To The Sun's resplendent deity I sing, 33:1 I have already observed in my account of Apollo and the Sun, in the first part of this Introduction, that though these divinities subsist in wonderful union with each other, yet they likewise inherit a proper distinction and diversity of nature. 33:2 i.e. Essence. 34:1 i.e. Mercury. 34:2 Venus. 34:3 Apollo.
1
The beauteous offspring of almighty Jove,
Who, thro' the vivifying solar fount
Within his fabricative mind conceal'd,
A triad form'd of splendid solar gods;
From whence the world's all-various forms emerg'd
From mystic darkness into beauteous light,
Perfect, and full of intellectual goods.
Hail! Supermundane king of light divine,
And fairest image of the unknown good:
For, as the light proceeding from the one,
The god of gods, and beauty's matchless flower,
Intelligibles, with deific rays
Occult, illumes; so from Apollo's beams
Exulting glorious through harmonic power,
The mental world with elevating light
Is fill'd exub'rant: and th' apparent Sun
Largely diffuses thro' the world of sense,
Light, all-prolific, beautiful, divine.
To thee, as bright Apollo, it belongs
All multitude in union to collect,
And many natures generate from one;
With vigour in thy essence to convolve
The diff'rent ranks of secondary forms;
And thro' one fair hyparxis 2 to combine
Enunciates truth and intellectual light;
That light, which in the essence of the gods,
Subsists with rays uniting and unknown.
Thy second 2, ev'ry thing confus'd destroys:
And from thy third 3, the universe is bound
In beauteous symmetry and just consent,
Thro' splendid reasons and harmonic power.
Add, that thy essence, 'midst the mundane gods,
A super-mundane order is assign'd;
An unbegotten and supreme command
O'er all the ranks of generated forms;
And In the ever-flowing realms of sense,
An intellectual dignity of sway.
Progression two-fold, hence, to thee belongs,--
One in conjunction with the mundane gods,
The other supernat'ral and unknown:
For when the Demiurgus form'd the world,
He kindled in the solar sphere a light,
Unlike the splendour of the other orbs,
Drawn from his nature's most occult retreats,
A symbol fair of intellectual forms;
And openly announcing as it shines
To ev'ry part of this amazing whole,
The essence solitary and arcane