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For links to many more fragments: The Orphic Fragments of Otto Kern.

SUMMARY: Uranus hurls the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers deep into the earth.

121. (97) σχόλιον Πρόκλου επὶ Τιμαίου Πλάτωνος 40e (III 185, 20 Diehl):

μᾶλλον δὲ πάντον οὐρανίων γενῶν τὰ μὲν μένει μόνον ἐν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς, ὥσπερ αἱ δύο πρῶται τριάδες --- ὡς γὰρ ἐνόησε, φησίν [sc. ὁ θεολόγος], αὐτοὺς ὁ Οὐρανὸς

ἀμείλχον ἦτορ ἔχοντας

καὶ φύσιν ἐκνομίην ᵕᵕ-ᵕᵕ-ᵕᵕ-ᵕ

ῥῖψε βαθὺν γαιης Τάρταρον. [1]

κρύπτονται οὖν ἐν ἀφανεῖ δί ὑπεροχὴν δυνάμεως ---, τὰ δὲ καὶ μένει καὶ πρόεισιν, ὥσπερ ὁ Ὠκεανὸς καὶ ἡ Τηθύς· (sequitur fr. 135).

“...of all the celestial genera, some alone abide in their principles, as the two first triads.

‘For as soon as Heaven (Οὐρανὸς) understood that they [1] had an implacable heart and a lawless nature, he hurled them into Tartarus, the profundity of Earth.’ [says Orpheus]. [1]

“He concealed them therefore in the unapparent, through transcendency of power. But others both abide in, and proceed from their principles, as Ocean (Ὠκεανὸς) and Tethys (Τηθύς).”

(trans. Thomas Taylor, 1816.)

NOTE:

[1] Editor: In his book The Orphic Poems (see p. 71) M. L. West sees this quotation as referring to the Mírai (Μοῖραι), the Kýklôpæs (Κύκλωπες), and the Hundred-Handers (Ἑκατόγχειρες). We find this quotation in Próklos and the passage where it is found could easily be construed as referring to the Titans, but I do not think it is; he is using it for another reason, assuming the reader will know the mythology.

Herm. VIII vs. 28 p. 468; Lobeck I 506; Mayer Gigant. u. Titan. 239.

Θεογονία Ἡσιόδου 868:

ῥῖψε (sc. Ζεύς) δέ μιν (sc. Τυφωέα) θυμῶι ἀκαχὼν ἐς Τάρταρον εὐρύν.

“And in the bitterness of his anger Zeus cast him (Τυφωεύς) into wide Tartarus.”

(Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1914)

Φερεκύδης τμῆμα 5 (Diels II³ 204, 4):

κείνης δὲ τῆς μοίρας ἔνερθέν ἐστιν ἡ ταρταρίη μοῖρα· φυλάσσουσι δ' αὐτὴν θυγατέρες Βορέου Ἅρπυιαί τε καὶ Θύελλα· ἔνθα Ζεὺς ἐκβάλλει θεῶν, ὅταν τις ἐξυβρίσηι.

“(These words of Homer [likely Ἰλιὰς Ὁμήρου 8.13], he alleges, were so understood by Pherecydes, when he said that) beneath that region is the region of Tartarus, which is guarded by the Harpies and Tempest, daughters of Boreas, and to which Zeus banishes any one of the Gods who becomes disorderly.”

(trans. Frederick Crombie, 1885)

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