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Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.
Clement of Alexandria in Print
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113 Pages
Page 108
Chapter XII.--Exhortation to Abandon Their Old Errors and Listen to the Instructions of Christ.
Let us then avoid custom as we would a dangerous headland, or the threatening Charybdis, or the mythic sirens. It chokes man, turns him away from truth, leads him away from life: custom is a snare, a gulf, a pit, a mischievous winnowing fan.
"Urge the ship beyond that smoke and billow." [1024]
Let us shun, fellow-mariners, let us shun this billow; it vomits forth fire: it is a wicked island, heaped with bones and corpses, and in it sings a fair courtesan, Pleasure, delighting with music for the common ear.
"Hie thee hither, far-famed Ulysses, great glory of the Achaeans;
Moor the ship, that thou mayest hears diviner voice." [1025]
She praises thee, O mariner, and calls the eillustrious; and the courtesan tries to win to herself the glory of the Greeks. Leave her to prey on the dead; a heavenly spirit comes to thy help: pass by Pleasure, she beguiles.
"Let not a woman with flowing train cheat you of your senses,
With her flattering prattle seeking your hurt."
[1024] Odyss., xii. 219.
[1025] Odyss., xii. 184.
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