The Commentary of Hierocles upon the Golden Verses of Pythagoras

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I hope the reader will forgive the liberty I have taken in translating these verses somewhat at large, without which it would have been almost impossible to have given any kind of turn, in English poetry, to so dry a subject. The sense of the author is, I hope, no where mistaken: and if there seem, in some places, to be some additions in the English verses to the Greek text, they are only such as may be justified from HIEROCLES'S COMMENTARY, and delivered by him as the larger and explained sense of the author's short precept. I have, in some few places, ventured to differ from the learned Mr. Dacier's interpretation, as those, that shall give themselves the trouble of a strict comparison, will find. How far I am in the right, is left to the reader to determine.