with three names[1]; he spoke of the dogma which Plato announced a long time after concerning the Logos, or the Divine Word; and, according to Macrobius, taught even its incarnation or its union with matter, its death or its division in the world of sense, its resurrection or its transfiguration, and finally its return to the original Unity.[2]
This inspired man, by exalting in Man the imagination, that admirable faculty which makes the charm of life, fettered the passions which trouble its serenity. Through him his disciples enjoyed the enthusiasm of the fine arts and he insisted that their customs should be pure and simple.[3] The régime that he prescribed for them was that which Pythagoras introduced later[4]. One of the most pleasing rewards which he offered to their endeavours, the very aim of their initiation into his mysteries, was, putting themselves in communion with the gods[5]; freeing themselves from the cycle of generations, purifying their soul, and rendering it worthy of projecting itself, after the downfall of its corporal covering toward its primal abode, to the realms of light and happiness.[6]
Despite my resolution to be brief, I cannot resist the pleasure of speaking at greater length of Orpheus, and of recalling, 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[7]; it was the language of the gods, par excellence,
- ↑ Thimothée, cité par Bannier, Mythol., i., p. 104.
- ↑ Macrobius, Somm. Scip., l. i., c. 12.
- ↑ Eurip., Hippol., v. 948.
- ↑ Plat., De Leg., l. vi.; Jambl., De Vitâ Pythag.
- ↑ Acad. des Insc., t. v., p. 117.
- ↑ Procl., In Tim., l. v., p. 330; Cicero, Somm. Scip., c. 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."
