ORPHIC HYMN TO PHANES PROTOGONOS

According to the Orphic Theogony, Phanes is one of the names of the creative principle of the Universe,personification of the Creator Eros. Phanes is a primal Deity- that's why in Greek He is called Protogonos. He came out of the Cosmic Egg, which Nyx ( Night) had given birth to. In the 'Orphic Rhapsodies', it is mentioned that Chronos ( Time ) is the cause of all things and the Creator of Phanes' Cosmic Egg.

The following is the Oprhic Hymn to Phanes, translated inEnglish:

Mist clears, day dawns, the First day dawns,
breaking dim and Universal Light. Orpheus sings and singing brings us light.Across the Sky the great and golden Egg hangs like an oblong Sun about to burst, cracking amidst the horizons of those Immortal Beings, of Living Gods the First, the Archetypes, as yet unseen, unknown, that are to come. The high-pitched shuddering song through nothingness resounds, Primeval Word, Creation at the beginning of all worlds.

First-born of time and space Protogonos,  only Begetter Begotten on Himself; double-sexed, a living X, a cross whose meeting point is undivided, wealth of proposition and increase. Phanes-Ericapeus, All-Powerful, Ineffable, Occult, Winged Glory , through the world You fly. Increase of joy and wonder, pierce the very vault of of darkest Heaven with flashing pinions formed of glittering sapphire and of gold interleaved with spangles of the Stars and whirling circles of universal fire.Priapus, dark-eyed splendour , Thee I sing , Bountiful, Unwearying Potent King.

Invincible, Prime Unity, The One; Good in Himself; Spawning nothing but good; the very Spirit and Image of the Great God. Sole breeding Ruler of eternity, Lord, Quintessence of infinity; of Ether and of Chaos father-mother according to Pythagoras himself. How could that One unfold, make two, divide? become corruptible, and multiply, break down? First of the Secret Genera of the Divine, says Syrianus. Called by Orpheus, on the authority of Proclus, Tender Love.

The Second King is Night; the Third is Heaven; Saturnus is the Fourth and Fifth Lord Zeus, Ruler of His Father; Dionysos Sixth in due progression of the royal line, emanations from the Original Divine. All these Kings, these intellectual Gods, are born into the world when it is made upon the breaking of the Golden Egg, when Great Lord Phanes, Beautiful, comes forth giving birth to everything that lives.

On Earth is Heaven found; and in the Sky another Earth , the wise Egyptian taught. Each in each is bound; and by and by returns to its beginning at the end ,when universal destructions rend the plurality of whirling matter. Phanes lives forever, can never die, we men are made Immortal by His Love, men and women glorified, here below as there above, just as before the cracking of the Egg.