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Hymn to
the Cultural Muses
by Proclus
I.
- With hymns let us celebrate the educative
light that shows us the path to Heaven.
- The sonorous Nine Daughters of the Supreme,
who redeem
- The souls that have lost their way along the
depths of life,
- With the blameless, inspiring mysteries of
books,
- From unseen sorrows preserving the
terrestrials,
- Teaching them to hasten to follow the path
that leads above the depths of oblivion,
- Aiding them to arrive still pure at their
native star,
- Whence they had come; when they rushed into
the childbirth bed,
- While intoxicated with the fumes of material
pleasure.
II.
- I pray you, Goddesses, calm my tumultuous
impulses,
- And sober me with the liberal intelligible
words of the wise;
- Nor let the race of superstitious men stray
from the path divine;
- The Path of ample splendor, and luxurious
fruits!
- Ever from the tumult of the straying
generations
- Allure my wandering soul to your chaste
light,
- Weighted by, and sanctified from your
prolific books,
- And may my soul ever enjoy the alluring
glory of fine diction!
III.
- Listen, Divinities, you hold the reins of
sacred wisdom.
- Who set men's souls on fire with flames
indomitable,
- Drawing them, through the cloudy depths, far
up to the Immortals,
- Purging us with mystic rites of
indescribable hymns;
- Listen great saviors! from divine books
- Grant me the innocent, blameless light that
dissipates the clouds,
- So I may discover the truth about Man, and
the immortal Divinity!
- Neither let the Evil-working Spirit restrain
me under the Lethean waters of Oblivion,
- Ever far from the Blessed; for my soul
- Would no longer continue to stray,
- Nor suffer the cruel pains of imprisonment
in the bands of life!
IV.
- Nay, Gods of high and illustrious
wisdom,
- Masters and leaders, hear me, the
hastener
- Along the Upward Way! -- Initiate me into
the orgiac mysteries
- And reveal them by the ceremonies of sacred
words!
Excerpted from Life, Hymns,
and Works
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Proclus
the Neoplatonic Philosopher, by Thomas
Taylor
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