From the second half of col. 7 onwards and up till the end of the extant text, the Derveni author quotes and discusses hexametric verses. According to the near-consensus of the literature, most of these verses belong to an Orphic poem. The poem is usually described as a theogony. Moreover, the fact that the width of the individual columns was set to correspond to the length of a verse in hexameter suggests that the discussion of such verses was one of the main purposes of the entire text.

The reconstruction of the poem, however, has proved to be notoriously difficult, and a number of crucial questions are still far from being settled. It seems obvious, on the other hand, that for a balanced evaluation of the exegetical methods as well as the theological and cosmological ideas of the Derveni author we have to have, as far as possible, a clear grasp of the poem commented on. As a matter of fact, the considerable variance between the particular reconstructions of the poem suggested by different scholars could, and indeed does, result in significantly different accounts of the Derveni author's own contribution, and, vice versa, different assessments of the author's exegetical method have instigated different reconstructions of the form and content of the poem.

Without in any way pretending to be able to settle once and for all the vexed questions of the reconstruction, I shall now give an overview of the problems related to it as well as the different possible solutions proposed in the literature. I shall also try to argue for those solutions which I find more probable myself.