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Okay, okay, while I think that names matter, they don't all matter. Akhilleus's two divine horses were named Ξάνθος "Goldie" and Βαλίος "Spotty."

(Other horses in the Iliad include Πήδασος "Jumper," Ἀρείων "Better," Αἴθη "Blaze," and Πόδαργος "Swiftfoot.")

Λευκοθέας, θυμίαμα, ἀρώματα.
Λευκοθέην καλέω Καδμηΐδα, δαίμονα σεμνήν,
εὐδύνατον, θρέπτειραν ἐϋστεφάνου Διονύσου.
κλῦθι, θεά πόντοιο βαθυστέρνοιο μέδουσα,
κύμασι τερπομένη, θνητῶν σώτειρα μεγίστη.
ἐν σοὶ γὰρ νηῶν πελαγοδρόμος ἄστατος ὁρμή,
μούνη δὲ θνητῶν οἰκτρὸν μόρον εἰν ἁλὶ λύεις,
οἷς ἂν ἐφορμαίνουσα φίλη σωτήριος ἔλθοις.
ἀλλά, θεὰ δέσποινα, μόλοις ἐπαρωγὸς ἐοῦσα
νηυσὶν ἐπ’ εὐσέλμοις σωτήριος εὔφρονι βουλῇ,
μύσταις ἐν πόντῳ ναυσίδρομον οὖρον ἄγουσα.

For the White Goddess. (Cense with aromatics.)
I call the White Goddess, daughter of Kadmos, august divinity,
well-able nurse of well-crowned Dionusos—
hear me, leading goddess of the deep-bosomed sea,
delighting in the waves [of adversity], great savior of mortals;
for by you ships fly unceasingly over the sea,
and you alone untie the pitiable fate of sea-bound mortals,
those to whom you would rush to as a rescuing friend.
But, mistress goddess, come be a helper
to well-decked ships, dispensing gracious advice,
and bring a ship-speeding stretch to sea-going initiates.

(As translated—probably very poorly as the hymns are grammatically difficult!—by yours truly.)

I was down the other day, and whenever I'm down I tend to think about angels, and that got me poking into the textual history of the Works and Days. It turns out that many variants of Hesiod were current even in antiquity, and that seems to be reflected in what we have access to, today.

The description of the daimons that I was familiar with is the scholarly accepted version of a century ago:

(The translation is my own, hopefully not too bad!)

As it turns out, lines 122–3 are those given by Platon in the Kratulos; the problem with this is that it disagrees with a different version given by Platon in the Republic, the version given by Ploutarkhos in his commentary on the poem, and the version given by Proklos in his commentary. (It seems that all of the manuscripts of the poem that we have adhere pretty closely to Proklos's version, so it was a wilful choice to favor Platon over it, and to favor the Kratulos over the Republic!) It seems Platon bowdlerized the lines in order to fit the purposes of his dialogues (both literary—these are lines recalled from memory by Socrates—and philosophical—as he uses the descriptions to argue for theological points).

On top of that, lines 124–5 are copied from elsewhere in the poem and appear to be either a gloss or an error in the mainline branch of the manuscripts, and are apparently not duplicated elsewhere (e.g. in Proklos); M. L. West notes that a "police force administering legal justice" is quite different from the Providential givers of all good things described by the rest of the lines; and the grammatical context changes from line to line, too, which seems suspicious (though maybe I'm just not familiar enough with Hesiod's Greek, which always feels rather crabbed to me, at least by comparison with Homer).

At any rate, the current scholarly text, by M. L. West, gives the same section as follows:

(Translation also my own.)

We see that the gist is the same, but the two differ in almost every detail. I did a pass previously over the doctrine of guardian angels, but noticing the differences in the modern accepted text, I thought I should do so again:

1. χρύσεον "golden:" incorruptible, hence never contaminated by material life. (This stands to reason; if material beings are granted guardians [#6, below] by Providence [#3, below] so that we have the potential for purification, then the guardians must themselves have never been material, since if they were, they would need their own guardians, who would need their own guardians, etc., which would be an infinite regress, which is absurd. So the guardians themselves must have never been material at any time.)

2. πρώτιστα "first of all:" that is, the race of not-gods that is closest to the gods.

3. τοὶ μὲν δαίμονες εἰσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλάς "they are daimons by the will of great Zeus:" Providence, being good, always ensures that there is a pathway to good for all. Each soul's daimon (from δαίομαι "to distribute"), therefore, is the means by which Providence acts (e.g. is distributed to mortals).

4. ἐσθλοί "righteous:" morally good, virtuous, faithful; does not have the capacity for bad, because they act out the will of Zeus.

5. ἐπιχθόνιοι "on the earth:" as opposed to in heaven (where the gods live) or below the earth in Tartarus (where the dead live—that is, us), indicating their middle status.

6. φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων "guardians of mortal men:" daimons protect mortals because mortals don't have the perceptive capacity or wisdom to protect themselves.

7. πλουτοδόται: καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήιον ἔσχον "givers of wealth (for they have this royal privilege also):" in archaic Greece, social status was not determined by how much you owned (as it is today), but how much and how freely you gave to others. Kings were kings because they had the greatest capacity to give. This same thread is taken up by Plotinos, who assigns higher position to those who are able give more freely of themselves (e.g. gods are gods because they can give without diminishment, and Zeus is king of the gods because Zeus is pre-eminent in doing so). Daimons are the agents by which the gods give: while the gods give universally, daimons give individually, mortals receive individually, once again demonstrating the middle rank of daimons.

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

(Juliet speaking. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet II ii.)

"Why do you need a new name to get well?"

"Only the right name gives beings and things their reality," she said. "A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do."

(Atreyu interrogating the Childlike Empress. Michael Ende, The Neverending Story XI, as translated by Ralph Manheim. "Atreyu," incidentally, means "the Son of All," as he was an orphan raised by the whole village.)

It is a bit odd that the convention in English is to translate American Indian names (e.g. we call the famous Lakota "Crazy Horse" and not "Tȟašúŋke Witkó") but that we transliterate Ancient Greek names (e.g. we call the famous Athenian "Plato" and not "Broad-Shoulders"). This is usually said to be "racist," as if we are looking down on American Indians, but I think the opposite, that we should rather translate the names of other languages so that their meaning isn't veiled: the more I study Greek, and the more I study the Mysteries, the more clear it is to me that names are everything and are worth the closest study.

(Indeed, while I am estranged from my family, I am grateful for the name they gave me: Ἰάσων Jason "of Iaso," that is, a dedication to the goddess of recuperation from disease, which has been the purpose of this life—and, indeed, is the meaning behind the myth of my heroic namesake.)

Here's a few miscellaneous name-notes I've run across recently as I struggle my way through Homer.

• νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς nephelegereta Zeus is usually translated "Zeus Cloud-Gatherer," with the epithet traditionally derived from νεφελη-ἀγείρετα nephele-ageireta "who gathers clouds to himself;" but I wonder if it is, in fact, the simpler νεφελη-γερέτα nephele-gereta "who was given the clouds as his king's prerogative" (cf. Homer, Iliad XV 187–93).

• Humans are often called μερόπων ἀνθρώπων meropon anthropon "humans of divided voice (e.g. speak in words);" e.g. treating language as a differentiator between men and beasts. It occurs to me that the first men didn't speak, though; speech was the gift of Hermeias to Πανδώρα Pandora "all-gifted" (cf. Hesiod, Works and Days 77–80), and it is only her and presumably her descendants that have the ability to speak. (This is all of present humankind, of course, via Pandora's daughter Purrha, who survived the flood alongside Deukalion.) So the gift was a curse, but the curse was also a gift—but then, I suppose μηχανεύς Ζεύς mekhaneus Zeus "Zeus Contriver" never does anything for merely one reason...

• I find it interesting that Homer calls the constellations τείρεα teirea "signs," since the famous prophet Τειρεσίας Teiresias "sign-reader" is the quintessential Master of the Mysteries (being the savior of Thebai, the initiator of Odusseus, and the only mortal who retained hits wits beyond death); this reinforces, I think, my theory that the constellations are (or, perhaps, were) meant to be the hieroglyphs on the walls of the Great Temple which Plotinos so often refers to (cf. Enneads II iii "Are the Stars Causes?" §7, Enneads V viii "On the Intellectual Beauty" §6; Enneads VI ix "On the Good, or the One" §11). That is, I think we are being exhorted to be like Teiresias and learn to "read the signs" for ourselves!

I have no idea what the Egyptian sphinx represents—best guess is that it was originally just a lion, but some narcissistic jerk re-sculpted his face onto it—but the Greek sphinx, at least, is simply the riddle, the puzzle, the koan personified: it entices you in with it's pretty face and soft breasts, but once you get close, it sinks its claws into you. (In fact, the word Σφίγξ "sphinx" is from the Greek σφίγξω "I will hold tight.") With that image, an entire avenue of sphinxes seems a frightening prospect, and yet here I am, traipsing down just such a path...

A while back I noted that there were two major Greek myth cycles, the "city myth" and the the "hero myth." The first of these (exemplified by the two great cycles of the Heroic age, Thebai and Troia) follows seven generations of kings as they found a city, the city's royal line splits, the main branch fails (due to assaults from foreigners ultimately caused by a divine curse), while the secondary branch moves on to found a new city. On the other hand, the "hero myth" (exemplified by the Horos myth and the Orestes branch of the Epic Cycle), describes the structure of the world that we inhabit and describes what we can do about it; it is meant to be an example to prospective initiates, just like Athenaie says:

ἢ οὐκ ἀίεις οἷον κλέος ἔλλαβε δῖος Ὀρέστης
πάντας ἐπ’ ἀνθρώπους, ἐπεὶ ἔκτανε πατροφονῆα,
Αἴγισθον δολόμητιν, ὅ οἱ πατέρα κλυτὸν ἔκτα;
καὶ σύ, φίλος, μάλα γάρ σ’ ὁρόω καλόν τε μέγαν τε,
ἄλκιμος ἔσσ’, ἵνα τίς σε καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἐὺ εἴπῃ.

Or haven't you heard what kind of renown noble Orestes gained
among all men when he avenged his father by murdering
that weaselly Aigisthos, who killed his illustrious father?
Likewise you, my friend—for I see that you are very handsome and well-built—
be courageous! so that even those yet to come may speak well of you.

(Athenaie, in the guise of Mentes, exhorting Telemakhos. Homer, Odyssey I 298-302, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

This is, in fact, why Horos never goes to Bublos or why Orestes never goes to Troia: they are drawing on the lessons of the "city myth" in order to determine their own path. The city is an abstraction or teaching to them, the stories of those who went before, rather than a lived experience. In fact, it suggests that the city is a place they want to avoid, a source of trouble! Because of this, it seems rather important to make sense of what the city is and what it means, but I've been in difficulty doing so. I hit upon a potential angle on it, though, that I thought might be worth walking through.

I recently mentioned the Ra Material in reference to Teiresias (himself a part of the Thebaian city myth), and while pondering this, I realized that "Ra's" metaphysics dovetails neatly with the city myth, with "Ra's" seven degrees of consciousness corresponding very well with the seven generations of kings; under this interpretation, the city myth describes the unfolding of the Cosmos from Source to Source, while the hero myth, situated at the end of it, tells us what we can do about it right now, today, and what we can expect to happen to us if we try.

As a disclaimer and a reminder, I'm pretty skeptical of channeled texts (and doubly so of anything "New Age") for a few reasons: first, I have a pretty strong anti-modernity bias; second, most people are incapable of reaching up to the aither to channel angels, and even if they can, it can be very difficult to tell since daimons "know how to tell many convincing lies;" third, the channelled material always reflects the biases of the person doing the channelling, and if one isn't personally close with them, it can be very difficult to correct for these; and fourth, the "New Age" seems to largely presuppose a worldview I don't adhere to, and involve wish-fulfilment fantasies which I'm not interested in. So this material needs to be taken with salt; please consider this post merely an attempt to expand upon my prior exploration of Teiresias in order to make a more comprehensive evaluation of the model possible.

Perhaps I should start by describing "Ra's" view of the development of consciousness. (Or attempting to, it is not perfectly clear to me, so take this as a sketch.) Consciousness is analogized as a vibration, and this continuum of vibration is discretized into seven degrees of consciousness, just like how we break up all the possible vibrations of the air into a scale of seven notes or all the possible vibrations of the visual spectrum into seven colors. Since souls are just a vehicle for consciousness, we inherently possess the capacity to vibrate in any harmony of frequencies, at least potentially; but in practice, one has to "climb the scale" a bit at a time, from lowest vibration to highest vibration:

1. Red, which relates to being, and is the consciousness of "inanimate" objects.

2. Orange, which relates to growth and movement, and is the consciousness of plants and animals.

3. Yellow, which relates to social identity, and is the consciousness of humans. Being the vibration of identity, it is the first properly "individual" degree: red and orange are "herd" or "group" consciousness, while yellow consciousness is individual (at least once sufficiently developed).

4. Green, which relates to love, and is the consciousness of lower daimons. Love is polarized: one may give love (compassion) or take love (selfishness), and thus green consciousness is dual in nature.

5. Blue, which relates to communication and wisdom, and is the consciousness of higher daimons, though it is also (being the lowest vibration not subject to mortality) where we resonate with after death. Blue retains the polarized nature of green; the positive pole is the collective search of understanding (collaboration), while the negative pole is the individual search of understanding (hoarding knowledge).

6. Indigo, which relates to universality, and is the consciousness of angels. Unlike green and blue, indigo is not meaningfully polarized, because of the nature of universality; negatively-polarized individuals, having mastered wisdom, come to understand this and reorient themselves positively as they endeavor to comprehend the All.

7. Violet, which is related to transcendance and unity. This is, in a sense, rejoining the All and moving on to a new "octave" of existence, in which one co-creates the universe as and with God. (At least, apparently: "Ra" claimed to be of indigo consciousness, themselves, and claimed only secondhand knowledge about violet consciousness from its own teachers.)

Apparently souls usually ascend as groups: that is to say, the group of what we now call "human souls" all passed through the red stage more-or-less together, then the orange stage more-or-less together, and are now working through the yellow stage more-or-less together. ("Ra" says the reason why the earth is such a mess is that, apparently unusually, humans aren't developing consistently: a few are polarizing positively, a few others are polarizing negatively, and the vast majority aren't polarizing at all. Evidently conditions are much smoother in the common case where the group develops together.) There are uncommon exceptions to souls developing as a group, however: some people are souls of a higher degree, who incarnate as humans in order to teach and guide; while, conversely, some few human souls "jump the tracks" and, through spiritual practices or divine support or sometimes even by accident, behold God naked and become able to ascend separately from the rest of their group.

I think that's enough about "Ra's" metaphysics to get on with. So far so good, and other than the emphasis on soul-groups, isn't too distant from Empedokles or Plotinos.

As for the city myths, there is, unfortunately, no one good source remaining for either of them. I'd like to look at Troia today, partly because I looked at Thebai last time and partly because the Epic cycle is by far the more familiar to me. The outlines of it's history can be more-or-less cobbled back together from bits and pieces in the Iliad and Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (which I trust) and the Library (which is my preferred fallback when a reliable source isn't available). Here is a sketch at describing the seven generations, with citations:

1. Dardanos, the favorite mortal son of Zeus, founded Dardania at the foot of Mt. Ide. [Il. XX 215-8, 301–5.]

2. Erikhthonios, the son and successor of Dardanos, "became the richest of all men" with a herd of three thousand mares. Boreas mated with some of these mares in the form of a black stallion, adding twelve semi-divine horses to Erikhthonios's herd. [Il. XX 219–29.]

3. Tros is the son and successor of Erikhthonios, renaming the kingdom (but not the city) of Dardania after himself. [Il. XX 230, Lib. III xii §2.]

4. At this point the royal line splits three ways, as Tros has three sons: Ilos, Assarakhos, and Ganumedes. All three are described as faultless. Ilos goes to Phrygia; he wins a prize of fifty men and women; following an oracle's instruction, he follows a dappled cow to the hill of Ate; he asks Zeus for a sign; he is given the Palladium; and he founds Ilios on the spot. Assarakhos, meanwhile, simply succeeds to the throne of Dardania. Ganumedes, finally, being peer of the gods and most beautiful of mortals, is spirited away in a whirlwind to be the immortal, ageless cupbearer of Zeus; Tros is grieved by his son's disappearance until Zeus sends Hermes to tell him what has become of him and give him divine horses. [Il. XX 231–5; HH 202–17; Lib. III xii §3.]

5. Laomedon is the son and successor of Ilos, and also described as faultless. Kapus is the son and successor of Assarakhos. [Il. XX 236, 239.]

6. Priamos is the son and successor of Laomedon; he is the final king of Ilios, since while Zeus loves Priamos and his city, he withdraws his favor from Priamos's line and gives it to Aineias. Ankhises is the son and successor of Kapus; he was seduced by Aphrodite, but not made immortal; and he secretly bred his mares to the divine horses of Laomedon (descendants of those ransomed for Ganumedes), thereby stealing their bloodline. [Il. IV 44–9, V 265–72, XX 236, 300–8; HH.]

7. Hektor is the son and heir apparent of Priamos, but is killed in battle by Akhilleus. Aineias is the son and successor of Ankhises; he is the son of Aphrodite; he is most pious and beloved by the gods; and he escapes Ilios and refounds it after it is sacked. [Il. II 819–21, XX 293–308, XXII; HH.]

Now, let's synthesize these two models. I don't think this is too difficult! The seven kings can obviously be linked to the seven degrees of consciousness, with the line of descent showing the progression of consciousness (e.g. orange follows red just as Erikthonios follows Dardanos), and with the split among the sons of Tros showing the split in polarization at the green level of consciousness (e.g. just as, after Tros, the Troad has two kingdoms, Dardania and Ilios, so too does consciousness have two polarities after yellow). Everything else falls out naturally from there.

Mt. Ide (traditionally from ἴδη "woods," as in a place of material to harvest and work with) is the world-axis or ladder of consciousness, which is why Zeus sits atop it and watches all. The hill of Ate (Ἄτη "blindness, recklessness") is presumably where Zeus threw her after Hera tricked him into recklessly making Iphikles king rather than Herakles (cf. Il. XIX 91–136), clearly a place where a lack of foresight makes one deviate from the intended course. Dardania (apparently related to the onomatapoeic δάρδα darda "bee," like "bumble" in English, and an appropriate name for cooperation, as a hive of bees work together for the good of all) is the positive polarization of consciousness, while Ilios (which Ilos, of course, selfishly named for himself) is the negative polarization of consciousness, distant from Ide but still in sight of it (as one can never really escape divinity).

Dardania is founded by Dardanos at the foot of Ide since red consciousness is foundational, inherently positive, and where everything begins; while Ilios is founded by Ilos on Ate since green consciousness is the first that can be negatively polarized (though doing so is short-sighted). Nonetheless, each of Tros's three children are described as ἀμύμονες "without blemish," because all is one, so to love others and to love self are both to love God. However, Tros has a third faultless son: Ganumedes; Xenophon's Socrates (Symposium VIII xxx) makes the case that Ganumedes was beautiful in soul, and I likewise think that Ganumedes is a mythic representation of how peculiarly virtuous souls can short-circuit the usual path of growth through intensive self-development and/or devotion to divinity. Zeus withdraws his favor from Priam because negative polarization halts at the indigo level (thus ending the line of Ilos), and Hektor dies in battle because it is not possible for a negative polarization to transcend. Aineias refounds Ilios because the result of returning to the One is to co-create the next "octave" of consciousness.

Homer goes to particular lengths to talk about horses (maybe they should have called him Φίλιππος Phillip "horse fancier"), so these must be noteworthy for some reason. I suppose that while the kings represent the levels of consciousness in general, the horses must represent their property; that is, specific individuals or groups of individuals within those levels of consciousness. Perhaps the wealth of Erikhthonios indicates the vast speciation of the natural world, while the offspring of Boreas ("the North Wind") indicates that only some of the many species of animals are judged desirable enough to become vessels of the yellow level (e.g. are imbued with "breath" or "wind," that is, individual soul); perhaps the horses Zeus gifts to Ilos indicate that while some beautiful souls may leave the group, the group is not neglected, but is in fact given support in recompense for their loss in order to maintain balance; that Ankhises breeds his horses with the descendents of these perhaps suggests that these beautiful souls join groups of the indigo level ("go to be with the angels"). These kinds of things aren't really discussed in the Ra Material so far as I recall, though, so this is all not-terribly-deep guesswork based strictly on the symbolism in the myth.

A few miscellaneous notes from while I was working my way through all this:

• I have long wondered why Homer is so very down on Aphrodite; she seems to me to be among the nicest of the gods. One nice thing about this interpretation of the city myth is that it makes sense of this. Aphrodite is love, and loving mode of consciousness—green—is where polarization takes place; since Ilios is the negative polarization, which is ultimately incapable of returning to the source, this is the reason for the city's downfall. In fact, that Zeus refuses to adjudicate the apple to any of the goddesses indicates that God has given us free will to choose our paths; that Paris has to choose between Aphrodite (= love​ = green?), Athene (= wisdom​ = blue?), and Hera (= universality = indigo?) indicates that these are the levels affected by choice of polarization; that Paris chooses Aphrodite for reasons of self-gratification reinforces the recklessness (ate) of the negative polarization in general.

• I'm not really prepared to do a deep-dive on the Thebaian myth yet, but while we're talking about sphinxes, it's worth noting that Oidipous, being of the fifth royal generation, would, by this theory, be of the blue, or wisdom, degree of consciousness. This makes his solving of the sphinx's riddle—a test of wisdom—pretty appropriate!

• If you'll recall in the Horos-myth, I likened Thoth to "experience," the reason or purpose behind climbing the ladder of consciousness: so God-in-part can come to know part-of-God. Thoth is married to Maat, the "necessity" of this occurring. It is noteworthy that the child of Thoth and Maat is Seshat "scribess," who is depicted with two cow horns and a seven-petalled flower above her head. It is plausible to me that "scribess" is a reference to consciousness being that which observes and records (cf. Od. XI 223–4) and the seven-petalled flower is indicative of the seven modes of consciousness here described:

  𓋇

  This would, of course, presuppose that "Ra" is correct in saying that they influenced the development of Egypt with their teachings.

ἀλλὰ φόωσδε τάχιστα λιλαίεο: ταῦτα δὲ πάντα
ἴσθ’, ἵνα καὶ μετόπισθε τεῇ εἴπῃσθα γυναικί.

But anxiously hasten to the light, and remember all this,
so that you can tell your wife even after.

(Antikleia speaking to Odusseus. Homer, Odyssey XI 223–4, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

Σωκράτης. ἀλλ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ἀπολέσθαι τὰ κακὰ δυνατόν, ὦ Θεόδωρε— ὑπεναντίον γάρ τι τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἀεὶ εἶναι ἀνάγκη—οὔτ᾽ ἐν θεοῖς αὐτὰ ἱδρῦσθαι, τὴν δὲ θνητὴν φύσιν καὶ τόνδε τὸν τόπον περιπολεῖ ἐξ ἀνάγκης. διὸ καὶ πειρᾶσθαι χρὴ ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε φεύγειν ὅτι τάχιστα. φυγὴ δὲ ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν: ὁμοίωσις δὲ δίκαιον καὶ ὅσιον μετὰ φρονήσεως γενέσθαι.

Socrates. But it is impossible that evils should be done away with, Theodorus, for there must always be something opposed to the good; and they cannot have their place among the gods, but must inevitably hover about mortal nature and this earth. Therefore we ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the gods as quickly as we can; and to escape is to become like God, so far as this is possible; and to become like God is to become righteous and holy and wise.

(Plato, Theaitetos 176A–B, as translated by Harold N. Fowler. I might translate the last phrase as "becoming righteous and pure in thought.")

Πυλάδης.
[...]
λήξαντα δ᾽ οἴκτων κἀπ᾽ ἐκεῖν᾽ ἐλθεῖν χρεών,
ὅπως τὸ κλεινὸν ὄνομα τῆς σωτηρίας
λαβόντες ἐκ γῆς βησόμεσθα βαρβάρου.
σοφῶν γὰρ ἀνδρῶν ταῦτα, μὴ 'κβάντας τύχης,
καιρὸν λαβόντας, ἡδονὰς ἄλλας λαβεῖν.

Ὀρέστης.
καλῶς ἔλεξας: τῇ τύχῃ δ᾽ οἶμαι μέλειν
τοῦδε ξὺν ἡμῖν: ἢν δέ τις πρόθυμος ᾖ,
σθένειν τὸ θεῖον μᾶλλον εἰκότως ἔχει.

[Orestes and Iphigenia are tearfully reunited, but Orestes's comrade, Pulades, reminds them of the danger they're in.]

Pulades. [...] But stop crying, we have to focus on other things so that we can obtain that glorious label of "salvation" and escape this foreign land: wise men seize the moment, lest they snub Lady Luck for the wiles of others!

Orestes. Well said!—but I think She will support us in that, since the more one strives, the more the gods strive for them.

(Euripedes, Iphigenia in Tauris 904–11, as loosely translated by yours truly. "Lady Luck" is Tukhe, the gods' providence or good fortune.)

I've been pretty down lately: most of this month I've been ill and very weak, and even after that, it's been stressful trying to catch back up with everything that fell by the wayside, and frustrating to strugglingly clear the fog from my mind and get back to being capable of thinking. I had a little space available to me, today, and I thought I might pluck Plotinos off the shelf... little did I know that this essay, which I struggled to make sense of two years ago, was just what I needed today.

Despite being a little lost last time, my summary actually wasn't too bad, but I still wanted to tinker with it, some:

I iv: On Well-Being [Revision of my original summary.]

Let us consider a musician and his lyre. It is the lyre that sings sweetly, but can it be considered to have well-being? No—the lyre might be in tune or in good repair, but it is the musician that can be well; the lyre is a mere instrument of the musician's well-being. But let us suppose that the lyre is out of sorts: does this mean the musician is unwell? Not necessarily: perhaps it fell out of tune in his absence and he is not even aware of it, or perhaps he sings on even without accompaniment, or perhaps he has grown tired of playing and does something else. In whatever case, the musician cares for the instrument, tuning it and fixing it as needed, but only insofar as it contributes to his own well-being.

In the same way, a man's body is the mere instrument of the soul; and while the body might experience pleasure or contentment, this is merely akin to the lyre being in good shape. No, the Good is the highest of all, and so a man's good must come from his higher part: his well-being is of the soul, and being of the soul it is to be found solely within and not subject to the vagaries of without.

Just like how the lyre is not essential to the musician's well being, what does the saintly man—he who is consumed with divinity—care for the body? He will be swayed neither by power and luxury, on the one hand, nor disease and disaster, on the other. Would we not call him a man of tremendous well-being, who could be satisfied even as he is placed on the pyre? But this is just what happens when the practice of the virtues is taken to its end.

In general, in my summaries of Plotinos, I have taken the tack of summarizing his conclusions and more-or-less ignoring his arguments. I think I was upset with my summary the first time since this was the first essay in which doing so was really glaring... it really leaves a lot out. But I think, by the end of summarizing the Enneads, I came to the conclusion that I can't really do justice to the full arguments; really, these summaries exist to A) remind me of the contents of the essays, and B) maybe, hopefully, entice others to read Plotinos—at least, those essays that seem most interesting to them. So if my summary seems abrupt and you want to know what the good man is like and why, then just read the real thing: it's linked above and it's not very long.

I didn't realize this the first time through Plotinos, but this essay is about εὐδαιμονία eudaimonia, the meaning of which was one of my Big Questions™ when I went through On the Gods and the World. The dictionary gives "prosperity, good fortune, wealth;" Murray and Nock translate this word as "happiness;" Taylor translates it "felicity;" MacKenna goes a little further and translates it "true happiness;" and Armstrong is critical of these and translates it as "well-being." I agree with Armstrong that any variation on "happiness" is misleading: the philosophers are not saying that the virtuous feel good, they are saying that they have transcended feeling. But it would be wrong to call such people "stoic" or "impassive," I think: Taoist and Zen masters are well known for their good humor, and angels (as the beings intrinsically possessing the virtues we try to take on) are full of joy. (Indeed, when I think of my own angel, I think of them first and foremost as playful.) Perhaps a very literal translation of eudaimonia might be "well-spirited," which I can sorta see as encompassing all of these notions.

In my summary I mention tossing the good man on a pyre, but Plotinos's actual example was of tossing him in the Bull of Phalaris. I wasn't familiar with it, but good old Diodoros tells us the story in the Library of History IX xviii–xix. Yipes!

Even though Plotinos is following Plato in his arguments, and even though Plato and Diogenes were at odds, it is hard not to see the stray dog as an exemplar of eudaimonia, retaining his well-being even as he was sold into slavery.

ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ διὰ νήσου ἰὼν ἤλυξα ἑταίρους,
χεῖρας νιψάμενος, ὅθ’ ἐπὶ σκέπας ἦν ἀνέμοιο,
ἠρώμην πάντεσσι θεοῖς οἳ Ὄλυμπον ἔχουσιν:
οἱ δ’ ἄρα μοι γλυκὺν ὕπνον ἐπὶ βλεφάροισιν ἔχευαν.
Εὐρύλοχος δ’ ἑτάροισι κακῆς ἐξήρχετο βουλῆς:
κέκλυτέ μευ μύθων κακά περ πάσχοντες ἑταῖροι.
πάντες μὲν στυγεροὶ θάνατοι δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι,
λιμῷ δ’ οἴκτιστον θανέειν καὶ πότμον ἐπισπεῖν.

But when, traversing the island, I was free of my crew,
I found a place sheltered from the winds, washed my hands,
and prayed to all the gods who hold Olumpos;
at which they poured sweet sleep over my eyelids.
But Eurulokhos brought up a wicked plan to the men:
“I know you're in a bad lot, mateys, but listen to me:
every death a wretch can have sucks,
but the worst is to meet your doom by starving!”

(Odusseus speaking. Homer, Odyssey XII 335-42.)

It must be remembered that starvation is inevitable in the grey wastes of Haides, where the food tastes as dust and nourishes likewise. Impiety, on the other hand, is a choice. Do you like Odusseus and call for help, that a respite might be granted you...

ἡδὺ δὲ καὶ τὸ πυθέσθαι, ὅσα θνητοῖσιν ἔνειμαν
ἀθάνατοι, δειλῶν τε καὶ ἐσθλῶν τέμαρ ἐναργές

and it is sweet too to learn the clear distinguishing mark
of bad and good things that the immortals have assigned to mortals

(Hesiod, Melampodia, as quoted by Clement of Alexandria, and as translated by Glenn W. Most.)

I remember reading somewhere, I think in a book discussing past life regression with hypnotism, of a psychologist who was trying to understand why some people turn out virtuous and others don't. He had heard of a pair of twin brothers, one of whom was a respected doctor, the other of whom was in prison, and this intrigued him, since, at least in theory, they should have been raised similarly. So he went to interview them. He first interviewed the brother who was a doctor, and asked him, "How did you become so successful?" The doctor told him, "Well, my father was always in and out of prison, all through my childhood. So with a father like that, how could I have done otherwise?" The psychologist next went to interview the brother who was a criminal, and asked him the same question. The criminal told him, "Well, my father was always in and out of prison, all through my childhood. So with a father like that, how could I have done otherwise?"

So to Hesiod's point, the real sweetness is when one finally learns that the distinguishing mark is on the mortal and not on the circumstances...

More translation practice! I'm getting a little faster: this batch was twenty lines a day! I find, as I read Homer in Greek, that the stories' connection to philosophy and the Mysteries is far more obvious than it is in translation, as so many of the words or phrases carry double meanings...

(Homer, Odyssey V 313–53, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

Notes:

321. The clothes which Kalupso gave him weighed him down: Kalupso ("one who covers") is sensual desire, and the clothes she gives Odusseus are the physical body (which enables sensual desire). Focusing on the body, of course, hampers the soul which wishes to return home.
328. Boreas: the frigid north wind.
331. Notos: the desiccating south wind.
332. Euros: the wet east wind.
332. Zephuros: the balmy west wind.
333. Ino: Ino (from νέω "I swim," cf. Tzetzes, on Lukophron §107) is the daugher of Kadmos, sister of Semele, and aunt and nurse of Dionusos. She represents the Mysteries guiding the mature soul which, having already mastered the fear of death (e.g. Kirke) and sensual desire (e.g. Kalupso), is nonetheless still lost in the tumult of the material world and doesn't know the way home.
334. White: representative of purity (as the Mysteries are meant to purify the soul) and simplicity (as the Mysteries are meant to unify the soul). See also I Ching 22:6 and the Tao Te Ching 67.
334. Possessed of voice: humans communicate to the ears with words, but gods communicate directly to the mind with concepts, a thing which is at once uncanny and completely natural when one experiences it.
341. Don't worry: μὲν δή, not really translatable but representing a continuation of the prior sentence's thought, so I have added this phrase to bridge the two sentences.
343. Take off your clothes and abandon your raft: the clothes represent the body of dense matter and the raft represents the imagination of subtle matter, and the advice of the Mysteries is to prioritize the spiritual over the material, to "store up your treasures in heaven."
344. Swimming with your hands: it is not enough to merely experience the Mysteries; material things passively grow on their own, but spiritual things only grow by making active effort.
346. Immortal veil: the veil represents the teachings of the Mystery schools and tying the veil around the chest is to hold them close to heart. I'm torn on whether this represents how the teachings act as a psychological life-preserver in the welter of life or whether it represents some more esoteric spiritual connection to the god which acts to buoy one upward; certainly my philosophical studies suggest the former, but my personal experiences suggest the latter.
349. Wine-like sea: οἴνοπα πόντον, literally "wine-faced sea" and usually taken as "dark in color," but the sea is a reference to life in the material world, which is as intoxicating and disorienting to the soul as wine is to the body.
350. Turn yourself far away from it: the Buddha taught that, just like a raft was good for crossing a river but pointless once one got to the other side, the Mysteries are for passing over and not for holding on to.