From ills apart, and labour’s irksome load,
And sore diseases, bringing age to man;
Now the sad life of mortals is a span.
The woman’s hands a mighty casket bear;
She lifts the lid; she scatters griefs in air:
Alone, beneath the vessels’ rims detained,
Hope still within th’ unbroken cell remained,
Nor fled abroad; so will’d cloud-gatherer Jove:
The woman’s hand had dropp’d the lid above.”[[636]]
Now, to him who would give to these lines a grave allegorical meaning (whether any such meaning be contained in them or not), we would say: Are the Greeks alone at liberty to convey a philosophic meaning in a secret covering? or perhaps also the Egyptians, and those of the barbarians who pride themselves upon their mysteries and the truth [which is concealed within them]; while the Jews alone, with their lawgiver and historians, appear to you the most unintelligent of men? And is this the only nation which has not received a share of divine power, and which yet was so grandly instructed how to rise upwards to the uncreated nature of God, and to gaze on Him alone, and to expect from Him alone [the fulfilment of] their hopes?