A New Translation of the Orphic Hymn to Pluto/Hades
And a long-ass commentary that explains the origins of Hellenistic astrological charts
A brief suggestion: If you haven’t yet read my post “A Trippy Trip to the Underworld,” I suggest that you start with that, because what follows presumes you have the basic understanding of the Orphic cosmos that I discussed there.
The Lord of the Under-Earth
Let’s start with this term “Underworld.” Though it has a nice ring, it tends to lead us to think of Pluto’s domain how we learned about it in elementary school or in YA book series—as an underground realm. But as we discussed in the last post, though Pluto does have dominion over subterranean cave/magma systems, as well as the composted matter that nourishes agricultural growth, His terrain is fractal and has other dimensions.
Specifically, Pluto is Lord of a particular region of the skies: the heavens that exist under the spherical Earth.
The chart below can help to conceptualize what we’re talking about: Just as Zeus is Lord of the area of the sky hemisphere above Earth, Pluto is the Lord of the sky hemisphere as it appears below Earth. (Brief translation note: This is why I usually like to translate the Greek hupochthonion as “Under-Earth” rather than “Underworld”, because it gets at the cosmic dimensions of Pluto’s domain, as we’ll see in a minute.)
Readers familiar with astrology will most likely immediately notice a similarity between the chart above and Hellenistic astrological charts. This is no accident. For further detail about exactly how Pluto’s Orphic cosmology underlies the astrological system, make sure you read the notes/commentary to my translation of the Hymn below.
The Daily Path of the Sun and Moon
Back to the cosmograph: In the ancient Orphic cosmology mapped out here, day and night alternate in the sky above us. Each luminary (sun or moon) moves left to right across the upper sky, passing each day through two “gates”: at dawn on the Eastern horizon (represented on the LEFT in this cosmic map), and at dusk on the Western horizon (represented on the RIGHT). Note that this means North is at the bottom of the chart, and South at the top.
In this conception, Zeus is seated in and rules the area above the earth—whether or not the sun or moon happens to be in that area of the sky. In other words, when the Moon travels over our night sky, She is traveling through Zeus’ realm.
Pluto rules the area below the earth—whether or not the sun or moon happens to be in that area of the sky. So when (during our night) the Sun travels through the sky under the Earth, He is not visible to us because He is instead lighting up Pluto’s realm.
But wait…there’s more.
The Solar Year & Seasons
The daily alternation of light and dark in the two realms of Zeus and Pluto can be extended, fractally, to describe the annual path of the sun. Which is to say, the chart above can also be used as a map of the SEASONS, with the Left/East representing the Spring Equinox (when Persephone is abducted), the South/Top representing the Summer Solstice, the West/Right representing the Autumn Equinox, and the North/Bottom representing the Winter Solstice.
This all corresponds nicely with our actual experience of light and shadow through the year. Zeus/Light is most abundant at the top of the upper sky, on the Summer Solstice. Pluto/Shadow is most abundant at the bottom of the lower sky, with the Winter Solstice. The two sides (East/Left and West/Right) are stages of medium light, as happens at the Spring and Fall Equinoxes respectively.
And of course, there is still more…
The Human Soul-Journey
We could, if we wished, look at this same cosmic map of the over- and under-earth fractally on a smaller scale—not as describing the annual or daily path of the cosmic luminaries (the Sun and Moon), but as describing the path of a human life and the soul’s journey through the cosmos.
And that, dear reader, is how we get what we now know as Hellenistic astrology.
My translation of the Hymn and commentary below will map this out even more clearly using astrological charts.