The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)
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Despite my resolution to be brief, I cannot resist the pleasure of speaking at greater length of Orpheus, and of recaUing, as is my custom, things which, appearing today wholly foreign to my subject, nevertheless, when examined from my viewpoint, belong to it. Poetry was not at all in its origin what it became later, a simple accomplishment, regarded by those who profess to be savants as even rather frivolous*; it was the language of the gods, par excellence,
' Thimothfe, cit6 par Bannier, Mythol., i., p. 104.
' Macrobius, Somm. Scip., 1. i., c. 12. ' Eiirip., HippoL, v. 948.
< Plat., De Leg., 1. vi.; Jambl., De VM Pythag.
'Acad, des Insc, t. v., p. 117.
' Procl., In Tim., 1. v., p. 330; Cicero, Somm. Scip., e. 2, 3, 4, 6.
* Montesquieu and Buffon have been the greatest adversaries of poetry, they were very eloquent in prose; but that does not prevent one from applying to them, as did Voltaire, the words of Montaigne: "We cannot attain it, let us avenge ourselves by slandering it."
The Essence and Form of Poetry 31 that of the prophets, the ministers of the altars, the preceptors and the legislators of the world. I rejoice to repeat this truth, after rendering homage to Orpheus, to this admirable man, to whom Europe owes the 6clat with which she has shone and with which she will shine a long time. Orpheus has been the real creator of poetry and of music,' the father of mythology, of morals, and of philosophy: it is he who has served as model for Hesiod and Homer, who has illumined the footsteps of Pythagoras and Plato.
After having wisely accommodated the outward ceremonies to the mjnds of the people whom he wished to instruct, Orpheus divided his doctrine into two parts, the one vulgar, and the other mysterious and secret, following in this the method of the Egyptians, whose disciple he had been"; then, turning his attention to poetry, and seeing into what chaos this science had fallen and the confusion that had been made of divine and profane things, he judiciously separated it into two principal branches, which he assigned, the one to theology, the other to natural philosophy. It can be said that he gave in each the precept and the example. As sublime a theosophist as he was profound as a philosopher, he composed an immense quantity of theosophical and philosophical verses upon all sorts of subjects. Time has destroyed nearly all of them; but their memory has been perpetuated. Among the works of Orpheus that were cited by the ancients and whose, loss must be deplored, were found, on the subject of theosophy. The Holy Word or The Sacred Logos* by which Pythagoras and Plato profited much ; the Theogony, which preceded that of Hesiod more than five centuries; The Initiations to the Mysteries of the Mother of the Gods,** and The Ritual of the Sacrifices, wherein he had recorded, undoubtedly, the divers parts of his doctrine 3; on the subject of philosophy, a cele-
' Horat., De Arte poit.; Strab., 1. x.
= Origen, Contr. Cels., 1. i., p. 12; Dacier, Vie de Pythagore.
* 'lepis X470I. ** Qpovufubi. nvrpSot- 3 Fabric, Bibl. greec., p. 120, 129.
32 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras brated cosmogony was found,' in which an astronomical system was developed that would be an honour to our century, touching the plurality of the worlds, the station of the stm at the centre of the universe, and the habitation of the stars.* These extraordinary works emanated from the same genius who had written in verse upon grammar, music, natural history, upon the antiquities of the many isles of Greece, upon the interpretation of signs and prodigies, and a mass of other subjects, the details of which one can see in the commencement of the Argonautica of Onomacritus, which is attributed to him.
But at the same time that Orpheus opened thus to his successor two very distinct careers, theosophical and philosophical, he did not entirely neglect the other parts of this science: his hymns and his odes assigned him to a distinguished rank among the Ijrric poets ; his DimStr^tde presaged the beauties of Epopoeia, and the representations full of pomp, that he introduced into his mysteries, gave birth to Greek Melopoeia whence sprang dramatic art. He can therefore be regarded, not only as the precursor of Hesiod and Epimenides, but even as that of Homer, ^schylus, and Pindar. I do not pretend, in saying this, to take away anything from the glory of these celebrated men: the one who indicates a course, yields to the one who executes it: now this, especially, is what Homer did.
Ill
Homer was not the first epic poet in the order of time, but in the order of things. Before him many poets were skilled in Epopoeia; but no one had known the nature
' ApoUon, Argon., 1. i., v. 496.
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