{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/hoo/hoo29.htm","path":"cla/hoo/hoo29.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/hoo/hoo29.htm","text":"PROTEUS I call, whom Fate decrees, to keep\n The keys which lock the chambers of the deep;\n First-born, by whose illustrious pow'r alone\n All Nature's principles are clearly shewn:\n Matter to change with various forms is thine, 5\n Matter unform'd, capacious, and divine.\n All-honor'd, prudent, whose sagacious mind\n Knows all that was, and is, of ev'ry kind,\n With all that shall be in succeeding time;\n So vast thy wisdom, wond'rous, and sublime: 10\n For all things Nature first to thee consign'd,\n And in thy essence omniform confin'd.\n Come, blessed father, to our rites attend,\n And grant our happy lives a prosp'rous end.\n149:* According to Proclus, in Plat. Repub. p. 97, Proteus, though inferior to the primary Gods, is immortal: and though not a deity, is a certain angelic mind of the order of Neptune, comprehending in himself all the forms of things generated in the universe.","title":"The Initiations of Orpheus: XXIV: To Proteus","type":"page"}