[617b]
and next and together with one another the seventh,
sixth and fifth; and third1 in
swiftness, as it appeared to them, moved the fourth with returns upon
itself, and fourth the third and fifth the second. And the spindle turned on
the knees of Necessity, and up above on each of the rims of the circles a
Siren stood, borne around in its revolution and uttering one sound, one
note, and from all the eight there was the concord of a single harmony.2 And there were another three
1 The best mss. have τὸν before τρίτον. It is retained by some editors, but Schleiermacher rejected it and Adam and Burnet omit it.
2 The music of the spheres. Cf. Cic.De nat. deor. iii. 9. 26, Mayor, vol. iii. p. 86, Macrob. on Somn. Scip. ii. 3, Ritter-Preller (9th ed.), pp. 69-70 ( 81-82), K. Gronau, Poseidonios und die jüdisch-christliche Genesisexegese, pp. 59-61. Aristotle's comment, De caelo 290 b 12 ff., is that the notion of a music of the spheres is pretty and ingenious, but not true. He reports the (Pythagorean?) explanation that we do not hear it because we have been accustomed to it from birth. see Carl v. Jan, “Die Harmonie der Sphären,”Philologus, lii. 13 ff.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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