Library › Greek: Epic › Hymn 1 to Dionysus
Preserved only in fragments, Hymn 1 to Dionysus opens the Homeric Hymns, a collection of Ancient Greek epic hymns composed in the hexameters and dialect of Homer, mostly in the archaic period. Its surviving lines take up the disputed birthplace of Dionysus — the poet rejects the usual claimants in favor of the mythical mountain Nysa — and record Zeus’s solemn promise of honors for his son.
Though incomplete, the hymn is the gateway to a collection that antiquity attributed to Homer himself, and papyrus finds have continued to enlarge its text. Students of Greek religion read it for early evidence of Dionysus’s contested origins and of his acceptance among the Olympian gods.
About this edition. The Greek text is that of the Perseus Digital Library. Every word has been analyzed with odyCy, a neural language model for Ancient Greek — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from the Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek–English Lexicon (LSJ).