For though neither this poem, nor the hymns which pass under
the same name, are, it should seem, the work of the real Orpheus,
yet beyond all question they are very ancient. The hymns, more
particularly, are allowed to be older than the invasion of Greece by
Xerxes, and were probably a set of public and solemn forms of
devotion, as appears by a passage in one of them which Demosthenes
hath almost literally cited in his first oration against Aristogiton,
as the saying of Orpheus, the founder of their most holy mysteries.
On this account, they are of higher authority than any other
mythological work now extant, the Theogony of Hesiod himself not
excepted. The poetry of them is often extremely noble; and the
mysterious air which prevails in them, together with its delightful
impression upon the mind, cannot be better expressed than in that
remarkable description with which they inspired the German editor,
Eschenbach, when he accidentally met with them at Leipsic:
--'Thesaurum me reperisse credidi,' says he, 'et profecto thesaurum
reperi. Incredibile dictu quo me sacro horrore afflaverint
indigitamenta ista deorum: nam et tempus ad illorum lectionem
eligere cogebar, quod vel solum horrorem incutere animo potest,
nocturnum; cum enim totam diem consumserim in contemplando urbis
splendore, et in adeundis, quibus scatet urbs illa, viris doctis;
sola nox restabat, quam Orpheo consecrare potui.
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