Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

Bacchic Mysteries. 53Does it not afford a beautiful representationof a corporeal nature, of which a cave, defended with a black lake, and dark woods,is an obvious emblem ? For it occultly reminds us of the ever-flowing and obscurecondition of such a nature, which may besaidTo roll incessant with impetuous speed,Like some dark river, into Matter s sea.Nor is it with less propriety denominatedAormis, i. e. destitute of birds, or a wingednature ;for on account of its native sluggishness and inactivity, and its merged condiandthe gloom of woods ;over which none of the flying kind wereable to wing their way unhurt ;such exhalations issuing from itsgrim jaws ascended to the vaulted skies ;for which reason theGreeks called the place by the name of Aornos" (without birds)."Jacob Bryant says: All fountains were esteemed sacred, butespecially those which had any preternatural quality and aboundedwith exhalations.proceeded from these effluvia ;It was an universal notion that a divine energyand that the persons who residedin their vicinity were gifted with a prophetic quality. . . . TheAmmonians styled such fountains Ain Omplie, or fountains of theouacle ; ojrf YJ, omplic, signifyingthe voice of God. These termsthe Greeks contracted to NojJUfnq, numpJie, a nymph."AncientMythology, vol. i. p. 276.The Delphic oracle was above a fissure, gounous or bocca inferiore,of the earth, and the pythoness inhaled the vapors. A. W.