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Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' derives from Greek language, Greek (''hymnos''), which means "a song of praise". A writer of hymns is known as a hymnist. The singing or composition of hymns is called hymnody. Collections of hymns are known as hymnals or hymn books. Hymns may or may not include instrumental accompaniment. Polyhymnia is the Greco/Roman goddess of hymns. Although most familiar to speakers of English in the context of Christianity, hymns are also a fixture of other major religious groups, world religions, especially on the Indian subcontinent (''stotras''). Hymns also survive from antiquity, especially from Egyptian and Greek cultures. Some of the oldest surviving examples of notated music are hymns with Greek texts. Origins Ancient Eastern hymns include th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one Shakha of the many survive today, namely the Shakala Shakha, Śakalya Shakha. Much of the contents contained in the remaining Shakhas are now lost or are not available in the public forum. The ''Rigveda'' is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text. Its early layers are among the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. Most scholars believe that the sounds and texts of the ''Rigveda'' have been orally transmitted with precision since the 2nd millennium BCE, through Indian mathematics#Styles of memorisation, methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, though the dates are not confirmed and remain contentious till concrete evidence surfaces. Philolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orphic Hymns
The ''Orphic Hymns'' are a collection of eighty-seven ancient Greek hymns addressed to various deities, which were attributed in antiquity to the mythical poet Orpheus. They were composed in Asia Minor (located in modern-day Turkey), most likely around the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD, and were used in the rites of a religious community which existed in the region. The ''Hymns'' are among the few extant works of Orphic literature (the tradition of texts attributed to Orpheus in antiquity), and recent scholars have observed parallels between the collection and other Orphic works. The collection is preceded by a proem (or prologue), in which Orpheus addresses the legendary poet Musaeus of Athens, Musaeus, and calls upon around seventy deities to be present. The individual hymns in the collection, all of which are brief, typically call for the attention of the deity they address, before describing them and highlighting aspects of their divinity, and then appealing to them with a request ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homeric Hymns
The ''Homeric Hymns'' () are a collection of thirty-three ancient Greek hymns and one epigram. The hymns praise deities of the Greek pantheon and retell mythological stories, often involving a deity's birth, their acceptance among the gods on Mount Olympus, or the establishment of their cult. In antiquity, the hymns were generally, though not universally, attributed to the poet Homer: modern scholarship has established that most date to the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, though some are more recent and the latest, the ''Hymn to Ares'', may have been composed as late as the fifth century CE. The ''Homeric Hymns'' share compositional similarities with the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', also traditionally attributed to Homer. They share the same artificial literary dialect of Greek, are composed in dactylic hexameter, and make use of short, repeated phrases known as formulae. It is unclear how far writing, as opposed to oral composition, was involved in their cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hymnal
A hymnal or hymnary is a collection of hymns, usually in the form of a book, called a hymnbook (or hymn book). They are used in congregational singing. A hymnal may contain only hymn texts (normal for most hymnals for most centuries of Christian history); written melodies are extra, and more recently harmony parts have also been provided. Hymnals are omnipresent in churches but are not often discussed; nevertheless, liturgical scholar Massey H. Shepherd once observed: "In all periods of the Church's history, the theology of the people has been chiefly molded by their hymns." Elements and format Since the twentieth century, singer-songwriter hymns have become common, but in previous centuries, generally poets wrote the words, and musicians wrote the tunes. The texts are known and indexed by their first lines ("incipits") and the hymn tunes are given names, sometimes geographical (the tune "New Britain" for the incipit "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound"). The hymnal editors c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hymnist
A hymnwriter (or hymn writer, hymnist, hymnodist, hymnographer, etc.) is someone who writes the text, music, or both of hymns. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the composition of hymns dates back to before the time of David, who is traditionally believed to have composed many of the Psalms. The term hymnodist, in the United States more than in other regions, broadens the scope to include the study of hymns. History Early Church and Middle Ages Many hymn writers in the early Church gained prominence and achieved canonisation. Saint John of Damascus ( or 676 – 749) was noted for his work as a hymn writer; some of the most popular English hymns which are translations of his works include ''Come ye faithful, raise the strain'', ''Let us rise in early morning'' and ''The day of resurrection'', all associated with the season of Eastertide and all translated by John Mason Neale. Most early hymnists were anonymous, so it is uncertain how many of them were women. Hildegard of Bingen, S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyhymnia
Polyhymnia (; ), alternatively Polymnia (Πολύμνια), is, in Greek mythology, the Muse of sacred poetry, sacred hymn, dance and eloquence, as well as agriculture and pantomime. Etymology Polyhymnia name comes from the Greek words "poly", meaning "many", and "hymnos", which means "praise". Appearance Polyhymnia is depicted as serious, pensive and meditative, and often holding a finger to her mouth, dressed in a long cloak and veil and resting her elbow on a pillar. Polyhymnia is also sometimes credited as being the Muse of geometry and meditation. In ''Bibliotheca historica'', Diodorus Siculus wrote, "Polyhymnia, because by her great (polle) praises (humnesis) she brings distinction to writers whose works have won for them immortal fame...". Family As one of the Muses, Polyhymnia is the daughter of Zeus and the Titaness Mnemosyne. She was also described as the mother of Triptolemus by Cheimarrhoos, son of Ares, and of the musician Orpheus by Apollo.Scholia on '' Ap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Hymn To The Aten
The Great Hymn to the Aten is the longest of a number of hymn-poems written to the sun-disk deity Aten. Composed in the middle of the 14th century BC, it is varyingly attributed to the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Akhenaten or his courtiers, depending on the version, who radically changed traditional forms of Egyptian religion by replacing them with Atenism. The hymn bears a notable resemblance to the biblical Psalm 104. Background The hymn-poem provides a glimpse of the religious artistry of the Amarna period expressed in multiple forms encompassing literature, new temples, and in the building of a whole new city at the site of present-day Amarna as the capital of Egypt. Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson said that "It has been called 'one of the most significant and splendid pieces of poetry to survive from the pre-Homeric world. Egyptologist John Darnell asserts that the hymn was sung. Various courtiers' rock tombs at Amarna (ancient Akhet-Aten, the city Akhenaten founded) have simi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psalms
The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of Biblical Hebrew, Hebrew religious hymns. In the Judaism, Jewish and Western Christianity, Western Christian traditions, there are 150 psalms, and several more in the Eastern Christianity, Eastern Christian churches. The book is divided into five sections, each ending with a doxology, a hymn of praise. There are several types of psalms, including hymns or songs of praise, communal and individual laments, royal psalms, Imprecatory Psalms, imprecation, and individual thanksgivings. The book also includes psalms of communal thanksgiving, wisdom, pilgrimage and other categories. Many of the psalms contain attributions to the name of David, King David and other Biblical figures including Asaph (biblical figure), Asaph, the Korahites, sons of Kora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hymn To Nikkal
The Hurrian songs (or Hurrian Hymns) are a collection of music inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablets excavated from the ancient Amorite-Canaanite city of Ugarit, a headland in northern Syria, which date to approximately 1400 BC.Marguerite Yon, The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra' (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006): 24. (179 pages) One of these tablets, which is nearly complete, contains the Hurrians, Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal (also known as the Hurrian cult hymn or "a zaluzi-prayer to the gods," or simply "h.6"), making it the oldest surviving substantially complete work of Musical notation, notated music in the world. While the composers' names of some of the fragmentary pieces are known, h.6 is an anonymous work. History The complete song is one of about 36 such hymns in cuneiform writing, found on fragments of clay tablets excavated in the 1950s from the Royal Palace of Ugarit, Royal Palace at Ugarit (present-day Ras Shamra, Syria), in a stratum dating from the fourteenth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Akhenaten
Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Akhenaton or Echnaton ( ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning 'Effective for the Aten'), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty. Before the fifth year of his reign, he was known as Amenhotep IV (, meaning "Amun is satisfied", Hellenized as ''Amenophis IV''). As a pharaoh, Akhenaten is noted for abandoning traditional ancient Egyptian religion of polytheism and introducing Atenism, or worship centered around Aten. The views of Egyptologists differ as to whether the religious policy was absolutely monotheism, monotheistic, or whether it was monolatristic, religious syncretism, syncretistic, or henotheistic. This culture shift away from traditional religion was reversed after his death. Akhenaten's monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name Damnatio memoriae, excluded from regnal list, lists of rulers compiled by lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gatha (Zoroaster)
The Gathas () are 17 hymns in the Avestan language from the Zoroastrian oral tradition of the Avesta. The oldest surviving text fragment dates from 1323 CE, but they are believed by scholars to have been composed before 1000 BCE and passed down orally for centuries. They are traditionally believed to have been composed by the prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) himself. They form the core of the Zoroastrian liturgy (the Yasna). They are arranged in five different modes or metres. The Avestan term ' (𐬔𐬁𐬚𐬁 "hymn", but also "mode, metre") is cognate with Sanskrit '' gāthā'' (गाथा), both from the Proto-Indo-Iranian word ''*gaHtʰáH'', from the root ''*gaH-'' "to sing". Structure and organization The Gathas are in verse, metrical in the nature of ancient Iranian religious poetry, that is extremely terse. The 17 hymns of the Gathas consist of 238 stanzas, of about 1300 lines or 6000 words in total. They were later incorporated into the 72-chapter ''Yasna'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Callimachus
Callimachus (; ; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar, and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works, most of which do not survive, in a wide variety of genres. He espoused an aesthetic philosophy, known as Callimacheanism, which exerted a strong influence on the poets of the Roman Empire and, through them, on all subsequent Western canon, Western literature. Born into a prominent family in the Greek city of Cyrene, Libya, Cyrene in modern-day Libya, he was educated in Alexandria, the capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty, Ptolemaic kings of Egypt. After working as a schoolteacher in the city, he came under the patronage of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus and was employed at the Library of Alexandria where he compiled the ''Pinakes'', a comprehensive catalogue of all Greek literature. He is believed to have lived into the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes. Altho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
