Yes, it was coming across excerpts in anthologies of Stephen MacKenna's
acclaimed translation of the Enneads that intrigued me. Yep, me too. I like the
MacKenna version because it is readable. However, I actually use the
translation by A.H. Armstrong of the complete Enneads in 7 volumes in the Loeb
edition.
The later Neos like Proclus and Iamblichus are unreadable except by professors
in ivory towers.
Well I’ve had some pretty erudite professors but I never was able to find that
ol’ ivory tower. Much depends upon the translator, with academics being some of
the best examples for creating unreadable
text. However, not all of them are so inept. Here is a translation of a
passage of Iamblicus:
But there is another principle (arche) of the soul, superior to all nature and
knowledge, by which we are able to be united with the Gods, transcend the
mundane order, and participate in the eternal life and activity of the
super-celestial Gods. … The soul is then entirely separated from those things
that bind it to the generated world and it flies from the inferior and
exchanges one life for another. It gives itself to another order, having
entirely abandoned its former existence.
(Iamblicus, De Mysteriis 270, 8-19 – from Theurgy and the Soul, by Gregory
Shaw)
I found such a translation not only easily understandable but also
illuminating.
