Taylor on Five Divine Dances

Thomas Taylor · Mystic Verse and Insights Series · 2 pages

Two pages from Thomas Taylor's additional notes on Plato's Phaedrus, in The Works of Plato, setting out *a numbered list of five divine dances* after a remark of Hermeas, with the Greek given in a footnote.

The note opens by ruling out the obvious reading: dancing here must not be understood literally, as though Terpsichore were propitious to those who engage in the kind of dancing that is an object of sense, which would be ridiculous. The five that are meant are then listed in ascending seriousness — first the dance of the gods; second that of divine souls; third the revolution of the celestial divinities, meaning the seven planets and the inerratic sphere, which is called a dance; fourth the dance performed by those initiated in the mysteries; and fifth and last, the whole life of a philosopher. From this Taylor draws the question the passage exists for: who are those that honour the goddess in the dance? Not those who dance well, but those who live well through the whole of the present existence, elegantly arranging their life and dancing in symphony with the universe. The remaining lines treat the other Muses on the same principle — Erato named from Love and cooperating with it, Calliope named from the eye, and Urania presiding over astronomy — with the claim that through these two the rational part is preserved from subjection to the irrational, since by surveying the order of the celestial gods we properly arrange the irrational part, and by rhythms, philosophy and hearing we dispose what is disorderly in us.

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