The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

196 ADDITIONAL NOTES.
Plato 33 mother, and at the same time the supplier of aliment.
Por, so far as she comprehends in herself the cause of
Juno, she is a mother; but as containing Vests in her
essence, she is the supplier of aliment. But the paradigm
of this goddess is Night: for in~mortal NigAt is called the
nurse of the Gods. Night however is the cause of aliment
intelligibly 34 : for that which is intelligible is, according to
the oracle", the aliment of the intellectual orders of Gods.
But Ceres first of all separates the two kinds of aliment in
the Gods, as Orpheus says :
Mqaaro yap rpo~oXovs, Kai a,u$i~oXovs, ~ ai orra8ovs'
Mqaaro 6' apapoaivv, Kai epv8pou veKrapos ap8pove
Mqaaro 6' ayXaa €pya peXiaaawv epr~op~wv
i. e. She cares for pow'rs ministrant, whether they
Or Gods precede, or follow, or surround :
Ambrosia, and tenacious neetap red
Are too the objects of her bounteous care.
Last to the bee her providence extends,
Who gathers honey with resounding hum.
Ceres, therefore, our sovereign mistress (8eanoiva) not only
generates life, but that which gives perfection to life ; and
this from supernal natures to such as are last : fop virtue is
the perfection of souls. Hence mothers who are connected
with the circulations of time, bring forth their offspring in
imitation of this twofold and eternal generation of Ceres.
For, at the same time that they send forth their young into
the light, they extend to them milk naturally produced as
their food.
Again, the conjunction of the demiurgic intellect with
33 See p. 521, vol. v. of my translation of Plato.
34 Because Night subsists at the summit of the inteltigitle and at the
same time intellectual order, and is wholly absorbed in the intelligible.
35 That is, according to one of the Cbaldean Oracles.
36 These verses likewise are not in Gesner's and Hermann's collection.