“First”, “Only”, “One of a Few”, and “No One Else” 67 Elite roles of very high status belong to Isis: queen, oldest daughter, wife-sister and mother. One or two might warrant praise, but the variety of kinship roles and their connection to the important Egyptian gods constitute the exclusive and unique honor of Isis. Her sovereignty extends over “every land”; she is not a mere local goddess. She was taught by the best of teachers, Hermes. Her law — in a world where male, not female, rulers were the norm — is unique, and “no one” can abrogate it. Moreover she is the “first” to discover corn, which sets her above all others in this category. The Orphic Hymns provide a third example of Greek hymns and amplification by uniqueness (18). The following summary of them was made with an eye to the rhetoric of uniqueness, both the familiar items and other materials in the hymns which function in the same way. While “first” is rarely used (38.6; 40.8) (19), “only/alone” occurs quite frequently (20). Use of superlatives to emphasize a god’s uniqueness is present, but not common (21). More frequent are the titles and epithets not found in rhetoric: rare is the deity who is not king of this or queen of that (22); some deities are acclaimed as sovereign over all, such as “father of all” (4.1; 6.3; 13.1; 20.5), “mother of all” (9.5; 10.1), “lord of all” (12.4) and “master of all” (45.2). Often one finds mention of the extent of the domain of this or that god: Helios begets both dawn and night (8.4); Zeus presides over earth, sea and sky (15.4-5). Thus the gods are honored in terms of their unique roles and statuses as well as the geographical domain of their sovereignty. As befits only gods, their eternity (23) and deathlessness are proclaimed: Ouranos, eternal cosmic element, is primeval as well as “beginning of all and end of all” (4.1-2); Zeus, too, is “father of all and beginning and end of all” (18) The text and translation used here is that of A.N. ATHANASSAKIS, The Orphic Hymns. Text, Translation and Notes (Missoula, MT 1977). See also M.L. WEST, The Orphic Poems (Oxford 1983). (19) Variations of “first” include “oldest of all” (10.2) and “first born” (10.5). (20) Hymns 33.2; 58.8; 61.1; 64.8; 68.11; 74.6; 75.7; 85.3; 87.8. Persephone and Athena are the “only-begotten” (moogenhv") offspring of Demeter and Zeus respectively (29.2; 32.1). (21) Adonis is called “best god” (a[riste, 56.1); Okeanos, “highest divine purifier” (mevgiston, 83.6); Dream, “greatest prophet to mortals” (mevgiste, 86.2). (22) For example, moon is “divine queen” (9.1); Pan is “queen of all” (11.2); Zeus, of course, is “king” (15.2) in one place and “begetter of all and great king” (20.5); Hera, “queen of all” and consort of Zeus (16.2). (23) Variations of “eternity” include “self-born” (8.3) or “self-fathered” (10.10); “end that has no end” (10.8); as well as note of a god’s “everlasting life” (10.27; 11.3).