The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

74 THE MYSTICAL HYMNS
And in my latest hour give peace and health,
Propitious times, and necessary wealth,
And ever present be thy vot'ries aid,
0 much implor' d, art's parent, blue-e y 'd maid.
On this account, as it appears to me, they assert that the
Titans were the antagonists of Bacchus, and the Giants of
Jupiter. For union, indivisible energy, and a wholeness
prior to parts * are adapted to those fabricators that have a,
subsistence prior to the world. But the Titans and Giants
produce the den~iurgic powers into multitude, divisibly administer
the affairs of the universe, and are the proximate
fathers of material natures."
Proclus, in his elegant hymn to Minerva, says of this
victory of Minerva over the Giants :
H ao+iqs ?rEraaaau SEOCLPEUS ~~Xeuvas,
Kai XOOVLWV Ziapaaaau Beupaxa +vXu yiyavrwv.
i. e. " The God-trod gates of wisdom by thy hand
Are wide unfolded, and the daring band
Of earth-born giants, that in impious fight,
Strove with thy sire, were vanquish'd by thy might."
* 'CVhote has a triple subsistence ; for it is either prior to parts, i. e. is
the cause of the parts which it contains ; or it is the aggregake of parts ;
or it subsists in a part. See my translation of Proclus's Elements of
Theology.