The golden verses of Pythagoras - Antoine Fabre d'Olivet

The golden verses of Pythagoras by Fabre d'Olivet appear here for the first time in Italian in full.

It is an erudite theosophical commentary on a group of verses attributed to Pythagoras, in reality the work of Lysis or the Pythagorean school.

These verses, over the centuries, have had numerous translations: the one proposed by d'Olivet, in "eumolpic" metric - as he himself defines it - is certainly not the most literal, but it manifestly takes on the task of "restoring" and , to some extent, "reveal" the authentic and profound reasons for the text.

On the other hand, as would become clear in his later works, his intention was to create a "scientific" method of translation that distanced itself from the European paradigm, fusing phonosymbolist theories with the descriptive capacity typical of non-Indo-European languages.

This was possible by identifying a number, actually very small, of "primitive" figures - small particles, signs of expression and content together - which, present in every language in the same form, give the possibility of grasping the "spiritual" meanings that underlie a text. It was from this text that the movement of rediscovery of the ascetic doctrine of the School of Pythagoras began, paradoxically precisely in a France that had experienced the Revolution, the aim of which was to guide the mind of man to follow the itinerary that leads to God.

Antoine Fabre d'Olivet