In his Ἔρωτɛς ἢ Kαλoί, Phanocles tells how Orpheus was decapitated by Thracian women because he ‘revealed’ homoerotic love and rejected women. Iconographic and literary evidence suggests that Orpheus is associated with homoeroticism and misogyny from the Classical period. Phanocles' poem also exploits Orpheus' ambivalent status: as founder of the Eleusinian mysteries, his authority was immense. But he was also seen as the guru of a countercultural fringe, who preached reincarnation and vegetarianism. The fact that Phanocles presents Orpheus' erotic predilections as mysteries points to Plato, who rejected the mainstream, Eleusinian Orpheus, and embraced the counter‐cultural (Pythagorean) one. Orpheus rejects generative love because he is associated with the transcendent, rather than earthly, realm. Plato re‐configures both Orpheus' mystical teachings and his music‐making as philosophy/philosophical love, benefiting from traditions of interpreting Orphic poetry allegorically.

In chapter 12 of Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche describes Socrates as the new Orpheus, who rises up against Dionysus and murders tragedy: … in league with Socrates, Euripides dared to be the herald of a new kind of artistic creation. If this caused the older tragedy to perish, then aesthetic Socratism is the murderous principle; but in so far as the fight was directed against the Dionysiac nature of the older art, we may identify Socrates as the opponent of Dionysos, the new Orpheus who rises up against Dionysos and who, although fated to be torn apart by the maenads of the Athenian court of justice, nevertheless forces the great and mighty god himself to flee. As before, when he fled from Lycurgus, King of the Edonians, Dionysos now sought refuge in the depths of the sea, namely in the mystical waters of a secret cult which gradually spread across the entire world. (Trans. R. Speirs) (Cambridge, 1999), 64

this passage appears perspicuous; in this case the literal translation would be: 'and, indeed, it is not allowable that the multiplicity does not proceed around the monads'. On the basis of the Proclean conception there could not be a manifold and imperfect level of reality that does not unfold around a centre of greater perfection and unity: if not, the whole of reality would shatter into parts gradually characterised by greater multiplicity and imperfection. The use of the preposition περὶ to denote the connection between given levels of reality is attested in the well-known passage 312e1-3 of the second Platonic epistle (= περὶ τὸν πάντων βασιλέα παντ᾽ ἐστι κ.τ.λ.), which the Neoplatonic authors considered not only authentic, but also doctrinally fundamental (see Abbate, op. cit., pp. 170ff.). The meaning of the transmitted text is clear: multiplicity can proceed and unfold only around a principle or a dimension of higher unity. 1032.20 [=19]: καὶ ἔτι τὰς ἑνάδας αὐτῶν, καὶ τὴν μίαν καὶ ἄρρητον ἑνάδων [cf. app.: ἑνάδα Σ] πασῶν τούτων πηγήν. The emendation ἑνάδων in place of ἑνάδα, which is attested in the manuscript tradition, could be supported by the fact that in g we find unitatum: however this is not in itself a sufficient reason to justify the correction. In the OCT, probably on the basis of the text given in Cousin (see Budé p. 249 n. 2), ἑνάδα is kept by reading καὶ (inserted in manuscript A by hand A 2 , as explained in the Budé) immediately after ἑνάδα (= ἑνάδα καὶ πασῶν). In my opinion, the text can be kept as attested in the manuscripts without alterations (= ἑνάδα πασῶν), considering πηγήν as an apposition of ἑνάδα: according to Proclus' Neoplatonic conception the One-in-itself is the supreme and ineffable Henad which, as very first Principle, is a universal source and cause of all other henades. Moreover, the genitive ἑνάδων would appear pleonastic, whereas the singular ἑνάδα contrasts well with the previous ἑνάδας. Apart from these necessarily brief and summary remarks, the Budé has to be considered as an essential tool, in conjunction with the OCT, to study Proclus' Commentary on the Parmenides. Once completed, this edition will be really impressive, also considering the richness of each volume published so far. In this regard, it is enough to mention the comprehensiveness of the critical apparatus and the additional notes in each volume. They provide not only important philological and textual information, but also essential explanations of fundamental doctrinal issues both in this commentary and in the Proclean philosophical perspective as a whole.

No abstract

Rescued from the womb of his mortal mother, the Theban Semele, after her incineration by her lover Zeus' thunderbolt, Dionysos completes his gestation in the thigh of his father.