The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

OF ORPHEUS. 77
Rural, light-bearer, and the Muses' head,
Noble and lovely, arm'd with arrows dread :
Far-darting, Bacchian, twofold, and divine,
Pow'r far diffus'd, and course oblique is thine.
0 Delian king, whose light-producing eye
Views all within, and all beneath the sky ;
Whose locks are gold, whose oracles are sure,
Who omens good reveal'st, and precepts pure ;
Hear me entreating for the human kind,
Hear, and be present with benignant mind ;
For thou survey'st this boundless ether all,
And ev'ry part of this terrestrial ball
Abundant, blessed ; and thy piercing sight
Extends beneath the gloomy, silent night ;
terranean winds and waters, and of the violent motion of
the other elements. But Echidna is a cause revenging
and punishing rational and irrational souls ; and hence the
upper parts of her are those of a virgin, but the lower those
of a serpent. And Python is the guardian of the whole of
prophetic production. Though it will be better to say, that
he is the cause of the disorder and obstruction pertaining to
things of this kind. Hence, also, Apollo destroyed Python,
in consequence of the latter being adverse [to the prophetic
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