Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent.

  • Beaumont, John, -1731.
Date:
1724
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    200/226 (page 186)
    feflion, and defired that he might have a Draught of it; which not obtaining, he pawn'd one of his Eyes for it. Whereupon Freedom being given him, as foon as. he had drank, he found him felt adorned with ail eminent Underhanding and Wifdom. Ottinus having therefore pawn'd one of his Eyes, which perhaps he never received again, it's no wonder if he often ap¬ peared having but one Eye. . Now this Fable, I conceive, may be thus explain¬ ed ^ That a Man has two Eyes, one of Faithy and another of Reafon; and tkat the latter muft be laid by, for him to drink of the Fountain of Wifdom with the Eye of Faith alone. Callimachus, in his Hymn on the Birth of Palias, tells us, that ‘Tire/las, having feen her there naked, was wholly deprived of his Eye-fight ; and that Pallas, being moved by the Tears of Chariclo, the Mother of Tirefias, who forely complain'd of it, and for whom Ihe had a great kindnefs, told her, That fhe had not caufed her Son to lofe his Sight, but that it was a Judgment had palled according to the Law's of Saturn, that if any Man fhould behold any of the immortal Gods, without their leave, he fhould receive a feyere Punifhment ; which Decree was irrevocable, fince the Deftinies had ordered it fo at her Son's Birth : but that fhe would make him an ample amends for his Lofs, file would endow him with the Spirit of Prophecy beyond all others ; give him a noble Staff to guide him in his way ; grant him a long term of Life ; and, when he died, he fhould be honourably entertained by Pluto, in the fubrerraneous Regions, and pafs up and dow;n among the Dead as the foie w ife Man. Now, I conceive, the genuine Explication of this Fable to be thus : YVhoever has feen the Goddefs of Wifdom naked, or without her Veil, muft lofe his Eye-fight, as Homery as well as Tirejias, is faid to have done: for after fuch a Sight, the Eye of Man's TJnderftanding is otherwife directed than according to