Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
27. At these things when I was amazed, and entreated him to declare and
explain them a little more fully to me, he said: The Greeks, O Sylla,
deliver many things concerning the Gods, but they are not always in
the right. For first, when they tell us that there is a Ceres and a
Proserpine, they say well; but not so well, when they put them both in
one and the same place. For one, to wit Ceres, is on the earth, and the
lady and mistress of all earthly things. The other, to wit Proserpine,
is in the moon, and the mistress of all lunar things; and she is called
both Cora and Persephone; Persephone, as being a bringer of light and
brightness, and Cora, because the apple of the eye, in which the image
of him who looks into it is represented, as the brightness of the sun
appears in the moon, is by the Greeks called κόρη. And as to what they
say concerning the wandering about of Ceres and Proserpine, and their
mutual seeking of one another, there is in it somewhat of truth, for
they long after each other, being separated, and often embrace in
shadow. And that Cora is sometimes in heaven and light, and sometimes
in darkness and night, is not untrue; only there is some error in the
computation of the time. For we see her not six whole months, but every
sixth month, caught in the shadow by the earth, as by her mother; and
this rarely happens within five months, because it is impossible she
should forsake Pluto (Hades), being herself the bound or limit of
Hades; which Homer also covertly but not unelegantly signified, when he
said,
Into th’ Elysian fields, earth’s utmost bounds,
The Gods will bring thee;[106]
for he has there placed the end and boundary of the earth, where the
shadow ceases and goes no farther. Now into that place no wicked or
impure person can have access. But good folks, being after their
decease carried thither, lead there indeed an easy and quiet, but yet
not a blessed and divine life, till the second death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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