The Delphic Oracle upon Plotinus
About the text
Yeats first published this poem in 1932. It is out of copyright in Ireland and the EU, but in the United States it stays in copyright until the start of 2028, and this site is served partly from American servers. So for now we give the notes without the full text; it will appear here in 2028.
It begins: Behold that great Plotinus swim
In brief
SummaryThe philosopher Plotinus swims through bitter seas towards the blessed dead.
The oracle at Delphi describes the soul of the philosopher Plotinus after death. He swims, battered by heavy seas, towards the land of the blessed. Rhadamanthus, the kindly judge, beckons him, but the Golden Race who live there are dim to his sight, because salt blood clouds his eyes. The second stanza shows the paradise he is struggling towards: on level grass and in winding groves walk Plato and Minos, stately Pythagoras and all the choir of Love.
Lines to remember
Behold that great Plotinus swim,
Line by line
Lines 1 to 5The swimmer
The oracle bids us behold great Plotinus swimming, buffeted by the seas of life and death. Rhadamanthus beckons him, but the Golden Race looks dim, for salt blood blocks his eyes. Even a great philosopher arrives in the next world half-blinded by the struggle.
Lines 6 to 10The choir of Love
Paradise opens: blessed spirits scattered on level grass or winding through a grove. Plato and Minos pass, stately Pythagoras is there, and all the choir of Love. The calm, spacious stanza contrasts with the violent sea of the first.
Themes
The soul's journey
Death here is not a gentle passage but a hard swim through heavy seas. Plotinus arrives "buffeted" and bloodied, and cannot yet see clearly. The poem suggests that even the wisest soul must struggle out of the bitter element of life before it can join the blessed.
Wisdom rewarded
The paradise is peopled by philosophers and lawgivers, Plato, Pythagoras and Minos, gathered in a "choir of Love". Wisdom and love are joined, and the stately, pastoral setting of grass and grove is the reward promised to the philosopher who swims towards it through the bitter sea.
Context
The poem belongs to "Words for Music Perhaps", first collected in Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems (Cuala Press, 1932) and then in The Winding Stair and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1933). It draws on the oracle said to have been given at Delphi about the soul of Plotinus after his death, recorded by his pupil Porphyry in his life of the philosopher, which Yeats read in Stephen MacKenna's translation. Late in life Yeats answered it with the comic "News for the Delphic Oracle".
Form
Two five-line stanzas rhyming ABAAB, the triple rhyme ("swim", "him", "dim"; "grass", "pass", "Pythagoras") binding each stanza tightly. Lines alternate between about four and three beats. The first stanza is full of rough effort; the second moves smoothly, matching the change from sea to grove.
