Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	body_n	soul_n	true_a	7,689	5	4.8842	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95995	Æneas his descent into Hell as it is inimitably described by the prince of poets in the sixth of his Æneis. / Made English by John Boys of Hode-Court, Esq; together with an ample and learned comment upon the same, wherein all passages criticall, mythological, philosophical and historical, are fully and clearly explained. To which are added some certain pieces relating to the publick, written by the author.; Aeneis. Liber 6. English	Virgil.; Boys, John, 1614?-1661.	1660 (1660)	Wing V619; Thomason E1054_3; ESTC R200370	157,893	251

pro●essors of Christianism but exploded as absurd by the sounder sort of Ethnick Philosophers themselves as you may read in Aristot l. 1. de Anima c. 3. who terms the transmigration of souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Pythagorean Fable Pythagoras flying the tyranny of Polycrates the invader of his Countryes liberty came to Crotôna in Italy Tarquinius Superbus lording it then at Rome A. Gell. l. 17. c. 21. where setting open his School he published and by this device as Meyênus takes it from Hermippus got credit to his new doctrine Pythagoras sayes he at his first arrival in Italy made himself an habitation under ground where hiding himself he charged his Mother to record carefully all memorable passages during his absence she observant of her sonnes injunction compiled a perfect diurnal of all things in the mean time he having lived thus a whole year at last came forth out of his subterranean mansion lean pale squalid and gastly as if he had risen from the dead then assembling the multitude he told them that he returned from Hell and that he might the better perswade what he intended to instill he repeated to them all what had hapened in that part of Italy during his absence so punctually that the people thinking that there was more than an ordinary spirit in the man without further dispute or examination embraced his doctrine which in Pythagoras his own person is thus delivered by Ovid. Met. l. 15. f. 3. O genus attonitum gelidae formidine mortis Quid Styga quid tenebras nomina vana timetis Materiem Vatum falsique pericula Mundi Corpora sive rogus flammâ seu tabe vetustas Abstulerit mala posse pati non ulla putetis Morte carent animae semperque priore relictâ Sede novis domibus vivunt habitantque receptae Ipse ego nam nemini Trojani tempore belli Panthoides Euphorbus eram cui pectore quondam Haesit in adverso gravis hasta minoris Atridae Cognovi clypeum laevae gestamina nostrae Nuper Abantëis templo Junonis in Argis Omnia mutantur nihil interit errat illinc Huc venit hinc illuc quoslibet occupat artus Spiritus eque feris humana in corpora transit Inque feras noster nec tempore deperit ullo Vtque novis facilis signatur cera figuris Nec manet ut fuerat nec formam servat eandem Sed tamen ipsa eadem est animam sic semper eandem Esse sed in varias doceo migrare figuras We will not so farre injure the Poet as to express him otherwise then what his ingenuous Translatour hath done who renders him thus O you whom horrours of cold death affright Why fear you Styx vain names and endless night The dreams of Poets and feign'd miseries Of forged hell whether last flames surprize Or age devour your bodyes they nor grieve Or suffer pains Our souls for ever live Yet evermore their ancient houses leave To live in new which them as Guests receive In Trojan warres I I remember well Euphorbus was Panthous sonne and fell By Menalaüs lance my shield again At Argos late I saw in Juno's Fane All alter nothing finally decayes Hither and thither still the spirit strayes Guest to all bodies out of beasts it flies To men from men to beasts and never dies As pliant wax each new impression takes Fixt to no form but still the old forsakes Yet it the same so souls the same abide Though various figures their reception hide This doctrine being easily imbibed by his Auditors so farre dispersed it self that even the Gauls a people farre sequestred from those parts of Italy were taught the same by their Druides as you may read in Lucan vobis Authoribus umbrae Non tacitas Erebi sedes noctisque profundae Pallida regna petunt regit idem spiritus artus Orbe alio longae canitis si cognita vitae Mors media est Certè populi quos despicet Arctos Faelices errore suo quos ille timorum Maximus haud urget lethi metus inde ruendi In ferrum mens prona viris animaeque capaces Mortis ignavum est periturae parcere vitae Dislodged souls if you conceive aright To hell descend not and those realms of night The body in another world is by The same spir't ruld in your Philosophy Death to another life the way doth show In your mistake O happiest of those who Are to the North-starre subject whom the fear Of death of fears the greatest doth not skare Hence on drawn steel you rush your great souls hence Disdain to stick at your vile blood's expence Herod it seems was a Pythagorean in this also whilst he said that the soul of St. John the Baptist by him wickedly murdered was entred into the body of our blessed Saviour Josephus l. 2. c. 7. de bell Judaic affirms that the Pharisees were tainted with the same erroneous belief who held that the souls of good men did pass into other bodies but that those of the wicked were for ever tormented in hell But haply we wade too farre in these speculations we shall therefore proceed to the next head which is concerning the creation of things The Poets sense and meaning here is briefly this that there is a certain spirit or soul which doth inform actuate complete cherish and sustain all Beings whether elementary viz. the Fire Air comprehended in the word Coelum or the heaven Earth and Water periphrastically expressed in the words Campos liquentes the liquid or watrie plains or celestial exemplified in the Sun and Moon as the two most glorious operative and powerfull Planets in generation Astra Titania put here by an Enallage for Astrum Titanium signifies the Sun from Titan who was so skilfull an Astrologue that he was feigned to be Brother to the Sun as Cael. Rhodig observes out of Pausan in Corinthiacis lect antiq l. 24. c. 17. and Titan is often taken for the Sun it self hence Astrum Titanium is only a circumlocution of Titan or the Sun But to proceed from the operation of this soul or spirit not only simple bodies as the Elements and Heavens took their being and are by the propitious influx thereof preserved therein but mixt bodies also as he instances in men beasts birds and fishes The sum of all is this viz. that there is a certain spirit or soul to whose operations and powerfull insinuations the world and all therein contained owes both its existence and subsistence If we by the spirit or soul here mentioned understand God himself or his omnipotent Spirit and the powerfull emanations thereof nothing is more consonant not only to reason but also to the analogie of the holy Scriptures then the assertion of our Poet For God is truly that Spirit which being present every where is without extension of it self diffused through all things and doth intus alere cherish and sustain all things This is that soul which actuates the vast Machine of this world which

upholds preserves and governs the great fabrick of the Universe which otherwise would fall into disorder confusion and into that primitive Chaos out of which it was at first educed for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In him we live move and have our being If we give tbis interpretation to the Poet these few verses seem to be an epitome or brief comprehension of the first chapter of Genesis touching the Creation for as Moses sayes there In principio Deus creavit coelum terram so Virgil here Principio coelum terras c. Spiritus intus alit and whereas Moses sayes that Spiritus Dei movebat vel incubabat supra faciem aquarum that the Spirit of God did move or brood upon the face of the waters so Virgil here tels us of a Spiritus or Mens which magno se corpore miscet as mention is made there of the Creation of those two great Luminaries the Sun and the Moon the like is here also Lastly as the Creation of Beasts Birds Fish and then of Man is there specified so Virgil sayes here Inde i. e. à Deo operante hominum pecudumque genus vitaeque volantum Et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus But others and with them I am apt to concurre are of opinion that Virgil here speaks according to the mind and sense of his Master Plato who followed Trismegistus and Pythagoras herein the first founders and fautors of the Academick Philosophy as he did in his opinion concerning the transmigration of souls Plato in his Timaeus and elsewhere as Wendilinus cites him Phys contempl sect 2. c. 6. endeavours to prove that this World or Universe is informed by a soul distinct from the World it self which doing the office which other souls doe in the particular beings they inform doth preserve move and govern this All and all its parts making the world hereby an Animal rul'd and govern'd by its own peculiar soul nor is God meant hereby but some other entity different from that ens entium and by them styled Anima vel Spiritus Mundi But this is throughly winnowed and refuted by the learned Wendilinus in the place above mentioned and the arguments of its assertors fully answered to whom for more ample satisfaction herein as also to the subtile Scaliger Exerc. 6. sect 2. we shall referre the Reader and proceed § 73 Anchises pointing to those souls before him which stood upon the brink of the river Lethe for the Antecedent to illis which the Ancients used for illis is Animae sayes that they are of a fierie nature and that their principles which he here calls semina are of heavenly extraction or composition which is not to be understood onely of those souls there but of the humane soul in general for according to the Theologie of some Gentils the soul was not judged as it really is a simple and spiritual essence but an elementary compound of Fire and Air the two more pure desecated and active elements as the body was thought to be of Water and Earth the two more gross material and inactive principles We shall easily elucidate this dark place if we reduce the Authors sense into this single Theoreme viz. the humane soul is a most excellent being as consisting of the two more excellent principles viz. Fire and Air From the first there is in it igneus vigor from the second it is coelestis originis for coelum is taken here as often it is pro aëre or the air Hence it is plain what the Poet means by Igneus est ollis vigor coelestis origo Seminibus Thus paraphrased But those souls there of fiery vigour share The principles of them celestiall are That the soul consists of fire was the opinion of Hipparchus that of air of Anaximenes that of both of Boethos and our Virgil here Epicurus added to these two a third ingredient whilst he held that it was a speceies igne aëre spiritu mixta as you may read in Macrob. l. 1. c. 14. in Somn. Scip. who there delivers the various opinions of the Ancients concerning the nature of the Soul Hence according to Homers doctrine who held with Hipparchus that the soul was originated from fire the Heroes abhorred nothing more then drowning as most contrary to the fierie nature of the Soul which they thought would thereby be extinguished See how apprehensive Virgil makes Aeneas of drowning l. 1. Aen. Extempló Aeneae solvuntur frigore membra Ingemit duplices tendens ad sidera palmas Talia voce refert c. A cold sweat doth Aeneas limbs surprize He sighs and his hands stretching to the skies He thus begins c. Whereas otherwise he makes him a person of a most undaunted and unshaken constancy 〈◊〉 l. 6. Non ulla laborum O virgo nova mî facies inopináve surgit no dangers unto me Are strange or Virgin shake my constancie Doubtless Virgil herein concurred with Homer in his opinion And from hence the Stoicks opin'd that the soul as soon as freed from the body presently took its flight to the Concave of the Moon the place or region of the element of fire But of these dreams more then enough let us now return to our Author Virgil from these premisses inferres that the Soul is of an active piercing and subtile nature as are the principles whereof it consists that it is of it self free from all passions and perturbations quantum non noxia corpora tardant Unless by the commixtion and conjunction with the body it abate of its naturall vigour and become as that is heavy and drossie All souls are equally intelligent and alike impassionate But according to the variety of complexions the abundance of humors the pureness of the spirits the disposition of the organs especially of the brain they are more intense or remiss § 74 Hence the Poet sayes that as to the intellectual part thereof it becomes heavy dull and inapprehensive so to the appetitive or will it becomes subject to sundry irregularities and passions which he specifies here in four whereof two have for their object an Evil and two a Good The first is Fear which is a passion of the soul touching a future evil as Grief The second is touching an evil present and now upon us The third is Desire or Concupiscence which is a passion of the soul about a good absent as Joy The fourth is about a good present and in fruition or the acquiescence of the Soul in the possession of its desired object Three of these viz. Desire Joy and Grief are placed in the Concupiscible Appetite and one viz. Fear in the irascible He inferres further that the soul is not only subject to error and passion whilst united to the body but that it doth absolutely for●● it s own nature nor is at all sensible of its originall which is of fire and air which he means here whilst he saies nec auras respiciunt the body is

Arm not your Countrey'gainst your selves but thou My of-spring whom heav'ns for their own avow Forbear and first thy self disarm 90 Hee Corinth raz'd and with Greek blood bedi'd Shall to the Capitol in triumph ride The same having aveng'd our native Troy And Pallas prophan'd Temple shall destroy Argi Mycaenae Agamemnon ' s seat And Pyrrhus proud Achilles race defeat Who 61 Cato would omit or 92 Cossus thee The 93 Gracchi who who the 94 Scipiadae Warr's thunderbolts and Libya's overthrow 95 Fabricius great in a small fortune who 96 Serranus thee tilling thy ground but yee Whether 97 O Fabii doe you hurry mee All ready spent thou art that Maximus whose wise delays shall raise declining us Some brasse shall cast that it to breathe shall seem Work marble that you it alive would deem Plead better better th' heav'nly motions tell But Roman thou learn th' art of ruling well Such be thy craft in peace thy custome such The loyall cherish the Rebellious Crush Thus spake Archîses and to this subjoyns In royall spoyles see how 98 Marcellus shines See how he marcheth raller then the rest The Roman State tumultuous rout's supprest Hee shall from falling keep he shall inthrawl The Carthaginian and the Rebell Gaul Father Quirinus Hee also to thine The third spoyls ravish'd from the Foe shall joyn And here Aeneas for before him there A goodly youth did in bright arms appear But sad his look dejected was his face What is hee Father who with equall pace The other doth accompany his Son Or some of our Descendants how they run And round him flock how gracefull is his Meen But gloomy ●ight doth with a cloudy skreen His head involve Tears flowing from his eyes The good Anchîses thus to him replies The griefs of thine desire not Sonne to know Him to the world the fates shall only show The Roman name O Gods too pow'rfull had Appear'd had you such blessings lasting made With what laments shall great Romes burial place Resound what fun'ral pomps as thou dost passe By his new grave sad Tiber shalt thou see None ever of the Trojan stem shall bee Of equall hopes with him Romes joyfull coast Of a more worthy birth shall never boast His piety and antique singlenesse Or who his matchlesse valour shall expresse Whether on foot or his brave Courser arm'd None ever had encountred him unharm'd Deplored youth if this sad doom by thee Can be eschew●d thou shalt Marcellus bee Bring Lilies I will purple flowërs strew At least let mee return this tribute due To the deceas'd an empty Monument Let me erect thus they together went Through those void ayrie Wasts and all survey'd Which when the Father had at large displayd And his sonnes minde with the heroïck thought Of future fame inflamed him hee taught What warres hee was to wage with whom to fight Latinus strength and did at large recite How he should or incounter or decline All hazards waiting on his vast designe 99 Of Sleep two gates there are the one of horn Whence reall dreams to th'upper world are born Th' other 's made of polish'd Ivory From whence deluding fancies mount the sky His Son thus entertaining and the Maid Anchises them out at this gate convey'd Aeneas to his friends and ships repaires And to Cajeta's Port directly steers ANNOTATIONS upon the Sixth Book OF VIRGIL'S AENEIS § 1 THe coherence of this Book with the precedent depends upon the two last verses thereof where Aeneas in these words laments the death of his drowned friend Palinurus Heu nimium coelo pelago confise sereno Nudus in ignotâ Palinure jacebis arenâ Sic fatur lacrymans O Palinure trusting fair-seas and sky Thou naked on some coast unknown mustly This weaping said Which Hemistich our Poet translates out of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor must we lay any thing of disproportion to our Author in that he makes his heroïck Aeneas to weep Homer did the same in the person of Vlysses Tears are not alwayes the excrement of a moist brain but many times the exudations of a generous heart springing from a commendable sensibleness of anothers calamity and may become the manly countenance of a Caesar or an Alexander whereas to the contrary cruelty and cowardize are terms convertible and generally the unhand some inmates of an ignoble breast § 2 The Poet here speaks pr●leptically for Cumae was not then built but a long time after viz. in the reign of Latinus Sylvius the fift in descent from Aeneas It was founded and planted by the people of Chalchis the principall City of Euboea a noted Island in the Aegaean Sea and not far distant from the Coast of Attica now known as I take it by the name of Negroponte whence Virgil gives it the epithetes of Euboïca and Calchidicae both expressing its originall It was called Cumae either from a City of that name in Asia Minor or according to Servius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because situated near the sea-side or from a woman with childe which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 found there sleeping by the first Adventurers and taken as it also proved for a good Omen of future fecundity though at present it survives only in the fame and memory of its past greatness little or no remains thereof being at this day to be seen § 3 Virgil has indeed expressed that with more Poeticall pomp which we have but barely rendred in the English quaerit pars semina flammae Abstrusa in venis silicis Some think that he speaks here more like a Poet then a Philosopher ascribing those sparks for that he means by those semina flammae following Homer herein who calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the collision of two solid bodies as the flint and the steel and this is Alex. Aphrodisaeus his opinion denying that there is any latent or secret fire in either of them But since all mixt bodies are compounded of the 4. elements and by consequence have a proportion of fire in them why may we not more rationably conclude that these semina flammae are potentially in all solid bodies and brought into act by a violent and often-repeated collision Hence Mills and Chariot-wheels often fire nor must we conclude to the contrary because they are outwardly cold So is wine which hath a virtuall heat and spirit in it which appears when awaken'd by the naturall heat of the stomach Again should fire which is a substance owe its birth to the collision of two solid bodies only then an Accident for such is that collision would produce a substance but that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the principles of Philosophie we shall therefore conclude that Virgil spake as well like a Philosopher as a Poet when he said quaerit pars semina flammae Abstrusa in venis silicis Whose opinion we may strengthen by the Authority of Symposius in silice who affirmes Semper inest intus

with green metall in our thickets grows This shall be thine the crop we give to thee Thou with the yellow fruit inrich'd shalt be § 20 The second thing Aeneas was to doe in order to his enterprize was to perform the funerall Rites due to the dead body of his friend Misênus The story of whose death and funerall is not added here by the Poet rashly and without designe For this Sciomancie or ceremonies which were to be performed to the infernall Gods could not be completed without the intervention of the dead corps of a man slain Hence Virgil feigns Misênus to be murdered by Triton in the manner you read though some say that he was for this purpose murdered by Aeneas himself though dissembled by Virgil beause he would not make Aeneas guilty of so foul a fact Homer doth the like in the person of Elpênor Vlysses his friend upon the same occasion And because the interrement of the dead body by which the Fleet was polluted was the proper expiatory for such pollution and necessarily previous to his sacrificing to the Manes and his descent into Hell therefore he is feigned to perform these funerall Rites before he puts in execution the third and last precept of Sibylla contained in this following verse Duc nigras pecudes haec prima piacula sunto § 21 Achâtes is alwayes introduced by the Poet as Aeneas his constant Companion and inseparable Associate and that not without reason if we reflect upon the etymologie of the word for Achâtes is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies care and thoughtfulness the individuall adherent to great men and Princes qui es fidus Achâtes It comes § 22 It is recorded by Donâtus in Virgils life that he broke off as his manner often is at Misenum Aeoliden and that whilst he did recite this book before Augustus he did substitute ex tempore this Hemistich with the following verse quo non praestantior alter Aere ciére viros Martemque accendere cantu § 23 By this brace of Doves sacred to Venus Aeneas his Mother because salacious and fruitfull and esteemed a very lucky Augurie Mythologists understand the two wings of the soul contemplative and moral virtue which serve as guides to go before us to the golden bough of true sapience and verity and to lead us out of those errors wherein without their assisting conduct we are irrecoverably lost and this is that sylva immensa wherein Aeneas is said to be Others more Theologically understand by this Wood the World with those Labyrinths of temptations and Mazes of allurements wherewith whilst here we are involved and fastly engaged and by the Doves the blessed Spirit and grace of God which leadeth the pious through all wordly impediments to the fruition of eternall bliss which is the true golden Bough § 24 It is the nature of this Bird to peck and feed as it goes along and according to Interpreters our Author alludes here to that kind of Augurie or Divination which they called Augurium pullarium the manner whereof was this There were certain Chickens kept for this purpose in a Coop before which the Augur called Pullarius cast crums of bread if the Chicken lept hastily out of the Coop and eat so greedily of the crums that some of them falling out of their mouths rebounded from the ground which they termed Tripudium then it was taken for a good Omen and those who came to consult proceeded in their intended designe But if to the contrary the Chicken or Pullets came but slowly out of the Coop went back again or flew from the meat then they took it for an evil sign and desisted from their enterprise The Roman History furnisheth us with a pretty tale and to our purpose Claudius Pulcher collegue with L. Junius Pullus An. Vrb 504. designing to surprize Adherbal the Carthaginian Admiral in the Port of Drepanum in Sicilia before he put to sea asked counsell as the custome was of the Pullarius and when the Augur told him that the Chicken would not come out of the Coop and therefore advised him at present to desist till he might have a more encouraging Augurie answered quia esse nolunt bibant Because they will not eat let them drink and so threw them into the sea but mark the event the Romans never received a more memorable overthrow at sea for the Consul escaping with 30 ships left 93 in the hands of his victorious enemy This disaster was generally ascribed to his contempt of religion and slighting the Augury so carefull is the Devill by such examples to assert the credit of his wicked superstition and to drill on his followers to their own inevitable destruction This story you may read in Livie l. 19. Val. Max. l. 1. c. 4. Cicer. l. 2. de Nat. Deor. and in Suet. in Tiber c. 1. § 25 Misletoe of which birdlime is made see the manner in Pliny l. 24. c. 6. is an excrescence or exsudation of the tree on which it grows not proceeding from any seminall vertue thereof whence Virgil sayes quod non sua seminat arbos but is according to Scaliger Exerc. 168. produced as horns are in living creatures from the abundance of excrement ex vitali arboris excremento There is a popular and received error that this plant is generated from the dung of the Thrush which gave birth to this adagie Turdus sibi cacat malum or necem which is spoken of a man who is the fond Author of his own mischief but this is sufficiently refuted by the subtle Scaliger ib. Of this there are two kinds the one common growing in Apple-trees the other more rare shooting out of the Oak and therefore called viscum quercinum Misleto of the Oak and this is meant here by the Poet. This was esteemed sacred and much ceremony was used in the gathering of it Plin. l. 16. c. 44. This s●militude is very apt both in regard of the colour for the best sort as the same Author writes is extra fulvum intus porraceum quo nihil est glutinosius Secondly in regard of the manner of its growing for it is an excresence And lastly because it was accounted sacred all which three properties answer to the nature of the golden Bough § 26 Virgil who was generally learned never shews more exactnesse then when he treats of ancient Rites and Customes wherefore I have stuck here as also in the following description of the sacrifices performed to the infernall Deities more closely then elsewhere to the literall sense and Grammaticall construction of the Author because every word hath its weight and significancie we shall take every thing in the same order it lies here First they raised the Pyre or funerall Pile which was built of Oak and Pitch-trees as most combustible materials piceae flammis alimenta supremis Stat. This according to the quality of the person deceased was more or lesse large Virgil sayes here that they did struere ingentem