Τεῦξε μέγα δρέπανον, etc.
See the extract from the old poem Phorônis ap. Schol. Apoll. Rhod. 1129; and Strabo, x. p. 472.
[35] See the scanty fragments of the Orphic theogony in Hermann’s edition of the Orphica, pp. 448, 504, which it is difficult to understand and piece together, even with the aid of Lobeck’s elaborate examination (Aglaophamus, p. 470, etc.). The passages are chiefly preserved by Proclus and the later Platonists, who seem to entangle them almost inextricably with their own philosophical ideas.
The first few lines of the Orphic Argonautica contain a brief summary of the chief points of the theogony.
[36] See Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 472-476, 490-500, Μῆτιν σπέρμα φέροντα θεῶν κλυτὸν Ἠρικεπαῖον; again, Θῆλυς καὶ γενέτωρ κρατερὸς θεὸς Ἠρικέπαιος. Compare Lactant. iv. 8, 4: Suidas, v. Φάνης: Athenagoras, xx. 296: Diodôr. i. 27.
This egg figures, as might be expected, in the cosmogony set forth by the Birds, Aristophan. Av. 695. Nyx gives birth to an egg, out of which steps the golden Erôs, from Erôs and Chaos spring the race of birds.
[37] Lobeck, Ag. p. 504. Athenagor. xv. p. 64.
[38] Lobeck, Ag. p. 507. Plato, Timæus, p. 41. In the Διονύσου τρόφοι of Æschylus, the old attendants of the god Dionysos were said to have been cut up and boiled in a caldron, and rendered again young, by Medeia. Pherecydês and Simonidês said that Jasôn himself had been so dealt with. Schol. Aristoph. Equit. 1321.
[39] Lobeck, p. 514. Porphyry, de Antro Nympharum, c. 16. φησὶ γὰρ παρ᾽ Ὀρφεῖ ἡ Νὺξ, τῷ Διῒ ὑποτιθεμένη τὸν διὰ τοῦ μέλιτος δόλον,
Εὖτ᾽ ἂν δή μιν ἴδηαι ὑπὸ δρυσὶν ὑψικόμοισι