VISITING THE GODDESS

The Proem of Peri Physis ["On Nature"] by Parmenides

[c. 475 B.C.]


                       - translated from the Greek by Leonard George

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Orpheus, who journeys in song. THIS IS YOU.

The mares that carry me as far as the heart’s desire sped on, set on the legendary sacred road that carries the man who knows above it all.

The wise mares carried me, straining at the chariot, guided by maidens.

The blazing axle in its socket screamed like a pan-pipe, pressed hard by both whirling wheels.

Quickly sped the solar maidens, having left the halls of Night for the light, sweeping aside the veils with their hands.

The path goes through the gates of Night and Day, enclosed by a lintel and threshold of stone.

The massive doors soar beyond the sky, and all-avenging Justice holds the key.

The maidens encouraged her with soft and sly talk, persuading her to unbar the lock that fastened the gates.

The doors opened into a yawning chasm, the bronze axles in their sockets spinning to and fro, snugly joined with bolts and pins.

The maidens held mares and chariot straight and firm along the broad road.

And the goddess kindly received me, taking my right hand in hers, and spoke these words:

"Young man with your band of charioteers and mares who carried you to arrive at our house, welcome!

It was no evil fate that sent you journeying on the path, so distant from the tracks of humanity, but rightness and justice.

Now you should learn all, both the round, calm heart of Truth, and the untrustworthy opinions of mortals.

And still you should learn of that which earns belief, pervading every way, everywhere, everything."
The remainder of the text, which unfortunately exists today only in fragments, describes the revelation of the goddess to the "young man" (this phrase refers, by the way, not to literal age and gender features of the seeker, but to a state of mind characterized by virginal clarity and spiritual courage). "The round, calm heart of Truth" is Reality itself - beginningless and imperishable, unified and continuous, changeless and perfect - pointed to by logic, but directly apprehensible only through a nondualistic cognition. "The untrustworthy opinions of mortals" include everything you have ever thought, and what you are thinking right now. It's not that "everything is an illusion". Rather, every thing (including the self-concept) has an illusory aspect: its very "thingness" or separation from everything else. Parmenides' Peri Physis is the foundational document of the Western metaphysical tradition. For further study of this most remarkable work, consult the writings of the scholars:

Detienne, M. (1999). The masters of truth in archaic Greece. New York: Zone Books.

Kingsley, P. (1999). In the dark places of wisdom. Inverness, CA: Golden Sufi Center.

Kirk, G.S., Raven, J.E.R., & Schofield, M. (1983). The presocratic philosophers: A critical history with a selection of texts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Long, A.A. (Ed.) (1999). The Cambridge companion to early Greek philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.



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