Hymn to Apollo by Athenaios at Delphi
Pöhlmann and West, Greek Music 20 Date: 128/7 BC?Fragment a+b
0 [Paian and dance] for the God, which Athenaios composed:[1]
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1 [Listen], fair-armed daughters of far-thundering [Zeus], who received as your share
densely wooded [Helikon]! Come to celebrate with odes
your golden-haired brother Phoibos, who will come
up the double-peaked seat of this Parnassian rock 5 together with the far-renowned Delphian maidens to the springs of well-watered Kastalis ascending the Delphian cliff,
his fortune-telling hill.[2] [See there] famous Attica with its great city,
10 which by the benevolence of weapon-bearing Tritonis
inhabits unshakable ground,[3] and on holy altars,
Hephaistos burns the thighs of young bulls.
At once, now, Arabian scent is streaming up to Olympos.[4] The shrill sounding flute[5] pours forth a song
15 in varying melodies and the golden, sweet-sounding
cithara sings with hymns.
The entire swarm[6] which received Attica as its share,
of [artists ],
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altogether [praises] great [Zeus’] famous child.
[For, to you he gave] this snow-capped hill
20 where you prophesy [immortal and unerring sayings ] to all mortals:
How you conquered the fortune-telling tripod,
[which the giant] snake was guarding, when you removed Gaia’s child,
its glittering, twisting [body, until the beast, letting out thick] hisses, roughly [expired all the same].[7] 25 [Just as] the [barbarian] Ares of the Gauls, [which] impiously
passed [over this land, perished in the wet streams of snow].[8] But hurray! Descendant . . . . . . warlike offspring . . . . . . plague of the People . . . 30 . . . that they(?) brought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fragment c
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Fragment d
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