Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

Bacchic Mysteries.Give love, give wisdom, and a power to love,Incessant tending to the realms above ;Such as unconscious of base earth s controlGently attracts the vice-subduing soul :From night s dark region aids her to retire,And once more gain the palace of her sire.O all-propitious to my prayer incline !Nor let those horrid punishments be mineWhich guilty souls in Tartarus confine,With fetters fast ned to its brazen floors,And lock d by hell s tremendous iron doors.Hear me, and save (for power is all thine own)A soul desirous to be thine alone.*It is very remarkable in this hymn, thatthe exploits of Minerva relative to cuttingoff the heads of wild beasts with an ax, etc.,is mentioned by no writer whatever; norcan I find the least trace of a circumstanceeither in the history of Minerva or Hecateto which it alludes.f And from hence, I* If I should ever be able to publish a second edition of mytranslation of the hymns of Orpheus, I shall add to it a translationof all those hymns of Proclus, which are fortunately extant but;which are nothing more than the wreck of a great multitude whichhe composed.t IfMr. Taylor had been conversant with Hindu literature, hewould have perceived that these exploits of Minerva-Athene weretaken from the buffalo-sacrifice of Burga or Bhavani.The wholeDionysiac legend is but a rendering of the Sivaic and Buddhisticlegends into a Grecian dress. A. W.