The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

OF ORPI-IEUS.
XXXVIII.
TO THE CURETES73.
THE FUMIGA'I'ION FROM FRANKINCENSE.
BRASS-BEATING Salians, ministers of Mars,
Who wear his arms the instruments of wars ;
Whose blessed frames, heav'n, earth? and sea com-
pose,
And from whose breath all animals arose :
Who dwell in Samothracia's sacred ground,
Defending mortals through the sea profound.
Deathless Curetes, by your pow'r alone,
The greatest mystic rites to men at first were shown.
Who shake old Ocean thund'ring to the sky,
And stubborn oaks with branches waving high.
'Tis yours in glittering arms the earth to beat,
With lightly leaping, rapid, sounding feet ;
Then ev'ry beast the noise terrific flies,
And the loud tumult wanders thro' the skies.
7Vhe first subsistence of the Curetes is in the intellectual
order, as we have before observed, in which they form a
triad characterized by purity. They are also the guards of
that order. But in the supermunda~~e order, they are the
Corybantes. Hence they are celebrated in this hymn as the
Corybantes as well as the Curetes. As they are likewise
celebrated as Winds in this hymn, it follows that in the
sublunary region tbey are the divinities of such winds as
are of a purifying nature.