The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

OF ORPHEUS.
LIX.
TO THE FATES.
THE FUMIGATION FROM AROMATICS.
DAUGHTERS of darkling Night, much nam'd, draw
near,
Infinite Fates, and listen to my pray'r ;
Who in the heavenly lake 96 (where waters white
Burst from a fountain hid in depths of night,
And thro' a dark and stony cavern glide,
A cave profound, invisible) abide ;
96 Gesner confesses he is ignorant what the poet means
by the XL,UU~ ovpavia, or heavenly lake; as likewise of the
dark caveyn, in which Orpheus places the Fates. At first
sight, indeed, the whole seems impenetrably obscure ; but
on comparing this hymn with the sixty-ninth, which is to
the Furies, we shall find that the poet expressly calls them
the Fates ; and places them in an obscure cavern by the
holy water of Styx. And from hence it appears, that the
heavenly lake is the same with the Stygian pool ; which is
called heavenly, perhaps because the Gods swear by it.
But it is not wonderful that the water is called white ;
since Hesiod, in Theog. v. 791, speaks of the Stygian waters
as falling into the sea with silvery whirls. And what
strengthens the illustration still more, Fulgentius asserts
that the Fates dwell with Pluto.