To The Moon

p. 124

VIII.

TO THE MOON ^*.

The FUMIGATION from AROMATICS.

HEAR, Goddess queen, diffusing silver light,
Bull-horn'd and wand'ring thro' the gloom of Night.  ²

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With stars surrounded, and with circuit wide
Night's torch extending, thro' the heav'ns you ride:
Female and Male with borrow'd rays you shine, 5  ⁵
And now full-orb'd, now tending to decline.
Mother of ages, fruit-producing Moon,
Whose amber orb makes Night's reflected noon:

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Lover of horses, splendid, queen of Night,
All-seeing pow'r bedeck'd with starry light. 10
Lover of vigilance, the foe of strife,
In peace rejoicing, and a prudent life:
Fair lamp of Night, its ornament and friend,
Who giv'st to Nature's works their destin'd end.  ¹⁴
Queen of the stars, all-wife Diana hail! 15
Deck'd with a graceful robe and shining veil;
Come, blessed Goddess, prudent, starry, bright,
Come moony-lamp with chaste and splendid light,
Shine on these sacred rites with prosp'rous rays,
And pleas'd accept thy suppliant's mystic praise.

Footnotes

124:2 Ver. 2.] Bull-horned. For the mystical reason of this appellation, see note to the third line, of the Hymn to Protogonus.

124:* The Moon is called in this Hymn both σελυνη and μηνη: the former of which words signifies the Moon in the language of the Gods; and the latter is the appellation given to her by Men, as the following Orphic fragment evinces.

Μήσαλο δ᾽ ἄλλην Γᾶιαν ἀπείριτον, ἣντε Σελήνη
᾽Αθάνατοι κλήζυσιν, ἐπιχθόνιοι δέ τε Μηνην·
Ἥ πολλ᾽ ὄυρε ἔχει, πολλ᾽ ἄρεα, πολλα μέλαθρα.

That is, "But he (Jupiter) fabricated another boundless earth, which the immortals call Selene, but Men, Mene. Which has many mountains, many cities, many houses." Now this difference of names arises, according to the Platonic philosophers, from the difference subsisting between divine and human knowledge. For (say they) as the knowledge of the Gods is different from that of particular souls: so with respect to names some are diverse, exhibiting the whole essence of that which is named; but others are human, which only partially unfolds their signification. But a larger account of this curious particular, is given by Proclus, in Theol. Plat. p. 69. as follows. There are three kinds of names: the first and most proper, and which are truly divine, subsist in the Gods themselves. But the second which are the resemblances of the first, having an intellectual subsistence, must be esteemed of divine condition. And the third kind which emanate from Truth itself, but are formed into words for the purpose of discourse, receiving the last signification of divine concerns, are enunciated by skillful men p. 125 at one time by a divine afflatus, at another time by energising intellectually, and generating the images of internal spectacles moving in a discursive procession. For as the demiurgic intellect represents about matter the significations of primary forms comprehended in its essence; temporal signatures of things eternal; divisible representatives of things in divisible, and produces as it were shadowy resemblances of true beings: after the same manner I think the science we possess, framing an intellectual action, fabricates by discourse both the resemblances of other things, and of the Gods themselves. So that it fashions by composition, that which in the Gods is void of composition; that which is simple by variety; and that which is united by multitude. And by this formation of names it demonstrates in the last place the images of divine concerns. And as the theurgic art provokes by certain signs, supernal illumination into artificial statutes, and allures the unevnying goodness of the Gods, in the same manner the science of divine concerns, signifies the occult essence of the God by the compositions and divisions of sounds.

125:5 Ver. 5.] Female and Male. This is not wonderful, since according to the fragment of Ficinus in this Dissertation, all souls and the celestial spheres are endued with a two-fold power, nostic and animating; one of which is male and the other female. And these epithets are perpetually occurring in the Orphic Initiations.

126:14 Ver. 14.] Who giv'st to Nature's works, &c. In the original it is τελεσφορος, i. e. bringing to an end. And Proclus in Theol. Plat. p. 483. informs us that Diana (who is the same with the Moon) is so called, because she finishes or perfects the essential perfection of matter.