Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

150 Bacchic Mysteries.admirably accords with the rape ofProserpina, which, according to Homer, was theimmediate consequence of gathering thiswonderful flower.* vFor by Narcissus fallingin love with his shadow in the limpid streamwe may behold an exquisitely apt representation of a soul vehemently gazingon theflowing condition of a material body, and inconseqiience of this, becoming enamoredwith a corporeal life, which is nothing morethan the delusive image of the true man, orthe rational and immortal soul. Hence, byan immoderate attachment to this unsubstantialmockery and gliding semblance of thereal soul, such an one becomes, at length,wholly changed,as far as is possibleto hisnature, into a vegetive condition of being,into a beautiful but transient flower, that is,into a corporeal life,or a life totally consist-* HOMER: Hymn to Ceres. "We were plucking the pleasantflowers, the beauteous crocus, and the Iris, and hyacinth, and thenarcissus, which, like the crocus, the wide earth produced. I wasplucking them with joy, when the earth yawned beneath, and outleaped the Strong King, the Many-Eeceiver, and went bearing me,grieving much, beneath the earth in h.is golden chariot, and Icriedaloud."