Pythagoras said otherwise: “As there are three divine concepts and three intelligible realms, so is there a triple word, because hierarchic order is ever manifested by the triad. There are (_a_) simple speech, (_b_) hieroglyphical speech and (_c_) symbolical speech. In other terms, there is the word which expresses, there is the concealing word and, finally, there is the word that signifies: all hieratic intelligence is in the perfect science of these three degrees.” After this manner he enshrined doctrine in symbols, but eschewing personifications and images which, in his opinion, begot idolatry sooner or later. He has been even charged with detestation of poets, but it was the makers of bad verses to whom he forbade the art: “Thou who hast no harp, seek not to sing in measures,” he says in his symbols. A man so great as he could never disregard the exact correspondence between sublime thoughts and beautiful figurative expressions; indeed his own symbols are full of poetry: “Do not scatter the flowers of which crowns are made.” In such terms he exhorts his disciples never to diminish glory and never to flout that which it seems good for the world to honour. Pythagoras was chaste, but far from commanding celibacy to his disciples he married on his own part and had children. A beautiful saying of his wife has remained in memory: she had been asked whether purification was not requisite in a woman after intercourse with a man, and in such case after what lapse of time she might regard herself as sufficiently purified to approach holy things. She replied: “Immediately, if it be with her husband; but if it be with another, never.” The same severity of principles, the same purity of manners, qualified in the school of Pythagoras for initiation into the mysteries of Nature and so was attained that empire over self by which the elementary powers could be governed. Pythagoras possessed the faculty which by us is termed second sight and was known then as divination. Being with his disciples one day on the seashore, a vessel appeared on the horizon. “Master,” said one of the companions, “would it mean wealth if they gave me the cargo carried by that ship?” “To you it would be more than useless,” Pythagoras answered. “In such case I would keep it for my heirs.” “Would you wish to bequeathe them two corpses?” The vessel came into port and proved to be bearing the body of a man who desired to be buried in his own country.