IV. "Both fourfold Matter* being ensouled and the

whole Infinitude being as though it were a Depth (Bi;do9), flowing perpetually and indistinguishably moving, and over and over again pouring forth countless imperfect mixtures, now of one kind and now of another, and thereby dissolving them again owing to its lack of order, and engulphing so that it could not be bound [together] to serve for the genera- tion of a living creature — it happened that the infinite Sea itself, being driven round* by its own peculiar nature, flowed with a natural motion in an orderly fashion from out of itself into itself, as it were a vortex/ and blended its essences, and thus involuntarily the most developed part of all of them,^ that which was most serviceable for the generation of a living creature, flowed, as it were in a funnel, down the middle of the universe, and was carried to the bottom
^ Orpheus apparently does nothing of the kind, but draws a distinction between Chaos and the Egg.
* Cy. the Pythagorean Tetraktys, in the famous oath— "The Fourfold Root of Ever-flowing Nature."
' Or impelled or pushed in every direction.
* Thus forming the Vortex Atom of the Cosmos.
* The text reads : «ca2 ofhms i^ ixovirrov rmr icinrmv rh yirrifi^aror. As i^ iiKovffrod has hitherto proved insoluble for all editors, I would suggest i^ ixowiov. As to rimfA^aror, L. and S. are of little assistance unless it is taken in the sense of "ripest" Sophocles gives part of any thing."
1
890 THRIOK^BSATBST HltRinCB
bj means of the vortex that swept up everjthing, and drew after it the surroanding Spirit,^ and so gathering itself together as it were into the moat prodnctrre [form of all], it constituted a discrete state [of things].
** For just as a babble is made in water, so a sphere- like hollow form gathered itself together from all sides.
** Thereupon, itself being impregnated in itself, carried up* by the Divine Spirit that had taken it to itself as consort, it thrust forth its head («-/x>enr^) into the Light — this, the greatest thing perchance that's ever been conceived, as though it were out of the Infinite Deep's universe a work of art had been conceived and brought to birth, an ensouled work [in form] like unto the circumference of eggs, [in speed] like to the swiftnesB of a wing.^