Tomb-Disturber, causing the noise of lamentation, you who make grief resound.
The number of epithets that associate Hekate with the cemetery and tombs are many, emphasizing her power over the dead, the magic enacted with them, and the power of the tomb. In the Orphic Hymn to Hekate, she is the Tomb-frequenter. This aspect of the Goddess of Three Ways is not visible in the Theogony, but there seems little doubt that She quickly became associated with necromancy and the dead, for in the Argonautika, the spells cast by Medea and Jason are of a chthonic nature.
Erichtho, Medea, and Kirke are all known for working magic in Hekate’s name, and they each dig pits, collect bones, and use baneful herbs. Lucian describes Erichtho desecrating both graves and even funerals themselves, for she “snatches from the middle of pyres the smoking ashes of the young, together with their burning bones.”(Ogden, 123). She is said to pluck eyes and nails and even testicles from the entombed. Nauseating, right?
The Crossroads in particular were associated with the Dead, and those who could not afford a proper burial or cremation or who were dismissed from society were associated with the location. Plato, for example, dictated in the Laws that the worst criminals be buried at crossroads.
The bulk of the descriptions of Hekate in the cemetery suggests that she wanders among the tombs, not that she necessarily disturbs them, and Betz prefers to emphasize the meaning of causing lamentations rather than actual disturbance.
Of serpents are you dark, O you with hair
Of serpents, serpent-girded, who drink blood,/
Who bring death and destruction, and who feast
On hearts, flesh-eater, who devour those dead
Untimely, and you who make grief resound
And spread madness, come to my sacrifices,
And now for me do you fulfill / this matter.
- Betz, PGM IV 2785-2890, lines 2863-2890.
An epithet of the grief that comes with death, it seems to me, of the madness that tears at the bonds of family that springs from such moments. Several other of Hekate’s more gruesome and death-associated epithets are also found in this spell, though far from all.
It is that time of year when the Ancestors seem close, and our Beloved Dead seem to draw near (at least, if you celebrate Ancestor rites like many neo-Pagans do today). Hekate Kapetoktypos is not that kind of Goddess, however. This is the deep visceral grief of fresh loss, that tears at one’s belief in good, and right, when love brings unspeakable pain. To me, I think of keening, of the losses I have suffered over the last few years, and how overwhelming that pain can be, and how easily it has felt at times to resurrect the agony of loss. I think of prayers to stay Hekate Kapetoktypos’ hand.
But of course, this is not the only epithet associated with the tomb, nor with death, and the Dead.
I invoke you, beloved Hekate of the Crossroads and the Three Ways
Saffron-cloaked Goddess of the Heavens, the Underworld and the Sea
Tomb-frequenter, mystery-raving with the souls of the dead
Daughter of Perses, Lover of the Wilderness who exults among the deer
Nightgoing One, Protectress of dogs, Unconquerable Queen
Beast-Roarer, Dishevelled One of compelling countenance
Tauropolos, Keyholding Mistress of the whole world
Ruler, Nymph, Mountain-wandering Nurturer of Youth.
Maiden, I beg you to be present at these sacred rites
Ever with a gladsome heart and ever gracious to the Oxherd.
-trans. Ronan, The Orphic Hymn to Hekate, 1st-3rd c. CE
Other epithets associated with the tomb are:
Kapetoktypos: Tomb-Disturber
Tymbidios: Sepulchral, tomb-frequenter.
And with the Chthonic nature of Hekate:
Aidonaea: of the Underworld
Bythios: Abyssal
Chrysosandalaimopotichichthonia: Goddess of the Lower World wearing golden sandals and drinking blood
Chthonia: of the Earth
Epigeia: Of the Earth
Katachthonia: Subterranean
Rexichthon: Earth Cleaver
Aimopotis: blood-drinker, murderer
Aoroboros: Devourer of the Untimely Dead (Aoroi)
Eidolios: Ghostly, Fantasmal
Kardiodaitos: Feasting on Men’s Hearts
Nekyia: Mistress of Corpses
Nerteron Prytanin: Mistress of the Dead
Persephone: to bring Death.
Sarkophagos: Flesh-eater.
Thanategos: Death bringing.
Hekate Kapetoktypos, stay your hand, my Queen,
For deep are the wounds that I bear,
More I cannot take,
Stay your hand, my Goddess,
Let grief be lessened, the days be brighter.
Hekate Kapetoktypos,
I pray unto you,
Stay your hand.
-S. Croft, 2017
Sources:
Croft, Sara. “The Many Names of Hekate,” nehetisingsforhekate.tumblr.com
Betz, Hans Dieter. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, including the Demotic Spells, Chicago, 1992.
Farnell, Lewis Richard. The Cults of the Greek States, Vol. 2, Clarendon, 1896.
Garland, Robert. The Greek Way of Death, Cornell, 2001.
Johnston, Sarah Iles. Hekate Soteira, Scholars, 1990.
Ogden, Daniel. Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Oxford, 2009.
Rabinowitz, Jacob. The Rotting Goddess: the Origin of the Witch in Classical Antiquity, Autonomedia, 1998.
Ronan, Stephen. The Goddess Hekate, Chthonios, 1992.
Images:
Kucherov, Alexander. “Inside room view of Hellenic tomb, Hellenic necropolis in Rodini park, Rhodes,” photo, 2013. Via wikicommons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hellenistic_acropolis,_Rhodus_03.jpg
