"But come now, first will I speak of the Sun, the first principle of all things,
From which, all, that we look upon, has sprung,
Both earth, and billowy deep, and humid air;
Titan and Ether too, which binds all things around."
And Apollodorus of Corcyra says that these lines were recited by Branchus the seer, when purifying the Milesians from plague; for he, sprinkling the multitude with branches of laurel, led off the hymn somehow as follows:
"Sing Boys Hecaergus and Hecaerga."
And the people accompanied him, saying, "Bedu,[1] Zaps, Chthon, Plectron, Sphinx, Cnaxzbi, Chthyptes, Phlegmos, Drops." Callimachus relates the story in iambics. Cnaxzbi is, by derivation, the plague, from its gnawing (κναίειν) and destroying (διαφθείρειν), and θῦψαι, is to consume with a thunderbolt. Thespis the tragic poet says that something else was signified by these, writing thus: "Lo, I offer to thee a libation of white Cnaxzbi, having pressed it from the yellow nurses. Lo, to thee, O two-horned Pan, mixing Chthyptes cheese with red honey, I place it on thy sacred altars. Lo, to thee I pour as a libation the sparkling gleam of Bromius." He signifies, as I think, the soul's first milk-like nutriment of the four-and-twenty elements, after which solidified milk comes as food. And last, he teaches of the blood of the vine of the Word, the sparkling wine, the perfecting gladness of instruction. And Drops is the operating Word, which, beginning with elementary training, and advancing to the growth of the man, inflames and illumines man up to the measure of maturity.
The third is said to be a writing copy for children—μάρπτες σφίγξ, κλώψ ζυνχθηδόν. And it signifies, in my opinion, that by the arrangement of the elements and of the world, we must advance to the knowledge of what is more perfect, since eternal salvation is attained by force and toil; for μάρψαι is to grasp. And the harmony of the world is meant
- ↑ Βέδυ, Ζὰψ, Χθὼν, Πλῆκτρον, Σφὶγξ, Κναξζβὶ, Χθύπτης, Φλεγμὸς, Δρώψ. On the interpretation of which, much learning and ingenuity have been expended.
