Then rais'd to Heaven, thou from thy body free,
A deathless saint, no more shalt mortal be.
Pythagoras, his Moral Rules.] Stanley's three vocations of poet, translator, and philosopher come well together in this closing piece, and the prose commentary completes the exposition in little.
The common received opinion that Pythagoras is not the author of these verses, seems to be defended by Chrysippus in Agellius, Plutarch, Laertius, and Iamblichus, who affirm that the rules and sense only were his, digested into verse by some of his scholars. But it is not improbable that they did no more than collect the verses, and so gave occasion to the mistake; for Laertius confesseth that Pythagoras used to deliver his precepts to his disciples in verse, one of which was
Πῆ παρέβην; τί δ' ἔρεξα; τί μοι δέον οὐκ ἐτελέσθη;
How slipt? what deeds, what duty left undone?
Of this opinion I believe Clemens Alexandrinus, who cites one of these lines under his name, and Proclus, when he calls him τῶν χρυσῶν ἐπῶν πατέρα, the father of the golden verses.
[thy duty pay]
Νόμῳ ὡς διάκειται; though Hierocles in another sense read διάκεινται.