s cowed. And among the Muses it would not be
amiss to mention Sappho; for as the Romans say Cacus the son of
Hephaestus vomited out of his mouth fire and flames, so she really speaks
words that burn like fire, and in her songs shows the warmth of her
heart, as Philoxenus puts it, 'by euphonious songs assuaging the pains
of love.' And if you have not in your love for Lysandra forgot all your
old love-songs, do repeat to us, Daphnaeus, the lines in which beautiful
Sappho says that 'when her love appeared her voice failed and her body
burned, and she was seized with paleness and trembling and vertigo.'"
And when Daphnaeus had repeated the lines, my father resumed, "In the
name of Zeus, is not this plainly a divine seizure? Is not this a
wonderful commotion of soul? Why, the Pythian priestess on the tripod is
not moved so much as this! Who of those inspired by Cybele are made
beside themselves to this extent by the flute and the kettledrum?
Moreover, while many see the same body and the same beauty, only the
lover is taken by it. Why is this the case? We get no light on it from
Menander's words, 'Love is opportunity; and he that is smitten is the
only one wounded.' But the god is the cause of it, striking one and
letting another go scot-free. But I will not pass over now, 'since it
has come into my mouth,' as AEschylus says, what perhaps would have been
better spoken before, for it is a very important point. Perhaps, my
friend, of all other things which we do not perceive through the senses,
some got believed through legend, some through the law, some through
reason; whereas we owe our conception of the gods altogether to the
poets and legislators and philosophers: all alike teaching the existence
of gods, but greatly differing as to their number and order, nature and
power. For the gods of the philosophers 'know nothing of disease or old
age or pain, and have not to cross the resounding Acheron;' nor do the
philosophers accept as gods Strifes, or Prayers, which are found in
poetry;[121] nor will they admit Terror and Fear as gods or as the sons
of Ares. And on many points also they are at variance with the
legislators, as Xenophanes bade the Egyptians, if they regarded Osiris
as mortal, not to honour him as a god; but if they thought him a god not
to mourn for him. And, again, the poets and legislators will not listen
to, nor can they understand, the philosophers who make gods of ideas and
numbers and units and spirits. And