So deep in myst'ry, to the worshippers
Of Isis show'd a prodigy like Him.
And thou,8 who hast immortalized the shades 40
Of Academus, if the school received
This monster of the Fancy first from Thee,
Either recall at once the banish'd bards
To thy Republic, or, thyself evinc'd
A wilder Fabulist, go also forth.

1 Goddess of Memory and mother of the Muses.

2 Pallas Athena.

3 Waters of oblivion and forgetfulness.

4 Tiresins. See Milton's Sixth Elegy, line 68.

5 Hermes (Mercury).

6 Perhaps the legendary Phoenician sage, Sanchuniathon.

7 A legendary Assyrian king. Belus is the Assyrian god Bel.

7 Hermes Trismegistus, author of Neo-Platonic works must esteemed.

8 Plato.


To My Father.