Author Patrick Dunn has produced an insightful and well-researched understanding of an important aspect of Graeco-Roman theurgy; in this volume he has mined a mother lode of one of its foundations. The Orphic hymns, a body of mystical poems translated only in the modern era, have been interpreted as theatrical script, religious verse, or mythological record, depending on the translator. The work itself purports to reveal the theogony of the Greek gods, but intimates that the process is a key to the path of rebirth. As such, Dunn emphasizes the liturgical aspect of these poems and their role in initiatory ritual. He renders his own translation of them with an intuitive view that illuminates the esoteric themes of this work – the appreciation of life in the context of death and the reward of immortality.

I started this book with no familiarity with the Orphic Hymns, so I appreciated Patrick Dunn's Foreword, Introduction to the Orphic Hymns, and On Translation sections. Following the introductory sections were thorough discussions of possible uses of the hymns in Ancient Greece and for modern practitioners. The section on meditating on the hymns particularly resonated with me.
The Hymns themselves were presented in Greek with a facing translation. I love this format for translations. I appreciated the relatively simple and direct choices that Patrick Dunn made in his translations - his additional notes at the end of the hymns clarified points as necessary. The Concordance and Glossary at the end of the translation were immensely helpful. I know I will refer to them frequently. It was a nice touch to include Thomas Taylor's translations from 1792, which make for an illuminating comparison to Dunn's translations.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a thoughtful introduction to the Orphic Hymns.

Patrick Dunn, if he has not outdone the Athanassakis/Wolkow translation, has provided a strong alternative to that text. While eschewing Thomas Taylor's meter, Dunn still manages to render a strongly poetic text that can be paralleled to the Athanassakis/Wolkow version. To the credit of this translation, it also offers the Greek text, which could be of value to polytheists and magical practitioners who value the original language.

Dunn provides potential magical and religious uses for the Orphic Hymns and includes a concordance at the back of the text.

First off, I received an e-ARC of this on my Kindle and the formatting is atrocious. Hopefully that got fixed in the final version. There were places where hymns ran straight into each other and seemed to have lost their titles, only the change in language signaled that anything had changed. I assume in the print version the greek and english are on two separate pages, which would make for a much neater comparison. There was also a section in the appendix where the author was listing hymns related to certain subjects but a section of it came out wrong and had all the subjects and then all the page numbers with none of them matched up.

On to the actual subject of the text. Dunn does a nice job of laying this out. To start out with, he gives some advice on anyone looking to use the hymns as part of a practical worship and how they could be included in various ways. He then moves on to the translation of the hymns. While my greek is super rusty, the translations seem to be pretty decent and readable. He includes notes with many of them with short bits of explanation, which is also nice. And I'm always a huge fan of when translations include the original for you to compare to. There's an appendix section at the end with terms, Taylor's translation, and an index of subjects. If you want to see an overly flowery poetical translation of these hymns, then check out the Taylor translation. It's pretty much everything wrong with translations of classics that put people off.

I love how the Hymns can be used in a ritual or ceremonial magic. Everything you need to use including, the correct herbs, candles, which direction you need to face as well as what God you should use to complete the ritual. The most historically accurate use of the hymns, is to show devotion to the gods they represent. If you want to use this Hymns in worship, then you may wish to know how things were done Ancient Greece. A quote from the book really helped me understand a lot of this and really helped when I used them The quote was" There are two ways to use the hymns in ceremonial magic. You can use the hymns as pre-made invocations, often suitable at the beginning of a ceremony, or as the foundation of an entire ritual. ". You can feel that the author took time to study this subject. It is very well written and interesting. I don't ever remember reading a book about this subject and it seems, I was missing something that was very important .It should be in everyone's library as a go to book.. I enjoyed reading it. I received this book from Net Galley and Llewellyn Publishing for an honest review and no compensation otherwise. The opinions and views are my own.