Note 29 — Chapter X · THE ORPHICS

Nonn. vi, 173; O., fr. 195. Perhaps Proclus is right in explaining this doubling of the god’s figure in the mirror as meaning his entrance upon the μεριστὴ δημιουργία. A reference to a similar explanation of this Διονύσου κάτοπτον occurs even in Plot. 4, 3, 12 (Lob. 555)—? also in the strange statement made by Marsilius Ficinus as to the crudelissimum apud Orpheum Narcissi fatum (was Zagreus another Narcissus?) fr. 315; cf. Plot. 1, 6, 8. The entry of the one origin of the universe into the multiplicity of phenomena is first clearly referred to in the dismemberment of Zagreus, but it would be quite like this symbol-loving poetry to introduce the same motif in a different form with a passing reference earlier in the poem.