The Initiations of Orpheus: XXXIII: To Apollo
BLEST Pæan, come, propitious to my pray'r, 161:7 Ver. 7.] Grunian. According to Strabo, lib. xiii. Grynæus is a town of Myrinæus: likewise, a temple of Apollo, and a most ancient oracle and temple, sumptuously built of white stone. Gyrald. Syntag. p. 237. 161:11 Ver. 11.] Far-darting.ἑκατηϐελετησ Proclus, on Plato's Cratylus, informs us he is so called, ὅτι χορηγὸσ ὤς, καὶ εξερομενοσ ἐπὶ παντασ ποιεῖ τας ενεργείας. i. e, "because since he is the choragus or leader of the choir of the Muses, he produces energies in all things." 162:29 Ver. 29.] Now the last string, &c. Gesner well observes, in his notes to this Hymn, that the comparison and conjunction of the musical and astronomical elements are most ancient; being derived from Orpheus and Pythagoras, to Plato. Now, according to the Orphic and Pythagoric doctrine, the lyre of Apollo is an image of the celestial harmony, or the melody caused by the orderly revolutions of thc celestial spheres. But I cannot believe that Orpheus and Pythagoras considered this harmony as attended with sensible sounds, according to the vulgar acceptation of the word: for it is surely more rational to suppose, that they meant nothing more by the music of the spheres, than their harmonical proportions to each other. Indeed these wise men, to whom metaphors were familiar, may be easily conceived 164:40 Ver. 40.] Emitting whistling winds. Johannes Diaconus, in Allegorcis Theogoniæ Hesiodi, quotes the following lines from Orpheus. Ζεὺς δέ τε πάντων ἐςὶ ϑεὸς, πάντων τε κεραςὴς, That is, "But Jupiter is the God of all, and the mingler of all things; whistling with the breathing winds and aerial voices." And this perfectly agrees with Apollo, considered as Jupiter, or the sun of the intelligible world. 164:41 Ver. 41.] The figur'd seal. Since Apollo in the intelligible world is the demiurgus of the universe, and consequently comprehends in his essence the archetypal ideas of all sensible forms, he may with great propriety be said to posses the figured seal, of which every visible species is nothing more than an impression. It is however necessary to observe, that in the great TO APOLLO.
The FUMIGATION from MANNA.
Illustrious pow'r, whom Memphian tribes revere,
Slayer of Tityus, and the God of health,
Lycorian Phœbus, fruitful source of wealth .
Spermatic, golden-lyr'd, the field from thee 5
Receives it's constant, rich fertility.
Titanic, Grunian, Smynthian, thee I sing, 7
Python-destroying, hallow'd, Delphian king:
Rural, light-bearer, and the Muse's head,
Noble and lovely, arm'd with arrows dread: 10
Far-darting, Bacchian, two-fold, and divine, 11
Pow'r far diffused, and course oblique is thine.
O, Delian king, whose light-producing eye
Views all within, and all beneath the sky:
Divinely warbling now the highest chord; 30
Emitting whistling winds thro' Syrinx fam'd; 40 40
Since to thy care, the figur'd seal's consign'd, 41
Which stamps the world with forms of ev'ry kind.
Πνέυμασι συζι#ων, (
) φωναῖσι τε ἀερομικτοις·
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