Fabre d’Olivet’s “Hermeneutic Interpretation”, from the Cornell University Library’s copy, and the scan preserves the library’s rights statement verbatim: “The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.” A digitisation that carries its own licence on its face — which is more than most of the copies on this shelf do.
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)
Open to all
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
page 1
Tlie Gddai^rses of Pythagoras
Fabre d' Olivet
( ,1 X").
By Fabre d'Olivet
Hermeneutic Interpretation
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras
FABRE D'OLIVET
After a miniature by Augustin 1799
The Golden Verses of
Pythagoras
Explained and Translated into French and
Preceded by a Discourse upon the
Essence and Form of Poetry
Among the Principal
Peoples of the Earth
By
Fabre d'Olivet
Done into English by
Nayan Louise Redfield
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G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
Zbe "KnicfierbocRet iPress
p. 1917
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COPYMGHT, I917
NAYAN LOUISE REDFIELD
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To the Travellers who have turned their Faces to the Dawn and their Steps toward the Eternal Hills is offered this rich Fruit of Wisdom, that, through it, they may achieve the Understanding of Knowledge.
TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD
IN this twentieth century, the sacred books of the ancients are undoubtedly better understood than they were even by their contemporaries, for their authors, by the greatness of their genius, are as much nearer to us, as they were distant from them. At the close of the eighteenth century, the light which came from the illimitable mind of Fabre d'Olivet shone with solitary splendour and was destined to be seen by only a few devoted followers. But history shows that a great inspirer always appears at the beginning of every great epoch, and however small the number of his disciples, these disciples with their pupils form the magnetic chain which, according to Plato, carries his thought out into the world.
Fabre d'Olivet, bom at Ganges, Bas-Languedoc, Dec. 8, 1768, was distinguished even in his own day not only for the extent of his learning but for the rectitude of his judgment and the sublimity of his conceptions. If one can infer from the all too scarce records available since the calamitous fire which destroyed so many of his valued manuscripts, he evidently suffered keenly from the fetters of mortality, and sought with unfailing fervour what Porphyry so aptly called the "Olympia of the Soul."
Saint Yves d'Alveydre, writing of him in La France vraie, says, that it was in 1790, while in Germany, he received his Pythagorean initiation, the profound imprint of which marked all his later productions. After returning to Paris he applied himself to philological and philosophical studies vi Translator's Foreword undisturbed by the terrible revolutionary storm. In obscure seclusion he amassed, to quote S6dir, "a disconcerting erudition." He became familiar with all the Semitic tongues and dialects, the Aryan languages, and even penetrated the secrets of the Chinese hieroglyphics.
It was during these ten years of retirement that he wrote his Examinations of the Golden Verses which were not published tmtil 1813, with its dedication to the Section of Literature of the Imperial Institute of France. It is known that the Golden Verses of Pythagoras were originally transcribed by Lysis and that it is to Hierocles we owe the version which has come down to us. Fabre d'Olivet has translated them into French verse, the style of which he caUs eumolpique, that is, subject to measure and harmonious cadence but free from rhyme, with alternate masculine and feminine terminations. In the Essence and Form of Poetry which precedes the Golden Verses, he illustrates this melodious style, in applying it to the opening Unes of some of the well-known classics, and to others not so well-known.