r beneath my feet,
So much the more towards the wind I bend
My swiftest pinions,
And spurn the world and up towards heaven I go.
Not the sad fate of Daedalus's son
Does warn me to turn downwards,
But ever higher will I rise.
Well do I see, I shall fall dead to earth;
But what life is there can compare with this my death?
Out on the air my heart's voice do I hear:
"Whither dost thou carry me, thou fearless one?
Turn back. Such over-boldness rarely grief escapes."
"Fear not the utmost ruin then," I said,
"Cleave confident the clouds and die content,
That heaven has destined thee to such illustrious death."

CIC. I understand when you say: "Enough that thou hast lifted me on
high;" but not: "And from the ignoble crowd hast severed me;" unless it
means his having come out from the Platonic groove on account of the
stupid and low condition of the crowd; for those that find profit in
this contemplation cannot be numerous.

TANS. Thou understandest well; but thou mayst also understand, by the
"ignoble crowd," the body, and sensual cognition, from which he must
arise and free himself who would unite with a nature of a contrary
kind.

CIC. The Platonists say there are two kinds of knots which link the soul
to the body. One is a certain vivifying action which from the soul
descends into the body, like a ray; the other is a certain vital
quality, which is produced from that action in the body. Now this active
and most noble number, which is the soul, in what way do you understand
that it may be severed from the ignoble number, which is the body?

TANS. Certainly it was not understood according to any of these modes,
but according to that mode whereby those powers which are not
comprehended and imprisoned in the womb of matter, sometimes as if
inebriated and stupefied, find that they also are occupied in the
formation of matter and in the vivification of the body; then, as if
awakened and brought to themselves, recognizing its principle and
genius, they turn towards superior things and force themselves on the
intelligible world as to their native abode, and from thence, through
their conversion to inferior things, they are thrust into the fate and
conditions of generation. These two impulses are symbolized in the two
kinds of metamorphosis expressed in the following:

17.

That god who shakes the sounding thunder,
Asteria as a furtive eagle saw;
Mnemos