plotinus and the muses

Plotinus and the MusesAuthor(s): R. FerwerdaSource: Hermes, 118. Bd., H. 2 (1990), pp. 204-212Published by: Franz Steiner VerlagStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4476751 .Accessed: 07/03/2014 16:18

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PLOTINUS AND THE MUSES

Toiv'rwv b8 oiv `ovXWav &y0vT0v EV aiToLg, 0tw; b6l QtQcOTOV EtE7UEOE XQovog, TaSg [LEv MoI5oa; ov5'MO ToTE oi5oag ovUx av T15 Uow; xakoi sizrELv ToiiTo' akX' tmowg, FQ ijocv xaci a i MOi3aL To6TE, acT'Ov b' av TL; TaXa TOv YEVO6pVOV xQ6vov, &tu; ecriv exqavei; xcd yEv6>vog. A'yOL b' av nrQi avtoi J1 Zrw-

>If, then these beings were at rest in themselves, one could hardly, perhaps, call on the Muses, who did not then yet exist, to tell us ?how time first came out?: but one might perhaps (even if the Muses did exist then after all) ask time when it has come into being to tell us how it did come into being and appear. It might say something like this about itself.

Plotinus and the Muses 205

for a moment we leave out the words a da .. . TO6m and put a comma after toi)to, the sentence reflects clearly what DENNISTON means: the contrast is between Tag Mouhoag and aoTo6v (sc. XQovov) and the translation would be: ?perhaps one cannot call on the Muses, but one might perhaps ask time itself,< etc. Since this sounds as a perfectly healthy sentence with a clear meaning I think that Plotinus had in mind to write it down in this way. More editors have also had that idea and drew the conclusion that the words &aXa . . . TO'T were a >>remarque critique d'un grammairien

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does not speak about itself in the first person singular SCHWYZER4 thinks that it is not a personification. But since the first person plural is used in line 20 I tend to agree with W. BEIERWALTES5 that we could call the passus, beginning at line 12, a personification and that therefore the subject of X'yoL is XQOvog and not TL;. All other personifications in the 'Enneads' have in common that they are not intro- duced by an invocation of gods or Muses. So we may conclude that our personification is a strange one and that there are at least formal similarities with prayers which we find in other places in the 'Enneads' where Plotinus invokes the aid of the gods to solve difficult philosophical problems.

At IV, 9,4,6 he prays to god to assist him in tackling the problem of the birth of multitude from One. At V, 1,6,9 he discusses the same problem and does not even want to try to reach a solution before he has called upon god himself, not in a loud voice, but by addressing him in prayer. At V, 8,9,13 the problem of the relation- ship between one and many again plays a role and here Plotinus advises us to call upon the creator of the cosmos to come. There is a certain similarity also with what we find at V, 3,17,30 where one calls upon god to enter a house for illumination. However, this is not a prayer but an image.

We see that our text differs not only from the usual form of the personification, but that it is also different from the other prayers or invocations to gods. Whereas in the other texts Plotinus always calls upon a god (or the creator), he speaks here about invoking the Muses. And then he rejects the idea again. So we may conclude that this strange text is something between a personification and a prayer. The ambiguity of the passage again reflects, in my view, the uncertainty Plotinus felt concerning the explanation of the birth of time.

C. From the time of Homer and onwards the Greeks, especially poets, have called upon the Muses to provide inspiration for singing their songs. It is even Homer himself who triggers the idea in Plotinus' mind in this text to think of the Muses. Three apparently unimportant words (63twg bi FCQdrrov), call to mind a line in Homer's Iliad (fH 113) which is preceded by an invocation to the Muses. Even the verb after rQdxTOV, teces, is very similar to the verb Homer uses: EiVnE0c. So it should not surprise anyone that in a flash Plotinus is tempted to invoke the Muse in the same way, especially since Plato too had used the Homeric line in Republic VIII, 545d8-e1. In describing the decadence of ideal states Plato asks if it would not be better to pray to the Muses, just as Homer did, to tell us &cw; bij ncQTov OTacug eEsIaTE, how rebellion and unrest fell upon the states for the first time. Whether Plotinus' playful variation of these examples is derived from Homer or

4 Op. cit. p. 524 and in the first edition of P. HENRY - H. R. SCHWYZER, Plotini Enneades (Paris-Bruxelles 1951) 387.

5 W. BEIERWALTES Plotin uber Ewigkeit und Zeit (Frankfurt am Main 1967) p. 248.



from Plato we will never know but neither is it very important6. There can hardly be any doubt, however, that the whole line of Plotinus has every aspect of a literary device expressing the idea that he has reached an important point in his reasoning7 and that some superhuman aid would be welcome. Surely, the subject of the birth of time is important enough in itself. For Plotinus time is life of the soul (line 44). Hence it is connected with our innermost being. And when a person is going to speak about such essential things, the aid of gods is always welcome. So if Plotinus would have said, >let us invoke the aid of the Muses

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Apollo and the Muses. According to Pindar (fragment 116), Apollo, the leader of the Muses, brought the Muses down from their home on Mount Helicon to Delphi, tamed their wild frenzy, and led them in formal and decorous dances8. Ptolemy I founded games for Apollo and the Muses9. Both Apollo and the Muses could give the power of healing and prophesy to their followers (Aristeas and Aristaeus)10. We should not be surprised, then, to find them here in the same line. But what does strike us is that the inspiration caused by a Muse can be compared to the inspiration of an ecstatic by such a late philosopher as Plotinus'l. Their frenzy had been tamed by Apollo a long time ago. Nevertheless, for Plotinus, as this text clearly shows, the Muses are still able to inspire people, to provide deep insight. And he knew of course that poets believed that the Muses could give a divine touch to their verses that made them eternal12. Muses took away the vicissitudes of time, because they were in touch with eternity. And now we can return to our text at III,7,11. When Plotinus comes to speak about time as the child of eternity, (I think that the word Et?'oes has also a connotation of being born (fallen from the womb)13, he is tempted to invoke the aid of the Muses in order to describe accurately how time appeared. But he hesitates. This hesitation is not, I presume, caused primarily by the question whether the Muses were born before time or not. The ancient authors know of both traditions. From Hesiod, for instance, we learn that the Muses >transcendent le temps, exactement comme Aletheia?


that only scientific reasoning will satisfy him here. His hesitation, his uncertainty even breaks asunder the grammatical order of the sentence 5.

D. When I suggest that Plotinus decided to renounce the aid of the Muses because he wanted to discuss the birth of time in a scholarly way, I have the feeling that I have left out something important concerning the position of the Muses. I think for sure that Plotinus wanted to discuss things scientifically. At the same time he was aware of the fact that listening to the Muses would certainly enrich his spirit, but that it would also put him in danger of not fully understanding the divine truths and of transmitting it in a warped way to his fellow men.

Listening to the gods, putting on the robe of a prophet, is a dangerous job. The Greeks knew all about it16. There was not much room in Greek tradition for listening. They put much more emphasis on seeing and consequently the eye was more important to them than the ear. It has even been said that this was due to the fact that the eye was more movable than the ear. A man can direct his eye upon a subject, but he can hardly move his ear so that he can hear only one sound amid the turmoil of this world17. But this is certainly not true for all Greek writers. When we look at the evidence from the 'Enneads' it is clear that in general Plotinus favours the eye just as his compatriots did.

Images of the eye, light, and seeing around, while listening to the voice of God, prevalent in Hebrew and Jewish literature, is virtually absent in the 'Enneads', except for a few texts to which I wish to draw attention here, especially V, 1,12,14 ff.: ?If we want to perceive what is present (in us) we have to turn our power of perception inward. It is as if someone expecting to hear a voice which he wants to hear withdraws from other sounds and rouses his ear to catch what, when it comes, is the best of all the sounds which can be heard; in this way we must here let perceptible sounds go and keep the soul's power of apprehension pure and ready to listen to the voices from on highThe Muses take people to the harmony of spheres

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suggests at I, 3,1,33 ff. about the education of the musician who moves from the enjoyment of perceptible sounds to the noetic harmony which is the source of their attraction. But there may be even more to it. In Pliny's Nat. Hist. 11.45.251 we read that the innermost ear is the seat of memory. So if we want to know what is hidden to us we should pay attention to what our ear can teach us.

If our ears are pierced through by an arrow or fastened to the ground, as in Hieronymus Bosch's hallucinating pictures19, we may believe that our communica- tion with higher spheres is interrupted and frustrated. Our horen (hearing) is then der Gehorsam, obedience, slavery to earthy things and we will never be able to lead the life of the spirit20. But the function of the ear is precisely this: to pay attention to what is above. God Himself, according to the Jews, dug our eyes in our head. (Jes. 50.5 and Ps. 40.7). And in Greek literature we find strange stories about the cleansing of the ears which point in the same direction. So we are told that Melam- pus once burned and buried a snake which had been killed by some servants. The snake's offspring, out of gratitude, came to lick his ears. After that Melampus could hear the voices of animals and predict the future for men21. Similar stories are known about Cassandra and Helenos. So from the time of yore the Greeks had an inkling of what a clean and attentive ear could reveal to men. They also knew about the dangers.

Ulysses had himself tied to the mast of his ship so that the song of the Sirens would not drive him from his path and destroy his ship and the whole crew. >>Come this way, most admirable Odysseus, glory of the nation! Stay your ship, and listen to our voice! No man ever yet sailed past this place, without first listening to the voice which sounds from our lips sweet as honey! No, he has a great treat and goes home a wiser man. For we know all that the Argives and Trojans endured on the plains before Troy by the will of Heaven; and we know all that shall come to pass on the face of mother earth!< (Odyssey 184-190. Translation ROUSE).

The Sirens know everything on earth and if Ulysses listens to their voice he will also know everything and ... be killed. That is the punishment of opening the ears

19 W. FRANGER, Hieronymus Bosch (Dresden 1975) 199: Auf der Zeichnung >>Walder haben Ohren>Auf dem Gemalde >>Die Versuchung des heiligen Antonius


and listening to voices from above. In the enjoyments of their song the lethal poison is hidden. The Sirens are goddesses of the other side, perhaps of the underworld22. Their figure and function are not distinguishable from that of the Muses in our oldest texts. Alcman fragm. 10 D., 30 P. says ?The Muse sings, the clear Siren>tragical harlotsSirens pleasant even to destructionmy

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same time there is the fear that the song of the Muses may be the seduction of the Sirens and that the attentive ear will not hear the harmony of spheres26 which may reveal the essence of time and life and soul, but the magical incantation of death which may destroy the philosophical building he has constructed with so much care. That was his dilemma which shines through his stammering grammar, his threefold use of 'perhaps' and his hesitant refusal to call upon the aid of the Muses.

Ede, Marnix College R. FERWERDA

26 A joy to the ear. J. LACAN, Ecrits (Paris 1966) 821 calls attention to the fact that in French j'ouis (I hear) and jouis (enjoy) are related. He has also something to say about the sexual pleasure that some people derive from being touched or licked by the ear. Though erotic pleasure is a divine gift, I have found no evidence that the Greeks were aware of this erotic function of the ear.


Article Contentsp. [204]p. 205p. 206p. 207p. 208p. 209p. 210p. 211p. 212

Issue Table of ContentsHermes, 118. Bd., H. 2 (1990), pp. 129-256+III-VITerminologische Probleme in der 'Poetik' des Aristoteles [pp. 129-149]berlegungen zum Programma Antiochos' III. Fr den Tempel und die Stadt Jerusalem (Jos. Ant. Jud. 12,145-146) und zum Problem Jdischer Listen [pp. 150-164]Isocrates, Ep. 6. 8 [pp. 165-170]Rhetoric and Paradox: Cicero, 'Paradoxa Stoicorum IV' [pp. 171-183]Unterdrckte Klagen Beim tod des Pompeius (Lucan. 7,43) und des Cremutius Cordus (Sen. Consol. Marc. 1, 2) [pp. 184-191]Plutarch's Lives of Cicero, Cato, and Brutus [pp. 192-203]Plotinus and the Muses [pp. 204-212]Demetriana Varia [pp. 213-236]Miszellen'Popular Justice' and the End of Aristophanes' 'Clouds' [pp. 237-242]Zu Ovids 'Ars Amatoria' 1,665 [pp. 242-247]Ulixi Labyrinthus (Aur. Fronto I 4.3) [pp. 247-252]"Superstitio" bei Donat, Servius und Isidor [pp. 252-253]Zur Geschichte der Griechischen Synonymica: Ptolemaios und die Epitoma Laurentiana [pp. 253-256]

Back Matter [pp. III-VI]

plotinus and the muses

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