The Golden Verses of Pythagoras

The Preface, signed F. M. F., states that the volume gathers ethical verses attributed to the Pythagoreans, naming Hall's, Rowe's, Dacier's, Bridgman's, and Taylor's translations as sources. Besant's Introduction describes the volume as a manual for meditation, states that Pythagoras brought the wisdom of the Buddha from Ind and translated it into Greek thought, and urges readers to meditate rather than merely read. The Golden Verses (1–71) give precepts in order: first worship the Immortal Gods, then reverence the Oath and the Heroes, honour the Terrestrial Dæmons, parents, and kin, and befriend the virtuous. They instruct overcoming passions—gluttony, sloth, sensuality, anger—doing no evil, respecting oneself, observing justice, accepting that all men die and fortune is uncertain, bearing misfortune patiently, weighing doctrines, deliberating before acting, tending the body in measure, and examining one's daily actions before sleep. Verse 47 swears by him who transmitted the Sacred Quaternion. Later verses describe praying before work, knowing the constitution of Gods and men, recognizing that men bring misfortunes upon themselves, addressing Jupiter the Father, abstaining from forbidden meats, and finally becoming a God upon leaving the mortal body. Notes from Hierocles divide the Verses into Practical and Contemplative Virtues, provide a grouping table, and gloss individual verses, identifying the three orders of beings, the Oath, and Pythagoras as him sworn by in verse 47. The Golden Sentences of Democrates (1–84) list maxims on the soul, body, justice, truth, friendship, wisdom, favours, riches, women, and Divinity, closing that the world is a scene and life a transition and mutation.

The span comprises three collections. The Pythagorean Sentences of Demophilus opens by advising against requesting from Divinity what cannot be preserved, and proceeds through forty-five numbered maxims: on vigilance of the intellect, Divinity sending evil for purification rather than from anger, the harm one suffers when intending to injure another, deliberating before speaking or acting, Divinity esteeming deeds over the tongue, the wise man alone being a priest, virtue as the greatest gift, subservience to passions, self-conversation, Divinity as inspector, self-knowledge, self-sufficiency, friendship, reverence over fear, reason as guide, freedom as self-mastery, adherence to the divine root, temperance, dependence on oneself and Divinity, and the incompatibility of loving pleasure and loving Divinity, closing that a pure soul is Divinity's allied place. The Similitudes of Demophilus follows with fifty-nine comparisons likening flattery to painted armour, learning to a golden crown, life to a musical instrument, reason to a potter and to ointment, boasting to gilt armour, and continuing through images of friendship, self-sufficiency, the soul's purification, the avaricious man's wealth, fortune, and reasoning. It concludes by citing "Measure is most excellent" and addressing Asclepiades, finishing the "curations of life." The Pythagorean Ethical Sentences from Stobæus present fifty-five sayings, several attributed to Pythagoras: choosing the excellent life, powerful anchors being prudence, magnanimity and fortitude, giving frankincense to Gods and praise to good men, wisdom as the greatest good, treating one's country as a mother, luxury entering cities before destruction, intoxication as meditation of insanity, and travelling teaching frugality. It closes citing Plato and Pythagoras on old age, and the soul buried in the body as in a sepulchre.

The Select Sentences of Sextus the Pythagorean open by stating that neglecting small things is significant, that the wise man and despiser of wealth resemble God, and that God's name cannot be found. The sentences describe God as a light incapable of darkness, urge honouring God so He rules, and equate the greatest honour with knowing and imitating Him. Successive sentences address the wise man's want of God, avoiding envy, treating the body as the soul's garment, and acting justly since divinity sees all. Directives follow: think of God before acting, abstain from animal food as more rational, possess only what cannot be taken, ask of God only worthy things, and use lying like poison. Sextus states God dwells in the wise man's intellect, that one may refuse matrimony to adhere to God, that one who expels a wise man from the body benefits him, and that impure dæmons claim the impure soul. Later sentences warn against speaking of God to the multitude or an impure soul, affirm the wise man participates in God, and declare God follows the soul of the wise man as a king rejoices in the governed. The section closes calling the wise intellect the mirror of God. The Pythagorean Sentences from the Protreptics of Iamblichus follow, comparing virtue to a temple and chaste wife, praising philosophy's theorems as ambrosia, and urging attention to the soul as to fruitful land.

The section opens by stating the Symbols exhort in common to the whole of virtue and each to a particular virtue, adapted to parts of philosophy and discipline. Symbol 1 directs, when going to the temple, to say and do nothing pertaining to common affairs, preserving divine purity. Symbol 2 warns against entering a temple or adoring carelessly. Symbol 3 directs sacrifice and adoration unshod, signifying liberation. Symbol 4 urges disbelieving nothing wonderful concerning the gods or divine dogmas, and acquiring disciplines. Symbol 5 exhorts walking in unfrequented paths, abandoning popular life. Symbol 6 directs abstaining from Melanurus, which belongs to the terrestrial gods. The following Symbols exhort to wisdom. Symbol 7 governs the tongue, following the gods. Symbol 8 adores the wind. Symbol 9, cut not fire with a sword, exhorts prudence, citing Heraclitus on fighting anger. Symbol 10 removes oneself from the vinegar bottle. Symbol 11 assists raising a burden, not laying it down, called Herculean. Symbol 12 concerns extending the right foot for sandals, the left for a foot-bath. Symbol 13 speaks not of Pythagorean concerns without light. Symbol 14 steps not beyond the balance-beam, exhorting justice. Symbol 15 turns not back from the house, lest the furies attend. Symbol 16, turned to the sun, makes not water. Symbol 17 wipes not a seat with a torch. Symbol 18 nourishes but sacrifices not a cock, sacred to sun and moon. Symbols 19 through 39 continue similarly, addressing bushels, crooked nails, cutting in the way, swallows, rings, mirrors, laughter, nails at sacrifice, the right hand, bed-clothes, heart, brain, excrements, Erythinus, pot-marks, gold, figures, beans, mallows, and abstaining from animals, exhorting to justice.

The text opens with a heading naming Hesiod's Theogony and begins by proposing to sing of the Heliconian Muses, who hold the great and holy mountain of Helicon and dance around the violet spring and the altar of the mighty son of Cronos. After bathing their skin in Permessos, the Hippocrene, or Olmeios, they make their dances on Helicon's summit and move with their feet. Setting out from there, veiled in air, they walk by night uttering their voice, hymning Zeus who bears the aegis, lady Hera of Argos, Athena, Phoebus Apollo, Artemis, Poseidon, Themis, Aphrodite, Hebe, Dione, Leto, Iapetos, Cronos, Eos, Helios, Selene, Gaia, Okeanos, Nyx, and the race of the other immortals. These Muses once taught Hesiod fair song while he pastured lambs beneath Helicon. The Olympian Muses, daughters of Zeus, address him, calling shepherds mere bellies and saying they know how to speak falsehoods like truths and to utter true things when they wish. They give him a staff of laurel and breathe into him divine song, bidding him hymn the race of the blessed and to sing the Muses first and last. The speaker turns to hymn the Muses, who delight Zeus's mind on Olympus. The Muses sing first the race of gods born of Gaia and Ouranos, then Zeus, then the race of men and Giants. Mnemosyne bore them in Pieria after nine nights with Zeus; she bore nine like-minded daughters. The nine are named: Kleio, Euterpe, Thaleia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Ourania, and Kalliope, the foremost, who attends kings. The Muses' gift graces singers and kings and brings forgetfulness of sorrow. The passage closes greeting the daughters of Zeus and asking them to sing the immortals born of Gaia, Ouranos, Nyx, and Pontos.

The text calls upon the Muses to tell how the gods, earth, rivers, the boundless sea, the shining stars, and the wide heaven above first came to be, and the gods born from them, givers of good things, how they divided wealth and honors, and how they first held many-folded Olympus. The Muses who dwell on Olympus are asked to tell what came first. First of all Chaos came into being, then wide-breasted Gaia, the ever-firm seat of all, and Tartarus, and Eros, fairest among the immortals, who overpowers the mind and counsel of gods and men. From Chaos, Erebos and black Night came to be; from Night, Aither and Day were born, whom she bore after mingling with Erebos. Gaia first bore starry Ouranos, equal to herself, to cover her about and be a seat for the gods. She bore the long Mountains, the haunts of Nymphs, and the barren sea, Pontos, without love. Then, bedded with Ouranos, she bore Okeanos and the Titans: Koios, Krios, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoibe, Tethys, and last Kronos of crooked counsel, who hated his father. She bore the Cyclopes—Brontes, Steropes, Arges—each with one round eye in the forehead, who gave Zeus thunder and lightning. She bore three great sons, Kottos, Briareos, Gyes, each with a hundred hands and fifty heads. Ouranos hid his children in Gaia's depths, delighting in the evil deed; Gaia, groaning, devised a plan and made a sickle of adamant, urging her children to punish their father. All were seized by fear; only Kronos answered, promising to do the deed. Gaia hid him in ambush with the sickle. When Ouranos came bringing night, Kronos reached out and cut off his father's genitals, casting them behind him. From the bloody drops Gaia bore the Erinyes, Giants, and Melian Nymphs. The genitals, thrown into the sea, produced white foam, from which a maiden grew; she came first to Kythera, then to Cyprus. She stepped forth as Aphrodite; gods and men call her foam-born, Kythereia, Kyprogenes, and philommedes. Eros and Himeros attended her birth. From the beginning she holds this honor: maidenly whispers, smiles, deceits, sweet delight, love, and tenderness.

Father Ouranos, reproaching them, calls his sons the Titans by nickname, saying they strained to do a great deed in recklessness and that vengeance would follow. Night (Nyx) bears Moros, black Ker, Thanatos, Hypnos, and the tribe of Dreams, lying with no one; then Momos, painful Oizys, and the Hesperides who tend golden apples beyond Ocean. She bears the Moirai and Keres — Klotho, Lachesis, Atropos — who give mortals good and evil and pursue transgressions, not ceasing wrath until they punish whoever sins. Night also bears Nemesis, then Apate, Philotes, baneful Geras, and strong-hearted Eris. Eris bears Ponos, Lethe, Limos, tearful Algea, Hysminai, Machai, Phonoi, Androktasiai, Neikea, false Logoi, Amphillogiai, Dysnomia, Ate, and Horkos, who most harms men who swear falsely. Pontos begets Nereus, truthful eldest child called the old man; mingling with Gaia he begets Thaumas, Phorkys, Keto, and Eurybie. From Nereus and Doris, daughter of Ocean, come fifty Nereids, listed by name, including Amphitrite, Thetis, Galateia, and Nemertes, who has her father's mind. Thaumas marries Elektra, who bears Iris and the Harpies Aello and Okypete. Keto bears to Phorkys the Graiai, Pemphredo and Enyo, and the Gorgons Sthenno, Euryale, and Medusa. Medusa alone is mortal; Kyanochaites lies with her. When Perseus beheads her, Chrysaor and Pegasus spring forth; Pegasus flies to Zeus's house bearing thunder. Chrysaor, with Kallirhoe, begets three-headed Geryon, whom Herakles slays in Erytheia, killing Orthos and Eurytion. Kallirhoe bears Echidna, half nymph, half serpent, dwelling among the Arimoi.

They say Typhaon mingles in love with the glancing-eyed maiden, who conceives and bears strong-minded children. First she bears Orthus, hound of Geryon; second Cerberus, the flesh-eating, bronze-voiced, fifty-headed hound of Hades; third the Lernaean Hydra, whom white-armed Hera nourishes in anger against Heracles. Heracles, son of Zeus, the Amphitryoniad, with warlike Iolaus and by Athena's counsels, slays the Hydra with pitiless bronze. She bears the Chimaera, breathing fire, with three heads—lion, goat, serpent; Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay her. Subdued by Orthus, she bears the deadly Phix, ruin of the Cadmeans, and the Nemean lion, which Hera nourishes and settles in Nemea's hills; Heracles' might subdues it. Ceto, mingling with Phorcys, bears a terrible serpent guarding golden apples. Tethys bears to Oceanus the eddying Rivers—Nile, Alpheus, Eridanus, and many more named—and a holy race of daughters who rear men with Apollo and the Rivers, listing Peitho, Admete, and many, with Styx foremost. Three thousand Oceanids and as many rivers exist, sons of Oceanus born of Tethys. Theia, subdued by Hyperion, bears Helios, Selene, and Eos. Eurybie, mingling with Crius, bears Astraeus, Pallas, and Perses. Eos bears to Astraeus the winds Zephyrus, Boreas, Notus, then Eosphoros and the stars. Styx, mingling with Pallas, bears Zelus, Nike, Cratos, and Bie, who dwell always beside Zeus. When the Olympian lightning-thrower summoned the gods and promised honors to whoever fought the Titans, Styx came first with her children; Zeus honored her, made her the great oath of the gods, and kept her children with him forever.

He fulfills all things as he promised and himself rules greatly and is lord. Phoebe comes to the bed of Coeus and bears Leto, dark-robed and gentle to men and gods. She also bears Asteria of good name, whom Perses leads to his house to be called his wife. Asteria conceives and bears Hecate, whom Zeus Cronides honors above all, granting her a share of earth and sea. Hecate also holds honor from starry heaven. When an earthly man sacrifices and prays, he calls upon Hecate, and she receives his prayers and grants wealth. She holds a portion of all those born of Gaia and Ouranos; Cronides did not take away what she received among the Titans. She attends those she wishes—setting them beside kings in judgment, in assembly, in war granting victory, in contest granting prizes, standing by horsemen, granting catches to seafarers who pray to Hecate and Ennosigaios, and with Hermes increasing livestock, making few many or many fewer. Though only-born, she is honored. Cronides makes her nurse of the young. Rhea, subdued by Cronos, bears Histie, Demeter, Hera, Aides, Ennosigaios, and Zeus. Cronos swallows each child, having learned he is fated to be overcome by his son. Rhea grieves. About to bear Zeus, she begs Gaia and Ouranos for a plan; they send her to Lyctus in Crete, where Gaia receives the child. Rhea hides him in a cave and gives Cronos a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallows unaware. Zeus grows in strength; as years pass, Cronos, deceived by Gaia's counsel, brings up his offspring again, overcome by his son.

First a figure vomits up the stone he had swallowed last; Zeus fixes it in the earth at Pytho beneath Parnassus as a sign for mortals. He frees his father's brothers, the Uranides, whom their father bound; grateful, they give him thunder, thunderbolt, and lightning, which Earth had hidden, and trusting in these he rules mortals and immortals. Iapetus weds the Oceanid Clymene, who bears Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and foolish Epimetheus—who first receives the fashioned woman from Zeus. Zeus sends insolent Menoetius to Erebus with a thunderbolt. Atlas holds the wide heaven at earth's edge before the Hesperides. Zeus binds Prometheus with a pillar and sets an eagle to eat his ever-regrowing liver. Heracles, son of Alcmene, kills the eagle and frees Prometheus, not against Zeus's will, so Heracles' glory grows. Zeus, honoring his son, ceases his wrath, roused because Prometheus contended with him. At Mecone, gods and men are divided; Prometheus portions an ox deceitfully, placing flesh and innards in the hide for men and white bones covered in fat for Zeus. Zeus addresses him mockingly about the unequal division; Prometheus, smiling, invites him to choose. Zeus recognizes the trick and takes the white fat; seeing the bones, wrath reaches his heart—hence men burn white bones on altars. Zeus, remembering the trick, withholds fire from mortals. Prometheus steals the fire in a fennel-stalk, angering Zeus. In exchange Zeus has Hephaestus fashion from earth the likeness of a modest maiden; Athena adorns and crowns her with a garland and a golden crown wrought with wondrous beasts. Led among gods and men, she astonishes all. From her comes the race of women, a bane to mortal men.

The text opens with a simile: as bees in roofed hives feed drones, partners in evil works, while the bees toil all day making white honeycombs and the drones remain inside gathering others' labor into their bellies, so Zeus the high-thunderer made women an evil for mortal men, giving another evil in exchange for good. Whoever flees marriage reaches grievous old age with no one to tend him, and distant kin divide his property when he dies; whoever marries a good wife still has evil contend with good; whoever gets a baneful brood lives with unceasing grief. The text states that none can steal past or evade the mind of Zeus, since not even Prometheus, son of Iapetus, escaped his heavy wrath but is held by a great bond. The father, angered at Briareus, Cottus, and Gyes, bound them beneath the earth, where they dwell in grief. Kronides and the other immortals born of Rhea and Cronus, by Gaia's counsels, bring them back to light to win victory. The Titans from Othrys and the Olympian gods born of Rhea and Cronus fought ten years and more without resolution. Zeus provides the hundred-handers nectar and ambrosia; the father of gods and men addresses the children of Gaia and Ouranos, bidding them fight the Titans. Blameless Cottus answers, acknowledging Zeus's wisdom and pledging to defend his power. The gods approve; battle is roused. The hundred-handed ones, each with a hundred hands and fifty heads, hurl sheer rocks; the Titans strengthen their ranks. Sea, earth, heaven, Olympus, and Tartarus shake. Zeus unleashes his full force, flashing lightning and thunderbolts; earth burns, Ocean and sea boil, and the flame blinds the Titans.

A divine heat holds Chaos; it seems that eyes see and ears hear a sound, as if Gaia and Ouranos above draw together, such a great crash rising from the gods meeting in strife. Winds stir dust, thunder, lightning, and the blazing thunderbolt, the weapons of great Zeus, carrying shout and cry into the midst of both sides; an unspeakable din rises. The battle turns. Kottos, Briareos, and Gyes, insatiate of war, raise sharp battle among the first, sending three hundred rocks in succession from their strong hands, overshadowing the Titans with missiles, sending them beneath the earth and binding them in painful bonds, as far beneath earth as heaven is from earth. A bronze anvil falling nine nights and days from heaven reaches earth on the tenth, and falling nine from earth reaches Tartarus on the tenth. A bronze fence surrounds it, night poured around in three rows. There the Titan gods are hidden by the counsels of Zeus; there is no exit. Poseidon sets bronze doors. Gyes, Kottos, and Obriareos dwell there as faithful guards. There lie the sources and limits of earth, Tartarus, sea, and heaven, a great chasm. The son of Iapetos holds wide heaven, where Night and Day greet each other crossing the bronze threshold. There the children of Night, Sleep and Death, have their houses; one roams gentle to men, the other has an iron heart. The echoing houses of the chthonic god stand there, guarded by a dread dog. Dread Styx, eldest daughter of Okeanos, dwells apart. Zeus sends Iris to bring the gods' oath, the water of Styx; whoever swears falsely lies breathless a full year, then is cut off nine years, mingling again in the tenth. Such an oath the gods made.

The text describes the sources and limits of dark earth, misty Tartarus, the sea, and starry heaven, grievous places even gods loathe. It names marble gates and a bronze threshold, self-grown; beyond, before all the gods, the Titans dwell across gloomy Chaos. The famed helpers of loud-thundering Zeus dwell on Ocean's foundations: Kottos and Gyes; the Earth-shaker made Briareos his son-in-law and gave him Kymopoleia his daughter to wed. After Zeus drove the Titans from heaven, huge Gaia bore her youngest child Typhoeus in the love of Tartarus through Aphrodite. Typhoeus has strong hands and untiring feet, a hundred serpent heads from his shoulders licking with dark tongues, fire flashing from his eyes, and voices uttering all kinds of sounds—speech gods understand, a bull's roar, a lion, puppies, hissing. He would have ruled mortals and immortals had the father of men and gods not noticed. Zeus thunders; earth, heaven, sea, Ocean, and Tartarus resound; Olympus trembles; heat seizes the sea. Hades and the Titans below tremble. Zeus takes his weapons, strikes from Olympus, scorches the monster's heads, and it falls maimed; flame pours in Aetna's glens; earth melts like tin or iron under Hephaestus's hands. Zeus casts Typhoeus into Tartarus. From Typhoeus come the moist winds—except Notos, Boreas, and Zephyros—that destroy ships and men's works. After the gods finish their toil, they urge Zeus, by Gaia's counsels, to be king; he distributes honors. Zeus makes Metis his first wife, then swallows her by Gaia's and Ouranos's counsels before she bears Athena. Second he marries Themis, who bears the Horai—Eunomia, Dike, Eirene—and the Moirai: Klotho, Lachesis, Atropos.

Eurynome, daughter of Ocean, bears to Zeus the three fair-cheeked Graces—Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia, from whose eyes love flows. Zeus comes to Demeter's bed; she bears white-armed Persephone, whom Aidoneus snatches from her mother, with wise Zeus granting her. Zeus loves fair-haired Mnemosyne, who bears the nine gold-crowned Muses. Leto, joined with Zeus, bears Apollo and arrow-pouring Artemis. Last, Zeus makes Hera his wife; she bears Hebe, Ares, and Eileithyia. From his own head Zeus produces grey-eyed Tritogeneia; Hera, without love and quarreling with her husband, bears Hephaestus, skilled in crafts. A note records that from Amphitrite and Ennosigaios (Poseidon) great Triton is born, dwelling in a golden house. To Ares, Cytherea bears Phobos, Deimos, and Harmonia, whom Cadmus takes as wife. Maia bears Hermes to Zeus. Semele bears Dionysus to Zeus; both become gods. Alcmene bears Heracles to Zeus. Hephaestus makes Aglaia, youngest Grace, his wife. Dionysus makes Ariadne, Minos's daughter, his wife, and Cronion makes her immortal. Heracles's mighty son, after completing his toils, takes Hebe as wife on Olympus. Perseis bears Circe and King Aeetes to Helios. Aeetes marries Idyia, who bears Medea. The poet bids the Olympian gods farewell and calls the Muses to sing goddesses who bore children to mortal men. Demeter bears Plutus to Iasion in Crete. Harmonia bears to Cadmus Ino, Semele, Agave, Autonoe, and Polydorus. Callirhoe bears Geryones to Chrysaor, whom Heracles slays over cattle in Erytheia. Eos bears Memnon and Emathion to Tithonus, and Phaethon to Cephalus, whom Aphrodite makes a temple-keeper. Jason leads away Aeetes's daughter, completing Pelias's toils, reaches Iolcus, and makes her his wife; she bears Medeus, reared by Chiron. Psamathe bears Phocus to Aeacus; Thetis bears Achilles to Peleus. Cytherea bears Aeneas to Anchises on Ida. Circe bears to Odysseus Agrios, Latinus, and Telegonus.

The text states that they ruled far off in the recess of sacred islands over all the renowned Tyrsenians. Calypso, divine among goddesses, bore Nausithous and Nausinous to Odysseus after mingling in love. These immortal goddesses, bedded beside mortal men, bore children resembling gods. It then calls on the sweet-voiced Olympian Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, to sing the tribe of women. An editorial note cites the editions of Rzach, Mazon, and Lekatsas, and observes that other editions include verses 929a–929r. Those verses relate that Hera, angered, quarreled with her husband and bore Hephaestus without Zeus; Zeus lay with Ocean's daughter, deceived Metis, and swallowed her fearing a child stronger than the thunderbolt; he then bore Pallas Athena from his head, while Metis remained hidden within him. The text is fragmentary at its close.