The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)
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"Plutar., iJe Placit. philos., c. 13; Euseb., Prap. Evang., 1. xv., c. 30; Stobeus, Eclog. phys., 54. Proclus quotes the verses of Orpheus on this subject, In Tim., 1. iv., p. 283. Voyez La Biblioth. grac. de Fabricius, p. 132.
The Essence and Form of Poetry 33 of this kind of poetry'; no one had united the opposed qualities which were necessary. There existed at this epoch a multitude of allegorical fables which had emanated at divers times from different sanctuaries.
These fables, committed at first to memory, had been collected in several sets of works which were called cycles.* There were allegorical, mythological, and epic cycles.* We know from certain precious texts of the ancients, that these sorts of collections opened generally with the description of Chaos, with the marriage of Heaven and Earth; contained the genealogy of the Gods and the combats of the Giants; included the expedition of the Argonauts, the famous wars of Thebes and of Troy; extended as far as the arrival of Ulysses at Ithaca, and terminated with the death of this hero, caused by his son Telegonus. ^ The poets who, before Homer, had drawn from these cycles the subject of their works, not having penetrated as far as the allegorical sense, lacking inspiration, or being found incapable of rendering it, lacking talent, had produced only cold inanimate copies, deprived of movement and grace.
They had not, however, omitted any of the exploits of Hercules or of Theseus, nor any of the incidents of the sieges of Thebes or Troy; and their muse, quite lifeless, fatigued the readers without interesting or instructing them.* Homer came.
He, in his turn, glanced over this pile of sacerdotal traditions, and raising himself by the force of his genius alone to the intellectual principle which had conceived them, he grasped the ensemble, and felt all its possibilities. The faculties of his soul and the precious gifts which he had received from nature had made him one of those rare men who present
' Fabric, BiUiot. greec., p. 4, 22, 26, 30, etc.; Voyag. d'Anack., ch. 80.
* From the Greek word xtfcXos : as one would say circuit, the circular envelopment of a thing.
' Court de Gobelin, Gen. alleg., p. 119.
sCasaubon, /» Atken., p. 301; Fabnc, Bibl. grcBc. 1. i., c. 17; Voyag. d'Anach., ch. 80; Proclus, cit6 par Covirt de Gobelin, ibid.
* Arist., De Poet., c. 8, 16, 25, etc.
34 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras themselves, at long intervals, upon the scene of the world to enlighten it, shining in the depths of centuries and serving as torches for mankind. In whatever clime, in whatever career destiny had placed him, he would have been the foremost. Ever the same, whether under the thatched roof or upon the throne, as great in Egypt as in Greece, in the Occident as in the Orient of Asia, everywhere he had commanded admiration. Some centuries earlier this same attribute might have been seen in Krishna or in Orpheus, some centuries later, in Pythagoras or in Cyrus. Great men are always great by their own greatness. Incidents which depend upon chance can only modify. Homer was destined to poetry by favourable circumstances. Bom upon the borders of the river Meles, of an indigent mother, without shelter and without kindred, he owed, to a schoolmaster of Smyrna who adopted him, his early existence and his early instructions. He was at first called Melesigenes, from the place of his birth.* Pupil of Phemius, he received from
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