Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

"126 Bacchic Mysteries.hand, by the joyful ceremonies of harvest, bythe occult sacred rites of thy cistee,* and bythe winged car of thy attending dragons, andthe furrows of the Sicilian soil,and the rapacious chariot (or car of the ravisher), andthe dark descending ceremonies attending themarriage of Proserpina, and the ascendingrites which accompanied the lighted returnof thy daughter, and ly other arcanawhich Eleusis the Attic sanctuary concealsin profound silence, relieve the sorrows ofthy wretched suppliant:Psyche. For theabduction of Proserpina signifies the descentof the soul, as is evident from the passagepreviously adduced from Olympiodorus, inwhich he says the soul descends Corically ; fand this is confirmed by the authority of thephilosopher Sallust, who observes, That theabduction of Proserpina is fabled to havetaken place about the opposite equinoctial;and bythis the descent of souls [intoearth-* Chests or baskets, made of osiers, in which were enclosed themystical images and utensils which the uninitiated were not permitted to behold.1 7. e. as to death ; analogously to the descent of Kore"-Persephoneto the Underworld.