Orpheus, instructed as was Moses, in the sanctuaries of Egypt, had the same ideas as the legislator of the Hebrews upon the unity of God, but the different circumstances in which he found himself placed did not permit him to divulge this dogma; he reserved this for making it the basis of his mysteries, and continued, in the meantime, to personify in his poetry the attributes of the Divinity. His institutions, drawn from the same source, founded upon the same truths, received the imprint of his character and that of the people to whom he had destined them. As those of Moses were severe and, if one must admit, harsh in form, enemies of the sciences and arts, so those of Orpheus were brilliant, fitted to seduce the minds, favourable to all the developments of the imagination. It was beneath the allurements of pleasure, of joy, and of (fêtes), that he concealed the utility of his lessons and the depth of his doctrine. Nothing was more full of pomp than the celebration of its mysteries. Whatever majesty, force, and grace, poetry, music, and painting had, was used to excite the enthusiasm of the initiate.[65] He found no pretext advantageous enough, no form beautiful enough, no charm powerful enough to interest the hearts and attract them toward the sublime truths which he proclaimed. These truths, whose force the early Christians have recognized,[66] went much further than those of which Moses had been the interpreter; they seemed to anticipate the times. Not only did he teach of the unity of God,[67] and give the most sublime ideas of this unfathomable Being[68]; not only did he explain the birth of the Universe and the origin of things[69]; but he represented this unique God under the emblem of a mysterious Trinity endowed with three names[70]; he spoke of the dogma which Plato announced a long time after concerning the Logos, or the Divine Word; and, according to Macrobius, taught even its incarnation or its union with matter, its death or its division in the world of sense, its resurrection or its transfiguration, and finally its return to the original Unity.[71]

This inspired man, by exalting in Man the imagination, that admirable faculty which makes the charm of life, fettered the passions which trouble its serenity. Through him his disciples enjoyed the enthusiasm of the fine arts and he insisted that their customs should be pure and simple.[72] The (régime) that he prescribed for them was that which Pythagoras introduced later[73]. One of the most pleasing rewards which he offered to their endeavours, the very aim of their initiation into his mysteries, was, putting themselves in communion with the gods[74]; freeing themselves from the cycle of generations, purifying their soul, and rendering it worthy of projecting itself, after the downfall of its corporal covering toward its primal abode, to the realms of light and happiness.[75]

Despite my resolution to be brief, I cannot resist the pleasure of speaking at greater length of Orpheus, and of recalling, as is my custom, things which, appearing today wholly foreign to my subject, nevertheless, when examined from my viewpoint, belong to it. Poetry was not at all in its origin what it became later, a simple accomplishment, regarded by those who profess to be savants as even rather frivolous[76]; it was the language of the gods, (par excellence), that of the prophets, the ministers of the altars, the preceptors and the legislators of the world. I rejoice to repeat this truth, after rendering homage to Orpheus, to this admirable man, to whom Europe owes the (éclat) with which she has shone and with which she will shine a long time. Orpheus has been the real creator of poetry and of music,[77] the father of mythology, of morals, and of philosophy: it is he who has served as model for Hesiod and Homer, who has illumined the footsteps of Pythagoras and Plato.

After having wisely accommodated the outward ceremonies to the minds of the people whom he wished to instruct, Orpheus divided his doctrine into two parts, the one vulgar, and the other mysterious and secret, following in this the method of the Egyptians, whose disciple he had been[78]; then, turning his attention to poetry, and seeing into what chaos this science had fallen and the confusion that had been made of divine and profane things, he judiciously separated it into two principal branches, which he assigned, the one to theology, the other to natural philosophy. It can be said that he gave in each the precept and the example. As sublime a theosophist as he was profound as a philosopher, he composed an immense quantity of theosophical and philosophical verses upon all sorts of subjects. Time has destroyed nearly all of them; but their memory has been perpetuated. Among the works of Orpheus that were cited by the ancients and whose loss must be deplored, were found, on the subject of theosophy, The Holy Word or The Sacred Logos,[79] by which Pythagoras and Plato profited much; the Theogony, which preceded that of Hesiod more than five centuries; The Initiations to the Mysteries of the Mother of the Gods,[80] and The Ritual of the Sacrifices, wherein he had recorded, undoubtedly, the divers parts of his doctrine[81]: on the subject of philosophy, a celebrated cosmogony was found,[82] in which an astronomical system was developed that would be an honour to our century, touching the plurality of the worlds, the station of the sun at the centre of the universe, and the habitation of the stars.[83] These extraordinary works emanated from the same genius who had written in verse upon grammar, music, natural history, upon the antiquities of the many isles of Greece, upon the interpretation of signs and prodigies, and a mass of other subjects, the details of which one can see in the commencement of the Argonautica of Onomacritus, which is attributed to him.

But at the same time that Orpheus opened thus to his successor two very distinct careers, theosophical and philosophical, he did not entirely neglect the other parts of this science: his hymns and his odes assigned him to a distinguished rank among the lyric poets; his Démétréïde presaged the beauties of Epopœia, and the representations full of pomp, that he introduced into his mysteries, gave birth to Greek Melopœia whence sprang dramatic art. He can therefore be regarded, not only as the precursor of Hesiod and Epimenides, but even as that of Homer, Æschylus, and Pindar. I do not pretend, in saying this, to take away anything from the glory of these celebrated men: the one who indicates a course, yields to the one who executes it: now this, especially, is what Homer did.

§ III

Homer was not the first epic poet in the order of time, but in the order of things. Before him many poets were skilled in Epopœia; but no one had known the nature of this kind of poetry[84]; no one had united the opposed qualities which were necessary. There existed at this epoch a multitude of allegorical fables which had emanated at divers times from different sanctuaries. These fables, committed at first to memory, had been collected in several sets of works which were called cycles.[85] There were allegorical, mythological, and epic cycles.[86] We know from certain precious texts of the ancients, that these sorts of collections opened generally with the description of Chaos, with the marriage of Heaven and Earth; contained the genealogy of the Gods and the combats of the Giants; included the expedition of the Argonauts, the famous wars of Thebes and of Troy; extended as far as the arrival of Ulysses at Ithaca, and terminated with the death of this hero, caused by his son Telegonus.[87] The poets who, before Homer, had drawn from these cycles the subject of their works, not having penetrated as far as the allegorical sense, lacking inspiration, or being found incapable of rendering it, lacking talent, had produced only cold inanimate copies, deprived of movement and grace. They had not, however, omitted any of the exploits of Hercules or of Theseus, nor any of the incidents of the sieges of Thebes or Troy; and their muse, quite lifeless, fatigued the readers without interesting or instructing them.[88] Homer came. He, in his turn, glanced over this pile of sacerdotal traditions, and raising himself by the force of his genius alone to the intellectual principle which had conceived them, he grasped the (ensemble), and felt all its possibilities. The faculties of his soul and the precious gifts which he had received from nature had made him one of those rare men who present themselves, at long intervals, upon the scene of the world to enlighten it, shining in the depths of centuries and serving as torches for mankind. In whatever clime, in whatever career destiny had placed him, he would have been the foremost. Ever the same, whether under the thatched roof or upon the throne, as great in Egypt as in Greece, in the Occident as in the Orient of Asia, everywhere he had commanded admiration. Some centuries earlier this same attribute might have been seen in Krishna or in Orpheus, some centuries later, in Pythagoras or in Cyrus. Great men are always great by their own greatness. Incidents which depend upon chance can only modify. Homer was destined to poetry by favourable circumstances. Born upon the borders of the river Meles, of an indigent mother, without shelter and without kindred, he owed, to a schoolmaster of Smyrna who adopted him, his early existence and his early instructions. He was at first called Melesigenes, from the place of his birth.[89] Pupil of Phemius, he received from his benevolent preceptor, simple but pure ideas, which the activity of his soul developed, which his genius increased, universalized, and brought to their perfection. His education, begun with an assiduous and sedentary study, was perfected through observation. He undertook long journeys for the sole purpose of instructing himself. The political conditions, contrary to every other project, favoured him.

Greece, after having shaken off the yoke of the Phœnicians and having become the friend of Egypt rather than her subject, commenced to reap the fruits of the beautiful institutions that she had received from Orpheus. Powerful metropolises arose in the heart of this country, long regarded as a simple colony of Asia, and her native strength being progressively augmented by the habit of liberty, she had need of extending herself abroad.[90] Rich with the increase of population, she had reacted upon her ancient metropolis, had taken possession of a great number of cities on the opposite shores of Asia, and had colonized them.[91] Phœnicia humiliated, torn by internal dissensions,[92] tossed between the power of the Assyrians and that of the Egyptians,[93] saw this same Greece that she had civilized and to whom she had given her gods, her laws, and even the letters of her alphabet, ignore, deny her benefits,[94] take up arms against her, carry away her colonies from the shores of Italy and of Sicily, and becoming mistress of the islands of the Archipelago, tear from her her sole remaining hope, the empire of the sea.[95] The people of Rhodes were overpowered.

Homer, of Greek nationality although born in Asia, profited by these advantages. He set sail in a vessel, whose patron, Mentes of Leucas, was his friend, wandered over all the possessions of Greece, visited Egypt,[96] and came to settle at Tyre. This was the ancient metropolis of Greece, the source and sacred repository of her mythological traditions. It was there, in this same temple of the Master of the Universe,[97] where twelve centuries before Sanchoniathon had come to study the antiquities of the world,[98] that Homer was able to go back to the origin of Greek cult and fathom the most hidden meanings of its mysteries[99]; it was there that he chose the first and noblest subject of his chants, that which constitutes the fable of the Iliad.[100] If one must believe in the very singular accounts which time has preserved to us, thanks to the blind zeal of certain Christians who have treated them as heresies, this Helen, whose name applied to the moon signifies the resplendent, this woman whom Paris carried away from her spouse Menelaus, is nothing else than the symbol of the human soul,[101] torn by the principle of generation from that of thought, on account of which the moral and physical passions declare war. But it would be taking me too far away from my subject, examining in detail what might be the meaning of the allegories of Homer. My plan has not been to investigate this meaning in particular, but to show that it exists in general. Upon this point I have not only the rational proof which results from the concatenation of my ideas, but also proof of the fact, which is furnished to me by the testimonials of the ancients. These testimonials are recognized at every step, in the works of the philosophers and chiefly in those of the Stoics. Only a very superficial erudition is necessary to be convinced of this.[102] But I ought to make an observation, and this observation will be somewhat novel: it is that, the poetic inspiration being once received by the poet and his soul finding itself transported into the intelligible world, all the ideas which then come to him are universal and in consequence allegorical. So that nothing true may exist outside of unity, and as everything that is true is one and homogeneous, it is found that, although the poet gives to his ideas a form determined in the sentient world, this form agrees with a multitude of things which, being distinct in their species, are not so in their genus. This is why Homer has been the man of all men, the type of all types, the faithful mirror,[103] wherein all ideas becoming reflected have appeared to be created. Lycurgus read his works, and saw there a model of his legislation.[104] Pericles and Alcibiades had need of his counsels; they had recourse to him as a model of statesmen.[105] He was for Plato the first of the philosophers, and for Alexander the greatest of kings; and what is more extraordinary still, even the sectarians, divided among themselves, were united in him. The Stoics spoke only of this great poet as a rigid follower of the Porch[106]; at the Academy he was considered as the creator of dialectics; at the Lyceum, the disciples of Aristotle cited him as a zealous dogmatist[107]; finally, the Epicureans saw in him only a man calm and pure, who, satisfied with that tranquil life where one is wholly possessed by it, seeks nothing more.[108] The temples, which devout enthusiasm consecrated to him, were the rendezvous for mankind.[109] Such is the appanage of universal ideas: they are as the Divinity which inspires them, all in all, and all in the least parts.

If, at the distance where I am placed, I should dare, traversing the torrent of ages and opinions, draw near to Homer and read the soul of this immortal man, I would say, after having grasped in its entirety the allegorical genius which makes the essence of poetry, in seeking to give to his universal ideas a particular form, that his intention was to personify and paint the passions, and that it was from this that epopœia had birth. I have not sufficient documents to attest positively that the word by which one characterizes this kind of poetry after Homer, did not exist before him; but I have sufficient to repeat that no one had as yet recognized its real nature.[110] The poems of Corinna, of Dares, or of Dictys, were only simple extracts from the mythological cycles, rude copies from certain theosophical fragments denuded of life; Homer was the first who caused the Voice of Impulse, that is to say Epopœia, to be understood[111]: that kind of poetry which results from intellectual inspiration united to the enthusiasm of the passions.