Talk:Sallust On the Gods and the World/The Hymns of Proclus

The text as transcribed here does not match the source that is referred to. The transcription we have here is copied from the website tertullian.org, transcribed by Roger Pearse in 2008. In turn, Pearse states his source as Thomas Taylor, who published a version of Proclus' hymns in his 1793 book "Sallust on the Gods and the World / The Hymns of Proclus."

Here's the problem: if you actually look up Taylor's book, which is now out of copyright and available digitally on the Internet, you will find that the Greek text presented here is not the same as the Greek text presented in Taylor's book. That is because Taylor's edition was awful. You cannot depend on Thomas Taylor's edition of Proclus' hymns. Entire lines are missing, the punctuation is not rendered, and the accentuation and tones are not rendered.

The transcription presented here, in fact, cannot come from Thomas Taylor. Pearse misrepresented the source of the transcription. The transcription presented here is accurate as far as I know; but its source is emphatically not Thomas Taylor.

The translation presented here is from Thomas Taylor and is reproduced exactly from the original 1793 book. It is an awful, clumsy translation, which requires at least two lines to translate every one of Proclus', and even then innovates, exaggerates and confuses.

For a better Greek text look up an 1897 volume by Arthur Ludwich titled "Eudociae Augustae, Procli Lycii, Claudiani carminum Graecorum reliquiae. Proclus' hymns are analyzed following page 117. Also, Cousin, Procli Philosophi Platonici opera inedita (1864).

There are of course even better editions that are bound up in copyright law: the standard is Vogt 1957, Procli hymni accedunt hymnorum fragmenta, epigrammata, scholia, fontium et locorum similium apparatus, indices.

If you are actually interested in Proclus' hymns don't waste a lot of time wrestling with Taylor's versions, neither the Greek transcriptions nor the horrendous translations.