Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

"54 Eleusinian andtion, being situated in the outmost extremityof things, it is perfectly debile and languid,incapable of ascending into the regions ofreality, and exchanging its obscure and degraded station for one every way splendidand divine. The propriety too of sacrificing,previous to his entrance, to Night and Earth,is obvious, as both these are emblems of acorporeal nature.In the verses which immediately follow,Ecce autem, primi sub limina soils et ortus,Sub pedibus mugire solum, et juga caepta movereSilvarum, visaque canes ululare per umbram,*Adventante deawe may perceive an evident allusion to theearthquakes, etc., attending the descent ofthe soul into body, mentioned by Plato inthe tenth book of his Republic ;f since the*now, at the first beams and rising of the sun, the earth"So,under the feet begins to rumble, the wooded hills to quake, anddogs were seen howling through the shade, as the goddess camehither\Republic. x, 16. / After they were laid asleep, and midnightwas approaching, there was thunder and earthquake ;and theywere thence on a sudden carried upward, some one way, andsome another, approaching to the region of generationlike stars."