with an envious portion; for two portions matter, the procuress, holds. And whoever, for the tables reaching out, has touched the honeyed food, will weep greatly at the bitter portion of the opposites drawn along with it; for this is the law of earthly Necessity: from two sides for mortals it pours out life like wine.

But the undefiled and unmixed good is God, or the things of God. Drunk from a sweet mixing-bowl, the fields of evils I touched, I fell into the snare, I learned the ruin of Epimetheus; I loathe the laws that veer this way and that; to the carefree meadow of the Father hastening, I stretch fugitive wings, fugitive from the twin gifts of matter. Look on me, of intellectual life the Steward, look on your suppliant, a soul on earth on intellectual ascents setting out; and you, Lord, shine lights that lead upward, giving light wings;

cut the knot, loosen the clasp of the twin passions, by which the soul deceitful Nature bends down to earth; grant that, having fled the ruin of the body, I may make a swift leap to your courts, to your bosom, from where the soul's spring flows forth. A heavenly drop, I have been poured out upon the earth; give me back to the spring from which I was poured, a wandering exile. Grant that with the primal light I may be mingled; grant that, under you kept in stewardship, with the royal choir I may bring up in holiness intellectual hymns; grant, Father, that, mingled with the light, I may sink no more into the ruin of earth.

And while, of a life spent in matter, in the bonds I remain, may a gentle fortune, Blessed One, nourish me.

You at the beginning, you at the growing, you at the midst, you at the ending of holy dawn and of sacred night I sing, Begetter, Healer of souls, Healer of limbs, Giver of wisdom, Driver-away of diseases, Giver to souls of a life free of toil, which earthly care does not tread, mother of griefs, mother of passions; from these may my life remain pure, that of all things the hidden root I may tell in hymns, and by no misleading follies from God be cut off. You, Blessed One, I sing, Lord of the world;

let earth be silent at your hymns; at your prayers let all keep holy silence that the world holds; for they are your works, Father. Let it cease, the whirring of winds, the sound of trees, the clamor of birds; let the ether in quiet, let the air in quiet hear the song; and let the pouring of the waters, now soundless, stand still on the earth. And those who hinder holy hymns, delighting in hidden dens and haunting tombs, the daemons, now let them flee my holy prayer.

But all the good, blessed ministers of the intellectual Begetter, who hold the depths and the heights of the world, graciously of the hymns to the Father may they learn, and graciously bring up my prayers. O Monad of monads, O Father of fathers, Beginning of beginnings, Source of sources, Root of roots, Good of goods, Star of stars, World of worlds, Idea of ideas, Beauty of the depth, hidden Seed, Father of the aeons, Father of the unutterable intellectual worlds, from whom an ambrosial Breath, distilling, upon the masses of body floating, kindles now a second world.

I hymn you, Blessed One, with voice, I hymn you, Blessed One, with silence too; for as many as of voice, so many also of silence you hear, when they are of the mind. And I hymn the Offspring, the firstborn and first-shining. Most glorious Offspring of an unutterable Father, you, Blessed One, with the great Father I hymn together, and, with regard to you, the Father's birth-pang, fruitful Will, the middle Principle, the holy Breath, center of the Begetter, center of the Son; she is mother, she is sister, she is daughter, who has brought to birth the hidden Root;

For so that there might be poured forth upon the Son the Father, the outpouring itself found a sprouting; and she stood in the middle, God from God. [Through the Son and through the glorious of the immortal Father outpouring, the Son found a sprouting.] You are Monad, being Triad; a Monad who remains and are Triad indeed. And an intellectual division keeps still unsplit what has been divided; and, leaping forth, there remains the Offspring in the Begetter, and again outside governs the Father's things, bringing down to the worlds the wealth of life from where he himself has it. O Word, whom with the great Father I hymn together, the Mind of the unutterable Father begets you;

and you, conceived, are the Word of the Begetter, first from the first Root leaping forth, and root of all that came after your glorious birth. The ineffable Monad, Seed of all things, as the seed of all things has sown you; for you are in all; and through you nature, highest, middle, and lowest, of God the Father has enjoyed the good gifts of fruitful life. For you the ageless sphere its effortless course rolls; under your order, of the great vault in mighty whirls, the seven of the stars dances in counter-motion;

and one fold the many lights of the world adorn, by your counsel, most glorious Offspring; for you, running round the heavenly vault, the course of the aeons hold together unbroken; and under your, Blessed One, holy laws, in the boundless-deep flanks of the clear sky of the grey stars the herd is pastured. You to the heavenly, you to those in the air, you to those on earth, you to those under the earth apportion their works and distribute life. You are president of Mind and steward for the gods and for as many mortals as of the intellectual portion have drawn the showers;

you are the Soul-giver to those in whom from soul life is stretched and the nature of vigor; the blind sprout of your soul hangs from your chain; and all that lacks your breath from your bosom draws its cohesion, ferried across through your might from the unutterable bosom of the Father, of the hidden Monad, whence the channel of life, flowing forth, is borne down to earth through your might, through the untraceable intellectual worlds; from there receives the descending spring of good things, the form of the intellectual world, the visible world.

This world has the sun as a second begetter of later-shining light, eye-bright, of the coming-to-be and perishing matter the steward, of the intellectual Son the visible image, the provider of good things born within the world, by your counsel, most glorious Offspring. Unknown Father, unutterable Father, unknown to mind, unutterable to word, you are Mind of mind, Soul of souls, Nature of natures. Bending my knee to you, see, I, your servant, fall to the ground, a blind suppliant; but you, light-giver of intellectual light, pity, Blessed One, a suppliant soul;

drive away diseases, drive away cares that devour the soul, drive away the shameless earthly hound, the daemon of the earth, from my soul, from my prayer, from my life, from my works. Outside my body, outside my spirit, outside all that is ours let the daemon remain; let him leave, let him flee, the daemon of matter, the might of the passions, the upward-leading road walling off, and the God-seeking impulses harming.

And give me as a companion, a partner, Lord, a holy one of holy strength, an angel, an angel of prayer, of God-illumined prayer, a friend who gives good things, guardian of soul, guardian of life, watcher of prayers, watcher of works; may he keep my body pure of diseases, may he keep my spirit pure of outrage, and bring to my soul forgetfulness of passions, so that even in the life that earth nourishes by your hymns may grow rich the wing of the soul;

and so that also the life after my fate, after the bonds that weigh down to earth, pure of matter, I may travel through to your courts, to your bosom, from where the soul's spring flows forth. Give me your hand, call me, you, Blessed One, out of matter lead up your suppliant soul.

Let us hymn the Son of the bride, the bride not wedded in the fated beds of men. The ineffable counsels of the Father sowed the birth of Christ; the holy birth-pang of the bride brought to light the form of a man, who came to mortals as the ferryman of light from the Source. And your ineffable sprouting knows the root of the aeons. You yourself are light from the Source, a ray shining together with the Father, and, breaking through dark matter, you shine into pure souls. You are the creator of the world, who set the glorious stars in their spheres, who rooted the centers of the earth, and you are the Savior of humankind. For you the Titan rides, unquenchable source of the dawn, for you the bull-faced moon dissolves the darkness of night; for you fruits are born, for you too the flocks are pastured. From your ineffable source sending a life-giving radiance, you enrich the wide reaches of the worlds.

From your bosom sprang both light and mind and soul. Pity your daughter, shut in mortal limbs; and within fate's material measures may you save from the outrages of diseases the strength of my limbs unharmed. Grant persuasion to my words, grant glory to my deeds, to be worthy of the ancient fame of Cyrene and of Sparta; and may my soul, untrodden by griefs, draw out a gentle life that nourishes it, turning its two eyes toward your light, so that, purified from matter, I may hasten on paths that do not turn back, a fugitive from the toils of earth, to mingle with the Source of the soul. Such an undefiled life may you grant to your lyre-player, when, sending up to you a song, glorifying your Root, the Father's highest glory, and the Breath enthroned with you, the middle between Root and Sprout, and singing the Father's might, in your hymns I lay to rest the glorious birth-pang of my soul.

Hail, O Source of the Son, hail, O Form of the Father; hail, O Foundation of the Son, hail, O Seal of the Father; hail, O Might of the Son, hail, O Beauty of the Father; and hail, undefiled Breath, center of the Son and of the Father; may you send her to me with the Father, watering the wings of my soul, accomplisher of divine gifts.

After the holy, self-begotten Source, beyond ineffable unities, God immortal, God's glorious Son, the only Child leapt forth from the only Father, we shall crown with wise flowers of hymns, whom the unutterable birth-pang of the Father's will showed forth as Son from an unknown bosom; she brought to light the Father's fruit of birth, and, having brought it to light, appeared herself, a mind set in the middle; and in the Source they remain, though poured forth. Wisdom of the Father's Mind, Beauty itself, to you, when born, the Father granted to beget; you are the hidden seed of the Father, shining forth; for the Begetter gave you as beginning to the worlds, to bring down forms from the intellectual realm to bodies. You turn the vault of heaven with wisdom, and ever shepherd the herd of the stars; you, Lord, rule the angelic choir and the phalanx of the daemons; you dance around perishable nature too, you divide about the earth the undivided Spirit, and join what was given back again to the Source, freeing mortals from the necessity of death. Be gracious at the garlands of your hymns, granting the hymn-maker calm in life; stop the wandering outflow of the straits, drying up the deadly waves of matter; keep diseases from soul and limbs; lull to sleep the destructive rush of the passions;

ward off the dooms of wealth and poverty; grant to my deeds a glorious voice; open among the people a good report, crowning me with the gentle-spoken flower of persuasion, so that my mind may harvest a leisure without waves, and I may not groan among earthly cares; but from your channels, borne on high, with birth-pangs of wisdom I may water my mind.

I was the first to find a strain for you, Blessed One, Immortal, glorious Offspring of the Virgin, Jesus of Solyma, in new-fitted harmonies to strike the strings of the cithara. But be kind, Lord, and receive the music from holy songs. We shall hymn the immortal God, the great Son of God, of the aeon-begetting Father the world-begetting Son, the nature mingled with all, boundless Wisdom, God to those in heaven, a corpse to those under the earth. When you were poured out on earth from a mortal womb, the magian art of many thoughts from the star's rising was astonished, at a loss: what is this child being born, who is the hidden God, God, or corpse, or king? Come, bring gifts: offerings of myrrh, votive gifts of gold, and fair incense of frankincense.

You are God: receive the frankincense; gold I bring to the King; myrrh will befit the tomb. And you cleansed the earth, and the waves of the sea, and the paths of the daemons, the yielding flow of the air, and the recesses below; a helper to the dead, God, sent into Hades. But be kind, Lord, and receive the music from holy songs.

To a Doric harmony of ivory-bound strings I shall set a clear voice for you, Blessed One, Immortal, glorious Offspring of the Virgin; and keep my life free from all harm, Lord, granting it untrodden by griefs both night and day. May you shine into my mind a gleam from the intellectual Source; strength of sound limbs and glory in deeds may you assign to my youth; and bring a prosperous span to the pleasure of old age, increasing much-honored prudence together with health. And guard my brother, my young one, Immortal, whom, already the earthly gate passing with his foot, you brought back up again, my sorrows and laments, my tears, and of my heart quenching the burning flame; you brought to life even one dead for the sake of your suppliant, Father.

and the brother pair of my children may you guard. The whole house in quiet may you hide under your hand; and for me, Lord, of the yoked bed the sharer, free from disease, free from harm, dear, of one mind, ignorant of secret love-talk, my wife, keep safe; and may she keep a holy bed, wholly unblemished, pure, untrodden by unlawful desires. And my soul, when freed from the fetters of earthly life, snatch away from sufferings and from grievous ruin. And with the choirs of the pure grant me to bring up hymns to the glory of your Father and to your might, Blessed One. Again I shall make hymns, again sing you a song, soon tune the lyre again wholly unblemished.

Much-beloved, glorious one, you, Blessed, Offspring of the Virgin of Solyma, I hymn, who drove the treacherous snare, the earthly serpent, from the great Father's gardens; [who gave the forbidden fruit, the nurse of a grievous death, to the first-born, food for the mind. Crown-bearer, glorious one, you, Father, Child of the Virgin of Solyma, I hymn.] You came down even to earth, a sojourner among creatures of a day, wearing a mortal frame; and you came down beneath Tartarus, where countless nations of souls Death was shepherding. Then old Hades, the ancient-born, shuddered at you, and the people-devouring hound drew back from the threshold; and, loosing from their sufferings the holy choirs of souls, with pure companies you bring up hymns to the Father.

[Crown-bearer, glorious one, you, Father, Child of the Virgin of Solyma, I hymn.] As you went up, Lord, the countless ones through the air, the nations of daemons, trembled, and the immortal choir of the pure stars was amazed; and the ether, laughing, wise father of harmony, from the seven-toned lyre mixed music into a victory song. The Morning Star smiled, the messenger of day, and golden Hesperus, Cythera's star; her horned gleam filling with a stream of fire, the moon led the way, shepherd of the gods of night; and his wide-shining hair the Titan spread out beneath your unutterable footstep; and he knew the Offspring of God, the Mind, supreme craftsman, the source of his own fire.

And you, plying your wing, over the dark-blue-vaulted heaven's back passed beyond, and alighted on the spheres, intellectual and pure, where the source of good things is, the heaven kept in silence; there neither deep-flowing Time with tireless feet, dragging the offspring of the earth, nor the shameless dooms of deep-surging matter; but ageless Aeon himself, the ancient-born, young and old at once, of the ever-flowing abode is steward for the gods.

Remember, Christ, Son of God who rules on high, your servant, sinful at heart, who wrote these things; and grant me release from the passions that feed death, which are inborn in my soiled soul; and grant me to see, Savior Jesus, your holy radiance, where, appearing, I shall sing a song to the Healer of souls, the Healer of limbs, with the great Father and the holy Spirit.