chapter 10 the monism of darkness and the dualism of limit and ...

MONISM OF DARKNESS - DUALISM OF LIMIT AND INDETERMINACY 115
hemispheres of the world, the one being bright (full of fire) and the other
dark (full of air), as it is articulated by Empedocles A 30 and 56 DK. Night
is the airy hemisphere which is periodically illuminated by reflection from
the empyreal hemisphere upon the Earth; the reflection is projected as Sun
and constitutes Day; periodicity depends on the inclination of the poles
and of the axis of cosmic revolution. In Hesiod the pattern is more
elementary: Erebos is the Tartarean Darkness below the Earth, from which
Night comes and covers the luminous Aether of the upper boundaries of
the World. (The Night dwells in Erebos; Euripides, Orestres 174-6. Varro
regards her as daughter of Erebos (Festus, de verborum significatione V, s.v.
Erebum where a verse is also quoted: Erebo creata fuscis crinibus Nox, te
invoco. She is called Nox Erebeis, Culex 202. A standing characteristic
expression is NfÍ âÚ‚ÂÓÓ‹ Ilias Θ 488, Opera et Dies 17 etc.). The water
of Styx springs from the Ocean and flows under the earth passing through
Night, that is to say through the lowest Tartarean place, Theogony 785
sqq.:
≈‰ˆÚ
„˘¯ÚfiÓ, ¬ Ù’ âÎ apple¤ÙÚ˘ ηٷÏ›‚ÂÙ·È äÏÈ‚¿ÙÔÈÔ
ñ„ËÏɘ, appleÔÏÏeÓ ‰b ñapplee ¯ıÔÓe˜ ÂéÚ˘Ô‰Â›Ë˜
âÍ îÂÚÔÜ appleÔÙ·ÌÔÖÔ Ú¤ÂÈ ‰Èa Ó‡ÎÙ· ̤ϷÈÓ·Ó
\øηÓÔÖÔ Î¤Ú·˜Ø ‰ÂοÙË ‰’ âappled ÌÔÖÚ· ‰¤‰·ÛÙ·È.
The Orphic Rhapsodies agree with the relatively subdued position of Night
in Hesiod’s ontological pyramid, but they link her organically with the sole
chain of succession that Orphism accepts, as one of its main rings. They
regard the Hesiodic Chaos as equivalent to primordial Darkness but they
also subordinate it to Time and exempt it from the progressional line of
reality. The cosmic Egg is engendered by Chronos = Time in Aether OF 70;
cf. supra on birth-in. The First-Born=Phaethon=Phanes (who flew upwards
after breaking the Egg to the Aether and the aerial Gap, OF 72) is
considered to be the son only of Aether, OF 73-74, cf. 75. Chaos
encompasses the World but is not essentially involved in the World’s genetic
constitution, nor has it any well-defined cosmogonic role, but only a precise
cosmological position, cf. Hesiod, Theogony 807 sqq. esp. 814.
52. Housman’s emendation of the manuscript reading astra. The Great Bear
does not set (does not sink into the Ocean) in the situation of the present
World-Order. Repetent is Rutgers emendation of repetens.
53. After v. 829 there is a lacuna in the text’s tradition. The famous and
controversial codex Carrionis (C), now lost, had the following complement
in the margin: