of what the world contains,' and he calls to witness
Zoroaster's cave with fountains; and often caves are, he says, symbols of
'all invisible power; because as caves are obscure and dark, so the
essence of all these powers is occult,' and quotes a lost hymn to Apollo
to prove that nymphs living in caves fed men 'from intellectual
fountains'; and he contends that fountains and rivers symbolize
generation, and that the word nymph 'is commonly applied to all souls
descending into generation,' and that the two gates of Homer's cave are
the gate of generation and the gate of ascent through death to the gods,
the gate of cold and moisture, and the gate of heat and fire. Cold, he
says, causes life in the world, and heat causes life among the gods, and
the constellation of the cup is set in the heavens near the sign Cancer,
because it is there that the souls descending from the Milky Way receive
their draught of the intoxicating cold drink of generation. 'The mixing
bowls and jars of stone' are consecrated to the Naiads, and are also, as
it seems, symbolical of Bacchus, and are of stone because of the rocky
beds of the rivers. And 'the looms of stone' are the symbols of the 'souls
that descend into generation.' 'For the formation of the flesh is on or
about the bones, which in the bodies of animals resemble stones,' and also
because 'the body is a garment' not only about the soul, but about all
essences that become visible, for 'the heavens are called by the ancients
a veil, in consequence of being as it were the vestments of the celestial
gods.' The bees hive in the mixing bowls and jars of stone, for so
Porphyry understands the passage, because honey was the symbol adopted by
the ancients for 'pleasure arising from generation.' The ancients, he
says, called souls not only Naiads but bees, 'as the efficient cause of
sweetness'; but not all souls 'proceeding into generation' are called
bees, 'but those who will live in it justly and who after having performed
such things as are acceptable to the gods will again return (to their
kindred stars). For this insect loves to return to the place from whence
it came and is eminently just and sober.' I find all these details in the
cave of the Witch of Atlas, the most elaborately described of Shelley's
caves, except the two gates, and these have a far-off echo in her summer
journeys on her cavern river and in her winter sleep in 'an
inextinguishable well of crimson fire.' We have for the m