Pero el hecho es que todos los sufrimientos de Prometeo por el bien de la humanidad eran los sufrimientos de un dios. En otro relato se dice que la esposa de Alalcomeneo se llamaba N iobe Los hermanos consintieron. Aquella fue una lucha silenciosa76S. Los dioses ofrecieron regalos a la pareja. Todo por la voluntad de Zeus. No hay necesidad de tan inconsolable rencor. En tu hermano Hades has hallado un yerno no despreciable entre los dioses.
C on manos inmortales puso e! Ahora no hay manera de que evite a la muerte. Las hijas oyeron su llanto y saltaron de sus camas. Temblando de miedo, estuvieron orando a la diosa durante toda la noche. Las cejas de Hades se elevaron en una sonrisa. Fue en esa llanura donde la diosa primero puso el pie, al descender del Ciclo. Y el nombre Eubuleo indica ai dios del Inframundo mismo.
En esto t o c a m o s ya la parte inefable de los Misterios. De acuerdo con vasijas pintadas de! En realidad ella desaparece de inmediato y enseguida la reemplazan amorosas nodrizas. El nacimiento del hijo y sucesor al trono tuvo lugar realmente en la gruta materna. Cuando la carne estuvo cocida, empezaron a asarla al fuego en siete espetones. Una antigua vasija pintada permite ver tres ninfas llamadas «Nysai», y es sabido por otras fuentes que ellas fueron las nodrizas del dios.
Inframundo po r Dionisos. En esa fase se le adoraba como secreto del cesto cernidor. Las hijas de Minias no obedecieron. Pues estas mujeres, bajo influencia de Zagreo, «el gran cazador», persiguieron a un animal que en realidad era el hijo de una de ellas. La caja flotante fue echada en la costa laconia, donde las olas la arrojaron a la playa.
Los habitantes de la localidad encontraron a Semele muerta en el interior del cofre, y la enterraron solemnemente. El dios triunfal estaba en los relatos asociado especialmente con una mujer particular. En la esfera vegetal Dionisos era Cisos, «hiedra», o bien, enfatizando otro de sus aspectos vegetales, Sicites o Siceates, «el dios higo».
Supongo que esa tarea ha sido cumplida. I b: Gorgo de rostro c la ro Tomada de A. III a: Europa sobre el toro tricolor Ver Capitulo VI, 7. Tomada de «Archaologisclie Zeiumg», 12 , 4, pl. IV b: Hermes y Maya con las vacas robadas Tomada de G. Beazley, «Dcr Bcrliner Maler», pl. Tomada de «Corpus Vasorum», Munich I, pl. Tcclmau, «Exckias», pl. Philippirt, «I. X: Zeus, Mermes, Epimeteo y Pandora Tomada de «Corpus Vasorum», Oxford I, pl. X I a: Atlas y Prometeo T 0 mad3.
Tomada de E. Buschor, «Griechische Vascn», Munich , fig. Tomada de W. Technau, «F. Tomada de S. Aurigemma, «Museo di Spin. Tomada de Chr. E scita Ninfas serpentiformes Odiseo y las Sirenas Tomada de «Sirena Helbigiana», Leipzig , p.
Nereo, Doris y las Nereidas Afrodita y Ares Tomada de «Jahrbuch Arcli. Tomada de «Arcbaeologische Zeitung» 39, , pl. La «Artemisa a la d a » Tomada de «F.
Tomada de «Die Antike» VI, p. Palas Atenea a la d a Tomada de «Rdmische Mitteilungen» 12, , pl. Tomada de «Monumentt inediti» X, pl. D - Beazley, «Der Pan-Maler», p. Beazley, «Der Berliner Maler», pl. Beazley, «Der Pan-Maler», pl.
Pandora surgiendo de la tierra Tomada de Gerhard, «Auserlcserse gnccliische Vasenbilder» I, pl. Aratua squ. Kaibel, Epigrammata C. Nemea Ph. OlympiA Sa. Preisendanz, Papyn Opp. Kern, Orphicorum PO. Pax 9; II. Pax Or.
Ion II. E, Ly, Ap. C, 1,6. Io, 10 Pi. Io, 32 Pa. Il, 8. Ap, 3 Od. Ve, G. J2 Ov. Ion Ap. Il Ion s. Ly, Arac. C, 4 Ap. Adrastea, 87, 96, , 1 Acco, Aede, Acis, Aelo, Aelopus, Aeto, Actea, Afea, Afeliote, A ctor, Adonis, 71, , 91, , Afroditos, 83, Agdistis, 91, Aglae, 75, Aqueronte, Arcas, , , Ares, , 99, , , , Aglauro, Agraulo, Arestanas, Aix, Aretusa, Arge, Alceste, Argeste, Alcioneo, 35, Argfope, Alcipe, Argonautas [Argonauta!
Alecto, Argos el de muchos ojos , 59, Alejandro Magno, A lfito, Argos hombre primordial , Ariadna, 22, 26, 31, 33, 66 , 68 , 72, Aloco, Ariagne, Anesidora, Aridela, , , A nfiro, Aristeo, , , A nfitrite, 50, 69, , , Am e, Artemisa, 29, , 48, 57, 79, 80, Anquises, , Apis, Astreo, 42, , Atamas, , Calipso, 45, Careo, A tis, , , Atlas, 60, 68 , 16 1, , Caribdis, 45, 46, Auge, Auxo, Carontc, Celeno, Baco, , , Celeo, 96, , , , Balio, Celmis, , 97, Basileus, Centauro, , Baubo, , Centauros Marinos, Belerofonte, 57, Centauros, Berecindes, 86 , Ceo, , 43, Cerbero, 58, 96, Bisalte, Ceteo, Brimo, , C eto, 42, 49, 51, 54, 57, Britomartis, , , Cibeles, 86 , Bronce, Cabiro, 89, , , , Cicreo, Cabiros [Kabeiro, -oi], 66 , 77, 88, Cilene, 16 1, Citeno, Cadmilo, 89, ' Cimatolega, Cafira, 90, 18 2.
Calais, 68 , Cipariso, , Circe [Kirke], 45, 64, , Cleobea, Cleta, Delfine, , 57, , , Delfines, Delfinio, Clitemncstra, 33, Olotes, Demo, C loto, 38, Demofonte, , C ocito, Destino ver Moiras , 38, 41, 92, Conisalo, Deyoneo, C orone, Diana, Dictina, C oto, 26, Dike, , Cratos, Crisa, 1 2 1.
Dino, Crisantis, Diocles, Crisaor, Criseida, Dione, 47, 49, , , , Dionisos, 35, 70, 89, 91, , , Cronos, Dafne, , Doris, 47, 51, D oto, Damnameneo, Eris, 4'1, Europa, 47, 66 , 75, 10 8 1, , Eres, , , , 1 1 2 , , Eutcrpe, Escila, , , 63, This is the meaning of his words: "Cry 'Hie Hie'; it is a poor thing to contest the blessed.
Here the passage abounds in the kingliness of the God and all the magnificence which flows from it upon the singers—the glory and the richness of the songs. A richness not only for the day of epiphany: Neither will the chorus sing of Apollo for only one day; 33 He is worthy of many hymns. From the characteristics of polychrysos from the goldenness in a literal sense, the poet makes the transition to the characteristic of polykteanos "with many possessions". Callimachus then returns to the epiphany—and our discussion should concern the epiphany alone—only in the final mythological passage of his song.
He writes here line 97 hie hie paieon akouomen, houneka touto literally, " W e hear, 'Hail, hail P a i a n. This does not mean that the congregation raised up this cry for the first time here toward the end of the "hymn proper. The form akouomen allows for the sense "we always hear. How is it that such a cry is made? In the same way, sunbeams, the plectrum of the God strum- ming on his golden lyre, are also the arrows shot incessantly from his golden bow.
One thing he did not consider: how light itself, the perceptible and the spiritual, can have the harmful sharpness of arrows where it inevitably en- counters darkness. Aeschylus Eumenides 1 8 1 - 8 2 This is not the place to analyze all the passages of ancient literature which describe Apollonian appearances, but as a contrast to a Delian epiphany we should examine a Delphic one.
It is Aeschylus in the Eumenides, the third tragedy of his Orestes trilogy, who offers us the unorthodox view. On stage the temple portal of the Apollonian sanctuary at Delphi is visible. The Pythia, prophetess and priestess of the God, enters the temple to take her seat, the seat of the prophetess, and to proclaim oracular responses to the inquiries made of her. First she opens the door, disappears into the cella, and then returns running. She verbally describes the pollution which frightened her away, but then she reveals to the audience the interior of the temple deep within the hidden sanctum, the adyton; and they then see Orestes, a matricide by Apollo's bidding, sitting on the sacred stone monument called the om- phalos which marks the navel of the earth.
The Erinyes with their frightful, gorgonesque faces had pursued Orestes here and are now scattered around the adyton sunken in slumber. At first Apollo, benevolent, appears—and this is not surprising—in his temple, and accompanying him is his brother Hermes to whom he has entrusted the suppliant for safe conduct and protec- tion.
Only after the ghost of the murdered mother, Clytemnestra, has roused the Erinyes, who then are ready to confront the God of the sanctuary, does Apollo reveal himself as if in an epiphany. I command you! Leave this dwelling Immediately. Out of my holy sanctuary of prophecy, Or you will feel the soaring, shining serpent Shot from my hammered-gold bow string. With these words he begins his rhesis, and it is particularly the last two verses which are worth our attention, me kai labousa ptenon argesten ophin, 38 chryselatou thomingos exormomenon.
Gold glistens on his bow. There he arrives line 44 : Down from the peaks of Olympus he strode angry in his heart, With his bow and doubly covered quiver on his shoulders. The arrows clattered on the shoulders of the angry god As he moved. He went like the night. Then he sat far from the ships and shot an arrow; And there was a terrible clang of the silver bow. First the mules and swift hounds it strikes, Then a weapon with its sharp edge aimed at the men He shoots; the corpse fires burned often and everywhere.
In view of this description of an Apollonian epiphany—the first in Greek literature—one cannot deny that this great God, who in Homer is regularly invoked together with Zeus, could have a very dark aspect. It is true that Homer compares both the gaze of Hector 39 bursting into the Greek encampment and the menacing bearing of Heracles 40 in Hades to night, but this does not deprive Apollo of his nocturnality.
To the Greeks, Apollo also appears clothed in the night, and he shoots his deadly arrows from the bow which is silver like the moon; this also we would learn from Homer if we otherwise had little information about the wolf aspect 43 of Apollo. In the Eumenides his bow shines with the gold of the sun. For the arrow, however, the poet has a peculiar periphrasis.
He calls it "a winged 4 serpent" ptenos opbis. If it were not that this description of the God's arrow had such a paradoxical effect precisely in Delphi, the site of his celebrated struggle against the serpent, one would not take special notice. But what is directed at the serpent is at that moment like a serpent. The circumlocution, the arrow as serpent, leads to such a paradox, 46 but only if it is something more than the individual whim of the poet. And judging by the mythological material, one may assume it is something more.
A comparable equation of arrow and serpent occurs in the variants of a saga which is connected with Apollonian cult. Troy, which was under the protection of Apollo, the God of the silver bow, 47 could not be taken without the bow of Heracles.
This bow belonged to Philoctetes who, because of his hideous wound, had been left behind on a deserted island. The similarity between this wound and the unhealable wound of Chiron—the wise centaur and prototypical physician, and the teacher of so many heroes, even of Heracles—is so great that, according to one version of the sage, Philoctetes just like Chiron is wounded by a poisoned arrow of 48 Heracles; the arrow fell on his foot.
According to another version, he was pricked by the poisonous arrow which protected the mysterious sanctuary of 49 the Goddess Chryse. Even the Goddess herself is a mysterious figure. There was also the version according to which Philoctetes suf- fered the snake bite while making an offering to Apollo. And, in a more mysterious sphere, it also depends on a snake bite. It would perhaps not be impossible to acquire some more information about the nocturnal Apollo from the serpentine sphere of the golden Goddess " C h r y s e.
It was an absolutely real association in that the poisoning of the arrow functioned originally as a substitute for and a virtual imitation of the poisonous snake. The arrow was then a winged serpent, particularly in that it was shot from the bow of a God who was himself related to serpents. Of course, this is a rela- 53 tionship not well-known, but it is one explicitly attested.
Snakes were kept for Apollo in one of his sacred groves in Epirus just as they were for Asclepius in Epidauros, the former in a round peribolos, the latter in a tholos. When a virginal priestess fed the snakes, their acceptance of the holy victuals was considered a type of oracular response, and it was told that they were descended from the Delphic serpent Python and were the "play things" athyrma of the God.
These snakes were doubtlessly harmless creatures, the same sort one finds in the cult of Asclepius. There is a story that, before the snakes of the cult of Asclepius were brought to Rome, they climbed a palm in the Apollonian 54 sanctuary of Antium; it shows the possibility of a harmony between the Delian tree and the animal which played such a significant role in mythos and cultus at Delphi. In Delphic cult, so far as we know about this, the serpent is surely not a tamed, sacred creature but a certain primordial being whose mythological fate, his slaughter at the hands of Apollo, is celebrated and re- 55 enacted.
His hostile relationship with Apollo seems to be quite unambi- guous. She is described as A gigantic, well-fed, wild monster, who brought Many evils to men on earth, many to men themselves, And many to long-shanked sheep; she was a bloody bane.
The customary appellation for the snake, Python, which occurs first among post-classical authors, comes from the same root, yet its precise meaning is unclear. The "well-fed" zatrephes monster of the hymn corresponds well with the name transmitted elsewhere —Delphyne," which is constructed from the root delph- 'belly, uterus. According to the Homeric hymn, Apollo defeats the dragoness after he has already established the oracle.
Our second classical source, Aeschylus in the Eumenides lines , tells with the precision of an uninterrupted sacred tradition how the possession of the oracle passed from its founder, the earth goddess Gaia, through Themis and Phoebe to Phoebus Apollo. Aeschylus says nothing about a struggle for the possession of the oracular seat. This does not exclude another struggle, one similar to that described by both hymnal poets, Callimachus and the Homeric. The primal sense of an archetypal, mythological struggle can be founded, without reference to any possession, on the existence of both combatants, Apollo and the devouring snake.
And it is possible that later, after this kind of archetypal mythology had generally lost its meaning, arguments emerged which made out of the archetypal devourer a devourer of sheep, as we find already in the Homeric hymn, or a 60 female guardian of the earth Goddess's oracle, as we read first in Euripides. In the tradition, nonetheless, the guardian and dragoness still retains its in- herently aggressive character, and because of this she later becomes a robber 61 and pirate named " P y t h o n.
Both, not only the older tradition which describes the struggle alone but also the other which connects it with the possession of the oracle, have Apollo's adversary destroyed in a way which befits her and corresponds to the possible meaning of the Python, " t o putrefy. None of these facts, however, corresponds to a series of monuments which show a connection between the 6 omphalos and the serpent.
The bulk of all omphalos representations ' depicts a particular monumental tradition, a third variant of the connection between serpent and oracle; it consists of accidentally preserved material which dates 66 only from the post-classical era. The literary texts treating the killing and disposal of the dragoness cannot provide suitable exegesis for these pictorial representations without contradicting the pictorial evidence.
Visible on the monuments is a close connection between the Apollonian cult-stone and the serpent, that is, the serpent-encircled omphalos; it points out to us the pos- sibility of an entirely positive relationship between the God and this animal, a serpent who is in the service of Apollo.
That the ancient onlooker upon seeing a serpent encircling the omphalos might think of a friendly, even beneficial, animal is proven by a Pergamene coin; on the one side it has the head of Asclepius, on the other the snake- 67 encircled omphalos.
A coin from Delphi has the same representation of ser- 68 pent and omphalos and thus shows that the snake on the Pergamene coin was meant to be a Delphic snake. It certainly represented divinity, for this is the only interpretation which can be applied to a coin bearing a depiction of Asclepius. In a Pompeian fresco, the creature lowers his head in defeat before lyre-playing 72 Apollo, a tableau which corresponds to the literary accounts. Similar is the 73 relief on a Roman candelabrum base in which Apollo lets his lyre rest on the serpent-encircling omphalos.
The lyre here is victorious power, and the snake appears in submission to and under the domination of the same power. On a relief from Miletus the snake, wound around the omphalos, rests under 74 the God's bow as if protected by it. In a less-known Pompeian fresco, the creature again wrapped around the omphalos raises his head to threaten an 7 approaching giant snake, an aggressive monster.
Nor let us forget the snake of a famous sculpture which otherwise suggests no special relation- ship to Delphi at all and which depicts the God in one of his best-known epiphanies. We refer to the small and modest snake which could be the crea- tion of either a Greek master or a Roman copyist , with its head looking up- 71 wards toward the tree trunk in the background of the Apollo Belvedere.
Aeschylus's easily resolved enigma, the "whizzing, winged snake," incorporates what other- wise exists separately—two means and forms of expression of Apollonian ac- tivity. Both can be fatal—the biting snake and the sharp arrow. And both can also be curative—both the arrow directed against dark powers and the snake of the physician and prophet, the iatromantis, as the Pythia refers to him in the Eumenides line The arrows could also have a spiritual significance as light-bearing sunbeams.
And the snake? We would not explain it but turn our attention to its ambiguity. One possibility is that it could be an expression for sunshine. A great tragedian labeled Helios a "fire-born snake" pyrigenes 19 drakon. But if one considers the entire tradition, of which only a small part can be discussed in this selective essay, he should not feel a need to reduce the bright and dark form of Apollo to something which can be known by another name, e.
Like all the great Olympians, he is, so to speak, the center of the world from which the whole of existence seems to have a different appearance. It is bright and dark, transparent but also abundant in dangers and misfortunes, the source of which is the "spirit.
It is for the mind of Zeus alone. But I Have affirmed, promised, and utterly sworn That no other of the immortal gods besides me Will know the thoroughly wise counsel of Zeus. So you, my brother bearing the gold wand, do not command Me to reveal the divine decrees which far-seeing Zeus plans. I will do harm to some mortals and benefit others. And as for the misfortunes, whose source is the spirit, let us in conclusion call a witness from a completely profane, yet purely and utterly Greek, sphere who is at the same time a member of general humanity and of all our commonality.
For they say that he to whom this has happened would prefer to describe his experience only to others who have been bitten. These alone can understand and pardon whatever he has done or spoken because of the pain. And I have been bitten more painfully and in the most painful place where one can be bitten, for I am struck and bitten in the heart or in the soul or however one names it, by the speeches of philosophy which lay hold of a young, not ignoble soul more vehemently than a viper bite and can force it to do or say anything.
It is just as difficult not to devote oneself to the effect of the Phaedo, the great Platonic dialogue on the soul, as it seems easy to close one's mind to its argu- ment. Cleombrotus of Ambracia, so reads an epigram of Callimachus, leapt to his death after reading the Phaedo, and Cato Uticensis twice read the Phaedo in preparation for his suicide even though he was a Stoic and not a student of the Academy. Similarly, in confronting death, great men of more recent history also compared the harmony of the Phaedo's mood and the inex- tinguishable, Christian belief in immortality.
In his poetic reworking, Lamar- tine intensified this harmony with the tones of the Evangelists. Obviously, the Phaedo has some religious value, and the reader of the dialogue cannot escape this question which he must direct toward the discipline of religious studies: What aspects of the Phaedo's effect, pathos, and content can from the outset be clarified within the atmosphere of ancient religion?
Our consideration begins with the Phaedo. It should form, so to speak, the fundamental text for the ensuing meditations. In preparing to do so, we must first address quite briefly two problematic points of a more general, historical nature—the historical veracity of the Phaedo and the meaning of myth in Socratic dialogue.
Not until after we do this can we attempt to understand the Phaedo from the standpoint of Greek religion. Today there is a demand for a more thorough historical approach to Plato. Such an analysis surely obscures the mean- ingful experiences and the profundities of life and death one encounters in Plato's words, and, in addition, it promises no positive result even after so many years of being almost exclusively employed for this very purpose.
But prominent scholars, specifically the promulgators of "common sense" in 1 Platonic scholarship, have noticed that every word with which Socrates makes an observation about death in the Phaedo, at least if not connected with Platonic doctrine, could be his own testimony on the immortality of the soul; so neither do we have any clearer right to call into question this aim and sense of Plato's work of art. The outer framework of the Phaedo consists of a dedication to such people who are able particularly to appreciate Socrates' arguments on these matters of the soul—to Pythagoreans.
The narrative pro- ceeds entirely amidst the pretensions of historical fidelity; the participants and auditors of the conversation are painstakingly detailed as witnesses. In doing so Plato can very effectively give a greater impact to his own ideas, because he applies them over his substratum of accurately recorded Socratic observa- tions. We are not ignoring Plato's ideas. It is just that we are not searching for the mosaic lines in those areas where everything formed virtually by a metal casting appears in the light of the sic moritur iustus.
Our problem originates in the very spirit of the Platonic dialogue. In Socratic discourse—and precisely in the form immortalized by Plato—it is not merely insights, thoughts, and theories which stand side by side but men whose " y e s , " whose homologia, is not indifferent even for historians of philosophy.
If Callicles in the Gorgias is convinced or constrained to lay down his arms, that means more for Socrates than would his victory over some principle-less adventurer. The only valuable testimony is that of an adversary who, with a conviction which is rooted in his character, advocates the opposi- tion of conscious principles.
In the Phaedo such an adversary could be only Socrates himself, the analytic iconoclast demanding complete evidence, a spirit critical of the Pythagoreans who professed the immortality of the soul. This Greek concept, also the most abstract, confronts us with human, possibly even with divine, countenance and requires of all our humanity some understanding. But even a religious understanding cannot be reached in the traditional way. We find this to be true as soon as we begin analyzing the history of religion in the Phaedo in the passage where one has traditionally undertaken such an exegesis—at the end of the dialogue.
Conclusion myths in Plato, both in the Phaedo and elsewhere, treat the destiny of the soul after death. This is what belongs first of all, according to the commonly held conception, in the history of religion.
The most significant and interesting observations of this discipline have been useful for us, yet the most important of all is the iden- tification of the turning point in the history of Greek religion marked by the myths of the Platonic dialogues.
Up to this point, The sky and the depths of the earth, the wide ruling forms from which flow all salvation, all loftiness, all exaltation, all horror, all sustenance for the soul. This is how Karl Reinhardt, the distinguished specialist, describes the pre- 2 Socratic cosmos. With Socrates begins the modification in the direction of the inner, of the soul. The new prayer says, "Grant me, Lord, that I be well 3 within. They do not exist before philosophy as if they were its preconditions; they follow it.
For the present, however, it is just these preconditions which interest us. In the Phaedo, Socrates deemphasizes the importance of the conclusion myth also in another way. The Mythos follows the Logos. What Socrates ventures to profess is of another sort.
But I would not in- sist on that too firmly. Nevertheless, be assured I do insist, if on any of these matters, that I be among the gods who would be good masters to m e.
They are those to whom we belong, just as our animals belong to us. This comparison is a signpost even for those attempting to understand this dialogue from the standpoint of Greek religion.
The Greek Gods, the "wide-ruling forms" of the pre-Socratic cosmos, the forest of statues—archetypes and prototypes—are best compared, considering the degree and significance of their reality, with the Platonic Ideas. Knowledge of the Gods is of a loftier sort than the pistis of Platonic episte- mology, sheer faith. Centuries later, particularly in the Christian era, this Greek word appears regularly in reference to religious belief.
The most common mode of behavior practiced in the presence of these Gods they called eulabeia 6 "circumspection". Historians of philosophy had previously inquired to what extent Socrates' proof of immortality obtained its force from the doctrine of Ideas.
This is a question which corresponds closely to our problem which we now venture to formulate quite specifically: To what extent is this same proof of immortality rooted in Socrates' personal vision of the Greek Gods? This master of raising consciousness has left us not a moment for doubting what that powerful reality was, the experience of which provided him with all his resolute convictions about the soul.
At the beginning of the dialogue, the celebrated discussions about true philosophizing as exercising for death call to witness experiences which give meaning to his turning to the view of that world full of Ideas, isolated and different from all others. The approaching toward the purely immaterial and spiritual, the intense longing for the in- telligence which is detached from the senses, the consciously progressive release from corporeal restraint of which Socrates speaks acts as a single surge toward active and passive transcendence.
This attitude could be synthesized in the maxim of Paulus's succinct Latin translation—non contemplantibus nobis quae videntur, sed quae non videntur. With this Socrates wins the valued affirmation he had sought from his Pythagorean interlocutor. His cen- tral argument for the immortality of the soul later returns to this type of evaluation by experience.
The soul is already exalted through its tran- scendence—the "invisibility," according to the text of the Phaedo—to the divine; indeed the truth the Ideas themselves is invisible. Invisibilia non decipiunt; we can say this once again as a spiritualistic dogma.
Such an imperturbable consciousness of direction feeds itself on the intellectual and ascetic life's foundation of ex- perience and on the striving for its goal: to be invisible is the way of the super- natural not sub-natural , the way of divinity.
What a spiritual reality, the reality of the forceful attraction of a superior clarity of understanding, is inherent in the Phaedo!
Socrates consciously gives it prominence. It casts a bright light upon his complete preparedness and readiness for death on this bittersweet last day. As a spiritual reality, even unavowed, it dominates Socrates' train of thought, and in it originate these otherwise inexplicable analyses of the theoretical argument. Socrates' ardent and fatal desire for clearness in the Phaedo is its all-penetrating element, its atmosphere, its life line, just as Eros is for the other great Platonic dialogue on immortality—the Symposium.
We understand now how Socrates, the great lover of conceptual clarity, could agree with the doctrine of immortality which he expresses in the Phaedo. We have not found the biographical, psy- chological explanation of why Plato has presented us with this particular por- trait of Socrates, nor have we been able to specify the position of the Phaedo's philosophical content in the history of ideas.
We proceed from the self- contained world of this work of art and come now upon the path of a com- pletely human understanding to a greater reality which is conjured up through Plato's talent. To this greater reality, the life and death of Socrates have bestowed a historical body, and its effect continues because it is itself timeless.
Its action and effect remain still without limit. The world of Greek Gods is so vast and encompassing that it contains not only Aphrodite and Eros, the Gods of the Symposium, but even the aim and the transcendental quintessence of Socrates' ardent desire for clearness.
Even before now it could not be doubted that that type of exercising of the soul to which Socrates alludes in the Phaedo was common among the Pythagoreans or that such a catharsis of the soul had its origin in a religious context. But historians of religion have usually com- prehended such a cathartic procedure—even the most sublime purging of the soul—as individualized magic which does not belong to the sphere of the state cults of the great Greek Gods.
Just as the poets of Old Comedy, they often look only at the crude external appearance of the ascetic Pythagorean life and do not seek a connection with that higher reality which could structure the philosophical life as well as state religion.
Perhaps not only those looking from afar can hardly appreciate an attitude that might notice only the barefooted- ness of St. Francis's disciples but not the cathedrals which rose up in their footsteps. Will not the classical scholar who searches for traces of the creative power of the Pythagorean era in Metapontum's fields of grain come exultantly upon the lofty, solitary remains of the two Apollo temples?
The "Pythagorean life" with its ascetic elements is a lifestyle thoroughly appropriate for the worship of Apollo. According to later sources, Pythagoras is Apollo's son genealogically or at least spiritually.
This association gives a certain consis- tency to all our traces of the Pythagorean era, and the legend's intrinsic truth is that the Apollonian reality procured its philosophical way of thinking and moral conduct, its conception of the world and its form of government 8 through Pythagoras.
That Apollo whom Nietzsche characterized is not to be included here. That Apollo of an imaginary world is himself a mere dream image. But even when we consider the unimaginary Apollo of substance, we should not juxta- pose the Apollonian with the Dionysian only to comprehend it as one of the two possible, aesthetic, and world-forming powers which the Greeks concep- tualized also as divinities.
Apollo— and every Greek God—is an archetype which the Greeks recognized as a metaphysical form of experienced psychic realities and plastic, observed, natural realities. One can therefore call it most simply a higher reality. This label refers to the God's formal transcendence whether he manifests himself as a reality amidst the life of the soul or as a natural reality.
Philological studies in religion had in essence reached this viewpoint already with Walter F. Otto's interpretation of the Greek Gods. Since to Otto's classic description 10 of Apollo we find ourselves now adding the nuances required for historical completeness, it will be obvious to what extent it substantially represented the 11 concept of transcendence.
Se encuentra en el primer volumen de mis obras. Que su esencia estriba en el orden, en la forma. Un punto de vista arbitrario es aquel.
A un lenguaje de citas corresponde una vida en el mitOl , tal como se ha denominado con gran acierto este tipo de vida basado en citas!
Que busca en el pasado un modelo que se cala cual escafandra de buzo, para zambullirse, asf protegido y deformado a la vez, en el problema presente. El hombre antiguo hallaba en el mundo motivo suficiente para sentir a sus dioses como algo real. N o es una mera forma o modo de representarse las cosas.
No reside ni en la materia ni en la forma, sino en la postura que se adopta ante ellos. Esta coincidencia reside en la naturaleza de la materia, no en sus conformaciones accidentales. Antes de K. Pero el «vagar de los mitos de un sitio a otro» como totalidades con sentido propio es un aspecto que desde entonces la ciencia se ha encargado de confirmar. De pronto empezaron a discutir y terminaron por darse una paliza. Juntos tramaron un ardid. Pero el sol.
Luego se pusieron en camino y llegaron a la orilla del rfo. Dioses son las aves en pugna y los astutos cuerpos celestes. Tanto uno como el otro son ajenos al ser humano actual. Los maestros cretenses grabaron estas en anillos. Este tallador de marfil era, a su manera, un mythalagas. Por eso, su vida es en cierta medida un "animar" , un comportamiento arcaizante.
Pero precisamente este vivir en el sentido de animar es el vivir en el mito. Una de los modos era desde luego la «cita » , a la que alude Thomas Mann con el concepto de «vida con forma de cita». Edades enteras se configuraban como «citas». De los diversos modos de esta actividad decimos que son diversas formas de pensar. La estructura de cada una de estas formas de pensar y de su correspondiente imagen del mundo se puede describir igual que la estructura de una lengua.
Con otras palabras: en la certeza de que de esa forma se ve y se expresa la verdadera realidad del m undo. Nos concentramos en una fuente de esta certeza cuando nos ocupamos ahora de la esencia de la fiesta. En la realidad, ambas cosas no se excluyen. Todo lo contrario. A estos tiempos se les llama fiestas. No lo abordamos desde el lado del tiempo.
Una fase es aquello que pnainetai, que se muestra. El sentido de las fases es un sentido de la realidad basado en el propio cosmos. Para ser breves, lo llamaremos sentimiento de festividad. El arbusto con cuyas ramas es expulsado, el Vitex agm us castus o sauzgatillo, es conocido por ciertos mitos y ritos: sirve para atar y coronar, que en el caso de Prometeo y desde entonces sustituye el atar en los hombres.
Resulta muy probable en este caso. Por otro lado, no se trata de seriedad que pudiera oponerse, por ejemplo, al j uego. Claro que no es j uego en el sentido estricto de la palabra, no es j uego por el j uego. A lo sumo se reparaba en aquel rasgo de lo festivo que se acerca a lo alegre.
En general es dudoso el significado de los actos aislados de la ceremonia, realizada con el mayor cuidado. Finalmente, es entregado a la diosa Kuxkamoa, que espera impaciente en el fuego. Tiempo y hombre se tornan festivos.
Et renovabitur facies terrae. En todo esto, el «hacer recordar» no es secundario. Y en este punto cabe establecer un paralelo con la ciencia. En ello es igual a la magia. El j uego se distingue de la magia por estar libre de la idea de utilidad.
Existen muchas gradaciones y transiciones. Estos son los que se han de tener en cuenta en primer lugar, pero pocas veces nos han sido transmitidos todos con detalle. Para una, el sacrificio del toro era sagrado; para la otra, no lo era, era u n asesinato. Lo demuestra el detalle de que se castigue no el hacha, sino el cuchillo. Hay que llevar a cabo la tarea de distinguir los rasgos romanos al menos de los griegos.
Hay seres humanos y ha habido pueblos con talento religioso en diversas gradaciones. La palabra latina religio designa una actitud tal. Esto no ocurre en el caso de Homero, que es absolutamente festivo. Esto es el privilegia y la consecuencia de una forma especial, semidivina, de la existencia: la heroica. La transparencia del mundo deja traslucir las figuras divinas naturales al poeta, al hombre festivo.
Por mucha belleza que contuviera, estaba lleno de caducidad. Tal poder tiene lo sabido. Lo reconocido y comprendido, lo contemplado-sabido, es un poder efectivo. Pero no ocurre nada de esto. El requisito previo para ello es su nas. La ley de estilo de la existencia griega exige un espectador.
Zeus, tal como lo describe Homero, es incansable a la hora de mirar. El fundamento de su esperanza reside en el tipo de la experiencia religiosa griega. Es la palabra thearfa. Necesita ser guiado, y de hecho es guiado. Necesita signos , y los consigue. N umen es algo muy distinto de nus. Ahora hace lo mismo con los estoicos. Pero quiere defenderla sin reinterpretarla. No puede negarse la similitud general. Echa por tierra sus pruebas de la existencia de Dios. Una postura humana como la re1igio no se entiende nunca a partir de causas externas, sino a partir del ser humano que es capaz de adoptarla.
La riqueza de contenido de la religio23! Aparte del ser de los dioses tenemos otras dos condiciones previas para la religio. Negativamente en la superstitio.
Nada de esto puede suceder sin estilo. Cada lugar de culto se hallaba en el centro de un mundo circular y cada santuario griego es un santuario de la naturaleza. Hay dos respuestas para esto. Una es la del ser h umano religioso de todos los tiempos y la ha dado Walter F. Esquilo, Fragmentos, en T G F frs. Dilke, Cam bridge Esteban de Bizancio, Ethnicorum quae supersunt, A. M eineke ed. Estobeo, Juan, Anthologium, K. W achsmuth y O tto Hense eds. Eubulo, en John M.
Edmonds, Fragments o f Attic Cotnedy, Leiden 1 9 5 7 -1 9 6 1 , 3 vols. Eupolis, ibid. Fanodemo, fragmentos. En FGrHist. Freeman, Kathleen, trad. The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, 2. Hemberg, Bengt, Die Kabiren, Upsala Herzog, R udolf L. Himerio, Declamationes et orationes, Aristides C olonna ed.
Hiponacte, e n A nth. D indorf ed. Halliday y E. Sikes eds. Fabulae, M ortiz Schmidt ed. Inscriptiones latinae selectae, H erm ann Dessau ed. Durrbach, Pierre Roussel y M arcel Launay eds. Gaos, FCE, M adrid Sobre los misterios de Egipto, trad.
R am os Jurado, Gredos, M adrid Jan, Karl von. Jong, Karel Hendrik Eduard de, Das antike Mysterienwesen in reli- gionsgeschichtlicher, ethnologischer und psychologischer Beleuchtung, Leiden Jung, Cari Gustav y K. Para la trad. Kiem ann y C. Gauger, Siruela, M adrid Eitrem - forelesninger, 2 , Oslo The Heroes o f the Greeks, Londres Labyrinth-Studien: Labyrinthos ais Liniettreflex einer mythologischen Idee, 2.
Supplements to Numen. Kontoleon, N. Leonard, R. La toma de Ilion. El rapto de Helena, trad. Scholia, ibid. Lobeck, Christian August, Aglaophamus; sive de theologiae mysticae graecorum causis libri tres LoefF, A. Luciano, Escolios, en H. R abe ed. Merriam, A. Montuoro, Paola Zancani. Mylonas, George E. Nauck, August. Historia de la religiosidad griega, trad.
Oliver, James H. M ito y culto, trad. Papiri della R. Unicam ente publicado el I. Philios, A. Philios, D. N aber ed. Odas y fragmentos, trad. Ortega, Gredos, M adrid Prott, Johannes de, y L. Ziehen eds. Quandt, Wilhelm, ed. Reitzenstein, Richard ed. Studies in Classical Archaeology, 3 , Estocolmo Sanhedrin, trad. Jacob Schachter y H. Freedman, 2 vols. Seder Nezikin, V, VI.
Schiff, «Eleusis», en R E , V, 2, cois. Skias, Andreas N. Sogliano, A. Triptolemos, fr. Pearson, supra. Svoronos, J. T eodoreto, Graecarutn affectionum curatio, Johann R aeder ed. Travlos, Ioannes N. Ulpiano, Digest, en Corpus juris civilis, T. Krueger eds. Nueva historia, trad. Archaelogical Museum, Heraclion, Creta. F: Italian School of Archae- logy, Atenas. Con esquema. Excavaciones e industria existentes actualmente en Eleusis. F: DAI, Atenas.
Zona excavada cerca de los Grandes Propileos. Plano del santuario y ciudad de Eleusis John Travlos. British Museum. El antiguo pozo junto al que se sentaba la diosa, actualmente vallado. Fragmento de un relieve votivo en Eleusis. Czako, copyright DAI, Atenas. F: copyright DAI, Atenas. Relieve encontrado en el cauce del Iliso. Atenas, Museo Nacional. Roma, Palazzo Spagna. F: DAI, Roma. Roma, Museo Nazionale Romano. Heracles preparado para los misterios menores.
Relieve en terracota. Fragmento de un relieve de Eleusis. Plano general del santuario John Travlos. Triglifos y metopas decoradas con objetos eleusinos. Construido en la iglesia de Aios Eleuterio de Atenas.
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