The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)
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fThe surname Eumolpidse, given to the hierophants, successors of Orpheus, comes from the word ES/mXttos, by which is designated the style of poetry of this divine man. It signifies the -perfect voice. It is derived from the Phcenician words kSo (mola), perfected, and HKB (phoh), mouthj voice, discourse. The adverb ^v, which precedes it, expresses whatever is beautiful, holy, perfect.
■ Fabric, Bibl. Grcec., p. 36, 105, 240, 469, passim; Arist., ProbL, xix., 28; Meurs., Bibl. Grose., c. i.
" Arist., De Poet., c. 8.
'Porphyre, In Vitd Pythagor., p. 21; Clem. Alex., 1. vi., p.. 658; Plato, De Leg., 1. iii.; Plutar., De Music, p. 1141; Poll., 1. iv., c. 9.
48 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras fables, had not as yet issued from the sanctuaries: it had been nearly a thousand years since they had been instituted by Orpheus* when suddenly one saw for the first time certain of these fables and these ceremonies ridiculously travestied, transpiring among the people and serving them for amusement. The f^tes of Dionysus, celebrated in the times of vintage, gave place to this sort of profanation. The grape-gatherers, besmeared with lees, giving way in the intoxication of wine to an indiscreet enthusiasm, began to utter aloud from their wagons the allegories that they had learned in their rural initiations. These allegories, which neither the actors nor the spectators had comprehended in reality, appeared, nevertheless, piquant to both through the malicious interpretations which they gave them.' Such were the feeble beginnings of dramatic art in Greece^; there was bom the profanation of the Orphic mysteries, in the same manner that one sees it reborn among us, by the profanation of the Christian mysteries. ^ But this art was already old in Asia when it sprang up in Europe. I have already said that there was in the secret celebration of the mysteries, veritable dramatic representations. These mystic ceremonies, copied from those which had taken place in the celebration of the Egyptian mysteries, had been brought into Egypt by the Indian priests at a very remote epoch when the empire of Hindustan had extended over this coimtry. This communication, which was made from one people to another, has been demonstrated to the point of evidence by the learned researches of the academicians
* I have placed the epoch of Orpheus, which coincides with that of the arrival of the Egyptian colony conducted into Greece by Cecrops, at 1582 B.C., according to the marbles of Paros.
• SchOl. Aristoph., In Nub., v. 295. ' Athen., 1. ii., c. 3. 3 Voyez L'Hisl. du ThSdtre Frangais de Fontenelle. Void les titres des premieres pieces reprâent^es dans le cours du XIV' sifecle: L' Assomption de la glorieuse Vierge Marie, mystfere i 38 personnages ; Le Mysiâre de la Sainte Hostie, k 26 personn.; Le Mysthre de Monseigneur S. Pierre et S. Paul, h. 100 personn.; Les Mystlres de la Conception de la Passion, de la Resurrection de Notre Seigneur J. C; etc.
The Essence and Form of Poetry 49 of Calcutta, Jones, Wilford, and Wilkin, ' who have proved what Bacon had previously said in speaking of the Greek traditions, "that it was only a very light air which, passing by means of an ancient people into the flutes of Greece, had been modulated by them into sounds more sweiet, more harmonious, and more conformable to the climate and to their brilUant imagination."
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