Conjectanea

An Interpretation of Homeric Hymn 24

Hestia Polyolbios

Introduction

I have considered writing an interpretation of this Homeric Hymn to Vesta for a while, partly as an exercise in esoteric interpretation, and partly as a devotional gesture to the Goddess. I would have liked to write the translation in a similar style to those translated by Taylor, mixing linguistic clarity with poetic style, but I do not believe I am a good enough poet or translator to do so in a way that would not diminish the beauty of the Greek original. Therefore, I have stuck to a prosaic and literal style, insofar as English will allow it. I hope that what it lacks in beauty, it makes up for in clarity.

The central conceit of my interpretative style is neither historical nor philological. I assume that the poet’s identity and intentions are unknowable, but that these intentions are unnecessary to know in order to discover the recondite teachings of the poem, as poets are not necessarily able to explain their own inspired poetry.1 My interpretive lens is fundamentally Platonic, as will be clear from my sources, which I have tried to cite whenever necessary.

May the Muses, that anagogic Light; Apollo, their Lord as well as mine; his brother, Mercury, the source of all arts; and the Great Mother, by whose power all things flow forth and through whom the Fabricator of the Universe receives his essence, inspire my interpretation with mantic zeal and poetic frenzy.

Text & Translation

Ἑστίη, ἥτε ἄνακτος Ἀπόλλωνος ἑκάτοιο
Πυθοῖ ἐν ἠγαθέῃ ἱερὸν δόμον ἀμφιπολεύεις,
αἰεὶ σῶν πλοκάμων ἀπολείβεται ὑγρὸν ἔλαιον.
Ἔρχεο τόνδ' ἀνὰ οἶκον, ἕν' ἔρχεο2 θυμὸν ἔχουσα
σὺν Διὶ μητιόεντι· χάριν δ' ἅμ' ὄπασσον ἀοιδῇ.
Hestië, you who care for the sacred house of Lord Apollo
the far-working in most divine Pytho,
eternally your hair drips with fluid olive oil.
Come into this house; come, having one mind
with Zeus the Wise, and bestow favour on my song.

Commentary

“Ἑστίη”

We begin with the Goddess, as is customary.3 Proclus says that it is proper to begin every undertaking with the Gods.4 The poet uses the epic form of her name, which ends in an eta rather than an alpha.

“ἄνακτος Ἀπόλλωνος ἑκάτοιο”

Apollo is called Lord and far-working because he is the image of Intellectual Jupiter in the supermundane order of Gods, and because the sensible Sun, the governor of this world, is his image in turn. Apollo is depicted as shooting arrows, which the physicists say represent the rays of the material Sun, to show that he works upon his objects through intermediary causes, and that he is an enemy of disorder in the last of things.5 He is called Apollo because he is “not-many,” as Plutarch says, and presides over the reunification of Dionysus after he has been dismembered by the Titanic multitude.6, 7 Apollo is often called Lord, as when Theognis sings,8

Φοῖβε ἄναξ, ὅτε μέν σε θεὰ τέκε πότνια Λητώ, κτλ.

Lord Phoebus, when the Goddess, Lady Leto, birthed you, etc.

A scholiast on Homer9 also says,

(Apollo is called Lord Apollo) either because he is the source of visible things (i.e., the Sun), or so that the Poet can call him the Lord of the Muses (μουσικὸν ἄνακτα), or (as if) to his (Chryses’) own Lord.10

Ἕκατος originally started with a sigma and digamma, which is why the final syllable of Ἀπόλλωνος scans as long. It is also the masculine form of the name Hecate. It is not, therefore, astonishing that Proclus refers to Hecate as united with Diana, quoting Orpheus:

ἡ δ' ἄρα δῖ' Ἑκάτη, παιδὸς μέλη αὖθι λιποῦσα,
Λητοῦς εὐπλοκάμοιο κόρη προσεβήσατ' Ὄλυμπον.
therefore divine Hecate, just as she was leaving her childhood,
the daughter of fair-haired Leto, ascended Olympus.11

“Πυθοῖ ἐν ἠγαθέῃ”

Pytho is an appellation of Delphi, named after the serpent which lived there before Apollo came to slay it and found the city. The name of the serpent, Python, is sometimes supposed to have originated with πύθεσθαι, “to rot,” emphasising Apollo as the destroyer of the excessive, decay, and illness. Apollo is called Delphicus and Pythicus due to his association with Python and Delphi. Delphi is called most divine because it is protected intimately by Apollo. Ἠγάθεος is from the strengthening prefix ἀγα- with poetic lengthening and θεός, “God.”

“ἱερὸν δόμον ἀμφιπολεύεις”

Delphic Apollo’s temple is called a sacred house, because it’s dedicated to the Divinity, and because it is attended by Vesta, as the Poet says. Temples are often referred to as houses or homes of the Divinities, such as the House of Vesta (aedes Vestae) in Rome.

Vesta is said to care (ἀμφιπολεύειν) for the house of Apollo because she exhibits Providential care for all beings.

“αἰεὶ σῶν πλοκάμων ἀπολείβεται ὑγρὸν ἔλαιον”

The image of Vesta’s hair dripping with olive oil is fascinating. It is the third of five lines, being the centre around which the rest of the poem is constructed, just as the centre of the cosmos was denominated Hestia by Philolaus the Pythagorean.12 This is why, Plutarch says, Numa constructed Vesta’s temple in Rome in the form of a circle, as representing the Universe with Vesta as its centre.13

The verb used, ἀπολείβειν, can refer to the pouring of libations. The olive oil is described as “humid” or “fluid,” an appellation of matter, since matter is always in flux, never having a firm substance of its own. Matter is, simply put, not self-substantiating. Her hair sprouts from her head, representing Intellect; and its subsumption in olive oil represents the descent of Form into matter. The mingling of matter and Form is like a libation by the Highest to the Highest; when mortals make sacrifices, we attune ourselves to the Gods by imitating them. The mingling of matter and Form – the sacrifice of Vesta by Vesta to Vesta – creating the cosmos, is rightly said to take place eternally, for it happens before time.

Or perhaps the images symbolise Vesta as the foundation of stability and being-in-oneself, which Plato calls ἐσσία, whereas the olive oil is her sister, Juno, who presides over the progression of Being into another, which Plato calls ὠσία.14 This is why the Roman poet says that Vesta is named from her standing by her own power.15 Vesta is also therefore called the Fountain of Virtue, whereas Juno is called the Fountain of Soul, according to the theologians.16

“Ἔρχεο τόνδ’ ἀνὰ οἶκον”

The Goddess is asked to enter the house, possibly originally at the dedication of a temple of Zeus,17 but the line works with the suppliant’s home as substitute, too. We should, however, not understand the house as merely a mortal dwelling, but, as the Platonic Prayer says,

hic deus, hic mundus, domus haec hominumque deumque,
lucens, augusto stellatus flore juventae.
this God, this cosmos, this house of Gods and men,
glowing, constellated with the august flower of youth.18

She is invited into the house, not because she is not already present, but because we want to remind ourselves of her presence. It must be noted that in the Phaedrus,19 it is Vesta alone who remains in the home of the Gods (ἐν θεῶν οἴκῳ), whereas the other supermundane Gods proceed. Thus she is shown to be the monad that presides over being-in-oneself and stability, as the philosophers20, 21 show elsewhere, and as we pointed out above.

“ἕν’ ἔρχεο θυμὸν ἔχουσα / σὺν Διὶ μητιόεντι”

The Goddess is asked to come (ἔρχεσθαι) twice, so as to emphasise her procession from the One Principle to all things, though she is attended by Jupiter, her brother, son, and partner in creation. Jupiter is described as Wise (μητιόεις) because the mythoplasts sing that his first wife was Wisdom (Μῆτις).22 As I have shown elsewhere, Jupiter and Vesta are united in their wisdom as well as in their superessential summit.23

The word translated here as “mind” (θυμός) refers properly in later authors to the impulsive activity of the soul, but in the most ancient poets it often has a more neutral meaning. It is patently true that the Gods do not have an impulsive principle in soul, being themselves superior to souls, whereas impulse is inferior to it, existing as an image and shadow of the soul itself.24 The word might, however, be apt for poetry, which often shows the Gods exhibiting passions, allegorically signifying their activities. Perhaps, therefore, θυμός represents the Gods’ active involvement in all matters.

Orpheus, relatedly, uses the word προθύμως (that is, “benevolently,” “with benignant mind”) in his hymn to her.25 He also shows her smiling, which Proclus says represents the Gods’ unceasing Providential care for and influence over wholes in the cosmos.26 Orpheus, again, says,27

δάκρυα μὲν σέθεν ἐστὶ πολυτλήτων γένος ἀνδρῶν
μειδήσας δὲ θεῶν ἱερὸν γένος ἐβλάστησας.
your tears are the race of much-suffering men,
but you brought forth the sacred race of Gods while smiling.

“χάριν δ’ ἅμ’ ὄπασσον ἀοιδῇ.”

The Poet asks Vesta to bestow favour on his song. Favour translates χάρις, “grace.” The Graces (Χάριτες) are attendants of Venus and are three in number, according to Hesiod and Varro.28, 29 The Homeric Hymns regularly end in the request for the Gods’ favour,30 perhaps because the Homeridae, using the Hymns as prefaces to their epics, required divine assistance in the completion of their songs.31 The song (ἀοιδή), however, might not refer simply to the Homeric Hymn that the Poet has completed, for, as Proclus says,

εὔχεται γὰρ πάντα κατὰ τὴν οἰκείαν τάξιν καὶ ὑμνεῖ τοὺς ἡγεμόνας τῶν σειρῶν ὅλων, ἢ νοερῶς, ἢ λογικῶς, ἢ φυσικῶς, ἢ αἰσθητῶς.32

all things pray according to their proper order and hymn the leaders of the whole series, either intellectually, verbally, naturally, or sensibly.

All things are involved in a perpetual prayer and, as it were, a hymn to the leader of their proper series. When the Goddess bestows favour to our singing, she does not merely make our verbal hymns more graceful, but illuminates our existence, itself being a genre of hymn, with intellectual light, and exhibits her superessential and occult Providence for all things, as the source of all beings and the end to which they aspire.

  1. Plato. Ion, trans. Harold N. Fowler (Harvard University Press, 1925), 534C-D. ↩︎
  2. Following Tucker rather than West in the reconstruction of this line. ↩︎
  3. Plato. Cratylus, trans. Harold N. Fowler (Harvard University Press, 1926), 401B. ↩︎
  4. Proclus. Platonic Theology, trans. Thomas Taylor (Prometheus Trust, 2020), 1.1.7. ↩︎
  5. Proclus. Platonic Theology, trans. Thomas Taylor (Prometheus Trust, 2020), 6.12. ↩︎
  6. Plutarch. On the E at Delphi, ed. Jeffrey Henderson (Harvard University Press, 1936), 389A. ↩︎
  7. Plutarch. On Isis and Osiris, ed. Jeffrey Henderson (Harvard University Press, 1936), 354F, 381F. ↩︎
  8. Theognis. Elegies, ed. Douglas E. Gerber (Harvard University Press, 1999), 5-10. ↩︎
  9. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliada, ed. Ernestus Maas (Oxford University Press, 1887) 36. ↩︎
  10. Greek: “ἢ ὅτι αὐτός ἐστι τῶν φαινομένων αἴτιος, ἢ ὡς μουσικὸν ἄνακτα αὐτὸν ὁ ποιητής φησι, ἢ τῷ ἰδίῳ ἄνακτι.” ↩︎
  11. Proclus. In Cratylum, ed. Georgius Pasquali (Teubner, 1908), 179. ↩︎
  12. Philolaus. Testimonia, ed. André Laks, Glenn W. Most (Harvard University Press, 2016), D15, D19. ↩︎
  13. Plutarch. Life of Numa, ed. Bernadotte Perrin (Harvard University Press, 1914), 11.1. ↩︎
  14. Plato. Cratylus, trans. Harold N. Fowler (Harvard University Press, 1926), 401C-D. ↩︎
  15. Ovid. Fasti, ed. James G. Frazer (Harvard University Press, 1996), 6.299. ↩︎
  16. Proclus. In Cratylum, ed. Georgius Pasquali (Teubner, 1908), 167. ↩︎
  17. Martin L. West. “Introduction”, in Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer (Harvard Univeristy Press, 2003), 19. ↩︎
  18. Tiberianus. Platonic Prayer, ed. John W. Duff, Arnold M. Duff (Harvard University Press, 1935), 24-25. ↩︎
  19. Plato. Phaedrus, ed. Johannes Burnet (Oxford University Press, 1901), 247A. ↩︎
  20. Hermias. In Phaedrum, trans. Dirk Baltzly, Michael Share (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023), 147. ↩︎
  21. Proclus. In Cratylum, ed. Georgius Pasquali (Teubner, 1908), 139-140. ↩︎
  22. Hesiod. Theogony, ed. Glenn W. Most (Harvard University Press, 2018), 886. ↩︎
  23. Emilie Sophie. “In Vestae Laudem”, Conjectanea. October 27, 2025. https://conjectanea.com/2025/10/27/in-vestae-laudem/ ↩︎
  24. Plotinus. Enneads, ed. Arthur H. Armstrong (Harvard University Press, 1969), 1.1.12. ↩︎
  25. “Ορφικοί Ύμνοι”, Wikisource. Last modified April 14, 2019. https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%9F%CF%81%CF%86%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%BF%CE%AF_%CF%8D%CE%BC%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%B9/%CE%95%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AF%CE%B1%CF%82 ↩︎
  26. Proclus. Commentary on Plato’s Republic vol. 1, trans. Dick Baltzly, John F. Finamore, Graeme Miles (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 6.1.12. ↩︎
  27. Orphic fragment 354. ↩︎
  28. Hesiod. Theogony, ed. Glenn W. Most (Harvard University Press, 2018), 907-909. ↩︎
  29. Aulus Gellius. Attic Nights, ed. John C. Rolfe (Harvard University Press, 1927), 13.11.2. ↩︎
  30. Cf. the use of χαῖρε(τε) in Homeric Hymns 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33; ἵληθι in Homeric Hymns 20, 23. Cf. also χαῖρε in Proclus, e.g., Hymn 6 and van den Berg’s commentary ad locum in Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary, ed. R. M. van den Berg (Brill, 2001), 260. ↩︎
  31. Maritn L. West. “Introduction”, in Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer (Harvard University Press, 2003), 3. ↩︎
  32. Proclus. On the Hieratic Art, ed. Stephen Ronan (1988, accessed 04/01/2025). https://www.astrologicon.org/proclus/proclus-peri-tis-kath-ellinas-ieratikis-tehnis.html ↩︎

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