From Thessaly
ΔΙΨΑΙΑΥΟΣΕΓΩΚΑΠΟΛΛΥΜΑΙ
I am parched and I perish with thirst!
ΑΛΛΑΠΙΕΜΟΥΚΡΑΝΑΣΑΙΕΙΡΟΩ
But drink of me, the Ever-Flowing Spring
ΕΠΙΔΕΞΙΑΛΕΥΚΗΚΥΠΑΡΙΣΣΟΣ
On the right, a white cypress
ΤΙΣΔΕΣΙΠΩΔΕΣΙΓΑΣΥΙΟΣΕΙΜΙ
Who are you? From whence are you? I am the son of Earth
ΚΑΙΟΥΡΑΝΟΥΑΣΤΕΡΟΕΝΤΟΣ
and starry Heaven,
ΑΥΤΑΡΕΜΟΙΓΕΝΟΣΟΥΡΑΝΙΟΝ
But my race is of Heaven
Rulings
Who speaks line 2, and what does μου govern?
The spring answers: μου stands in apposition to κράνας, 'drink of me, the Ever-Flowing Spring'. The tablet is a dialogue.
Set asideReading it as the dead one's plea ('give me to drink'), which would suit Petelia 8 to 9 but not the second-person imperative πίε.
How to render αἰειρόω (ἀεί + ῥέω)?
Ever-Flowing. The Greek says unceasing, never failing.
Set asideEternal-Flowing and Infinite: the Greek words for eternal (αἰών, αἰώνιος) are not on the tablet. Perennial is close by ancestry (per annus) but has gone botanical in English.
How to render λευκή?
White. It keeps the strangeness of a dark tree gone pale, and it answers the same word on the Petelia leaf.
Set asideLuminous and lucent, which carry the brightness but drop the colour; the coinages lumewhite, lucewhite, leucent and shinewhite are recorded for a place where no old word reaches.
What does πῶ ask?
Whence: 'From whence are you?'
Set asideWhere, as a place rather than an origin.
Mark the speakers in the English?
No. The change of voice is left to the words.
Set asideLabelling the initiate and the spring.
Follow the tablet's lines?
Yes, line for line, even where a sentence runs across the break (lines 4 to 5).
Set asideSetting the English as the sense would divide it.
How much punctuation in the English?
None at line end, as the tablet carries none, except the exclamation in line 1 and the comma at the end of line 5. The questions in line 4 keep their marks.
Set asideFull stops throughout.
Apparatus
1δίψαι] ā-stem dative written ΑΙ (the iota on the line). Petelia has δίψηι, with Ionic η.αὖος] Masculine: the speaker is a man. Petelia has the feminine αὔη.κἀπόλλυμαι] Petelia writes καὶ ἀπόλλυμαι in full.Word division and accents follow the edited text seen quoted; the tablet gives ΔΙΨΑΙΑΥΟΣ...The English puts thirst at the end, where the Greek puts it first, to keep the cry whole.
2πίε] Attic usually πῖθι; the second person is what makes the spring the speaker.μου] Taken in apposition with κράνας: 'of me, the spring'. See the ruling on line-2-speaker.κράνας] Partitive genitive with a verb of drinking.αἰειρόω] The sense is not in doubt: editions give ever-flowing, and ἀεί is unceasing rather than eternal (αἰών, αἰώνιος are not on the tablet). What is the church's own inference, and unchecked against any lexicon, is the shape: that the word is a compound of ἀεί with ῥέω standing in the genitive, its -ω the West Greek ending where Attic has -ου.A second reading, 'drink of my ever-flowing spring', is possible and is not taken.The capital letters in the English make the spring a title, a name given to the speaker.
3ἐπὶ δεξιά] Petelia sets its spring ἐπ’ ἀριστερά, on the left, with the cypress beside it.λευκή] One word for the colour and the light; the root is the one behind Latin lux. See the ruling on leuke.κυπάρισσος] A dark tree: its whiteness is the strangeness of the place, not its botany.No verb: 'there is' is understood, and the English keeps the ellipse.
4δ’] Left untranslated.ἐσί] Doric and epic ἐσσί, Attic εἶ; written here with one sigma.πῶ] West Greek for Attic πόθεν. See the ruling on po.Γᾶς] Earth as the mother, answering Heaven in line 5.υἱός] Masculine, with αὖος in line 1. Petelia has παῖς, child, of either sex.Two voices in one line: the spring asks, the dead one answers, and no mark divides them on the tablet.'From whence' doubles the sense of whence; it is kept as deliberate old idiom.
5Οὐρανοῦ] Written with ΟΥ, where the neighbouring words keep Doric forms.ἀστερόεντος] Epic adjective; the same formula stands on the Petelia leaf and in the church's closing line.The comma at the end carries the answer into line 6, where the tablet simply runs on.
6γένος] Race or lineage, not prayer.No verb: 'is' is understood.Petelia continues τόδε δ’ ἴστε καὶ αὐτοί, 'this you know yourselves'; this tablet stops here.
Words
1δίψαι δίψα, dative singular, with thirst;αὖος αὖος, -η, -ον, nominative masculine singular, dry, parched;ἐγώ ἐγώ, nominative singular, I;κἀπόλλυμαι καί + ἀπόλλυμαι, crasis; 1st singular present middle of ἀπόλλυμι, and I perish, am being destroyed.
2ἀλλά ἀλλά, conjunction, but, then;πίε πίνω, 2nd singular aorist imperative, drink;μου ἐγώ, genitive singular, of me;κράνας κράνα (Doric; Attic κρήνη), genitive singular, of the spring;αἰειρόω αἰείροος (ἀεί + ῥέω), as read here, genitive singular with κράνας, ever-flowing, never failing.
3ἐπὶ δεξιά ἐπί + δεξιός, neuter plural used adverbially, on the right;λευκή λευκός, nominative feminine singular, white; bright, gleaming;κυπάρισσος κυπάρισσος, nominative feminine singular, cypress.
4τίς τίς, interrogative pronoun, nominative singular, who;δ’ δέ, particle, elided, and, then;ἐσί εἰμί, 2nd singular present indicative, you are;πῶ πῶ, interrogative adverb, from where, whence;Γᾶς Γᾶ (Doric; Attic Γῆ), genitive singular, of Earth;υἱός υἱός, nominative masculine singular, son;εἰμι εἰμί, 1st singular present indicative, I am.
5καί καί, conjunction, and;Οὐρανοῦ Οὐρανός, genitive singular, of Heaven;ἀστερόεντος ἀστερόεις, genitive masculine singular, starry.
6αὐτάρ αὐτάρ, adversative particle (epic), but, yet;ἐμοί ἐγώ, dative singular, of possession, to me, mine;γένος γένος, nominative neuter singular, race, lineage, birth;οὐράνιον οὐράνιος, nominative neuter singular, with γένος, heavenly, of Heaven.
Construe
1with thirst / dry / I / and I perish
2but / drink / of me / of the spring / ever-flowing
3on the right / white / cypress
4who / and / are you / whence / and / are you / of Earth / son / I am
5and / of Heaven / starry
6but / to me / race / heavenly
The tablet whole
Script and division. The letters run on without spaces or marks; every division, accent and stop below is editorial. The line breaks, by contrast, are the tablet's own, and one of them falls inside a sentence (lines 4 to 5).
Dialect. West Greek (Doric) forms stand beside epic ones: κράνας for κρήνης, Γᾶς for Γῆς, the genitive αἰειρόω in -ω, ἐσί for εἶ, πῶ for πόθεν, and ā written ΑΙ in δίψαι; against these, the epic ἀστερόεντος and αὐτάρ, and Ionic-Attic η in λευκή and ΟΥ in ΟΥΡΑΝΟΥ. A mixed surface: local speech carrying inherited hexameter formulas.
Metre. The formulas of lines 4 to 6 are those of hexameter verse, and they appear as hexameter on the Petelia leaf. The six lines as written here are not each a hexameter; how much of the tablet scans has not been worked out here.
Relation to the Petelia leaf. Four things stand in both: the cry of thirst, the white cypress, the answer 'child of Earth and of starry Heaven', and the heavenly race. They differ in arrangement: on Petelia the cypress marks the spring to avoid, on the left, and the questions are not written out; here the cypress is on the right and the questions are asked aloud. The speaker differs in gender: αὖος here is masculine, αὔη on Petelia feminine.
What is not held here. No lexicon, no corpus of the gold tablets, no edition. Where an edition's reading is followed it is said so in the line. Three modern translations were consulted privately and are neither committed to the page nor published.
The witness
Gold tablet, six lines incised with a point. Greece; said to come from Thessaly. Mid-fourth century BC. 2.2 × 3.7 × 0.1 cm. Majuscules, written continuously without division between words, six lines. The letters as incised, read from the photograph and checked against the holder's published record of the inscription. Getty Villa, Malibu, 75.AM.19. Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program; public domain.
Standing
Checked. The majuscules, read from the photograph and agreeing with the holder's record. The word division and accents of lines 1 and 2 follow an edited text seen quoted. Unchecked. The word division, accents, parsing and notes of lines 3 to 6, and the shape given to αἰειρόω in line 2, are the church's own analysis. No lexicon and no edition of the tablets is held here, so nothing below is checked against one. Points that are not settled are marked. Translation. By the Orphic Church, 2026-09-17, line for line, no speaker marks, final marks only where the sense asks (an exclamation in line 1, a comma carrying line 5 into line 6).
Open questions
What this edition has not settled, in the church's own judgement.
- StandingThe word division, accents, parsing and notes of lines 3 to 6, and the shape given to αἰειρόω in line 2, are the church's own analysis. No lexicon and no edition of the tablets is held here, so nothing below is checked against one. Points that are not settled are marked.
- Line 2, αἰειρόωThe sense is not in doubt: editions give ever-flowing, and ἀεί is unceasing rather than eternal (αἰών, αἰώνιος are not on the tablet). What is the church's own inference, and unchecked against any lexicon, is the shape: that the word is a compound of ἀεί with ῥέω standing in the genitive, its -ω the West Greek ending where Attic has -ου.
- Line 2A second reading, 'drink of my ever-flowing spring', is possible and is not taken.
- Line 4, ἐσίDoric and epic ἐσσί, Attic εἶ; written here with one sigma.
- DialectWest Greek (Doric) forms stand beside epic ones: κράνας for κρήνης, Γᾶς for Γῆς, the genitive αἰειρόω in -ω, ἐσί for εἶ, πῶ for πόθεν, and ā written ΑΙ in δίψαι; against these, the epic ἀστερόεντος and αὐτάρ, and Ionic-Attic η in λευκή and ΟΥ in ΟΥΡΑΝΟΥ. A mixed surface: local speech carrying inherited hexameter formulas.
- MetreThe formulas of lines 4 to 6 are those of hexameter verse, and they appear as hexameter on the Petelia leaf. The six lines as written here are not each a hexameter; how much of the tablet scans has not been worked out here.
How to cite
The gold tablet from Thessaly. Greek: the letters as incised. English: translated by the Orphic Church, MMXXVI. https://orphic.church/library/gold-tablets/thessaly/ Cite by line, as From Thessaly 2. The tablet is held at the Getty Villa, Malibu, 75.AM.19.
CompactFrom Thessaly 2, trans. the Orphic Church (2026), https://orphic.church/library/gold-tablets/thessaly/
A lineFrom Thessaly 2
The Orphic Church's translation, and what it made here, is given under the Orphic License, version 1.0. orphic.church/license