Page:Proofs of the Enquiry into Homer's Life and Writings.pdf/95

Rh 82

P roof s of the Enquiry into

Sect. XI.







The Story of the Syrens contains a beauti ful Allegory. Their charming Aspect at first Sight, their fair Faces and bewitching Voice, perfectly represent the gay Appearance of an Ob ject ofPleasure : and their false destructive Nature, their hidden Deformities, and the way to shun and destroy them, nicely agree with the Methods prescribed by the Moralists for avoiding a gilded Snarey that first allures, and then ruins the un wary. One of the most genuine Pieces of Mo rals handed down to us from Antiquity, is known by the Name of Cebes's Picture. Cebes was a Theian, and a Scholar long and strictly attached to the divine Socrates. He has given a lively Representation of the various Turns and Stages of human Life in the Description of an imaginary PiiJure ; and of the terrible Consequences of indulging the criminal PasPggi (Visions in each of them. ' This Picture, says he, z6o. (u) < like the Sphinx's Riddle, represents what is ' '

good and what evil, and what is neither good nor evil in Life. Now these are things which if any Person does not understand, he is undone and ruined by Folly. But if he does understand them, on the contrary, Folly is destroyed, and he is Me, not only for the present, but he continues happy and prosperous through the whole Course of his Life.' Cebes. The Rh