Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 29, 2025

{{Main page image/TFA|Magic tablet from Pergamon (Wünsch, Antikes Zaubergerät).png|caption=Magic tablet from Pergamon}}

The Orphic Hymns are a collection of 87 ancient Greek hymns addressed to various deities, which were attributed in antiquity to the mythical poet Orpheus. They were composed in Asia Minor (in modern-day Turkey), most likely around the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD, and seem to have belonged to a cult community which used them in ritual. The collection is preceded by a proem (or prologue), in which Orpheus addresses the legendary poet Musaeus. The hymns in the collection, all of which are brief, typically call for the attention of the deity they address, describing them and their divinity, and appealing to them with a request. The first codex containing the Orphic Hymns to reach Western Europe arrived in Italy in the first half of the 15th century, and in 1500 the first printed edition of the Hymns was published in Florence. During the Renaissance, some scholars believed that the hymns were a genuine work of Orpheus; later, a more sceptical wave of scholarship argued for a dating in late antiquity. {{TFAFULL|Orphic Hymns}}

{{TFArecentlist|

}}