I frammenti di Parmenide

but also among the ancient Indians, the Hebrews (witness the story of Elijah), and other nations. That Parmenides, when his mind was expanding, and, as it were, grasping the whole Universe in one thought, should have felt that he was coming into the region of the gods, and pictured himself as furnished with their means of locomotion, one can readily believe. If this is oncet admitted, we need not spend much labor in attempting 10 interpret minute points about the chariot or its axles. Sextus Empeiricus, in whose work Adversus Mathematicos this introduction is for the most part preserved, makes a comment upon it, which we must take for what it is worth. Sextus lived at a time when philosophers were finding allegories in everything ancient ; witness his contemporary Porphyry's Cave of the Nymphs. His views of what Parmenides may have thought, and his ideas concerning the imagery likely to have suggested itself to Parmenides, can have no authority whatever. He says : "In these lines, Parmenides says he is borne by coursers — that is, the irrational impulses and appetites of the soul — along the noble and glorious pathway of a goddess — that is, the path of contemplation based on philosophic reason. For reason, like a guiding deity, conducts to the knowledge of all things. And her daughters go before — namely, the senses. He refers to the ears when he says : 'It was urged by a couple of wheels well-rounded' by the wheels (circles), that is, of the ears, through which they receive sound. Intuitions he calls l daughters of the Sun,' who leave the 'mansions of darkness/ and move [their veils] toward the light, because without light there would be no use for them. He says he came