Philosophical thinking about the nature of allegory begins early. While music is understood to be directly symbolic of the original unity of things, lyric poetry employs allegories to try the same symbolic work. The same point is made concerning the allegorical nature of myth. The pure musical route, though, is untranslatable or incommunicable, and thus is not anything like an insight into or wisdom concerning the original unity. Thus, while Apollonian images are appearances – and thus, it would seem something like the opposite of knowledge – when they function as allegories, they are in fact an important mechanism of wisdom.