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The personifications of Sleep and Death recline beside one another in a dim interior.
Sleep and his Half-brother Death. John William Waterhouse, 1874.John William Waterhouse, Sleep and his Half-brother Death, 1874. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain. · Source · Public domain. Detail shown.The figure of Sleep provides related imagery for Oneiros and the realm of dreams.

Orphic Hymns · Hymn 86

Oneiros, Dream

Ὀνείρου

Orphic tradition · 18 lines · Oneiros

Rest and dreamsWisdomInitiation

Prayer and ritual

These hymns may be spoken as complete prayers to the Gods. Within the Temple’s practice, a ritual is a direct theurgical act; hymnody gathers the mind and turns it toward the Divine, helping the initiate enter reverent communion with the Gods.

Use a hymn on its own in place of another prayer, or add it to the prayer portion of a suitable ritual. Choose according to the deity addressed and the petition expressed in the hymn. When combining them, preserve the ritual’s prescribed sequence and let the hymn give voice to its purpose.

The petition of this hymn

For the clear reception of divine messages in dreams and right understanding of their meaning.

Pray this hymn before sleep when seeking Oneiros’s gracious guidance. It may supplement an existing dream or divinatory ritual, with the final verses asking for divine messages to be shown through sound understanding and without troubling, alien signs.

English hieratic rendering

Hymn 86 · An English rendering aligned with the Greek lines.

  1. I call you, blessed, wide-winged, baleful Oneiros,
  2. messenger of things to come, greatest oracle-singer for mortals.
  3. For silently entering the stillness of sweet sleep,
  4. you address mortal souls and yourself awaken the mind;
  5. you yourself convey the counsels of the Blessed through sleep,
  6. silent to silent souls, revealing what is to come,
  7. to those toward whom the kindly mind of the Gods moves in their reverence,
  8. so that the good, foreknown within their understanding, may still more
  9. lead with delights the life of those who rejoice beforehand,
  10. and bring repose from evils, as the God himself declares,
  11. to those who appease the Lords' anger through prayers and sacrifices.
  12. For ever sweeter is the fulfilment granted to the reverent;
  13. but to the wicked the necessity to come would not be shown
  14. by a dream-vision, herald of evil deeds,
  15. so that they might find release from approaching pain.
  16. But, blessed one, I beseech you to make known the messages of the Gods,
  17. that you may ever draw near with right understanding in all things,
  18. revealing no signs of evil through strange appearances.

Ancient Greek & pronunciation

Read the English pronunciation spelling directly below each Greek line.

18 Greek lines
  1. Κικλήσκω σε, μάκαρ, τανυσίπτερε, οὖλε Ὄνειρε,kee-KLEE-skoh seh, MAH-kahr, tah-nee-SEEP-teh-reh, OO-leh OH-nee-reh,
  2. ἄγγελε μελλόντων, θνητοῖς χρησμῳδὲ μέγιστε·AHN-geh-leh meh-LOHN-dohn, thnee-TEES khree-zmoh-DHEH MEH-yee-steh·
  3. ἡσυχίῃ γὰρ ὕπνου γλυκεροῦ σιγηλὸς ἐπελθών,ee-see-HYEE-ee GHAHR EEP-noo ghlee-keh-ROO see-yee-LOHS eh-pehl-THOHN,
  4. προσφωνῶν ψυχαῖς θνητῶν νόον αὐτὸς ἐγείρεις,proh-sfoh-NOHN psee-HYEHS thnee-TOHN NOH-ohn ahf-TOHS eh-YEE-rees,
  5. καὶ γνώμας μακάρων αὐτὸς καθ’ ὕπνους ὑποπέμπεις,KEH GHNOH-mahs mah-KAH-rohn ahf-TOHS kahth’ EEP-noos ee-poh-PEHM-bees,
  6. σιγῶν σιγώσαις ψυχαῖς μέλλοντα προφαίνων,see-GHOHN see-GHOH-sehs psee-HYEHS MEH-lohn-dah proh-FEH-nohn,
  7. οἷσιν ἐπ’ εὐσεβίῃσι θεῶν νόος ἐσθλὸς ὁδεύει,EE-seen ehp’ ehf-seh-VEE-ee-see theh-OHN NOH-ohs ehsth-LOHS oh-DHEH-vee,
  8. ὡς ἂν ἀεὶ τὸ καλὸν μᾶλλον, γνώμῃσι προληφθέν,ohs AHN ah-EE TOH kah-LOHN MAH-lohn, GHNOH-mee-see proh-leef-THEHN,
  9. τερπωλαῖς ὑπάγῃ βίον ἀνθρώπων προχαρέντων,tehr-poh-LEHS ee-PAH-yee VEE-ohn ahn-THROH-pohn proh-khah-REHN-dohn,
  10. τῶν δὲ κακῶν ἀνάπαυσιν, ὅπως θεὸς αὐτὸς ἐνίσπῃTOHN DHEH kah-KOHN ah-NAH-pahf-seen, OH-pohs theh-OHS ahf-TOHS eh-NEE-spee
  11. εὐχωλαῖς θυσίαις τε χόλον λύσασιν ἀνάκτων.ehf-khoh-LEHS thee-SEE-ehs teh KHOH-lohn LEE-sah-seen ah-NAHK-tohn.
  12. εὐσεβέσιν γὰρ ἀεὶ τὸ τέλος γλυκερώτερόν ἐστι,ehf-seh-VEH-seen GHAHR ah-EE TOH TEH-lohs ghlee-keh-ROH-teh-ROHN eh-stee,
  13. τοῖς δὲ κακοῖς οὔ κεν φαίνοι μέλλουσαν ἀνάγκηνTEES DHEH kah-KEES OO kehn FEH-nee MEH-loo-sahn ah-NAHN-geen
  14. ὄψις ὀνειρήεσσα, κακῶν ἐξάγγελος ἔργων,OHP-sees oh-nee-REE-eh-sah, kah-KOHN ehk-SAHN-geh-lohs EHR-ghohn,
  15. ὄφρα κεν εὕρωνται λύσιν ἄλγεος ἐρχομένοιο.OH-frah kehn EH-vrohn-deh LEE-seen AHL-yeh-ohs ehr-khoh-MEH-nee-oh.
  16. ἀλλά, μάκαρ, λίτομαί σε θεῶν μηνύματα φράζειν,ah-LAH, MAH-kahr, LEE-toh-MEH seh theh-OHN mee-NEE-mah-tah FRAH-zeen,
  17. ὡς ἂν ἀεὶ γνώμαις ὀρθαῖς κατὰ πάντα πελάζῃςohs AHN ah-EE GHNOH-mehs ohr-THEHS kah-TAH PAHN-dah peh-LAH-zees
  18. μηδέν’ ἐπ’ ἀλλοκότοισι κακῶν σημεῖα προφαίνων.mee-DHEHN’ ehp’ ah-loh-KOH-tee-see kah-KOHN see-MEE-ah proh-FEH-nohn.
Short sound guide for English speakers

Every line beneath the Greek uses English pronunciation spellings. Say each hyphenated syllable in sequence and emphasize the syllable in CAPITALS. For example, οὐρανόθεν is oo-rah-NOH-thehn. Read adjacent vowels separately: theh-AH has two syllables; oo-rah-NEE-een has four. Hyphens guide the voice; they do not mark pauses.

SpellingSound to make
ah · eh · ee · oh · oofather · met · see · go without its final glide · moon. Keep these vowels clear in unstressed syllables too.
th · dhThe unvoiced th in thin · the voiced th in this. Thus DHEE begins with the sound in “thee.”
khThe ch in Scottish loch or German Bach: let air pass at the back of the mouth, without closing it into a k.
hyThe breathy beginning of a carefully spoken Hugh. Raise the middle of the tongue toward the roof of the mouth and let air pass without voice. In shy, sound s followed by hy; do not use the English sh sound or the English word “shy.”
ghMake the kh sound above, then add voice. Keep the passage open; this is a flowing sound, not a hard g.
y · gy as in yes, with gentle friction · always a hard g as in get.
rTap the tongue lightly behind the upper teeth, or use a light roll.
ks · psSound both consonants, even at the beginning of a word: ks as in backs, ps as in lips.
n-g · m-b · n-dSound the nasal and the following consonant. In AHN-geh-leh, the n-g group is like finger, with the g audible.

Always sound s as in hiss, even at the end of DHEE-kees; z is voiced, as in zero. All other consonants have their usual English sounds. Initial consonant groups may be unfamiliar: sound every written consonant, without inserting an extra vowel. A word without capitals carries no written stress in the Greek. Where two syllables have capitals, both written accents are retained. An apostrophe marks a vowel already elided in the Greek; do not add it back. A hyphen at the end of a Greek verse joins the unfinished word to the next verse.

These spellings follow the Modern Greek liturgical reading used throughout this library. Breathings and iota subscripts are silent; separately pronounced vowels remain separate. The few Greek consonants without an exact English equivalent use the sound cues above. Ancient vowel length, pitch accent and metre are not reconstructed.

Hymn notes

Sacred meaning

Oneiros speaks to the soul in the silence of sleep and awakens the mind through the counsels of the Gods. The poem connects this gift with reverence and with responses of prayer and offering. Its closing petition asks for clarity of divine communication and the absence of strange portents of evil.

Ancient offering rubric: Aromatic incense.

Textual note

Verse 15 follows Abel’s printed ὄφρα κεν εὕρωνται, “so that they might find”, rather than the digital ὄφρα μὴ εὕρωνται, “lest they find”. In connection with the negative clause in verses 13–14, the result expresses the relief that the undisclosed vision would have made possible; it is not a new grant of relief to the wicked. Abel’s apparatus records a further alternative, ὄφρα ἂν. The edition’s wording and syntactic tension are retained.

Text and attribution

Greek text: Eugenius Abel, Orphica (1885), printed pages 101. The text follows the printed main reading of this edition; source-specific variants are recorded where relevant. Read the digitised edition. Greek source. Wikisource transcription, revision 124521; checked and corrected against Abel’s print. The English hieratic rendering and suggested devotional use are new editorial work. The applications are guidance for this library, not additional lines of the ancient poem.