Bugonia Quotes

There is a complex but stunningly convincing case, made by Llewelyn Morgan at Cambridge, that the episode of bugonia (the genesis of bees from the body of a dead ox) in Virgil’s Georgics is actually an Orphic allegory. This is difficult to fathom, until you realize that Greek philosophers like Porphyry frequently spoke of bees as a symbol for human souls. The narrative from Virgil’s Georgics features the sacrifice of an ox (in honor of Orpheus) and the genesis of bees from its body. Morgan convincingly illustrates that the Greek legends of bugonia represent a widespread concept of human souls originating from a sacrificial ox, which was apparently present in the Eleusinian Mysteries as well as the Orphic Mysteries.