Issuing from chambers of darkness, they threw back the veils from their foreheads.
At length I came to the spot where the gates of light and of darkness
Stood; and there stood Justice, holding the keys that unlock them.
Blandly addressed her the nymphs, and blandly answered the goddess,
Opening the gates with her keys, so that the chariot might enter.
Then, taking me by the hand, she spoke these words of assurance:
'O youth, borne from afar to my house by the hones that brought thee,
Led by omens of good, thou hast come to the dwelling of Wisdom.
I will show thee the way it behoves thee to follow devoutly;
Also the road of appearance, where nought but fallacy reigneth.
Come, then, this is the true road, which says that Being alone is,
And that not-Being is not: whereas the pathway of falsehood
Teacheth that not-Being is, and that Being immutable is not.
On the first of these roads thy mind may travel securely;
But if it enters the second, 'twill be lost in the mazes of error.' "
|Karsten, i. 2, p. 28.}}
17. Such, in translation, is an imperfect specimen of a somewhat imperfect poem, a poem which, even if it had come down to us entire, would present few points that would be readily intelligible to our modern apprehensions. The first part of the poem, which is entitled Τὰ πρὸς ἀλήθειαν, that is, "concerning truth," continues to ring the changes upon truth as that which centres in Being, Being one and immutable, Being not apprehensible by the senses, but only by the reason. It also describes falsehood as centring in not-Being, as the multifarious, the particular, the sensible, the non-existent, and the inconceivable. The poem has a second part, not very consistent with the first, entitled Τὰ πρὸς δόξαν, that is, "concerning
