This poem owes a great deal to the first sections of the translation of the Orphic Hymns published by Thomas Taylor in London in 1792 which is available on the Net. The pictures are mostly from Wikimedia and the inspired section of film is of course by Leni Riefenstahl. The music is by Carl Nielsen and Richard Wagner. I should like to dedicate this video to my friend Allan whose videos on You Tube under his pseudonym of erosgodofgays have been an inspiration, especially those referring to Phanes, and I thank him for his help & advice on the making of decent videos. ORPHIC HYMN: PHANES PROTOGONOS Mist clears, day dawns, the first day dawns breaking dim and universal night. Orpheus sings and singing brings us light. Across the sky the great and golden egg hangs like an oblong sun about to burst, cracking amidst the orisons of those immortal beings, of living gods the first, the archetypes, as yet unseen unknown, that are to come. The high-pitched shuddering gong through nothingness resounds, primeval word, creation at the beginning of all worlds. First-born of time and space Protogonos only begetter begotten on himself; double-sexed, a living X, a cross whose meeting point is undivided, wealth of proposition and increase. Phanes- Ericapeus, all powerful, ineffable, occult, winged glory, through the world you fly. Increase of joy and wonder, pierce the very vault of darkest heaven with flashing pinions formed of glittering sapphire and of gold interleaved with spangles of the stars and whirling circles of universal fire. Priapus dark-eyed splendour thee I sing bountiful unwearying potent king. Invincible, prime unity, the One; good in himself; spawning nothing but good; the very spirit and image of great God. Sole breeding ruler of eternity, Lord, quintessence of infinity; of Ether and of Chaos father-mother according to Pythagoras himself. How could that one unfold, make two, divide? become corruptible, and multiply, break down? - First of the secret genera of the divine says Syrianus. Called by Orpheus, on the authority of Proclus, Tender Love. The second king is Night; the third is Heaven; Saturnus is the fourth and fifth lord Zeus, ruler of his father; Dionysos sixth in due progression of the royal line, emanations from the original divine. All these kings, these intellectual gods are born into the world when it is made upon the breaking of the golden egg when great Lord Phanes, Beautiful, comes forth giving birth to everything that lives. On earth is heaven found; and in the sky another earth, the wise Egyptian taught. Each in each is bound; and bye and bye returns to its beginnning at the end when universal destructions rend the plurality of whirling matter. Phanes lives forever, can never die. We men are made immortal by his love, men and women glorified, here below as there above, just as before the cracking of the egg.

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