The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

88 THE MYSTICAL HYMNS
Who not alone in earth's retreats abide,
But in the ocean and the air reside ;
Since ev'ry species from your nature flows,
Which, all-prolific, nothing barren knows.
Avert your rage, if from thy infernal seats
One of your tribe should visit our retreats.
vehemently allured ; and among the rest, he was particu-
larly captivated with beholding his image in a mirror;
during his admiration of which he was miserably torn in
pieces by the Titans ; who, not content with this cruelty,
first boiled his members in water, and afterwards roasted
then1 by the fire. But while they were tasting his flesh
thus dressed, Jupiter, excited by the steam, and perceiving
the cruelty of the deed, hurled his thunder at the Titans ;
but committed his members to Apollo, the brother of Bacchus,
that they might be properly interred. And this being per-
formed, Dionysius (whose heart during his laceration was
snatched away by Minerva and preserved), by a new rege-
neration, again emerged, and he, being restored to his
pristine life and integrity, afterwards filled up the number
of the Gods. But in the mean time, from the exhalations
formed from the ashes of the burning bodies of the Titans
mankind were produced. The reader who is desirous of
having a complete develop~nent of this fable will find it in
my abovementioned Treatise on the Mysteries. Suffice it
to say at present, in elucidatiorl of this Orphic hymn, that
(as Olympiodorus beautifully observes in MS. Comment. in
Phsdon.) we are composed from fragments, because through
falling into generation, i. e. into the sublunary region, our
life has proceeded into the most distant and extreme divi-
sion ; but from Titannic fragments, because the Titans are
the ultimate artificers of things, and the most proximate to
their fabrications. Of these Titans, Bacchus, or the mun-
dane intellect, is the nzonad, or proximately exempt pro-
ducing cause.