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[364e]

“ And incense and libation turn their wills
Praying, whenever they have sinned and made transgression.
”

Hom. Il. 9.497
And they produce a bushel1 of books of Musaeus and Orpheus, the offspring of the Moon and of the Muses, as they affirm, and these books they use in their ritual, and make not only ordinary men but states believe that there really are remissions of sins and purifications for deeds of injustice, by means of sacrifice and pleasant sport2 for the living,

1 ὅμαδον, lit. noise, hubbub, babel, here contemptuous. There is no need of the emendation ὁπμαθόν. Cf. 387 A, and Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, p. 82; cf. John Morley, Lit. Studies, p. 184, “A bushel of books.”

2 Cf. Laws 819 B.

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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