Opening The Orphic Theogony — Orpheus in Plato Scroll…
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Orpheus · Thomas Taylor (1792)
A modern narrative reconstruction of the Orphic cosmogony, weaving the scattered fragments preserved in Damascius, Proclus, Olympiodorus and the later Neoplatonists into the connected myth they once told: the Beginning Which Cannot Be Spoken; Time, Aether, and the silvery cosmic egg; the four kingdoms of Phanes, Night, Heaven, and Saturn; the fifth kingship of Jove who swallows Phanes and engenders the world anew; and the dismemberment and rebirth of Zagreus-Bacchus, by whose mystery rite mortal souls are released from the wheel of birth. To the reader of this text, if you feel that goodness and virtue are things that only fools pursue, take my advice and close this book; you will find nothing here that will interest you. But if you are a reader who loves beauty and who possesses a well-meaning disposition, please do read on. You are welcome and will hear a story both marvelous and …
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