Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

The world-engine of Fate, or Karmic World-whorl, is represented by seven spheres (surrounded by an eighth) whose harmonious spinning is adjusted by the three Fates, the Daughters of Necessity.

Jowett (loc. cit.) says that the heaven-sphere is represented under the symbol of a " cylinder or box." Where the " box " comes in I do not know ; the term "cylinder" does not occur in the text, and even the cylinder idea is exceedingly difficult to discover in any precise sense. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the " heaven-sphere " is to be so definitely interpreted ; for then our discussion of the meaning of the term " cylinder," which occurs definitely in our K. K. Fragments, would be greatly simplified.

The matter is hard to understand, and Jowett's

1 And this I find to be the opinion of the last commentator on
the subject ; see Stewart (J. A.), The Myths of Plato (London,
1905), pp. 152 ff.

440 THRICE-ttREATEST HERMES attempts at exposition are hazy and sketchy in the extreme. Either Plato is talking nonsense, or Jowett does not understand the elements of his idea. Stewart's attempt, which makes use of the latest Platonic research, is far more successful, but he also has to abandon many points in despair.1 How difficult the solution of the problem is may be seen from the text, which gives the symbolism of the vision of the spheres somewhat as follows :

THE VISION

616 B. — " Now when those in the meadow 2 had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey upwards, and, on the fourth day after,3 he [Er] said they came to a region where they saw light extended straight as a column from above throughout the whole extent of heaven and earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer.

"Another day's journey brought them to it, and there they saw the extremities of the boundaries of the heaven extended in the midst of the light ; for this light was the final boundary of the heaven — somewhat like the under-girdings of ships — and thus confined its whole revolution.

"From these extremities depended the spindle of Necessity, by means of which all its revolutions are made to revolve. The spindle's stalk 4 and its hook are made of adamant,5 and the whorl of a mixture of adamant and other kinds [of elements].

1 So also Dreyer (J. L. E.), History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler (Cambridge, 1906), pp. 56 ff.

2 The daimonian region.

3 That is the eleventh day ; Er, it will be remembered, was " unconscious " for twelve days.

4 Or shaft.

6 That which cannot be destroyed or changed.

"And the nature of the whorl is as follows. In shape it was like that of the one down here ; but in itself we must understand from his description that it was somewhat as though in one great hollow whorl clean scooped out there lay another similar but smaller one fitted into it, as though they were jars x fitting into one another. And so he said there was a third and a fourth, and [also] four others. For in all there are eight whorls set in one another — looking like circles from above as to their rims,2 [but from below] finished off into the continuous belly3 of one whorl round the shaft, which is driven right through the eighth whorL

" The first and outermost whorl had the circle of its rim first in width ; that of the sixth was second ; that of the fourth, third ; that of the eighth, fourth ; that of the seventh, fifth ; that of the fifth, sixth ; that of the third, seventh ; that of the second, eighth.

617. — " And the circle of the largest was variegated ; that of the seventh brightest ; that of the eighth had its colour from the seventh shining on it ; those of the second and of the fifth had [colours] somewhat like one another, but yellower than the preceding; the third had the whitest colour ; the fourth was reddish ; the sixth was second in whiteness.4

1 The shape would thus approximate to an oblate spheroid.

3 To carry out the metaphor of the jars. 3 Lit., " back."