A. f. moose. history of ancient aesthetics, volume seven

nymph's cave

Yakov (1812-1893) Russian philologist, academician

Natural or artificial cave

Mor. the lowest straight sail on the mainmast

On a yacht - the main sail, the leading edge (leech) of which is supported by the mast

Shallow cave with a wide entrance

One of the main sails on the sloop

Park building imitating such a cave

Sail, mast

Cave, a recess in a rock with a flat bottom and a wide entrance

Slightly visible cave

shallow cave

Lower sail on the second mast from the bow

artificial cave

Baby cave

Both the sail and the mast

park cave

small cave

mini cave

sail or mast

Mizzen-mast and ...-mast

Lower sail on the second mast

Inverted Bargaining

Cave for lovers

Expansion of the cave after the passage

Artificial decorative cave

Extended caves after the passage

Small cave, niche in the glacier

small cave

coastal cave

Park imitation cave

Cave in the park

Karst landform

coastal cave

cave

Cave with vaulted ceiling

Natural or artificial cave

Shallow cave with a wide entrance

Russian philologist (1812-1893)

M. morsk. on sailing ships, a large straight sail, on the lower yard of the middle mast; oblique or storm mainsail, a triangular sail at the bottom of the same mast, during a strong storm; on rowboats: almost the same, a large sail on the middle mast. To explain the complex words of this beginning, let's say that the main mast is called the middle one, and where there are two of them, usually the back one (of three masts, the front fore, in complex words fores; back mizzen, in complex words beguin and crus); all accessories of the weapons of the masts are, for each, one name, but before it the name of the mast is placed. So the first tip or attachment of the mainmast: mainstenga; second: grotto-bram-steng; third, grotto-bom-bram-stenga; its tip, a grotto-flagpole, on which a flat knob is a cloth, a cloth. The first platform, gazebo, climb on the mast, main-mars; the second, on the wall, grotto-saling; third, grotto-bom-saling; transverse trees or yards, for tying sails to them, the lower grotto yard; the second, grotto-mars-ray; third, grotto-bram-ray; fourth, grotto-bom-bram-ray. the ends (knots) of the lower and mars-yards are shot with more poles, for surplus side sails (foxes) these are fox-alcohols; bottom two: grotto-lisel-alcohols; and on the mars-yard grotto-mars-lisel-alcohols. Pitched or standing rigging, to strengthen the mast from the sides: shrouds, and for the topmast and its extensions, shrouds (ladder), fore-duna and backstays; front stays; These tackles are named after the mast, wall, etc., to which they belong, for example. mainshrouds, mainsten-shrouds, mainsail-bram-shrouds, mainsail, mainsten-stay, etc. Running rigging gets its name from the sail; the lower sail on the mainmast: mainsail, mainsail-topsail on the wall, main-bram-sail on the bram-stern; these names correspond to yards (see above). The sail is raised by a halyard, stretched down at the corners with sheets (for some sails, the windward sheet is called a tack), pulled into the wind by a bowline, picked up by gits (and proud), and each of these gears is called a sail, for example. grotto-sheet, main-mars-sheet, main-bram-sheet; grotto-marsa-bulen; main-bom-bram-fal, etc. The yards are raised by halyards (the lower ones hang constantly on borg-slings), are supported from the ends (knocks) by topenants, turn into braces; all these gears are named after the yard: main-mars-bras, main-bram-topenant, etc. Staysails are called oblique sails, without yards; they rise with halyards along the handrail and receive a name from the mast, wall, bram-stem, etc., to which they adjoin one side (shkatirina); and the tackle with them, also called by them, the same sheets and gits: fore-bram-staysail-halyard, -sheet, etc. Main hatch m. entrance, manhole in all decks, ahead of the main mast

M. cave, nativity scene, exit, cellar, dungeon, dug and decorated or natural. grotto entrance

Cave with wide entrance

Trading from end to start

Shallow. cave with wide entrance

Below my drawing, I quote in order to support the movement of thoughts in the minds of my readers.

A.F. Losev. History of ancient aesthetics, volume seven

§2. "About the Cave of the Nymphs"

1. The content of the myth about the cave of the nymphs and its interpretation before Porphyry

" A) Anyone who has read Homer's Odyssey remembers how the hero of the poem arrived in his native Ithaca after many years of wandering. The Theacian shipbuilders landed the sleepy Odysseus in the harbor of Phorcia, well protected from sea storms, not far from the long-leaved olive tree and the sanctuary of the nymphs. It was here, in this grotto, that the awakened Odysseus, with the help of Athena, hid the gifts of the Phaeacians (Od. XIII 102-112 Veres).

Near the olive - a lovely cave, full of darkness,
In it is the sanctuary of the nymphs; they are called naiads.
There are many amphoras and craters in this cave.
Stone. The bees collect their supplies there.
There are also many long stone lathes on which naiads
Weave robes beautiful colors of sea purple.
Spring water is always gurgling there, there are two entrances in the cave.
Only one entrance, facing north, is available to people.
The south-facing entrance is for the immortal gods. And dear
This people do not go; it is only open to the gods.”

Consider now the famous reasoning of Porfiry "On the Cave of the Nymphs".

2. Analysis of the content of the treatise

This work consists of 36 small chapters, each of which is an answer to the riddles of the XIII song of the Odyssey. After a brief exposition of Homer's verses (1-4), Porphyry proceeds to elucidate the symbolic meaning of this story (symbolicēs cathidryseōs). Chapters 5-9 interpret the cave in the bowels of the earth as space and the center of world potentialities. The naiad nymphs of the sanctuary are souls descending into the world of becoming and connected with moisture - sources of water, for "for the soul, becoming in moisture was not death, but pleasure" (10-12). Stone bowls and amphoras are symbols of hydriad nymphs (i.e. Water). The purple fabrics woven on the stone looms of the nymph are “flesh woven from blood”, covering the bones (stone) and attaching the soul to the corporeal mortal matter (13-14). Bees swarm in amphorae and lay honey there, for bees are benevolent souls born into the world, and honey is a symbol of purification and sacrifice to the gods of death, since souls, going into the world, are clothed in flesh, that is, they die and part with immortality, enjoying life (15-19). Two exits to the cave for people and gods are turned to Boreas - to the north and Notu - to the south. The North is the descent of Souls attached to human life into the world. The south is the ascent to the heavenly world of souls who have thrown off their mortal shell and become immortal gods (20-31). Further (32-33) is a discussion about the olive tree - the symbol of Pallas Athena, the wisdom that rules the world. And, finally (34-35), the call to take off all your clothes, put on rags, give the cave all your wealth, turn away from evil thoughts and deeds and, having passed the whole path of birth into the world, leave the material substance into divine infinity. All this thoughtful reflection closes with an impressive code (36) about ancient wisdom (tēn palaian sophian) and the wise Homer, who hid the reality of "divine images" in "mythical fictions", for only with the help of this reality, transferred to the imagination, the poet achieves his goal. .

Porfiry

About the cave of the nymphs

“Ancient caves and grottoes, as befitted, dedicated to space, taking it both as a whole and in parts. They made the earth a symbol of the matter from which the cosmos is formed, which is why some thought that if the earth is the matter of the cosmos, then the cosmos itself, which originated from it, should be represented in the form of a cave. Caves are for the most part natural and of the same nature as the earth, consisting of rocks of one kind. Their inner part is concave, and from the outside they extend into the infinity of the earth [and merge with it]. The cosmos is also native and of the same nature as matter, which was figuratively brought together with rocks and stone, meaning its inertness and ability to take on the forms given to it, as well as the fact that, due to its formlessness, it can be understood as something infinite. The fluidity and lack of its own image, which gives it shape and makes it visible, the abundance of water and the dampness of the cave, the darkness and foggyness in it, as the poet expressed it, were usually taken as a symbol of the properties inherent in the material cosmos.

However, the cosmos, dark and foggy due to its materiality, turns out to be beautiful and attractive due to the complex interweaving and orderly arrangement of images, which is why it is called the cosmos. It is quite fair to call the cave attractive for those who enter it and encounter various kinds of images in it. For those who mentally penetrate into its bottomless depths, it already seems gloomy. What is in the outer part and on the surface is pleasant; but what is within and deep within it is darkness. It is not for nothing that the Persians, during initiations into the mysteries, informing the mystic about the descent of souls and about their reverse ascent, called the place in which this takes place a grotto.

“But the cave was not only a symbol of the mortal, sensuous cosmos, as has just been said. It was also seen as a symbol of all invisible potencies, due to the fact that the cave is dark and the essence of its potencies is not visible.

“That the caves were dedicated to the nymphs, and especially to the naiads, who lived near the springs and got their name from the water streams,” the hymn to Apollo clearly says about this (PLG Bergk III. Lipsiae, 1852, p. 684).

"For you, they brought forth sources of intelligent waters, dwelling in the caves, nourished by the spirit of the earth, according to the divine word of the Muse. Breaking through the earth in all ways, they pour out carefree jets of sweet streams for mortals."
Based on this, I think, the Pythagoreans, and later Plato, called the cosmos a cave and a grotto. In Empedocles (B 120) the guiding forces say: "We have come to this hidden cave."

Plato in the VII book of the "States" (514 a) says:

"People are, as it were, in an underground cave, in a dwelling like a grotto, the entrance to which is open to the light throughout the entire width of the cave."

Then, when the interlocutor remarks (515 a): "You give a strange image," Plato adds (517 a-b):

"This comparison, O friend Glavkon, should be applied to everything previously said, because the dwelling that we see with our eyes should be likened to a dungeon, and the light of fire - to the power of the sun."

After this, it becomes clear why theologians consider the cave a symbol of the cosmos and cosmic potencies, as well as the fact that, speaking of an intelligible essence, they no longer proceeded from the same, but from various other considerations, since the cave serves as a symbol of the sensual cosmos due to its darkness. , rockiness and humidity.. She is the cosmos in view of the materiality of her composition, flowing, taking shape under the influence of external influences; and it is a symbol of the intelligible, because it expresses the inaccessibility of being by sensory perception, its stability and strength, and also because individual potencies, especially those associated with matter, are invisible. The mentioned authors created these symbols, taking into account the originality of the caves, their darkness, shading and the properties of stone, but by no means the general shape of the cave, as some thought, because not every cave is spherical or double-gate, as in Homer.

“Consequently, naiad nymphs are souls going into the world of becoming. Therefore, it is customary for those entering into marriage as being united for birth to call on nymphs and perform ablution from springs and inexhaustible springs. To the souls who have already entered into nature, and to the geniuses of the race (daimosin), this world seems to be something sacred and attractive, although by its nature it is dark and foggy. Therefore, they were considered airy and taking their substance from the air. As a result of this, the sanctuary, for them usual on earth, was a cave, pleasant and at the same time dark, in likeness to the cosmos, in which, as in a huge sanctuary, souls dwell. For the nymphs, the patroness of the waters, a cave with its inexhaustible waters turns out to be quite a suitable place.

So, the cave in question, let it be dedicated to souls and nymphs as carriers of individual potencies. Since springs and streams are subject to them, they are called nymphs of springs and naiads.

This is a small cave located on the coast of the island of Kefalonia. You can get here only by sea on a sightseeing boat. It is not characterized by the loud noise of water, rather quiet harmony with nature reigned here. - so it is called, plays colors in front of you in the bright light of the sun. Modern explorers discovered the cave in 1951. The remains of some kind were found inside. Dancing nymphs should be noted among the most valuable artifacts.

According to one of the local legends, the cave itself and what was formed in it got their name in honor of the one who drowned in its waters from unrequited love for Pan. Immediately near the sanctuary is located, where you can meet, depicting dancing nymphs, including Melissanthi. According to historians, the name of the lake is associated with the word, which translates as a beehive, of which there were a great many here in the old days. As for the age of the lake and the cave itself, geologists suggest that it is equal to twenty thousand years. In addition, there is a unique geological phenomenon.
The waters of the lake are 80% formed from sea water, which enters here through many kilometers of underground channels from the Katavotres tract, which is on the opposite coast of the island, where it seems to be drawn in by some kind of powerful pump. Most likely it's all about the height differences between the tract and the cave. But, having got into the cave, the water again rushes underground and finds an exit to the Adriatic Sea after a few kilometers, thus making a kind of loop for visiting the Melissanti cave.

For a long time, the local lake was hidden from prying eyes by a powerful stone arch, until, as a result of another earthquake, it collapsed several thousand years ago. After the collapse of the vault, a window was formed, allowing daylight into the cave, thanks to which a unique landscape is created in the cave. The sunlight passing here descends in a column to the surface of the water, coloring it in a bright blue color. Your boat, as it were, hangs in some kind of weightlessness. Transparent air mixed with semi-darkness is combined with the same transparent water. The bottom is at a depth of fourteen meters and is clearly visible. Tourists who have been here do not remain indifferent to the local beauties; they associate the atmosphere in the cave with a kind of magical world, where time has frozen forever in order to forever preserve all the charm created here by Mother Nature.

§2. "About the Cave of the Nymphs"

Another treatise by Porfiry, which is most directly related to the history of aesthetics, "On the Cave of the Nymphs". Anyone who has closely followed our very frequent use of ancient mythology for the study of the history of aesthetics will not be at all surprised that mythology, especially in late Hellenism, acquires such developed philosophical and aesthetic forms that in the end it becomes real aesthetics, at least in that the form in which it was recognized by ancient thinkers. Since the philosophical interpretation of ancient mythology will meet us more and more in the future, it is necessary to realize why this treatise by Porphyry should be studied by us as carefully as possible.

A) Anyone who has read Homer's Odyssey remembers how the hero of the poem arrived in his native Ithaca after many years of wandering. The Theacian shipbuilders landed the sleepy Odysseus in the harbor of Phorcia, well protected from sea storms, not far from the long-leaved olive tree and the sanctuary of the nymphs. It was here, in this grotto, that the awakened Odysseus, with the help of Athena, hid the gifts of the Phaeacians (Od. XIII 102-112 Veres).

Near the olive a lovely cave, full of darkness,
In it the sanctuary of the nymphs; they are called naiads.
There are many amphoras and craters in this cave.
Stone. The bees collect their supplies there.
There are also many long stone lathes on which naiads
Weave robes beautiful colors of sea purple.
Spring water is always gurgling there, there are two entrances in the cave.
Only one entrance, facing north, is available to people.
Entrance facing south, for the immortal gods. And dear
This people do not go; it is only open to the gods.

It would seem, nothing surprising. Ithaca is a rocky island. The cave the sanctuary of the nymphs is a common occurrence. That is why V. Berard, in his well-known edition of the Odyssey, 41 commented on this place, without giving it any other meaning than the real-geographical one. And to this day, on the western steep bank of Ithaca there is a cave, and near it there is a plentiful spring that supplies water to the whole city. The exit from the cave is blocked by a huge stone and it is not easy to find it. The place is quite secluded and secret. No wonder it was there that Odysseus hid his treasures. However, Homer would not be an "encyclopedia of antiquity" if this peaceful picture of the cave of the nymphs did not evoke any associations in his readers, except for directly given perceptions. Homer's poems have always been a grateful material for the deep symbolic penetration of ancient philosophy into the images created by art. For one and a half thousand years, the artistic fabric of Homeric poetry was interpreted and interpreted by philosophers of various schools and trends and scholiast commentators, Alexandrians and Byzantines. Ordinary and seemingly unremarkable poems were read by philosophers and mythologists allegorically, symbolically, allegorically. Among such readers of Homer were pre-Socratic natural philosophers, Pythagoreans, Sophists, Stoics, Cynics, Neoplatonists. Attempts to analyze some stages in the allegorical understanding of Homer were made more than once. Books by Anne Hirsman, A. Fridl, F. Wehrli, dedicated to individual philosophers and schools (Plutarch, Proclus, the ancient Stoa and its predecessors), made it possible for a great systematic work to appear. Comprehensive materials on the philosophical reading of Homer were collected by F. Buffier in his dissertation. In his analytical index, attached to the book, 170 Homeric proper names, subjected to one interpretation or another; and the number of interpreted motifs can be judged at least by the fact that this index occupies 30 pages from the author. However, among the boundless sea of ​​interpretations of individual Homeric verses, myths, images and mysterious allusions, the description of the cave of Ithaca nymphs, which was given by us above, occupies a special place. It turns out that this, at first glance, so harmless and idyllic picture is fraught with inexplicable symbols and a kind of background that has nothing in common with the naive interpretations of ancient euhemerists or modern speleologists, for whom amphoras and craters are nothing more than the initial stage of the formation of Stalagmites, stone machines combination of stalagmites and stalactites, and purple fabric ocher-colored lime of iron origin.

b) The picture drawn in the XIII song of the Odyssey was the subject of reflections of Numenius of Apamena and his friend Cronius (second half of the 2nd century AD), close to the Pythagoreans, the forerunners of Plotinus' strict systematic Neoplatonism. Since the third hypostasis of being in Numenius is nothing but the cosmos, born of the second mind, the demiurge (frg. 27 Leemans), then in this cosmos there is a cycle and reincarnation of souls, which corresponds to Plotinus, when all souls are covered by a common, already world soul (IV 3, 4, 21-26), 93 no matter how they are different from each other (3, 6, 3-4) and no matter how different bodies they determine by themselves (2, 1, 31-40; 3, 8 , 17-20) 49 . This cycle, according to Numenius, as Macrobius testifies, begins with the Milky Way with the descent of the soul through the heavenly spheres to earth (T 47), and with the gradual incarnation into matter, the soul becomes more and more attached to evil (T 40). Only having freed itself from the bonds of the body, the soul unites with its "beginnings" archai (T 34) and begins its path of ascent to heaven (T 42). This reincarnation of souls goes back to the ancient Pythagoreans (14, 8 Diels), but, according to Numenius, the soul is eventually freed from this cycle (T 45). The doctrine of the world soul is also characteristic of the late Pythagoreans, such as Timaeus (208-209 Thesl.). The liberation of the immortal soul from the body and metampsychosis remains at this time the most important part of the late Pythagorean doctrine (peri psychés athanasias 184, 15; epi tai tas psychas epanorthôsei... 224, 1-2; metendyomenan tan psychan... 225, 1-10) , leading, according to the anonymous author of Diodorus Siculus, to Pythagoras himself ("... Pythagoras himself taught about metempsychosis ... that the souls of living beings after death pass into another life ..." 231, 14-16; 238 , 16).

It becomes clear why Numenius interpreted the Homeric cave of nymphs in the cosmic plane, where naiad nymphs are nothing but "souls connected with moisture and driven by the divine spirit" (De antr. n. 10 N.). The arguments of Numenius and his school (ibid., 34) became known to Plotinus, the head of the so-called Roman Neoplatonism, and then to Porfiry. Porfiry was the one who created the most interesting philosophical exegesis of the poetic picture from Canto XIII of the Odyssey. This exegesis is called "On the Cave of the Nymphs", being one of the first Neoplatonic constructions of the cosmos. The whole teaching of Porfiry, philosopher, logician, mathematician, astronomer, falls a reflection of Orphic-Pythagorean ideas, as was generally the case with all Neoplatonists. Hence, perhaps, his interest in the world of secrets, in pure philosophical speculation. Undoubtedly, the Orphic-Pythagorean traditions determine the symbolism that literally breathes all the writings of Porphyry. Let us recall that for the Pythagoreans, in general, the Akusmas, that is, those direct instructions from the field of religion, life and morality, which the student heard from the teacher, were of great importance. But even more important for the Pythagoreans were the "symbols", that is, the same akusmas meaningful and interpreted from the position of deeply mystical (58 CD). The philosophical treatise "On the Cave of the Nymphs" of Porphyry that interests us is nothing more than one detailed and saturated symbolic commentary of Homer, but since Porphyry was not only a speculative philosopher, but also a logician, 94 his symbolic picture is strictly thought out, and each of its images is rigorously differentiated and singled out. The astronomical and mathematical studies of Porfiry (cf. "Introduction to Ptolemy's work on the action of the stars") gave his treatise also a peculiar "cosmic" coloring. However, we must not forget that Porfiry was also a rhetorician and grammarian. Homer the subject of his hobbies in his youth. It is to this period that the "Homeric questions" with comments on the Iliad and the Odyssey belong, still completely devoid of neoplatonic features. Such an interesting combination of various passions in one person - scientists, mystery and art - was remarkably expressed by the teacher Porfiry Plotinus. marriage of Zeus and Hera on Ida) and interpreted it in a sublimely mystical spirit, someone called him insane, and Plotinus said to Porfiry so that everyone around him could hear: "You showed yourself immediately as a poet, philosopher and hierophant" 52.

It seems to us most interesting to find out how the three sides of the spiritual and speculative aspirations of its author, merged together - philosophical, poetic, hieratic, appeared in Porfiry's treatise, drawing conclusions about a certain type of ancient philosophical and artistic thinking.

Consider now the famous reasoning of Porfiry "On the Cave of the Nymphs".

This work consists of 36 small chapters, each of which is an answer to the riddles of the XIII song of the Odyssey. After a brief exposition of Homer's verses (1-4), Porphyry proceeds to elucidate the symbolic meaning of this story (symbolicēs cathidryseōs). Chapters 5-9 interpret the cave in the bowels of the earth as space and the center of world potentialities. Naiad nymphs of the sanctuary are souls descending into the world of becoming and connected with moisture sources of water, for "for the soul, becoming in moisture was not death, but pleasure" (10-12). Stone bowls and amphorae are symbols of hydriad nymphs (i.e. Water). Purple fabrics woven on stone looms by nymphs, “flesh woven from blood”, covering bones (stone) and joining the soul to corporeal mortal matter (13-14). Bees swarm in amphorae and lay honey there, for bees are blissful souls born into the world, and honey is a symbol of purification and sacrifice to the gods of death, since souls, going into the world, put on flesh, that is, they die and part with immortality, enjoying life (15-19). Two exits to the cave for people and gods face Boreas to the north and Notus to the south. North the descent of the Souls attached to human life into the world. South ascent to the heavenly world of souls who have thrown off their mortal shell and become immortal gods (20-31). Further (32-33) discussion about the olive 95 symbol of Pallas Athena, the wisdom that governs the world. And, finally (34-35), the call to take off all your clothes, put on rags, give the cave all your wealth, turn away from evil thoughts and deeds and, having passed the whole path of birth into the world, leave the material substance into divine infinity. All this thoughtful reflection closes with an impressive code (36) about ancient wisdom (tēn palaian sophian) and the wise Homer, who hid the reality of "divine images" in "mythical fictions", for only with the help of this reality, transferred to the imagination, the poet achieves his goal. .

Porfiry's treatise was published in vain during the Renaissance, together with his "Homeric Questions" (1518, 1528, 1541, 1543, 1551). The Cave of the Nymphs has nothing to do with the Homeric Questions, where the young Porfiry does not even dwell on the verses glorified by him, wise by the science of his teacher Plotinus, already in adulthood. Interest in the treatise of Porfiry can be explained by the Byzantine tradition, which clearly expressed itself in commenting on the Homeric poems by the learned scholiast Eustathius, Bishop of Thessalonica (Thessalonica). Eustathius (XII century), like other Byzantine scholars, was impressed by Neoplatonic wisdom with its systematization, formal development and abstract speculation. Therefore, Eustathius expounds Porphyry (1734, 40-1735, 60) in the most detailed way, agreeing with all his interpretations and confirming them.

However, we cannot confine ourselves to the formal establishment of this symbolic picture drawn by Porfiry.

We have to find out Porfiry's attitude to the realities of Homer's poems commented on by him and the principles of Porfiry's philosophical, artistic, symbolic thinking. In other words, we are interested in the relationship between a certain kind of philosophizing and a certain kind of poetic creativity. And this has the closest relation to the history of aesthetics.

3. General symbolic attitude

A) Porfiry himself could not stop only at the actual recognition of the presence of a cave-sanctuary in Ithaca, its interior decoration and an olive tree dedicated to Pallas Athena. If he followed the path of naive euhemerism, interpreting myths as historical events, then he would make every effort to prove the historical fact of the famous cave, collecting for this as much evidence of a domestic nature from the past of Ithaca. However, Porphyry emphasizes that his reasoning is not based on "actual facts" (historian, 2) 54 and the description of the cave "does not include the actual description of any locality" (oyd "historias topicēs periēgēsin echein, 4). In short, the philosopher refuses to perceive the caves of the nymphs in a narrowly positive, 96 limitedly straightforward way, as a kind of everyday objective fact or a fact of nature, that is, in the form in which “historia” (historia) is usually written.

For in itself "history", that is, the external presentation of events, according to Porfiry, without its internal understanding and filling, cannot provide any food for the mind and work for thought. The cave of the nymphs in Ithaca, the existence of which some writers (for example, Artemidorus of Ephesus) jealously argued for, does not interest Porphyry at all as an immutability, which, in fact, would be important for the landscape or topography of Ithaca, but not for philosophical reflection. It would seem that Porfiry, having discarded faith in brute fact, should turn to poetic fiction and the cave of the nymphs can be regarded as a product of the writer's artistic imagination. However, for the author of the treatise, "the improbability of an arbitrary fabrication of it (that is, a cave) by a poet" (cata poiēticēn exoysian plassōn antron apithanos en, 2) is also obvious. This story, full of obscurities, cannot be a "fiction" (plasma), "created for the seduction of souls" (eis psychagôgian pepoiēmenon, 4). The same writers who saw in the verses of the Odyssey the "inventions" (plasmata) of the poet acted at least "frivolously" (rhaithymoteron, 4). Porfiry rightly notes, refusing to follow the path of only fact (historia) or only fiction (plasma), that "we will face the same questions" (oyden hetton menei ta dzētēmata), because "the ancients did not found sanctuaries without secret symbols ( symbolōn mysticōn) 56 and Homer would not have made such reports without any reason" (4). Only when the story about the cave goes beyond ordinary fact and purely poetic fiction makes it possible to reveal the "ancient wisdom" (palaias sophias) of the Ithaca shrine and its symbolism.

b) For Porfiry, the mythological understanding of the world was of great importance, since the myth has always been for the Greeks the embodiment of the highest reality from the time of Homer to the last centuries of antiquity. The myth in Homer's poems is nothing but a direct and as yet almost naive belief in objectively existing real gods, and ancient man cannot even allow other thinking. Porfiry's myth is a symbolic construction of the world and a method of its philosophical knowledge. The sage, like the famous oracle of the Delphic Apollo, does not speak simply, but utters riddles and interprets them himself. "To speak in riddles" (ainittesthai) and "to speak allegorically" (allegorein) with "secret (mythological) symbols" (symbolōn mysticōn = mythicōn) means, according to Porphyry, to express "ancient wisdom". A myth can have the most varied structure of symbols (polla cai diaphora symbola, 15).

97 The completeness, diversity and complexity of the symbolic picture deepen the myth, reveal its hidden meaning, its secret essence. For ancient thinkers in general, and for Porfiry in particular, the highest mythical reality is never literal, but always symbolic, allegorical. And since the story of the descent of the soul into the world, with its gradual material incarnation and then its ascent to the heavenly spheres and immortality, was for many philosophers the highest reality, that is, a myth, they looked for symbolic constructions in the most seemingly ordinary and unpretentious things, which would satisfy the mythology they create.

That is why, for Porfiry, Homeric verses are full of secret symbolic meaning, through which the myth of the cycle of souls is revealed. Thus, the art of Homer, according to Porfiry, is not only entertaining and beautiful in its "fictions". The art of Homer is full of ancient wisdom and infinitely deeply symbolic. This explains the interest in Homer on the part of all Greek philosophers, especially in the last centuries of antiquity.

Let's see what kind of symbolic constructions Porphyry uses, what is the nature of his symbols and whether they can be considered a product of general Greek thinking. It is quite natural that since Porfiry decided to interpret the wanderings of the soul born into the world in Homeric verses, then the symbolic matter of his interpretations does not go beyond the scope of these verses. The symbols are an olive tree in a cave, naiad nymphs weaving purple clothes on stone looms, and bees depositing honey in stone bowls and amphoras, water sources and two entrances to the cave: northern for mortals, southern for immortals.

We cannot find here any of the most complex mystical constructions of Iamblichus, a disciple of Porphyry, with his 360 gods and dozens of rows of heavenly, "leading", "natural", "guarding" gods. There is also no abstract-mental systematics of Proclus with his numerical triads and hebdomads ("sevens") of gods-minds, so characteristic of the restoration tendencies of the late period of Neoplatonism. The symbolic models of Porfiry are extremely simple and accessible. Moreover, they are not the privilege of Porfiry alone. Perhaps it was just Porfiry who turned to Homer's poems precisely because he saw in them a picture familiar to every Greek: a cave of nymphs with a source of water, bees swarming in it and an olive tree indispensable for the Greek landscape. The whole point is how the philosopher Porfiry interpreted this unassuming picture, what hidden meaning he found in it. It cannot be said that Porfiry, the exegete-interpreter, did not turn to the wisdom that has existed among the people since time immemorial. On the contrary, he makes many references to ancient customs, Greek and Oriental, and quotes writers of the past.

We can, in turn, cite a number of materials that prove that the symbolic constructions of Porphyry were widespread in the thickness of Greek mythology, religion, and philosophy. Porfiry, as a good logician and rhetorician, managed to concentrate them together, isolate, characterize, explain. Perhaps, precisely because the treatise of the scientist-philosopher is connected by its roots with general Greek wisdom, it has been preserved intact, although only fragments, hints, expositions or references have often come down from other interpreters of Homer.

Let's start the analysis of Porfiry's philosophical symbolic interpretation of the poetic images of Homer from the olive tree that grew near the cave of the nymphs.

4. Pallas Athena and her olive tree

For Porfiry, the olive is "a symbol of divine wisdom", since "this tree is dedicated to Athena. Athena is wisdom"; the world "appeared not by chance and not at random, but is the realization of the wise plan of the deity and intelligent nature" (32); "the world is governed by the eternal and ever-blooming wisdom of intellectual nature" (33). Porfiry strongly emphasizes that the world and everything that is in the world appeared "not by itself and not by blind chance" (32) 59 . This thought of the philosopher reflected the thousand-year-old worship of the Greeks to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and her tree, the olive tree. It is known from the scholia to the speech of Demosthenes "Against Androtion" (597, 8 Müll. Hunz.) 60 that the ancient image of Pallas Athena, which allegedly fell from the sky, was from an olive tree, and on about. Rhodes, in Linda, there was a whole sacred grove dedicated to the goddess (Anthol. graeca XV 11 Beckby). An unknown author enthusiastically speaks here of the glory of the "ancient Lind", where the "blooming house" of Athena (thaleros oicos) is located, of the "sacred olive tree", "grown throughout the earth" (cath "aian pampan aexēsai tēn hierēn eleēn). Poseidon's famous dispute and Athens, who presented the olive to the inhabitants of Attica, is described in various variations by historians and mythographers, for example, Apollodorus (III 14.2 Wagner).

Further, Herodotus tells, when during the Greco-Persian war the olive tree was destroyed by fire along with the temple, after the fire "a branch almost a cubit long" grew from the trunk of the olive tree (VIII 55). According to the mythographer Hyginus (fab. 164 Rose), "Minerva first planted an olive tree (primum in ea terra oleam sevit) on the land of Attica, which, they say, still stands." What is important for us is not so much the fact that the olive is the tree of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, it is well known, but that Athena-Moria existed (from the word Moira "fate", "fate") and the olive trees were called moriai elaiai, that is "Trees of Destiny" The scholiast to the "Clouds" of Aristophanes (1005 Dübn.) reports: "The sacred olives of Athena on the Acropolis were called the trees of fate," and when the son of Poseidon, Athena's rival in Attica, tried to cut down these trees, the ax accidentally killed him. According to another version given here, "the sacred olive of the deity, Moria, grew in the gymnasium." Pliny also calls this tree the "fatal olive" (Nat. hist. XVI 199, Oleaster fatalis), and Nonnus recalls the "fragrant olive tree" (XV 112 Ludwich), using the ancient cult formula of addressing Athena "the fragrance of the olive tree" (Eyōdin Athene ). It is well known that Fate, Moira, excluded the action of chance, introducing into the development of the world elements of teleology, necessity and regularity inaccessible to people. Thus, Athena involved in fate and her olive involved in fate were symbols of the wise plan of the deity, which arranges everything and purposefully.

5. Cave and space

Near the olive tree there is a cave in Ithaca, interpreted by Porfiry as the cosmos and the center of hidden, invisible cosmic forces, and this cave is dedicated to naiad nymphs and a source of water flows forever in it. The fact that the understanding of the cave in the form of space was not alien to the Greeks, some texts say.

For example, the Pythagorean Philolaus (B 15), arguing that "everything is imprisoned by God, as it were in a dungeon", proved "the existence of a single and higher than matter", and the Neoplatonist Proclus, summarizing the experience of the Greeks, wrote: "The ancients called the cosmos a cave" (In Tim. I 333, 27-28) 61 . The history of Greek religion and mythology also constantly associated nymphs with grottoes and caves. It is known, according to Strabo, that on Parnassus there was a grotto dedicated to the Korikian nymphs, "the most famous and most beautiful" place (IX 3, 1). This is reported by Pausanias (X 6, 3) and Sophocles (Antig. 1229). Nymphs and caves in popular belief were inseparable from each other (Hom. Hymn. IV 262).

And in what a beautiful cave the beloved Odysseus, the nymph Calypso, lives, can be concluded from the following picture, which, of course, is unthinkable without a source of water. The nymph has four of them (Od. V 63-72 Veres).

A densely overgrown forest surrounded the cave from everywhere,
Darkening black poplar, alder, fragrant cypress.
Long-winged birds nested among the green branches.
Near the cave itself there are many vines
They grew luxuriantly, and heavy clusters hung on the branches.
Four springs nearby streamed bright water,
Close one from the other back and forth scattering.
Celery and violets bloomed everywhere on soft lawns.

100 The connection of nymphs with underground grottoes and rocky caves, with the bowels of the earth was traditional and understandable to every Greek. In the "Birds" of Aristophanes, the choir sings about "mountain nymphs" and about "deep caves" (1097 ff. Bergk). One of the inscriptions (Fr. Naxos) speaks of the nymphs of the depths, or depressions (nympheōn mychieōn). The Great Etymologist calls the nymphs "deep" (nymphai glyphiai 235, 16).

Among the Orphic hymns there is one (LI Quandt), dedicated to the nymphs, where a picturesque image of the inhabitants of mountains and forests is drawn. Nymphs daughters of the Ocean, inhabiting the "wet-road gorges of the earth", "living in secret". They are "earthly" (chtoniai), rejoicing in grottoes (antrochareis) and caves (spēlygxi cecharmenai). Together with Pan, the nymphs "dance on the mountains", roam them and "throw stones".

However, the nymphs that live in the Homeric cave are water naiads. It should be noted that naiads, or naides (naides), were conceived in Greek mythological practice as divine beings, on a par with chthonic demons. Sophist Prodicus of Ceos (84 B 5), for example, pointed out that the ancients recognized the sources and in general everything that is useful for our life as gods because of the benefits received from them. Strabo (X 3.7.10.15) mentions them together with such mysterious creatures, mostly of a spontaneous orgiastic nature, as satyrs, pans, silenes, curets, corybantes, mimallons, telkhines, phii, lenas, tityrs, bacchus, bacchantes. It is quite obvious that the connection of naiad nymphs with the irrational forces of the earth is emphasized here. Although it is known that the nymphs were both forest, and mountain, and field, and meadow, and marsh, but some evidence directly says that the word "nymph" is water itself, that is, some ancient initial connections of nymphs are outlined here with water. The Byzantine lexicon of the Court (v. nymphe), for example, explains: "Nymph source" (nymphe pēgē) and speaks of the sources of nymphs (nymphōn namatōn). In Orphic fragments (frg. 353 Kern) "stream nymphs"; "light water of the nymphs" (frg. 219), water as an attribute of the nymphs (frg. 297 a 2) are mentioned. The epithets of the nymphs and cult appeals to them, the so-called epicleses, directly indicate the primordial connection of the nymphs with the primary material element of water. Homer has "key" nymphs (crēnaiai, Od. XVII 240). Aeschylus also calls them "mountain-born", "key" (Crēniadēs, frg. 168, N. Sn.). Euripides in the Cyclops calls them "naiads" (naides 430), just as later Marian Scholasticus (naiades, Anthol. graeca, IX 668 Beckby). In the Orphic hymn (LI) they are "dewy" (drosoeimones 6), "stream" (pēgaiai 6), "key" (croynitides 10). According to Quintus of Smyrna, there was a "beautifully curly nymph Pegasida", that is, "Source" (Pēgasis III 301). Naiad nymphs not only guarded the sources of water, but they were the bearers of functions beneficial to humans. In the Orphic hymn now cited (LI) they were "healers" (paionides 15), "pouring out the healing spring" (ibid., 18); in Hesychius of Alexandria "doctors" (iatroi); "doctors" at Pausanias (iōnides), and those "who bathe in the springs of these nymphs receive healing from all kinds of diseases and ailments" (VI 22, 7).

101 However, the history of mythology knows the nymphs "Bacchantes" (Soph. Antig. IZO), "insane" (manicoi, Orph. hymn. LI, 15), and also sending madness. The expression "possessed by a nymph" (nympholēptos) points to hidden forces that darken the human mind (Plat. Phaedr. 238 d, Hesych. v. nympholēptos). These forces lead a person beyond reasonable boundaries, introducing him to higher wisdom, revealing the unknown to him. That is why there were nymphs predictors of the future in a cave on Cithaeron, as Pausanias narrates (IX 3, 9). That is why, according to him, on the site of the famous sanctuary of the Delphic oracle was once the oracle of Gaia-earth, and then Daphne, "one of the mountain nymphs" (X 5, 5).

Nymphs not only healed a person and gave him the highest wisdom, but they introduced him to the world of the underground depths, to the realm of death, dying bodily matter. The naiad nymph Menta, or Minta, that is, simply mint, played an important role in the love and death of people. This Minta was the beloved of the god of death Hades and bore the name "Kokitida" (Kokit one of the rivers in the realm of the dead). Near Pylos, Strabo reports, there was a mountain named after the nymph Minta, who, according to legend, "became the concubine of Hades and was trampled by Bark, and then turned into garden mint, which some call fragrant mint" (VIII 3, 14, cf. hint this transformation in Ovid's Metamorphoses X 729). Oppian (Hai. III 485-498) also tells a whole story about the rivalry between the nymph Kokitida and Persephone, whom Hades took as his legal wife, about the death of the nymph trampled by Demeter, and about the transformation of Kokitida into Minta, that is, mint.

Thus, Porfiry does not act arbitrarily in giving the naiad nymphs a deep symbolic meaning. For him, these are souls that have come into the world, come into contact with the depths of cosmic forces, and have found in matter the mortality inherent in everything corporeal. This colorful image of the philosopher internally coincides with the ancient Greek folk tradition, which understood water nymphs as eternal becoming, birth, familiarization with wisdom and madness, life and death. This image is the property not only of Porfiry, but of the whole Greek mythological and poetic thinking.

7. Water source

The source referred to by Homer also finds its place not only in Porphyry's commentary, but also in the mythological and cult tradition of the Greeks. Water has always been endowed with chthonic forces associated with the bowels of the earth. She had cathartic and mantic-prophetic functions. The waters of the Terkina River near the sanctuary of Trofonius served, for example, for cleansing ablutions, while warm ablutions were forbidden to pilgrims (Paus. IX 29, 5). The folk tradition was expressed by the philosopher Empedocles (B 143), when he advised to purify himself "from five springs, drawing [water] into indestructible copper." Some of the sources were known for their prophetic functions. Therefore, it was not without reason that Proclus, in 102 comments on Plato's Timaeus (III 140, 24-26), listed the chthonic, that is, those associated with the earth, gods, naming among them Dionysus and Apollo, "who often makes mantic [prophetic] waters beat out of the earth (hydata mantica) and creates oracles (stomia) foretelling the future." In the sanctuary of Apollo of Claros, where they asked about the future, there was also a "mantic" source. Iamblichus (Myst. III II Parthey) describes in detail this oracle near Colophon, where prophecy was given with the help of water (di "hydatos chrēmatidzein). The source was brought into the house. The soothsayer drank from it before starting the prophecy at the set time, at night. The power of "mantic water" (manticon hydōr) was obvious to everyone. In Lucian's "Zeus the Tragic" (30 Jacob.) we find a mention of the prophetic Kastalsky key of Apollo. In general, water, and especially, of course, springs gushing from the depths of the earth (just such conceived in the cave of the nymphs), was perceived, on the one hand, as a symbol of immortality and oblivion.In the scholia to Plato's "State" (X 611), the "immortal spring" (athanatos pēgē), the water of immortality, or the living water of popular beliefs, after drinking which Glaucus, the son of Sisyphus, became immortal. On the "memory" or "remembrance" inherent in streams that "run", "silent" and "calm", we read in Plutarch (An recte dictum sit. 7 Bernard.). there was also the water of oblivion, the one that crista lizalsya in the form of the river Lethe. Leta "oblivion" is opposed in the Orphic hymns to Mnema "memory" (LXXVII 9). According to the teachings of the Orphics, in the house of Hades on the left hand there is a source near the white cypress, and this water should not be approached. But the other flows "cold water" from the key of Mnemosyne. The thirsty soul must drink from this "divine source" and thereby join the heroes. Apparently, the first source is the same Lethe, the water of oblivion, which we have already mentioned (I B 17D. ). In any case, the Orphic inscriptions on the gold tablets of the 2nd c. BC. strongly advise the thirsty to drink "from the eternal source on the right side" (I B 17a). Here, as the Athenaeus reports (IX 78, 410 a Kaib.), water (hydōr aponimma) was sacrificed to the dead to avoid oblivion. Sometimes oblivion and memory were combined in one dialectical synthesis of life and death, so characteristic of Greek mythology, as was the case, for example, in the sanctuary of Trophonios in Leybadei, where the "water of Lethe" and the "water of Mnemosyne" coexisted. Pausanias (IX 39, 8) describes in detail the rite of visiting the oracle of Trophonius. At night, before descending into the cave, bathing takes place in the Terkin River. Then the pilgrim is led to the water sources. “Here he must drink from one of the waters of Lethe (forgetfulness), so that he forgets about all the worries and worries that he had until then, and from the other he again drinks the water of Mnemosyne (memory) in the same way, due to which he remembers everything, what I saw when I went down into the cave.

In general, water among the ancient Greeks was conceived as the bearer of deep potencies. Recall that for natural philosophers it was often the main material element. Thales (A 11) directly "considered water the beginning and source of everything." For him, "water is the beginning of wet nature and the universal binding principle" (A 13). Xenophanes (B 29) 103 "earth and water is everything that is born and grows." Empedocles even creates a new mythological image of "Nestida water", in the same spirit as "Zeus he called fire, Hero earth, Aidoneus air" (B 1). People, says Xenophanes (B 33), originated from earth and water, and according to Empedocles (A 72), they come from fire and moisture. But the most interesting thing is that the soul of a person, whose fate so occupies Porfiry, among the ancient materialists, for example, Xenophanes (A 50), consists of water and earth. According to Heraclitus (B 36), "water arises from the earth, and the soul comes from the water." Moreover, the Pythagorean Hippo (A 3) very characteristically "calls the soul sometimes brain, sometimes water", believing that the soul arises from moisture.

Thus, the dark cave with the naiad nymphs living in it and with an inexhaustible source of water is understood by Porfiry in the original Greek spirit as a symbol of the world in which souls reside, gravitating towards bodily incarnation and therefore associated with moisture.

8. Stone machines and purple cloth

The concept of Porfiry about the birth of the soul in the world, which is for her the loss of immortality in terms of eternity, is confirmed by all the genetic connections of the cave-cosmos and the source of water with naiad nymphs.

Nymphs in Homer weave purple cloth on stone looms, which, according to Porphyry, symbolizes the incarnation of the soul into the body, that is, its introduction to the mortal world. How much poetry in the form of Homeric naiad nymphs at the looms! The nymph Calypso in a silvery transparent robe with a golden belt (Od. V 230-232) walks around, like a real weaver, her loom with a golden shuttle (61 lines). After all, even the great goddesses do not disdain this skill. According to Diodorus (V 3), Kore-Persephone with Artemis and Athena wove peplos for Zeus. Athena wove a beautiful dress for Hera (Il. XIV 178 f.). Ores and Charites weave Aphrodite's robe in spring, dyeing it with flowers of crocuses, hyacinths, violets, roses, daffodils and lilies (Athen. XV 30, 682 e). Orphic hymns (XLIII 6) mention "dewy covers of peplos". Nymphs weave purple cloth. But there is evidence that purple was a symbol of death and, at the same time, salvation from it. According to Statius, the dead Priscilla was "tenderly dressed by her priceless husband in Sidonian purple..." (Silv. V 1, 225 Marast.). Purple scarlet was put on by those solemnly swearing by Persephone and Demeter, the goddesses most of all involved in the earth and death. We read about this in Plutarch's biography of Dion (LVI). Purple was used to cover the head of a person who was healed of a serious illness (Aristoph. Plut. 731). And here Porfiry interprets Homeric purple not arbitrarily, but in the spirit of the ancient Greek system of mythological images.

However, remember that the nymphs had stone machines. Of course, one can make a completely logical conclusion that since the cave is rocky, then everything in it is also stone. However, we will not follow the path of only positive fact-finding. After all, the 104 stone in ancient Greek cults was nothing more than a fetish endowed with magical powers. The "simple stone" (argos lithos) in Thespiae was the god Eros, says Pausanias (IX 27, 1). In the temple of Harith in Orchomenus, stones that fell from the sky were venerated (ibid., IX 38, 1). In the Achaean city of Farah, according to the same Pausanias (VII 22, 4), there were about 30 quadrangular stones revered as gods. The stone was a carrier of magical power, and on a stone loom it was possible to weave threads, the interlacing of which symbolized life death. Even where Porphyry interprets stone tools as bones dressed with corporeal matter, he does not go beyond the typically Greek. Here we can recall Empedocles with his "bones of the earth" (B 96) or Thales with his stone-magnet that "has a soul" (A 22).

Democritus is remarkable in this regard, in which "the souls themselves are the cause of the generation of stones, and therefore the philosopher believes that there is a soul in the stone, just as it is in any other seed of a thing that should be born," and, "giving birth to a stone, it leads to the movement of the inner heat of matter itself in such a way that a master moves a hammer" to make an ax and a saw (A 164 = Makov. 250). These words contain the very essence of Greek elemental-materialistic and poetic thinking: the soul is not an abstraction, it generates the matter of a stone, like a master wielding a hammer over an ax or a saw, that is, it is itself material, bodily. In Porfiry, the soul is also dressed in matter, entering life, and stone machines are its bone base, and purple robes are its body cover. Here we have the 5th century. BC. and III c. AD, and yet the methods of creating a philosophical-mythological and aesthetic-artistic image in this case are identical.

In addition to all that has been said, let's not forget Nonnus, a poet of the 5th century. AD, lover of antiquity, its myths and realities. Describing one of the grottoes in Sicily, he directly says that there was "a stone machine, which was taken care of by neighboring nymphs" (VI 133).

Porphyry in ch. 18 of his treatise refers to the ancients, who understood the souls of the dead in the form of bees. In general, the soul as winged and airy is an image that has long been typical of Greek mythology. In Plato (Phaedr. 246 a 247 s), immortal gods and souls on winged chariots rush through the heavenly sphere, and the soul burdened with sins falls to the ground, breaking off its wings (248 cd). In Homer, the soul 105 "flies" from the wound of the deceased (Il. XIV 518 ff., XVI 856), while in him the souls of the dead "flock" to the blood (Od. XI 36-43), they "flutter" (XI 221 ff. ), "fly" with a squeak like bats, heading for Hades (XXIV 5-9). There is nothing surprising that the same winged soul is thought of by a bee, especially since the bee and honey were perceived in Greece with a very large semantic load. The buzzing swarm of bees is not only associated with the souls of the dead in Sophocles (frg. 795 N. Sn.), but the bees immediately appear where a person dies, as Hyginus tells (fab. 136 about the bees in the wine cellar around the corpse of Glaucus). Persephone the goddess of death bore the name of Bee Melindia, or Bee-like Melitode in Theocritus (XV 94 Gow.). In the scholia to this XV idyll of Theocritus, this is how it is explained: “Melitode is called antiphrastically (cat” antiphrasin) Persephone and Kore, which is why both her priestesses and Demeter are called bees. 786), which was revered under this name in Boeotia. The priestesses and priests of Artemis of Ephesus, a goddess with pronounced chthonic functions and the afterlife (as the hypostasis of Hecate), were called the kings of bees (essēnes Paus. VIII 13, 1). Priestesses of Demeter also "bees" (melissai Callim. Hymn. Apoll. 110 Pfeift.) In Apollo at Delphi the priests are also "bees", as we find at Pindar (Pyth IV 60 Sn.). However, the bee was connected not only with the world of death , but also with the world of life. The nymph Makrida nourished Dionysus with honey from bees, says Apollonius of Rhodes (IV 1136 1139 Frank.). This nymph is "the meek daughter of Aristeas, that the product of a bee swarm was revealed, as well as the fat of a hard-working olive" (IV 1134 Tsereteli ) The bees fed the baby Zeus with their honey, and his nanny Amalthea was the daughter of Melisseus , i.e. bee (Hyg. 182). One of the curetes, or corybantes, among the entourage of the Cretan Zeus bore the name of the Bee Melisseus (Norm. XIII 145, XXVIII 306, XXX 305, XXXII 271). Honey, the healing functions of which Porphyry refers to, citing examples from Greek and Eastern cult practices, also, like bees, had some kind of magical power. During a drought, Aristaeus (Nonn. V 273) offered a sacrifice to Zeus from a honey drink kykeon, "the gift of a bee." According to Pausanias (IX 40, 2), bees pointed out to the Boeotians during a drought the cave of Trophonius, where they sought healing from a disaster. The Athenians brought wheat and honey to the souls of those who died during the Deucalion Flood, throwing the sacrifice into a cleft in the earth on the sacred site of Gaia (Paus. I 18, 7). Honey was clearly associated with chthonic powers. Therefore, in underground sanctuaries, barley cakes with honey were sacrificed (Paus. IX 39, 11; Luc. Dial. mort. III 2) and the sacred snakes were fed with these honey cakes (Herodot. VIII 41). Honey bestowed immortality, so Gaia and Ora anointed Aristea's lips with honey nectar (Pind. Pyth. IX 62). Democritus, like Porphyry, recognizes the healing properties of honey. There is evidence that Democritus decided in old age to take his own life and did not take food. However, when relatives began to ask him not to die on holidays, he "ordered to put a vessel with honey in front of him and thus extended his life for the required number of days, using only the smell of honey; when, after those 106 days of holidays, the honey was taken away, he died ". Democritus always loved honey and when asked how to live without being sick, he answered: "If you irrigate the inside with honey, and the outside with oil" (68 A 29 = Makov. 33). Democritus even advised keeping corpses in honey (68 A 161 = Makov. 259) 67 .

Thus, soul bees and honey in stone bowls were taken by Porfiry from the common Greek mythological and ritual arsenal.

10. Entrance and exit in the cave. Winds

And, finally, the doors facing Boreas and Notus, the winds that open the way to death and immortality. Nonnus, who used the most ancient mythological motifs, knows that each of the four winds has its own doors, followed by the servants of Harmony (XLI 282 ff.), bearing the symbolic names of Sunrise and Sunset, Noon and North. The wind itself can bestow life, but at the same time it brings instant death to a person. No wonder the best mares in Homer give birth to Boreas swift-footed like a whirlwind of foals (Fig. XX 223). But the wind in the form of harpies carried off the daughters of Pandareus, and the gods destroyed their parents (Od. XX 66). Also, Boreas carried off Orithia (Plat. Phaedr. 229 s). Sacrifices were made to the winds in Tiy (Herodot. VII 178), in Megalopolis (Paus. VIII 36, 6) and in Thurii (Ael. XII 61) Borea. Note that in the names of the cities "Tii" and "Fury" their connection with the wind is felt. Greek, thyō "raging", thoyrios, thoyros "violent", "violent". In general, air currents (aēr) are characteristic of the earthly sphere and symbolize the realm of mortals, while the highest and rarefied ether (aithēr) is the element of immortals. In this regard, one text cited by the mythographer Kornut (5 Lang.) is interesting: "Hades is the densest (pachymerestatos) and closest to the earth (prosgeiotatos) air (aēr) ... where, it turns out, our souls go after death" . Among the Orphics, the soul is also "carried away by the winds" (I B 11), and for the Pythagoreans "the essences (logoys) of the soul are the winds", and the soul, like its essences, is "invisible" (aoraton), since "the ether itself (aithēr ) is invisible" (58 V 1 a). Let us only note here that the soul, according to the ancients, consists of ether, rarefied, the finest matter, from which the bodies of the gods also consist, for the soul that has not descended into the world of being is immortal. Therefore, Kornuth is right when he thinks dense air (aēr) is the area of ​​death, opposing it to the upper air ether. With the breath of the wind the soul enters life, and with the breath of the wind it leaves it.

11. Archaic mythology in Porfiry

About the cave of the nymphs

What does Homer mean by the cave in Ithaca that he describes in the following verses?
Where the bay ends, there is a long-leaved olive.
Near the olive - a lovely cave, full of darkness,
In it is the sanctuary of the nymphs; they are called naiads.
There are many amphoras and craters in this cave.
Stone. The bees collect their supplies there.
There are also many long stone lathes on which naiads
Weave robes beautiful colors of sea purple.
The spring water is always gurgling there. The cave has two entrances.
Only one entrance, facing north, is available to people.
The south-facing entrance is for the immortal gods. And dear
This people do not go, it is only open to the gods
(Od. XIII 102-112).

That this description was not made on the basis of the memory of actually transmitted facts is evidenced by the reports of Ithaca by other authors, because none of them mentions such a cave on the island, as Cronius claims. But the poetic invention of this image is also incredible, namely, that the poet, creating as he had to, what he accidentally received, hoped to convince us that in the Ithacaan land someone conceived the paths for people and for the gods, and that if not man, then nature itself, obviously, indicated the place of descent for all people and another way - for all the gods.
Indeed, the entire cosmos is filled with gods and people. However, the Ithaca cave can hardly convince us that it has a place of descent for gods and men.

Therefore, after such preliminary remarks, according to the statement of Cronius, it is clear not only to wise people, but also to unlearned people, that Homer in this case speaks allegorically and in riddles. He forces us to work on the questions: what is to be understood by the gates for people and by the gates for the gods; what is this two-doored cave, called the sanctuary of the nymphs, at the same time pleasant and gloomy - despite the fact that darkness is never pleasant, but rather terrible; why this cave is called not just the sanctuary of the nymphs, but is added for the sake of accuracy "nymphs called naiads"; what is meant by bowls and amphoras, although there is no mention of the liquid poured into them, but only bees are said to nest in them, as in beehives? After all, in the cave there were large looms for nymphs, but for some reason they were made not of wood or any other suitable material, but of stone, like bowls and amphorae. However, this is not so strange. But the fact that nymphs wove purple fabric on stone looms is strange not only to see, but also to hear. Who would believe that goddesses were weaving purple cloth on stone looms in a dark cave, especially if he heard that this divine cloth could be seen as purple? And the fact that the cave has two openings - one intended for people descending, and the other for the gods, and that the opening through which people pass is facing north, and the one through which the gods pass is facing south, also causes a lot of confusion. Indeed, why is the north side assigned to the people, and the south to the gods, and not the east and west are taken for this, while in almost all the temples the statues of the gods and the entrances are turned to the east, while those who enter look to the west, for, only standing facing the statues, can they pray and worship?

The story in question, being full of such obscurities, is not, however, a fiction created to deceive souls, although it does not include a factual description of any locality. It is given allegorically by the poet, who, in the same intimate spirit, connected the cave with the neighboring olive tree.
The ancients considered it important to be able to investigate and explain all this. Following them, and we will try to uncover this issue. In fact, those writers who, describing this place, saw in the cave and in everything that is reported about it, only the inventions of the poet acted very thoughtlessly.

Other compilers of descriptions of the earth depict this place very accurately and thoroughly. Especially Artemidorus of Ephesus, who in the fifth book of his work, divided into eleven books, writes as follows:

"Twelve stadia east of the Panormic harbor of the island of Cephallenia is the island of Ithaca, 85 stadia, narrow and high, with a harbor bearing the name of Forkinskaya. In this harbor on a high bank is the sacred cave of the nymphs. There, as they say, Odysseus was landed by the feacs" .

It was not, therefore, only a Homeric fiction. Whether Homer conveyed what he had, or added something himself, whether we reckon only with what comes from the founders of the sanctuary, or with what the poet added, in both cases we will have only and the same questions. After all, the ancients did not found sanctuaries without secret symbols,204 and Homer would not have made such reports without any reason. If it can be argued that the story of the cave is not only an invention of Homer, since the cave was dedicated to the gods even before Homer, then it is clear that this sanctuary is full of ancient wisdom. And therefore it is worthy of study and the necessary consideration of its symbolic structure.

The caves and grottoes of the ancients, as befitted, were dedicated to the cosmos, taking it both as a whole and in parts. They made the earth a symbol of the matter from which the cosmos is formed, which is why some thought that if the earth is the matter of the cosmos, then the cosmos itself, which originated from it, should be represented in the form of a cave. Caves are for the most part natural and of the same nature as the earth, consisting of rocks of one kind. Their inner part is concave, and from the outside they extend into the infinity of the earth [and merge with it]. The cosmos is also native and of the same nature as matter, which was figuratively brought together with rocks and stone, meaning its inertness and ability to take on the forms given to it, as well as the fact that, due to its formlessness, it can be understood as something infinite. The fluidity and lack of its own image, which gives it shape and makes it visible, the abundance of water and the dampness of the cave, the darkness and foggyness in it, as the poet expressed it, were usually taken as a symbol of the properties inherent in the material cosmos.

However, the cosmos, dark and foggy due to its materiality, turns out to be beautiful and attractive due to the complex interweaving and orderly arrangement of images, which is why it is called the cosmos. It is quite fair to call the cave attractive for those who enter it and encounter various kinds of images in it. For those who mentally penetrate into its bottomless depths, it already seems gloomy. What is in the outer part and on the surface is pleasant; but what is within and deep within it is darkness. It is not for nothing that the Persians, during initiations into the mysteries, informing the mystic about the descent of souls and about their reverse ascent, called the place in which this takes place a grotto. According to Eubulus, Zoroaster for the first time dedicated to the creator and father of everything, Mithra, a natural grotto in the mountains near Persis, blooming and rich in springs, since the grotto was for him an image of the cosmos created by Mithra. And what was inside the grotto and located there in a certain order had the meaning of symbols of cosmic elements and countries of the world. After Zoroaster, all others used to perform mysteries in grottoes and caves, both natural and artificial. Indeed, temples, sanctuaries and altars were dedicated to the Olympian deities, hearths were dedicated to the earthly gods and heroes, pits and aedicules [small sanctuaries] to the underground; thus, caves and grottoes were dedicated to the cosmos, as well as to nymphs, in view of the water flows flowing inside the caves and out of them, why, as we will show, naiads were at the head of the nymphs.

But the cave was not only a symbol of the mortal, sensuous cosmos, as has just been said. It was also seen as a symbol of all invisible potencies, due to the fact that the cave is dark and the essence of its potencies is not visible. So, Kronos shelters his children in a cave arranged in the Ocean itself. And Demeter feeds Kore in the cave of the nymphs. And much more of the same kind could be found by getting acquainted with writings about the gods.

That the caves were dedicated to the nymphs, and chiefly to the naiads, who lived by the springs and got their name from the streams of water, is clearly shown by the hymn to Apollo (PLG Bergk III. Lipsiae, 1852, p. 684).

"For you, they brought forth sources of intelligent waters, dwelling in the caves, nourished by the spirit of the earth, according to the divine word of the Muse. Breaking through the earth in all ways, they pour out carefree jets of sweet streams for mortals."
Based on this, I think, the Pythagoreans, and later Plato, called the cosmos a cave and a grotto. In Empedocles (B 120) the guiding forces say: "We have come to this hidden cave."

Plato in the VII book of the "States" (514 a) says:

"People are, as it were, in an underground cave, in a dwelling like a grotto, the entrance to which is open to the light throughout the entire width of the cave."

Then, when the interlocutor remarks (515 a): "You give a strange image," Plato adds (517 a-b):

"This comparison, O friend Glavkon, should be applied to everything previously said, for the abode that we see with our eyes should be likened to a dungeon, and the light of fire to the power of the sun."

After this, it becomes clear why theologians consider the cave a symbol of the cosmos and cosmic potencies, as well as the fact that, speaking of an intelligible essence, they no longer proceeded from the same, but from various other considerations, since the cave serves as a symbol of the sensual cosmos due to its darkness. , rockiness and moisture.. She is the cosmos in view of the materiality of her composition, flowing, taking shape under the influence of external influences; and it is a symbol of the intelligible, because it expresses the inaccessibility of being by sensory perception, its stability and strength, and also because individual potencies, especially those associated with matter, are invisible. The mentioned authors created these symbols, taking into account the originality of the caves, their darkness, shading and the properties of stone, but by no means the general shape of the cave, as some thought, because not every cave is spherical or double-gate, as in Homer.

The dual nature of the cave was taken to express not intelligible, but sensual essence. And this cave, having inexhaustible sources of moisture in itself, is a symbol of not intelligible, but sensual essence. It was not the sanctuary of the orestiades [mountain], or the Akreian [summit] nymphs, or any other. It was the sanctuary of the naiads, who got their name from the streams. By naiad nymphs, we call the actual potencies inherent in water, but, in addition, all souls that generally proceed into [the world of] becoming. It was assumed that these souls were united with moisture, driven by the divine spirit, as, according to Numenius, the prophet also said: "The Spirit of God hovered over the waters" (Bible, Book of Genesis I 2). The Egyptians, therefore, placed their deities (daimonas) not on anything solid, but on ships - including the sun, as well as souls hovering above moisture, descending to become. This also led Heraclitus (B 77) to the teaching that for the soul, becoming in moisture was not death, but pleasure. They enjoy falling into the world of becoming.
Elsewhere he says: "We live by their death, and they live by our death" (ibid.). Accordingly, the poet [Homer] calls those in the process of becoming "moist", "having moist souls"205, blood and moist seed are pleasing to them, just as the water that feeds them is pleasant to the souls of plants.

Some say that the creatures that live in the air or in the sky feed on vapors coming from springs and rivers and other vapors. The Stoics, on the other hand, think that the sun is nourished by the vapors of the sea, while the stars are nourished by the vapors rising from the earth; the sun seems to be some kind of intellectual ignition received from the sea, the moon - from river waters, the stars - from the evaporation of the earth. Souls connected with bodies, and souls incorporeal, but carrying bodies along with them, and especially those who are to be associated with blood and moist bodies, of necessity gravitate towards moisture and towards incarnation through moisture. For the same reason, the souls of the dead are evoked by libations of blood or bile, and the souls that love the body, drawing in moist breath, thicken it into a fog. After all, moisture, condensing in the air, forms fog. When the breath in them thickens due to the abundance of moisture, they become visible. Among them are the appearances of ghosts, who, meeting with someone, defile the spirit with their images. Pure souls reject becoming. Heraclitus himself (B 118) says: "A dry soul is the wisest." As a consequence, the spirit (pneyma) is moistened, made more wet, striving here for [carnal] union, since the soul is attracted to moist breathing because of the tendency to become.

Therefore, naiad nymphs are souls going into the world of becoming. Therefore, it is customary for those entering into marriage as being united for birth to call on nymphs and perform ablution from springs and inexhaustible springs. To the souls who have already entered into nature, and to the geniuses of the race (daimosin), this world seems to be something sacred and attractive, although by its nature it is dark and foggy. Therefore, they were considered airy and taking their substance from the air. As a result of this, the sanctuary, for them usual on earth, was a cave, pleasant and at the same time dark, in likeness to the cosmos, in which, as in a huge sanctuary, souls dwell. For the nymphs, the patroness of the waters, a cave with its inexhaustible waters turns out to be quite a suitable place.

So, the cave in question, let it be dedicated to souls and nymphs as carriers of individual potencies. Since springs and streams are subject to them, they are called nymphs of springs and naiads. What then are for us those differing symbols that refer: some to souls, others to potencies contained in water, and what allows us to consider the cave dedicated to both of them together?
Let stone bowls and amphorae be symbols of nymphs-hydrias. Cups and amphorae are also symbols of Dionysus. Made of clay, that is, of burnt earth, they are sweet to the vine bestowed by this god, the fruit of which ripens under the sun's fire.

Stone bowls and amphorae are most suitable for nymphs, since they are subject to the waters running from the stone.
But what symbol would be appropriate for souls descending into the world of becoming and the creation of bodies? The poet was not afraid to say that the nymphs weave purple fabric on stone looms, marvelous in appearance, because the body is formed on the bones and around the bones, and they in a living organism are stones or are similar to stones. Therefore, the machines are not made of any other material, but of stone. Purple fabrics directly mean flesh woven from blood, since wool is dyed purple with the blood and juice of animals, and flesh is formed thanks to blood and blood. The body is the chiton of the soul that envelops it—a marvelous thing, whether we mean its composition or the chaining of the soul to the body. So, according to Orpheus (frg. 192 Kern.), and Kore, to whom everything born from the seed is subject, is depicted working at a loom. The ancients also called the sky peplos, serving as a kind of vestment of the heavenly gods.

But why amphoras are not full of water, but of honeycombs? For in them, it is said, bees nest. The word tithaibossein itself means "to lay down food". Food and drink for the bees is honey. Theologians use honey for many different symbols, because of the many possibilities contained in it, since honey has both a cleansing and protective power. It keeps many things intact, it cleans old wounds, it is also sweet in taste, extracted from flowers by bees, but bees, it turns out, come from bulls.
When honey is poured on the hands of those initiated into the Leontian sacraments instead of water for washing, it is prescribed for them to have their hands clean from everything unpleasant, harmful and unclean, this also signifies that, giving such a washing to the mist when using the purifying fire, they refuse water, as from that which is contrary to fire. Honey also cleanses the tongue from everything sinful.

When Persian [the god Mithra], the keeper of fruits, is served with honey, this symbol is invested with an indication of the protective power of honey. Under the nectar and ambrosia, about which the poet said that they are poured into the nostrils of the deceased in order to prevent decay, some considered it right to understand honey, since honey is the food of the gods. Therefore, nectar is called by him in one place "red" (Il. XIX 38), for such is the color of honey. But whether it is necessary to understand honey by nectar, we will later consider in more detail.
With the help of honey, Zeus managed, according to Orpheus, to overpower Kronos, when this latter, drunk on honey and with a clouded consciousness, as if from wine, fell asleep. The same thing happened, according to Plato (Conv. 203b), with Poros, who became intoxicated with nectar, which, however, was not wine. According to Orpheus (frg. 154), Night, suggesting to Zeus the cunning with which honey was associated, says: "When you see him under a branchy oak, intoxicated by the deeds of buzzing bees, bind him." This is what happened to Kronos. Bound, he was castrated, like Uranus. The theologian explains allegorically that divine beings are fettered and brought down by honey into the world of becoming through pleasure, and that, exhausted by pleasure, they lose their seed. Uranus, who wished for marriage and for that reason descended to Gaia, is castrated by Kronos. This enjoyment of the marriage union is combined for them with the sweetness of honey, with the help of which Cronus was also castrated by cunning. For [as a planet] Kronos moves in the opposite direction to Uranus-Sky [that is, the world of the fixed stars]. And the potencies descend both from the sky [fixed stars] and from the planets. But the heavenly potencies were appropriated by Kronos, and the potencies of Kronos were subsequently appropriated by Zeus.

So, honey is used both for purification and as a remedy against corruption, natural in nature, causes pleasure associated with the descent into the world of becoming, is a suitable symbol of water nymphs, because water also has the power to prevent corruption, to be a purifier and promote becoming, since moisture generally plays a role in becoming. That is why bees nest in bowls and amphorae; bowls are symbols of springs; as in the cult of Mithra, a cup is used instead of a spring, and amphoras are the vessels with which we draw water from sources.

The springs and streams are dedicated to water nymphs and nymphs-souls, whom the ancients called bees - givers of pleasure. Therefore, Sophocles (frg. 795 N. - Sn.) correctly said: "a swarm of the dead buzzes and flies up." The priestesses of Demeter, as a deity of the chthonic, the ancients called bees, and Kore - a bee. In the same way, the Moon, as the patroness of becoming, was called a bee. And in other cases, it is also called the bull, since in its highest position it is in the constellation of Taurus. Therefore, both bees and souls going into the world of becoming were called bull-bearing. Therefore, the deity who is secretly reputed to be becoming is called the bull-stealer. Honey was sometimes made a symbol of death, why libations with honey were a sacrifice to the underground gods, and bile was a symbol of life. This, as it were, hinted at the fact that pleasure extinguishes the life of the soul, and bitterness revives, in view of which bile was also sacrificed to the gods. Or this hinted at the fact that death is the resolver of sorrows, and life is full of suffering and bitterness.

However, not all souls in general, going to the world of becoming, were called bees, but only those who intended to live in justice and ascend again, doing what was pleasing to the gods. This living being [the bee] loves to return, is distinguished by the greatest righteousness and sobriety, which is why libations with honey were called sober. Bees do not sit on beans, which are considered a symbol of direct and continuous becoming, since beans are almost the only plant species with a completely hollow stem, which is not prevented by partitions between the knees. So, honeycombs and bees are the most appropriate symbols common to water nymphs and souls who, like brides, go into the world of becoming.

In ancient times, when temples had not yet been invented, caves and grottoes were dedicated to the gods: in Crete - the cave of the Kurets to Zeus, in Arcadia - to Selene and Pan of Lycia, on the island of Naxos - to Dionysus. Wherever Mithra was revered, this god was worshiped in caves. Regarding the cave in Ithaca, Homer does not confine himself to the message that it was double-gate, but indicates that with one opening it was turned to the north, while the other - more divine - to the south, and that the northern opening served as a descent downward, but with regard to the southern, he is silent about whether it was allowed to enter through it, limiting itself to the words: "none of the people enters through it. This is the path of the immortals" (Od. XIII 111 ff.).

Now we must find out the intention of the poet: whether he conveys in the story of the cave what he considers to be a fact, or here something mysterious or poetic fiction. Numenius and his friend Cronius, bearing in mind that the cave is an image and symbol of the cosmos, say that the sky has two limits - one is not south of the winter tropic, the other is not north of the summer one. The summer tropic is near the constellation Cancer, the winter tropic is near the constellation Capricorn. Since the constellation of Cancer is closest to us, it is most correct to take it to the Moon as the closest to us. The South Pole is already invisible to us, and therefore the constellation Capricorn most of all corresponds to the most distant and highest standing planet [Kronos, that is, Saturn].

In the interval between Cancer and Capricorn, the signs of the zodiac are arranged in the following order: first Leo, the dwelling of Helios [Sun], then Virgo, the dwelling of Hermes [Mercury]; then come: Libra - the dwelling of Aphrodite [Venus], Scorpio - the dwelling of Ares [Mars], Sagittarius - the dwelling of Zeus [Jupiter], Capricorn - the dwelling of Kronos [Saturn]. In the opposite direction from Capricorn go: Aquarius - the dwelling of Kronos, Pisces - the dwelling of Zeus, Aries - the dwelling of Ares, Taurus - the dwelling of Aphrodite, Gemini - the dwelling of Hermes and, finally, the dwelling of the Moon - Cancer. According to theologians, there were two gates: one - at the constellation of Cancer, the other - at the constellation of Capricorn. Plato called them two mouths. At the constellation of Cancer is the entrance by which souls descend, and at the sign of Capricorn is the one through which they ascend. But the entrance at the constellation Cancer is northern and leads down, and the one at the constellation Capricorn is southern and rises up. The northern entrance is for souls descending into the world of becoming.

And it is right that the gate facing north is provided for people to descend. But the southern gates are not given to the gods, but to those who ascend to the gods, which is why the poet called them the road not of the gods, but of the immortals, a property common to souls, or to those who, in themselves, that is, in their essence, are immortal. . Parmenides also mentions these two gates in the book "On Nature", the Romans and Egyptians mention them.
The Romans celebrate Cronius [Saturnalia] when the sun enters the constellation of Capricorn, and during the festivities they put on the slaves the signs of the free, and everyone communicates with each other. The founders of the rite wanted to show by this that those who are now slaves by birth, on the feast of Cronius [Saturnalia] are freed, come to life, and through the place that is the dwelling of Kronos, through the heavenly gates, return to the world of becoming. The path of descent for them begins from the sign of Capricorn. Therefore, they call the door ianua, and January is called, as it were, the month of the gates, when the sun from the sign of Capricorn rises to the east, turning into the northern part [of the sky].

The beginning of the Egyptian year, on the contrary, is not the sign of Aquarius, as among the Romans, but the sign of Cancer. Near the constellation Cancer is Sothis, which the Greeks call the constellation Canis. The beginning of a new month for them is the rising of Sothis, which is the beginning of becoming in space. And not in the east and west they placed entrances and not in the region of the equinox, that is, not in the constellation Aries and Libra, but in the south and north (at the southernmost gate in the south and the northernmost gate in the north).
Therefore, the cave is dedicated to water nymphs and souls, and these places are suitable for the formation of souls and their departure [to the world of being].

Mithra, on the other hand, was assigned as the most suitable location for him near the region of the equinox. Therefore, he carries the sword of Aries, the zodiac sign of Ares. He rides on the bull of Aphrodite, since, being a demiurge bull, he is the lord of becoming. It is placed near the equinoctial circle, having north on the right side and south on the left. Moreover, the southern hemisphere adjoins it from the south, and the northern hemisphere from the north, with a cold wind.

In the same way, the souls descending into and returning from the world of becoming were not without reason associated with the winds. For, on the one hand, souls, as some say, entail a breath (pneyma), on the other, they themselves have its nature. The north wind is more in line with the movement of souls in the world of becoming, because the north wind "captures with its breath the heavily breathing soul" (Fig. V 698) of the one who has to pass to death. The south wind, on the other hand, brings liberation with it. The colder breath of the north wind freezes and keeps souls in the cold of earthly becoming. A warmer south wind guides souls towards the warmth of divinity. Of necessity, the souls conceived in our colder dwelling are partaken of the north wind. Those who are freed from the local [vale] - to the south. This is the reason why the north wind, having risen, blows with greater force from the very beginning. The southern one intensifies only towards the end. The first rushes straight at those who live under the northern sky. The second - from afar, moves longer and, only having accumulated, manifests itself in its entirety.

Further, since the souls go from the northern gate into the world of becoming, the north wind is considered the wind of love. For Boreas,
Having taken the image of a black-maned horse, he covered them [mares],
And, having become belly, they gave birth to twelve foals (XX 224-225).

He kidnapped Orithia and she gave birth to Zeta and Kalais. Those who know that the south belongs to the gods draw the veil in the temples at noon, keeping Homer's instruction that when the deity [the sun] leans towards the south, people should not enter the sanctuary, but the way is open only to immortals.

During the midday rest, the deities at the door put signs of the south and noon. And in general, it is not supposed to chat at the door at any time, because the door is sacred. Therefore, the Pythagoreans and Egyptian sages do not allow talking when passing through doors or gates, expressing in silence their reverence for the deity, in which the beginning of everything. And Homer knew about the sacredness of the doors, as the story of Oeneas, before praying, shaking the door shows: "Shaking the tightly fastened wings [doors], imploring his son" (IX 583). He also knows the gates of heaven, which were entrusted to Oram and which, starting in foggy places, were locked and unlocked by clouds: “Or move a dense cloud or close it” (V 751). Therefore, the gates roar, like thunder rolling through the clouds: "The gates of heaven, entrusted to Oram, have closed by themselves" (749).

In another place, Homer speaks of the solar gates, referring to the signs of Capricorn and Cancer (Od. XXIV 12). While the sun passes from north to south and back to north, Capricorn and Cancer are near the Milky Way, occupying its extreme limits. According to Pythagoras (cf. ibid.), souls are a crowd of dreams that converge on the Milky Way, so called because souls feed on milk when they fall into the world of becoming. Therefore, those who call souls make libations of honey mixed with milk for them, because they enter into birth through sensual pleasure, and because along with the conception of souls, milk also appears. In the southern regions, small bodies are born, because the heat usually dries up very much and thereby reduces the size and makes the bodies thin. In the northern regions, on the contrary, the bodies are large. An example is the Celts, Thracians and Scythians; their countries are rich in water and abundant pastures, so that the very name of the north - Boreas - comes from the word bora, which means "food". And the wind that blows from a country rich in food, as if being itself nourishing, is called Boreas.

Accordingly to this genus, mortal and subject to becoming, the north is closer, and the genus closer to the deity is the south, as the gods themselves are east, and the demons are west. Since nature is based on opposites, everything double-gate becomes their symbol, wherever it occurs. Any movement can be either intelligible or sensual. The sensible proceeds through the world of the fixed [stars] or through the world of the movable [planets], and again the sensuous goes either along the path of the immortal, or along the path of the mortal. And one center is under the earth, and the other is above the earth. One is eastern, the other is western, one is left, the other is right, night and day - and hence the harmony of the world, as in a stretched bow, acting through the opposite (cf. Heraclitus B 51). Plato speaks of two mouths: through one of them, according to him, they ascend to the sky, through the other they descend to the earth. Theologians considered the sun and the moon to be the gates of souls, believing that they rise up as the sun,. and descend by the moon. And, according to Homer, there are two clay vessels: "Full of gifts, one happy, and the other unhappy" (Il. XXIV 528).

Moreover, in Plato's Gorgias (493d), the vessel is interpreted as souls. One is beneficent, the other is evil. One is reasonable, the other is unreasonable. Souls are called vessels as carriers of various abilities and deeds. Hesiod (Orr. 94) also speaks of two vessels, of which one is closed, while the other is opened by pleasure, and its contents are splashed in all directions, while only hope remains in it. Those who have a bad soul, subject to dispersion in matter and deviating from order, usually nourish themselves only with good hopes.

Since the sign of two-doors is found everywhere in nature, it is natural that the cave we are talking about has not one, but two entrances, which differ in their role in exactly the same way. Moreover, one of them befits deities and good beings, and the other - to mortal souls and lower ones. In the same sense Plato spoke of bowls (cf. Tim. 41 d). But instead of amphoras, he used the symbol of vessels, and instead of two gates, he takes two mouths. Pherecydes of Syria (B 6) also mentions depressions, pits, caves, doors and gates, and in all this alludes to the formation of souls and their departure [to the world of being]. But we will not lengthen our reasoning by listing everything that the ancient philosophers and theologians said about this, considering that the general meaning of our story has already been accepted by everyone.

It remains to state what the symbol of olive thickets meant. Apparently, this tree means something very special, since we are talking not only about the fact that an olive tree grows nearby, but that it was located at the very top of the bay.
Where the bay ends [top], there is a long-leaved olive.
There is a cave near the olive tree... (Od. XIII 102).

It is no coincidence, as one might think, that the olive tree gave its offspring here. It is included in the mysterious image of the cave. Since the cosmos did not appear by chance and not at random, but is the realization of the wise plan of God and intellectual nature, an olive tree grew next to the cave, a symbol of the cosmos, as a symbol of divine wisdom. This is the tree of Athena, Athena is wisdom. Since Athena was born from the head of a god, the theologian [Homer] found it fitting to place a sacred tree at the top of the bay, indicating by this that the whole did not come into being by itself and not by blind chance, but as the fulfillment of the design of intellectual nature and wisdom, which, although separated from it, but located close to the very top of the entire bay.

As an ever-blooming tree, the olive tree has some properties that are most convenient for marking the paths of the soul in the cosmos to which the cave is dedicated. In summer, the white side of the leaves turn up, in winter, the lighter parts turn in the opposite direction. When blossoming olive branches are stretched out in prayers and supplications, it is hoped that the darkness of dangers will be turned into light. The olive tree, by nature ever-blooming, bears fruit that rewards labor. Therefore, it is dedicated to Athena. The winners of the competition are awarded a wreath of olive leaves. Olive branches serve those who resort to supplication. So the cosmos is governed by the eternal and ever-blossoming wisdom of the intellectual nature, from which the victorious reward is given to the athletes of life and healing from many hardships. And the one who attracts the needy and petitioners to himself is the demiurge who keeps the world intact.

In the cave, according to Homer, all the wealth of a foreign land should be taken down. Here all clothes should be taken off and one should be dressed in the clothes of those who pray, scourging one's body, discarding the superfluous and turning away from sensual [sensations], confer with Athena, sitting with her at the root of an olive tree, cutting off all the passionate and evil thoughts of the soul. Not without reason, it seems to me, Numenius and his followers saw in the hero of Homer's "Odyssey" the image of someone who goes through the entire path of becoming in order and restores himself in the boundless, beyond the sea and beyond storms: "until you arrive in the land to men who they do not know the sea, they never salt their food" (Od. XI 122 f.). The sea surface, the sea and storms, according to Plato, mean a material substance.

For the same reasons, I think, the poet also named the bay after Forkin.
... bay one is superb
The Elder of the Sea Forkin (XIII 96).

It was from this Forkinus at the beginning of the Odyssey that the daughter of Phoos, the mother of the Cyclops, from whom Odysseus deprived his eye, descended; so that even within the borders of the homeland of Odysseus, some memory of his deeds was preserved. Therefore, it befits him to sit as a petitioner to God under an olive tree and under an olive branch to implore the household deity. After all, it is not at all easy to get rid of this sensual life, blinding it and trying to quickly destroy it. A person who dares to do this is haunted by the wrath of the sea and material gods. They must first be appeased by sacrifices, toils and the patience of begging, sometimes fighting the passions, sometimes bewitching and deceiving them, and changing in every possible way in accordance with them, in order to throw off the sackcloth, overthrow the passions, without, however, simply getting rid of suffering. But it is necessary that [Odysseus] become completely out of the sea [uninvolved in the sea], so ignorant of maritime and material affairs that he would take an oar for a shovel for winnowing grain because of his complete inexperience in the tools and labors necessary for the sea.

One should not think that such interpretations are artificial and their persuasiveness is the result of fabrications. We must admit how ancient wisdom and Homeric wisdom are reasonable, and do not deny her the accuracy of [understanding] any dignity [virtue] of a person, since Homer in mythological fiction mysteriously alluded to the image of the most divine things. Homer would not have achieved his goal in creating his whole idea if he had not proceeded from some true ideas, transferring them to fiction.
But we leave this consideration for another study. Here is the end of the interpretation of the subject of our research - the cave.