Transcriber’s notes:
Italic text is marked _thus_.
The spelling, hyphenation, punctuation and accentuation are as the
original, except for apparent typographical errors which have been
corrected.
[Illustration:
_Tiberius and Agrippina._
_From the painting by Peter Paul Rubens._]
PLUTARCH’S ESSAYS AND MISCELLANIES
Comprising all his Works Collected
under the Title of “Morals” · Translated
from the Greek by Several Hands
Corrected and Revised by WILLIAM
W. GOODWIN, Ph.D., Professor of
Greek Literature in Harvard University
In Five Volumes · Volume Three
[Illustration: HONOS ET VIRTVS]
BOSTON · LITTLE, BROWN
AND COMPANY · MCMXI
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870,
By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
Copyright, 1898, 1905,
By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
Printers
S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME THIRD.
WITH THE TRANSLATORS’ NAMES.
WHETHER 'TWERE RIGHTLY SAID, LIVE CONCEALED.
BY CHARLES WHITAKER, ESQUIRE, SOMETIME FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE IN
OXFORD.
He who said this had no mind to live concealed, 3. Such men strive
hard to be known, 3. Even a bad man ought not to withdraw from the
notice of others, 4. It is a loss to the world, if virtuous men live
concealed, 5. If brave and good men become known, they are examples
to others, 6. Virtue by use grows bright; but human abilities,
unemployed, go to decay, 7. Our life and all our faculties were given
to be used, and to make us known, 8. Only a vicious, useless life
should be forgotten, 10.
AN ABSTRACT OF A COMPARISON BETWIXT ARISTOPHANES AND
MENANDER
BY WILLIAM BAXTER, GENT.
Aristophanes suits low and vulgar persons; Menander the men of
culture; the style of Aristophanes lacks fitness and propriety; it is
harsh, coarse, and obscene; Menander charms us by his elegance and
refinement, 11.
OF BANISHMENT, OR FLYING ONE’S COUNTRY.
BY JOHN PATRICK, OF THE CHARTERHOUSE.
Afflicted persons need to have their grief lightened, not increased,
15. Banishment may not be an evil of itself, but only as the mind
makes it such, 16. If it be an evil, philosophy may help a man to
bear it, 17. If it be an evil, let us consider how much good remains
to balance it, 18. By nature, we have no country, we are citizens
of the world, 18, 19. In whatever part of the world we are, we may
make ourselves at home, 20. It is folly to suppose that we cannot
enjoy life but where we were born, 20. A man of skill and ability
can thrive anywhere, 21. Custom makes every thing and every place
pleasant, 22. Change of scene may afford relief, 23. Happiness is not
limited to place, 24. The Cyclades are places of exile, yet great men
have lived there, 24. Homer commends islands as places of abode, 25.
An island may be a place of much quiet and enjoyment, 25, 26. Few of
the prudent and wise were buried in their own country, 27. Instances
of the fact, 28. Some of the finest human compositions were written
in exile, 29. Instances of this, 29. It is not ignominious to be
banished, 29, 30. Instances produced, 30, 33. Banishment does not
deprive us of our liberty, 31. We are all strangers and pilgrims on
earth; the soul being of heavenly origin, 34.
OF BROTHERLY LOVE
BY JOHN THOMSON, PREBENDARY OF HEREFORD.
Address to two brothers, 36. Nature, by forming some of our most
useful members in pairs, gives a hint of the need of harmony between
brothers, 37. Nature admonishes us to prefer a brother to a stranger,
38. The author’s experience at Rome, 39. To our parents, next to the
gods, is due the highest veneration, 40. Parents are happy in the
union of brothers, and sad at their disagreement, 41. Love between
brothers indicates love to parents, 42. Disaffection between brothers
indicates great wrong somewhere, 43. Brothers, once alienated, can
scarce become true friends again, 44. Brothers must bear with one
another’s failings; they should not expect perfection, 45. If your
brother has given offence to your father, intercede in his behalf,
47. If the father be dead, let justice preside in the division of his
property, 48, 49. An unequal division produces lasting hatred and
envy among brothers, 50, 51. If one brother excel another in talent
or learning, let him treat the other with condescension and kindness,
52. And let not the other indulge envy, 53. Be not jealous of a
brother’s prosperity, 53. Brothers should assist one another, 54. The
elder brother should lead, but not be exacting and overbearing, 56.
The younger should treat the elder with respect and deference, 56,
57. Avoid disagreements about little things, 57. Yield your wishes
for peace’ sake, 58. Beautiful instance of fraternal concord from the
history of Persia, 59. Another from the history of Syria, 60. When a
brother has wronged a brother, let him confess it, 61. Kindness of
Attalus to his brother Eumenes, 62. If brothers disagree, let each
avoid a correspondence with the other’s enemies, 63. Cherish your
brother’s friends, his wife and children, 64-68.
WHEREFORE THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS NOW CEASES TO DELIVER
HER ORACLES IN VERSE.
BY JOHN PHILIPS, GENT.
A walk in Delphi, 69. The statues there; the color of the brass
admired, 70. The Corinthian brass, whence its extraordinary lustre
and beauty, 70, 71. The atmosphere of Delphi, its effect on the brass
of the statues, 72. The ancient oracles of Delphi, whence their
rudeness and coarseness, 73. Could verses so devoid of neatness
and elegance proceed from Apollo? 73. The ideas were supplied by
Apollo: the words came from the priestess, 75. The statue of Hiero at
Delphi: prodigy connected with it, 76. Other similar prodigies, 76.
But these were mere accidents, 77. Strange and unlooked-for events
may happen from natural causes, 78. Even though predicted, it was
not from any foreknowledge of the prophet but only from plausible
conjecture, 78. Conjectures are sometimes verified, 79. Yet there may
be real predictions and actual prophetic inspiration, 80. Instances
given, 80. Frogs and water-snakes: what relation have they to Apollo?
80-82; and why are they represented in the Corinthian Hall at Delphi?
80-82. Why does the Corinthian Hall bear that name? 82. The statue
of Phryne the courtesan, 83. It was no worse to place such a statue
in the temple of Apollo than to fill it with spoils taken in war,
84. Yet statues and offerings are sometimes placed there in token of
gratitude, 85. But why does the Pythian priestess no longer deliver
her oracles in verse? 86. In ancient times philosophers sometimes
spoke in verse, while oracles were sometimes delivered in prose, 87,
88. Instances given, 88, 89. Some oracles are now uttered in verse,
90. A singular anecdote, 90. As the soul acts through the body as its
servant and instrument, so the Deity uses the soul, 91. As the moon
reflects the light of the sun, yet in diminished force, so the Pythia
imperfectly yet really conveys the energy of the Deity, 92. The Deity
uses men according to their ability, 93. The Pythian priestess,
having had a slender education, cannot speak the language of culture
and refinement, 93, 94. The times are much altered from what they
once were. History and philosophy do not now take a poetical form,
95, 96. Poetry has lost its ancient credit, 98. This may account for
the disuse of verse in the Delphic utterances, 98. The ambiguity
of the ancient oracles accounted for, 99. In these times of public
tranquillity there is no need of oracles, 100. Yet let us not blame
the oracle, 103.
OF THOSE SENTIMENTS CONCERNING NATURE WITH WHICH
PHILOSOPHERS WERE DELIGHTED.
BY JOHN DOWEL, VICAR OF MELTON MOWBRAY IN LEICESTERSHIRE.
BOOK I. A threefold division of Philosophy, 104. Natural Philosophy:
what is Nature? 105. Difference between a principle and an element?
106. What are principles? 106. Opinions of Thales, Anaximander,
Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Empedocles, Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and others, concerning the origin of
things, 107-113. How was the world brought into its present order
and condition? 113. Whether the universe is one? 114. Whence the
knowledge of a Deity? 115. Different orders and classes of Deities,
117. What is God? is he perfect? is he eternal? does he interfere
with human affairs? Opinions of Pythagoras, of Socrates, Aristotle,
Epicurus, 118-122. Of geniuses and heroes, 122. Of matter: different
opinions, 123. Of ideas, 123. Of causes, 123. Of bodies, 124. Of
least things in nature, 125. Of figures, 125. Of colors, 125. Of the
division of bodies, 126. Of the mixture of the elements, 126. Of
a vacuum, 126. Of place, 127. Of space, 127. Of time, 127. Of the
essence and nature of time, 128. Of motion, 128. Of generation and
corruption, 128. Of necessity, 129. Of the nature of necessity, 129.
Of destiny or fate, 130. Of the nature of fate, 130. Of fortune, 131.
Of nature, 131.
BOOK II. Of the world, κοσμόϛ, 132. Of the figure of the world, 133.
Whether the world be an animal, 133. Whether the world be eternal and
incorruptible, 133. Whence does the world receive nutriment? 134.
From what element did God begin to raise the fabric of the world?
134. In what form and order was the world composed? 135. What is the
cause of the world’s inclination? 136. Of that thing which is beyond
the world, and whether it be a vacuum or not, 136. What parts of the
world are on the right hand and what parts are on the left? 137. Of
heaven, its nature and essence, 137. Into how many circles is the
heaven distinguished? the division of heaven, 137. What are the stars
made of? 138. Of what figure are the stars? 139. Of the order and
place of the stars, 139. Of the motion and circulation of the stars,
140. Whence do the stars receive their light? 140. What are the stars
called Dioscuri, or Castor and Pollux? 141. How stars prognosticate:
what is the cause of winter and summer? 141. Of the essence of the
sun, 141, 142. Of the magnitude of the sun, 142. Of the figure or
shape of the sun, 143. Of the turning and returning of the sun, or
the summer and winter solstice, 143. Of the eclipses of the sun, 144.
Of the essence of the moon, 145. Of the moon’s magnitude and figure,
145. Whence does the moon receive her light? 145. Of eclipses of the
moon, 146. Of the phases or aspects of the moon, 147. Of the distance
of the moon from the sun, 147. Of the year and the length of the year
in the different planets; of the great year, 147.
BOOK III. Of the galaxy, or milky way, 148. Of comets and shooting
fires, 149. Of lightning, thunder, hurricanes, and whirlwinds, 150.
Of clouds rain, snow, and hail, 151. Of the rainbow, 152. Of meteors
which resemble rods, 153. Of winds, 154. Of winter and summer,
154. Of the earth, its nature and magnitude, 154. Of the figure of
the earth, 155. Of the site and position of the earth, 155. Of the
inclination of the earth, 155. Of the motion of the earth, 156. Of
the zones of the earth, 156. Of earthquakes and their cause, 157. Of
the sea, of what it is composed, and why it has a bitter taste, 158.
Of the ebbing and flowing of the sea, 159. Of the halo, or circle
round a star, 160.
BOOK IV. Of the overflowing of the Nile, 160. Of the soul, 161.
Whether the soul be a body, and what is its nature and essence,
162. Of the parts of the soul, 162. What is the principal part of
the soul, and in what part of the body does it reside? 163. Of the
motion of the soul, 163. Of the soul’s immortality, 164. Of the
senses, and their objects, 164. Whether what appears to our senses
and imaginations be realities, 165. How many senses are there? 165.
How the conceptions of the mind are received from the senses, 166.
What is the difference between imagination (φαντασία), imaginable
(φανταστόν), fancy (φανταστικόν), and phantom (φάντασμα)? 167. Of our
sight, and by what means we see, 168. Of the images presented to the
eye in mirrors, 169. Can darkness be visible to us? 169. Of hearing,
170. Of smelling, 170. Of taste, 170. Of the voice, 171. Whether the
voice is incorporeal? what is it that gives the echo? 172. By what
means the soul is sensible, 173. Of respiration or breathing, 173. Of
the passions of the body, and whether the soul sympathizes? 175.
BOOK V. Of divination, 176. Whence do dreams arise? 176. Of the
nature of generative seed, 177. Whether the sperm be a body, 177.
Whether women give a spermatic emission, 177. How conception is
effected, 178. After what manner males and females are generated,
178. Of the causes of monstrous conceptions, 179. How it comes to
pass that a woman’s too frequent conversation with a man hinders
conception, 179. Whence it is that one birth may give two or three
children, 180. Whence arises the similitude of children to their
parents? 180. How it sometimes happens that children resemble
strangers and not their parents, 181. Whence arises barrenness
in women, and impotency in men? 181. Why mules are barren, 182.
Whether an unborn infant is an animal, 183. How the unborn child is
nourished, 183. What part of the body is first formed in the womb?
184. Whence is it that infants born in the seventh month are born
alive? 184. Of the generation of animals, 186. How many species of
animals there are, and whether all animals have sense and reason,
187. What time is required to shape the parts of animals in the womb?
188. Of what elements is each of our members composed? 188. What
causes sleep and death? 188. When is the perfection of a man dated?
189. Does the soul sleep or die with the body? 189. How plants grow,
and whether they are animals, 190. Of nourishment and growth, 191.
Whence is it that animals have appetites and pleasures? 191. What is
the cause of a fever? 192 Of health, sickness, and old age? 192.
A BREVIATE OF A DISCOURSE SHOWING THAT THE STOICS
SPEAK GREATER IMPROBABILITIES THAN THE POETS.
BY WILLIAM BAXTER, GENT.
Their philosophy leads to greater delusions than the fictions of
the poets; it is more inconsistent with real life and with possible
events, 194-196.
SYMPOSIACS.
BY T. C.
BOOK I. _Question_ 1. At a feast is it allowable to talk learnedly
and philosophize? 198. Long and tedious discourses would be out
of place: but there must be conversation: let it be on useful
subjects, 198-200. There are topics fit to be discussed at table,
200. Easy and pleasant discourse fits the occasion, 201. Disputation
and pedantry are out of place, 202. 2. Whether the entertainer
should seat the guests, or let every man take his own place, 203.
The order and respect due to age, station, and relationship, may
be observed without offence to any, the best man should have the
best place, 204-206. Custom and decency should guide, 206-208.
3. Upon what account is the place at the table, called Consular,
esteemed honorable? 210-212. Three reasons assigned, 211. 4. What
qualifications should the steward of a feast possess? 212-216.
He must be able to bear wine, have good nature, and suit his
ministrations to the wants and tastes of all, 213-215. He must keep
the company in good humor, and exclude every thing unpleasant, 216.
5. Why is it said that Love makes a man a poet? 217, 218. Poetry is
the language of strong passion, 218. 6. Whether Alexander was a great
drinker, 219-221. 7. Why old men love pure wine, 221. 8. Why old men
read best at a distance, 222-224. 9. Why fresh water washes clothes
better than salt, 224-226. 10. Why, at Athens, was it the privilege
of the tribe Aeantis, that their chorus should never be determined to
be the last? 226-228.
BOOK II. _Question_ 1. What are the most agreeable questions and
most pleasant raillery at an entertainment? 229-240. Questions are
agreeable when they give a man opportunity to display his knowledge,
to relate his own exploits, or to describe his own prosperity,
230-232. Raillery is pleasant when it refers to faults of which we
are known to be innocent; when it implies gratitude for a favor
bestowed; and when it proceeds from evident good humor, 233-240. 2.
Why in autumn are men’s stomachs better than in other seasons of the
year, 240, 241. 3. Which was first, the bird or the egg? 242-246.
The perfect must come before the imperfect, 244. 4. Is wrestling the
oldest exercise? 246, 247. 5. Why, in reckoning up different kinds of
exercises, does Homer put them in this order,—Cuffing, Wrestling,
Racing? 248, 249. 6. Why cannot Fir-trees, Pine-trees, and the
like be grafted upon? 250, 251. 7. About the fish called Remora or
Echeneis, 252. Why the horses called λυκοσπάδες are very mettlesome,
253. 9. Why the flesh of sheep bitten by wolves is sweeter than that
of others, and the wool more apt to breed lice, 254. 10. Whether the
ancients who provided for every one his mess did better than we who
set many to the same dish, 255-258.
BOOK III. Wine reveals men’s secret thoughts, 259. _Question_ 1.
Whether it is becoming to wear chaplets of flowers at table, 260-265.
Flowers were designed for our pleasure, 262. They have a good
medicinal effect, 264. 2. Whether Ivy is of a hot or cold nature,
265-267. 3. Why women are hardly, old men easily, intoxicated,
268-270. 4. Whether the temper of women is colder or hotter than
that of men, 270-272. 5. Whether wine is potentially cold, 272-274.
6. Which is the fittest time for a man to know his wife? 274-279. In
the evening, not in the daytime, 276-278. 7. Why new wine does not
intoxicate, 279, 280. 8. Why persons thoroughly drunk appear better
than those only half-drunk, 281. 9. What means the saying, Drink
either five or three, but not four? 282, 283. 10. Why flesh stinks
sooner when exposed to the moon than to the sun, 284-287.
BOOK IV. A feast should be used for the cultivation of friendship,
288. _Question_ 1. Whether different sorts of food or one single
dish, fed upon at once, be more easily digested, 289-295. 2. Why
mushrooms are thought to be produced by thunder, and why it is
believed that men asleep are never thunderstruck, 295-300. 3. Why men
usually invite many guests to a wedding supper, 300, 301. 4. Whether
sea or land affords better food, 302-306. 5. Whether the Jews abstain
from swine’s flesh because they worship that creature, or because
they have an antipathy against it, 307-310. 6. What God is worshiped
by the Jews? Bacchus, 310-312.
BOOK V. The soul has pleasures peculiar to itself and distinct
from the body, 313. _Question_ 1. Why do we take pleasure in a
representation of human suffering, while we are shocked at the
reality? 314-316. 2. That the prize for poets at the games was
ancient, 316-318. 3. Why was the Pine counted sacred to Neptune and
Bacchus, and why at first was the conqueror in the Isthmian Games
crowned with a garland of Pine, afterwards with Parsley, and now
again with Pine? 318-321. 4. Meaning of that expression in Homer,
ζωρότερον δὲ κέραιε, “mix the wine stronger,” 321, 322. 5. Concerning
those that invite many to a supper, 323-326 6. Why does a room which
at the beginning of a supper seems too narrow for the guests appear
wide enough afterwards? 326. 7. Concerning those that are said to
bewitch, 327-332. 8. Why does Homer call the apple-tree ἀγλαόκαρπον,
and Empedocles call the apples ὑπέρφλοια? 333, 334. 9. Why does the
fig-tree, having itself a sharp and bitter taste, bear sweet fruit?
335. 10. What are those that are said to be περὶ ἄλα καὶ κύμινον, and
why does Homer call salt divine? 336, 337.
BOOK VI. The memory of a useful discourse gives pleasure long
afterwards, 338, 339. _Question_ 1. Why are those that are fasting
more inclined to drink than to eat? 339, 340. 2. Whether hunger
and thirst are caused by want of nourishment or by a change in the
pores or passages of the body, 341-344. 3. Why is hunger allayed
by drinking, but thirst increased by eating? 345, 346. 4. Why is a
bucket of water drawn out of a well, and left to stand all night in
the air that is in the well, colder next morning than the rest of
the water? 347, 348. 5. Why do pebble-stones and leaden bullets,
thrown into the water, make it more cold? 348, 349. 6. What is the
reason that snow is preserved by covering it with chaff and cloths?
350, 351. 7. Ought wine to be strained? 351-354. 8. What is the
cause of Bulimy, or the greedy disease? 355-358. 9. Why does Homer
appropriate to each particular liquid a special epithet, and use none
when speaking of oil? 359, 360. 10. Why is the flesh of sacrificed
animals, after being awhile upon a fig-tree, more tender than before?
361, 362.
BOOK VII. _Question_ 1. Plato defended for saying that drink passeth
through the lungs, 363-367. 2. What humored man is he whom Plato
calls κερασβόλος, and why do seeds that fall on oxen’s horns become
ἀτεράμονα? 368-370. 3. Why is the middle of wine, the top of oil,
and the bottom of honey the best? 370, 371. 4. Why did the ancient
Romans remove the table before all the meat was eaten, and why not
extinguish the lamp? 372-375. To leave something for the servants,
374. “Leave something for the Medes”: a proverb in Boeotia, 375. 5.
That we ought carefully to preserve ourselves from pleasures arising
from bad music; and how it may be done, 376-380. Bad music, the loose
ode, enervates and debauches the mind. Have recourse to that which
is pure and good, ib. 6. Concerning those guests that are called
shadows, whether being invited by some of the invited guests, but not
by the entertainer, they ought to go to the house; and if so, in what
cases? 381-387. Such a person is placed at a disadvantage on joining
the company, and why, 382. But an invited guest, who has liberty to
invite others may do so, yet with due caution and discretion; and
the others may go, 385, 386. 7. Whether flute-girls may be admitted
to a feast, 387, 388. 8. What sort of music is fittest for an
entertainment? 389-394. Not tragedy, it is too grave and dignified,
390. But the New Comedy, as that of Menander, or a song with pipe or
harp, 391, 392. 9. That the Greeks, as well as the Persians, were
accustomed to debate state affairs at their entertainments, 394. 10.
Was that a good custom? 395-398. Are men wise over their wine? 396.
Men may drink freely, and yet not lose their wit, 397.
BOOK VIII. In our entertainments we may and should use learned and
philosophical discourse, 399. _Question_ 1. On the birthdays of
famous men, and the generation of the Gods, 400, 401. 2. What is
Plato’s meaning when he says that God all ways plays the geometer?
402-406. 3. Why sounds seem louder in the night than in the day,
406-410. 4. In the Sacred Games one sort of garland was given in
one, and another in another: why was the Palm common to all? and
why call the great dates Νικόλαοι? 411-414. 5. Why do those who
sail upon the Nile take up the water they are to use before day?
415, 416 6. Concerning those who come late to an entertainment,
and the derivation of the words ἀκράτισμα, ἀριστον, and δεὶπνον,
417-419. The Latin terms compared, 418. 7. Concerning the Symbols of
Pythagoras: Receive not a swallow into your house; as soon as you are
risen ruffle the bedclothes; and some other precepts: what is their
meaning? 419-421. 8. Why the Pythagoreans do not eat fish, 422-426.
9. Whether there can be new diseases, and how caused, 426-432. On
the negative, it is said the course of Nature is invariable, 427.
The affirmative alleges that the causes of disease may vary, become
intense and complicated, 430. Alterations in diet may raise new
diseases, 432. 10. Why we give least credit to dreams in Autumn,
432-435.
BOOK IX. _Question_ 1. Concerning verses fitly applied, and the
reverse, 436-438. 2, 3. Why is Alpha placed first in the alphabet?
and what is the proportion between the number of vowels and
semi-vowels? 438-441. 4. Which of the hands of Venus did Diomedes
wound? 441. 5. Why Plato says that the soul of Ajax came to draw her
lot in the twentieth place in hell, 442, 443. 6. What is meant by
the fable about the defeat of Neptune? and why do the Athenians omit
the second day of the month Boëdromion? 444, 445. 12. Is it probable
that the number of the stars is even or odd? 446. 13. A moot-point
from the third book of the Iliad, 446-450. 14. Observations about the
number of the Muses, and their relation to human affairs, 450-456.
15. That there are three parts in dancing, motion, gesture, and
representation: what each part is, and what is common to both poetry
and dancing, 457-460.
OF MORAL VIRTUE.
BY C. H., ESQUIRE.
Plan of the Essay, 461. Opinions of philosophers: of Menedemus,
Ariston, Zeno, Chrysippus, 462. Opinion of Plato, 464; of Aristotle,
465. The soul has a twofold nature, 463. It is composed of intellect
or reason, and the passions, 465. The reason and an intelligent
judgment must govern, 466. The passions by long training becoming
subject to the reason, the result is MORAL VIRTUE, 468. Science and
Prudence, what, and their objects, 469. How science and prudence
differ, 469, 470. Prudence has need of deliberation, 470. It corrects
the excesses and defects of passion, 470. Moral virtue is the mean
between excess and defect, 471. Yet it needs the ministry of the
passions, 471. Mean and mediocrity not the same thing, 471. The idea
further illustrated, 472. Continence distinguished from temperance,
473. Incontinence and intemperance, 474. Illustrations, 475, 476.
Moral virtue is firm and immovable, 478. The passions are subject
to frequent and sudden changes, 478. When reason is overborne by
passion, there is a sense of guilt, 479. Reason is not at variance
with itself, 480. The soul is at peace, where passion does not
interpose, 480. Reason tends to what is true and just, 480. Reason,
left to itself, embraces the truth, 481. It is often hindered by
passion, 481. Reason and passion often divide the soul, 482. They
often harmonize and concur, 483. Some philosophers affirm that
reason and passion do not materially differ, 478. Their opinions
controverted, 479, et seq. Their improper use of terms, 484. The
passions differ with their occasions, 486. Men may mistake in
their judgments, 487. The passions, deriving their strength from
the body, are powerful in the young, 489. The state of the body
corresponds with the state of the passions, 490. We should not seek
to exterminate the passions, but to regulate and control them, 490.
The passions have their proper use, 491. These considerations are of
importance in the government of States, and in the education of the
young, 493, 494.
NATURAL QUESTIONS
BY R. BROWN, M.L.
What is the reason that sea-water nourishes not trees? 495. 2. Why
do trees and seeds thrive better with rain than with watering? 496.
3. Why do herdsmen place salt before cattle? 497. 4. Why is the
water of thunder-showers fitter to water seeds? 498. 5. How comes it
to pass that, since there are eight kinds of tastes, we find salt
in no kind of fruit? 498, 499. 6. Why, if a man frequently pass
along dewy trees, are those limbs that touch the wood seized with
leprosy? 500. 7. Why in winter is the sailing of ships more slow in
rivers than in the sea? 500. 8. Why, since all other liquors upon
moving and stirring about grow cold, does the sea by being tossed
in waves grow hot? 501. 9. Why in winter is the saltness of the sea
diminished? 501. 10. Why do men pour sea-water into wine, and in
defect thereof cast in some Zacynthian earth? 502. 11. What is the
cause of sea-sickness? 502. 12. Why does pouring oil on the sea calm
its waves? 503. 13. Why do fishermen’s nets decay more in winter than
in summer? 503. 14. Why do the Dorians pray for bad making of their
hay? 504. 15. Why is rich soil fruitful of wheat, and a thin soil
of barley? 504. 16. Why is it said, Sow wheat in clay and barley in
dust? 505. 17. Why is the hair of horses, rather than of mares, used
for fishing-lines? 505. 18. Why is the sight of a cuttle-fish the
sign of a great storm? 505. 19. Why does the polypus change color?
506. 20. Why are the tears of wild boars sweet, and the tears of the
hart salt and hurtful? 507. 21. Why do tame sows farrow often, some
at one time, and some at other times; and the wild but once a year,
and all about the same time? 508. 22. Why are the paws of bears the
sweetest and pleasantest food? 509. 23. Why are the tracks of wild
beasts found with so much difficulty in spring? 509. 24. Why are
their tracks worse scented about the full moon? 509. 25. Why does
frost make hunting difficult? 510. 26. Why do brutes, when sick, seek
appropriate remedies? 510. 27. Why does must, if the vessel stand in
the cold, long continue sweet? 511. 28. Why, of all wild beasts, does
not the boar bite the toil, though wolves and foxes do this? 512. 29.
Why do we admire natural hot baths, and not cold? 512. 30. Why are
vines which are rank of leaves, but otherwise fruitless, said τραγὰν?
513. 31. Why does the vine irrigated with wine, especially its own
wine, perish? 513. 32. Why, of all trees, does the palm alone bend
upward when a weight is laid on it? 514. 33. Why is pit-water less
nutritive than that which comes from springs, or from the clouds?
514. 34. Why is the west wind commonly held to be the swiftest? 515.
35. Why cannot bees abide smoke? 515. 36. Why will bees sooner sting
persons who have lately committed whoredom? 516. 37. Why do dogs
follow after a stone thrown at them and bite it, letting alone the
man who flung it? 516. 38. Why at a certain time of the year do all
she-wolves bring forth whelps within the compass of twelve days? 517.
39. How comes it that water, apparently white at the top, is black at
the bottom? 518.
INDEX
PLUTARCH’S MORALS.
PLUTARCH’S MORALS.
VOL. III.
WHETHER 'TWERE RIGHTLY SAID, LIVE CONCEALED.
1. It is sure, he that said it had no mind to live concealed, for he
spoke it out of a design of being taken notice of for his very saying
it, as if he saw deeper into things than every vulgar eye, and of
purchasing to himself a reputation, how unjustly soever, by inveigling
others into obscurity and retirement. But the poet says right:
I hate the man who makes pretence to wit,
Yet in his own concerns waives using it.[1]
For they tell us of one Philoxenus the son of Eryxis, and Gnatho the
Sicilian, who were so over greedy after any dainties set before them,
that they would blow their nose in the dish, whereby, turning the
stomachs of the other guests, they themselves went away fuller crammed
with the rarities. Thus fares it with all those whose appetite is
always lusting and insatiate after glory. They bespatter the repute
of others, as their rivals in honor, that they themselves may advance
smoothly to it and without a rub. They do like watermen, who look
astern while they row the boat ahead, still so managing the strokes
of the oar that the vessel may make on to its port. So these men who
recommend to us such kind of precepts row hard after glory, but with
their face another way. To what purpose else need this have been
said?—why committed to writing and handed down to posterity? Would he
live incognito to his contemporaries, who is so eager to be known to
succeeding ages?
2. But besides, doth not the thing itself sound ill, to bid you keep
all your lifetime out of the world’s eye, as if you had rifled the
sepulchres of the dead, or done such like detestable villany which you
should hide for? What! is it grown a crime to live, unless you can keep
all others from knowing you do so? For my part, I should pronounce that
even an ill-liver ought not to withdraw himself from the converse of
others. No; let him be known, let him be reclaimed, let him repent; so
that, if you have any stock of virtue, let it not lie unemployed, or
if you have been viciously bent, do not by flying the means continue
unreclaimed and uncured. Point me out therefore and distinguish me
the man to whom you adopt this admonition. If to one devoid of sense,
goodness, or wit, it is like one that should caution a person under
a fever or raving madness not to let it be known where he is, for
fear the physicians should find him, but rather to skulk in some dark
corner, where he and his diseases may escape discovery. So you who
labor under that pernicious, that scarce curable disease, wickedness,
are by parity of reason bid to conceal your vices, your envyings, your
superstitions, like some disorderly or feverous pulse, for fear of
falling into the hands of them who might prescribe well to you and set
you to rights again. Whereas, alas! in the days of remote antiquity,
men exhibited the sick to public view, when every charitable passenger
who had labored himself under the like malady, or had experienced a
remedy on them that did, communicated to the diseased all the receipts
he knew; thus, say they, skill in physic was patched up by multiplied
experiments, and grew to a mighty art. At the same rate ought all the
infirmities of a dissolute life, all the irregular passions of the
soul, to be laid open to the view of all, and undergo the touch of
every skilful hand, that all who examine into the temper may be able
to prescribe accordingly. For instance, doth anger transport you? The
advice in that case is, Shun the occasions of it. Doth jealousy torment
you? Take this or that course. Art thou love-sick? It hath been my own
case and infirmity to be so too; but I saw the folly of it, I repented,
I grew wiser. But for those that lie, denying, hiding, mincing, and
palliating their vices, it makes them but take the deeper dye, it
rivets their faults into them.
3. Again, if on the other hand this advice be calculated for the owners
of worth and virtue, if they must be condemned to privacy and live
unknown to the world, you do in effect bid Epaminondas lay down his
arms, you bid Lycurgus rescind his laws, you bid Thrasybulus spare
the tyrants, in a word, you bid Pythagoras forbear his instructions,
and Socrates his reasonings and discourses; nay, you lay injunctions
chiefly upon yourself, Epicurus, not to maintain that epistolary
correspondence with your Asiatic friends, not to entertain your
Egyptian visitants, not to be tutor to the youth of Lampsacus, not to
present and send about your books to women as well as men, out of an
ostentation of some wisdom in yourself more than vulgar, not to leave
such particular directions about your funeral. And in fine, to what
purpose, Epicurus, did you keep a public table? Why that concourse of
friends, that resort of fair young men, at your doors? Why so many
thousand lines so elaborately composed and writ upon Metrodorus,
Aristobulus, and Chaeredemus, that death itself might not rob us
of them; if virtue must be doomed to oblivion, art to idleness and
inactivity, philosophy to silence, and all a man’s happiness must be
forgotten?
4. But if indeed, in the state of life we are under, you will needs
seclude us from all knowledge and acquaintance with the world (as
men shut light from their entertainments and drinking-bouts, for
which they set the night apart), let it be only such who make it the
whole business of life to heap pleasure upon pleasure; let such live
recluses all their days. Were I, in truth, to wanton away my days in
the arms of your miss Hedeia, or spend them with Leontium, another dear
of yours,—were I to bid defiance to virtue, or to place all that’s
good in the gratification of the flesh or the ticklings of a sensual
pleasure,—these accursed actions and rites would need darkness and an
eternal night to veil them; and may they ever be doomed to oblivion
and obscurity. But what should they hide their heads for, who with
regard to the works of nature own and magnify a God, who celebrate his
justice and providence, who in point of morality are due observers of
the law, promoters of society and community among all men, and lovers
of the public-weal, and who in the administration thereof prefer the
common good before private advantage? Why should such men cloister up
themselves, and live recluses from the world? For would you have them
out of the way, for fear they should set a good example, and allure
others to virtue out of emulation of the precedent? If Themistocles’s
valor had been unknown at Athens, Greece had never given Xerxes that
repulse. Had not Camillus shown himself in defence of the Romans, their
city Rome had no longer stood. Sicily had not recovered her liberty,
had Plato been a stranger to Dion. Truly (in my mind) to be known to
the world under some eminent character not only carries a reputation
with it, but makes the virtues in us become practical like light,
which renders us not only visible but useful to others. Epaminondas,
during the first forty years of his life, in which no notice was taken
of him, was an useless citizen to Thebes; but afterwards, when he had
once gained credit and the government amongst the Thebans, he both
rescued them from present destruction, and freed even Greece herself
from imminent slavery, exhibiting (like light, which is in its own
nature glorious, and to others beneficial at the same time) a valor
seasonably active and serviceable to his country, yet interwoven with
his own laurels. For
Virtue, like finest brass, by use grows bright.[2]
And not our houses alone, when (as Sophocles has it) they stand long
untenanted, run the faster to ruin; but men’s natural parts, lying
unemployed for lack of acquaintance with the world, contract a kind
of filth or rust and craziness thereby. For sottish ease, and a life
wholly sedentary and given up to idleness, spoil and debilitate not
only the body but the soul too. And as close waters shadowed over by
bordering trees, and stagnated in default of springs to supply current
and motion to them, become foul and corrupt; so, methinks, is it with
the innate faculties of a dull unstirring soul,—whatever usefulness,
whatever seeds of good she may have latent in her, yet when she puts
not these powers into action, when once they stagnate, they lose their
vigor and run to decay.
5. See you not how on night’s approach a sluggish drowsiness oft-times
seizes the body, and sloth and inactiveness surprise the soul, and
she finds herself heavy and quite unfit for action? Have you not then
observed how a man’s reason (like fire scarce visible and just going
out) retires into itself, and how by reason of its inactivity and
dulness it is gently agitated by divers fantastical imaginations, so
that nothing remains but some obscure indications that the man is alive.
But when the orient sun brings back the day,
It chases night and dreamy sleep away.
It doth, as it were, bring the world together again, and with his
returned light call up and excite all mankind to thought and action;
and, as Democritus tells us, men setting themselves every new-spring
day to endeavors of mutual beneficence and service one towards
another, as if they were fastened in the straitest tie together, do all
of them, some from one, some from another quarter of the world, rouse
up and awake to action.
6. For my own part, I am fully persuaded that life itself, and our
being born at the rate we are, and the origin we share in common with
all mankind, were vouchsafed us by God to the intent we should be known
to one another. It is true, whilst man, in that little part of him, his
soul, lies struggling and scattered in the vast womb of the universe,
he is an obscure and unknown being; but, when once he gets hither
into this world and puts a body on, he grows illustrious, and from an
obscure becomes a conspicuous being; from an hidden, an apparent one.
For knowledge does not lead to essence (or being), as some maintain;
but the essence of things rather conducts us into the knowledge and
understanding thereof. For the birth or generation of individuals
gives not any being to them which they had not before, but brings that
individual into view; as also the corruption or death of any creature
is not its annihilation or reduction into mere nothing, but rather a
sending the dissolved being into an invisible state. Hence is it that
many persons (conformably to their ancient country laws), taking the
Sun to be Apollo, gave him the names of Delius and Pythius (that is,
conspicuous and known). But for him, be he either God or Daemon, who
hath dominion over the opposite portion, the infernal regions, they
call him Hades (that is, invisible)
Emperor of gloomy night and lazy sleep,
for that at our death and dissolution we pass into a state of
invisibility and beyond the reach of mortal eyes. I am indeed of
opinion, that the ancients called man Phos (that is, light), because
from the affinity of their natures strong desires are bred in mankind
of continually seeing and being seen to each other. Nay, some
philosophers hold the soul itself to be essentially light; which
they would prove by this among other arguments, that nothing is so
insupportable to the mind of man as ignorance and obscurity. Whatever
is destitute of light she avoids, and darkness, the harbor of fears
and suspicions, is uneasy to her; whereas, on the other hand, light
is so delicious, so desirable a thing, that without that, and wrapped
in darkness, none of the delectables in nature are pleasing to her.
This makes all our very pleasures, all our diversions and enjoyments,
charming and grateful to us, like some universal relishing ingredients
mixed with the others to make them palatable. But he that casts himself
into obscure retirements, he that sits surrounded in darkness and
buries himself alive, seems, in my mind, to repine at his own birth and
grudge he ever had a being.
7. And yet it is certain, in the regions prepared for pious souls, they
conserve not only an existence in (or agreeable to) nature, but are
encircled with glory.
There the sun with glorious ray,
Chasing shady night away,
Makes an everlasting day;
Where souls in fields of purple roses play;
Others in verdant plains disport,
Crowned with trees of every sort,
Trees that never fruit do bear,
But always in the blossom are.[3]
The rivers there without rude murmurs gently glide, and there they meet
and bear each other company, passing away their time in commemorating
and running over things past and present.
A third state there is of them who have led vicious and wicked lives,
which precipitates souls into a kind of hell and miserable abyss,
Where sluggish streams of sable night
Spout floods of darkness infinite.[**duplicate anchor]
This is the receptacle of the tormented; here lie they hid under
the veils of eternal ignorance and oblivion. For vultures do not
everlastingly gorge themselves upon the liver of a wicked man, exposed
by angry Gods upon the earth, as poets fondly feign of Prometheus. For
either rottenness or the funeral pile hath consumed that long ago. Nor
do the bodies of the tormented undergo (as Sisyphus is fabled to do)
the toil and pressure of weighty burdens;
For strength no longer flesh and bone sustains.[4]
There are no reliques of the body in dead men which stripes and
tortures can make impressions on; but in very truth the sole punishment
of ill-livers is an inglorious obscurity, or a final abolition, which
through oblivion hurls and plunges them into deplorable rivers,
bottomless seas, and a dark abyss, involving all in uselessness and
inactivity, absolute ignorance and obscurity, as their last and eternal
doom.
AN ABSTRACT OF A COMPARISON BETWIXT ARISTOPHANES AND MENANDER.
1. To speak in sum and in general, he prefers Menander by far; and as
to particulars, he adds what here ensues. Aristophanes, he saith, is
importune, theatric, and sordid in his expression; but Menander not
so at all. For the rude and vulgar person is taken with the things
the former speaketh; but the well-bred man will be quite out of humor
with them. I mean, his opposed terms, his words of one cadence, and
his derivatives. For the one makes use of these with due observance
and but seldom, and bestows care upon them; but the other frequently,
unseasonably, and frigidly. “For he is much commended,” said he, “for
ducking the chamberlains, they being indeed not chamberlains (ταμίαι)
but bugbears (Λαμίαι).” And again,—“This rascal breathes out nothing
but roguery and affidavitry;” and “Beat him well in his belly with the
entrails and the guts;” and, “I shall laugh till I go to Laughington
(Γέλαν);” and, “Thou poor sharded ostracized pot, what shall I do with
thee?” and, “To you women surely he is a mad plague, for he grew up
himself among these mad worts;”—and, “Look here, how the moths have
eaten away my crest;” and, “Bring me hither the gorgon-backed circle of
my shield;” “Give me the round-backed circle of a cheese-cake;”—and
much more of such like stuff.[5] There is then in the structure of
his words something tragic and something comic, something blustering
and something prosaic, an obscurity, a vulgarness, a turgidness,
and a strutting, with a nauseous prattling and fooling. And as his
style has so great varieties and dissonances in it, so neither doth
he give to his persons what is fitting and proper to each,—as state
(for instance) to a prince, force to an orator, innocence to a woman,
meanness of language to a poor man, and sauciness to a tradesman,—but
he deals out to every person, as it were by lot, such words as come
next to his hand, and you would scarce discern whether he that is
talking be a son, a father, a peasant, a God, an old woman, or a hero.
2. But now Menander’s phrase is so well turned and contempered with
itself, and so everywhere conspiring, that, while it traverses many
passions and humors and is accommodated to all sorts of persons,
it still shows the same, and even retains its semblance in trite,
familiar, and every-day expressions. And if his master do now and
then require something of rant and noise, he doth but (like a skilful
flutist) set open all the holes of his pipe, and then presently stop
them again with good decorum and restore the tune to its natural
state. And though there be a great number of excellent artists of all
professions, yet never did any shoemaker make the same sort of shoe, or
tireman the same sort of visor, or tailor the same sort of garment, to
fit a man, a woman, a child, an old man, and a slave. But Menander hath
so addressed his style, as to proportion it to every sex, condition,
and age; and this, though he took the business in hand when he was very
young, and died in the vigor of his composition and action, when, as
Aristotle tells us, authors receive most and greatest improvement in
their styles. If a man shall then compare the middle and last with the
first of Menander’s plays, he will by them easily conceive what others
he would have added to them, had he had but longer life.
3. He adds further, that of dramatic exhibitors, some address
themselves to the crowd and populace, and others again to a few; but
it is a hard matter to say which of them all knew what was befitting
in both the kinds. But Aristophanes is neither grateful to the vulgar,
nor tolerable to the wise; but it fares with his poesy as it doth
with a courtesan who, when she finds she is now stricken and past
her prime, counterfeits a sober matron, and then the vulgar cannot
endure her affectation, and the better sort abominate her lewdness and
wicked nature. But Menander hath with his charms shown himself every
way sufficient for satisfaction, being the sole lecture, argument,
and dispute at theatres, schools, and at tables; hereby rendering his
poesy the most universal ornament that was ever produced by Greece, and
showing what and how extraordinary his ability in language was, while
he passes every way with an irresistible persuasion, and wins every
man’s ear and understanding who has knowledge of the Greek tongue. And
for what other reason in truth should a man of parts and erudition be
at the pains to frequent the theatre, but for the sake of Menander
only? And when are the play-houses better filled with men of letters,
than when his comic mask is exhibited? And at private entertainments
among friends, for whom doth the table more justly make room or Bacchus
give place than for Menander? To philosophers also and hard students
(as painters are wont, when they have tired out their eyes at their
work, to divert them to certain florid and green colors) Menander is a
repose from their auditors and intense thinkings, and entertains their
minds with gay shady meadows refreshed with cool and gentle breezes.
4. He adds, moreover, that though this city breeds at this time very
many and excellent representers of comedy, Menander’s plays participate
of a plenteous and divine salt, as if they were made of the very sea
out of which Venus herself sprang. But that of Aristophanes is harsh
and coarse and hath in it an angry and biting sharpness. And for my
part I cannot tell where his so much boasted ability lies, whether in
his style or persons. The parts he acts I am sure are quite over-acted
and depraved. His knave (for instance) is not fine, but dirty; his
peasant is not assured, but stupid; his droll is not jocose, but
ridiculous; and his lover is not gay, but lewd. So that to me the man
seems not to have written his poesy for any temperate person, but to
have intended his smut and obscenity for the debauched and lewd, his
invective and satire for the malicious and ill-humored.
OF BANISHMENT, OR FLYING ONE’S COUNTRY.
1. One may say of discourses what they use to say of friends, that they
are the best and firmest that afford their useful presence and help in
calamities. Many indeed present themselves and discourse with those
that are fallen into misfortunes, who yet do them more harm than good.
Like men that attempt to succor drowning persons and have themselves
no skill in diving under water, they entangle one another, and sink
together to the bottom. The discourses of friends, such as would help
an afflicted person, ought to be directed to the consolation, and not
to the patronage of his sorrows. For we have no need in our distresses
of such as may bear us company in weeping and howling, like a chorus in
a tragedy, but of such as will deal freely with us, and will convince
us that,—as it is in all cases vain and foolish and to no purpose to
grieve and cast down one’s self,—so, when the things themselves that
afflict us, after a rational examination and discovery of what they
are, give a man leave to say to himself thus.
Thou feel’st but little pain and smart.
Unless thou’lt feign and act a part,
it would be extremely ridiculous for him not to put the question to his
body, and ask it what it has suffered, nor to his soul, and ask how
much worse it is become by this accident, but only to make use of those
teachers of grief from abroad, who come to bear a part with him in his
sorrow, or to express indignation at what has happened.
2. Let us therefore, when we are alone, question with ourselves
concerning the things that have befallen us, considering them as heavy
loads. The body, we know, is under pressure by a burden lying upon it;
but the soul oft-times adds a further weight of her own to things. A
stone is hard and ice is cold by nature, not by any thing from without
happening to make such qualities and impressions upon them. But as
for banishment and disgraces and loss of honors (and so for their
contraries, crowns, chief rule, and precedency of place), our opinion
prescribing the measure of our joys or sorrows and not the nature of
the things themselves, every man makes them to himself light or heavy,
easy to be borne or grievous. You may hear Polynices’s answer to this
question,
JOCAST. But say, is’t so deplorable a case
To live in exile from one’s native place?
POLYN. It’s sad indeed; and whatsoe’er you guess,
’Tis worse to endure than any can express.[6]
But you may hear Alcman in quite another strain, as the epigrammatist
has brought him in saying:
Sardis, my ancient fatherland,
Hadst thou, by Fate’s supreme command,
My helpless childhood nourished,
I must have begg’d my daily bread,
Or else, a beardless priest become,
Have toss’d Cybele frantic down.
Now Alcman I am call’d—a name
Inscribed in Sparta’s lists of fame,
Whose many tripods record bear
Of solemn wreaths and tripods rare,
Achieved in worship at the shrine
Of Heliconian maids divine,
By whose great aid I’m mounted higher
Than Gyges or his wealthy sire.[7]
Thus one man’s opinion makes the same thing commodious, like current
money, and another man’s unserviceable and hurtful.
3. But let us grant (as many say and sing) that it is a grievous thing
to be banished. So there are also many things that we eat, of a bitter,
sharp, and biting taste, which yet by a mixture of other things more
mild and sweet have all their unpleasantness taken off. There are also
some colors troublesome to look upon, which bear so hard and strike so
piercingly upon the sight, that they confound and dazzle it; if now
by mixing shadows with them, or by turning our eyes upon some green
and pleasant color, we remedy this inconvenience, thou mayst also do
the same to the afflictions that befall thee, considering them with
a mixture of those advantages and benefits thou still enjoyest, as
wealth, friends, vacancy from business, and a supply of all things
necessary to human life. For I think there are few Sardians but would
desire to be in your condition, though banished, and would choose to
live as you may do, though in a strange country, rather than—like
snails that grow to their shells—enjoy no other good, saving only what
they have at home without trouble.
4. As he therefore in the comedy that advised his unfortunate friend
to take heart and to revenge himself of Fortune, being asked which
way, answered, By the help of philosophy; so we also may be revenged
of her, by acting worthily like philosophers. For what course do we
take when it is rainy weather, or a cold north wind blows? We creep
to the fireside, or go into a bath, put on more clothes, or go into
a dry house; and do not sit still in a shower and cry. It is in thy
power above most men’s to revive and cherish that part of thy life
which seems to be chill and benumbed, not needing any other helps, but
only according to thy best judgment and prudence making use of the
things that thou possessest. The cupping-glasses physicians use, by
drawing the worst humors out of the body, alleviate and preserve the
rest; but they that are prone to grieve and make sad complaints, by
mustering together alway the worst of their afflictive circumstances,
by debating these things over and over, being fastened (as it were) to
their troubles, make the most advantageous things to be wholly useless
to themselves, and especially when their case requires most help and
assistance. As for those two hogsheads, my friend, which Homer says lie
in heaven, full, the one of the good, the other of the ill fates of
men,—it is not Jupiter that sits to draw out and transmit to some a
moderate share of evils mixed with good, but to others only unqualified
streams of evil; but it is we ourselves who do it. Those of us that are
wise, drawing out of the good to temper with our evils, make our lives
pleasant and potable; but the greater part (which are fools) are like
sieves, which let the best pass through, but the worst and the very
dregs of misfortune stick to them and remain behind.
5. Wherefore, if we fall into any real evil or calamity, we must bring
in what is pleasant and delightful of the remaining good things in our
possession, and thus, by what we enjoy at home, mitigate the sense of
those evils that befall us from abroad. But where there is no evil in
the nature of the things, but the whole of that which afflicts us is
framed by imagination and false opinion, in this case we must do just
as we deal with children that are apt to be frighted with false faces
and vizards; by bringing them nearer, and making them handle and turn
them on every side, they are brought at last to despise them; so we, by
a nearer touching and fixing our consideration upon our feigned evils,
may be able to detect and discover the weakness and vanity of what we
fear and so tragically deplore.
Such is your present condition of being banished out of that which
you account your country; for nature has given us no country, as it
has given us no house or field, no smith’s or apothecary’s shop, as
Ariston said; but every one of them is always made or rather called
such a man’s by his dwelling in it or making use of it. For man (as
Plato says) is not an earthly and unmovable, but a heavenly plant, the
head raising the body erect as from a root, and directed upwards toward
heaven.[8] Hence is that saying of Hercules:
Am I of Thebes or Argos? Whether
You please, for I’m content with either;
But to determine one, ’tis pity,
In Greece my country’s every city.
But Socrates expressed it better, when he said, he was not an Athenian
or a Greek, but a citizen of the world (just as a man calls himself
a citizen of Rhodes or Corinth), because he did not enclose himself
within the limits of Sunium, Taenarum, or the Ceraunian mountains.
Behold how yonder azure sky,
Extending vastly wide and high
To infinitely distant spaces,
In her soft arms our earth embraces.[9]
These are the boundaries of our country, and no man is an exile or a
stranger or foreigner in these, where there is the same fire, water,
air, the same rulers, administrators, and presidents, the same sun,
moon, and daystar; where there are the same laws to all, and where,
under one orderly disposition and government, are the summer and winter
solstices, the equinoxes, Pleiades, Arcturus, times of sowing and
planting; where there is one king and supreme ruler, which is God, who
comprehends the beginning, the middle, and end of the universe; who
passes through all things in a straight course, compassing all things
according to nature: justice follows him to take vengeance on those
that transgress the divine law, which justice we naturally all make use
of towards all men, as being citizens of the same community.
6. But for thee to complain that thou dost not dwell at Sardis is
no objection; for all the Athenians do not inhabit Collytus, nor do
all the men of Corinth live in the Cranium, nor all of Lacedaemon in
Pitane.
Do you look upon those Athenians as strangers and banished persons
who removed from Melite to Diomea,—whence they called the month
Metageitnion, and the sacrifices they offered in memory of their
removal Metageitnia, being pleased with and cheerfully accepting this
new neighborhood to another people? Surely you will not say so. What
parts of the inhabited earth or of the whole earth can be said to be
far distant one from another, when mathematicians demonstrate that the
whole earth is to be accounted as an indivisible point, compared with
the heavens? But we, like pismires or bees, when we are cast out of
one ant-hill or hive, are in great anxiety, and take on as if we were
strangers and undone, not knowing how to make and account all things
our own, as indeed they are. We shall certainly laugh at his folly who
shall affirm there was a better moon at Athens than at Corinth; and yet
we in a sort commit the same error, when being in a strange country we
look upon the earth, the sea, the air, the heavens doubtfully, as if
they were not the same, but quite different from those we have been
accustomed to. Nature in our first production sent us out free and
loose; we bind and straiten and pin up ourselves in houses, and reduce
ourselves into a scant and little room.
Moreover, we laugh at the kings of Persia, who (if the story be true)
will drink only the water of the River Choaspes, by this means making
the rest of the habitable world to be without water, as to themselves;
but we, when we remove to other countries, and retain our longings
after Cephissus and Eurotas, and are pleased with nothing so much as
the hills Taygetus and Parnassus, we make the whole earth unhabitable
to ourselves, and are without a house or city where we can dwell.
7. When certain Egyptians, not enduring the anger and hard usage of
their king, went to dwell in Ethiopia, and some earnestly entreated
them to return to their wives and children they had left behind them,
they very impudently showed them their privy parts, saying they should
never want wives or children whilst they carried those about them.
But it is more grave and becoming to say that whosoever happens to be
provided with a competency of the necessaries to life, wheresoever
he is, is not without a city or a dwelling, nor need reckon himself
a stranger there; only he ought to have besides these prudence and
consideration, like a governing anchor, that he may be able to make
advantage of any port at which he arrives. It is not easy indeed for
him that has lost his wealth quickly to gather it up again; but every
city becomes presently that man’s country who has the skill to use it,
and who has those roots which can live and thrive, cling and grow to
every place. Such had Themistocles, and such had Demetrius Phalareus;
for this last named, after his banishment, being the prime friend
of King Ptolemy in Alexandria, not only was abundantly provided for
himself, but also sent presents to the Athenians. As for Themistocles,
he was maintained by an allowance suitable to his quality at the King’s
charge, and is reported to have said to his wife and children, We had
been undone, if we had not been undone. Diogenes the Cynic also, when
one told him, The Sinopians have condemned thee to fly from Pontus,
replied, And I have condemned them to stay in Pontus,
Close prisoners there to be,
At th’ utmost shore of the fierce Euxine Sea.[10]
Stratonicus enquiring of his host in the isle of Seriphus what crime
among them was punished with banishment, and being told forgery was so
punished, he asked him why he did not commit that crime that he might
be removed out of that strait place; and yet there, as the comedian
expresses it, they reap down their figs with slings, and that island is
provided with all things that it wants.
8. For if you consider the truth of things, setting aside vain fancy
and opinion, he that has got an agreeable city to dwell in is a
stranger and foreigner to all the rest, for it seems not reasonable and
just, that leaving his own he should go to dwell in another city. As
the proverb is, “Sparta is the province fallen to your lot, adorn it,”
though it should be in no credit or prove unhealthful, though disturbed
with seditions, and its affairs in distemper and out of order. But
as for him whom Fortune has deprived of his own habitation, it gives
him leave to go and dwell where he pleases. That good precept of the
Pythagoreans, “Make choice of the best life you can, and custom will
make it pleasant,” is here also wise and useful. Choose the best and
pleasantest place to live in, and time will make it thy country, and
such a country as will not encumber and distract thee, not laying on
thee such commands as these,—Bring in so much money; Go on such an
embassy to Rome; Entertain such a governor; Bear such a public office.
If a prudent person and no way conceited, calls these things to mind,
he will choose to live in exile in such a sorry island as Gyarus, or in
Cynarus that is “so hard and barren and unfit for plantation,” and do
this without reluctancy, not making such sorrowful complaints as the
women do in the poet Simonides:
The troubled sea’s dark waves surround me,
And with their horrid noise confound me;
but will rather remind himself of that saying of King Philip, who
receiving a fall in a place of wrestling, when he turned himself in
rising and saw the print of his body in the dust, exclaimed, Good God!
what a small portion of earth has Nature assigned us, and yet we covet
the whole world.
9. I presume you have seen the island of Naxos, or at least the town
of Hyria here hard by; in the former of which Ephialtes and Otus made
their abode, and in the latter Orion dwelt. Alcmaeon’s seat was on
the newly hardened mud which the river Achelous had cast up,—when he
fled from the Furies, as the poets tell us,—but I guess it was when
he fled from the rulers of the state and from seditions, and to avoid
those furies, the sycophants and informers, that he chose that little
spot of ground to dwell on, where he was free from business and lived
in ease and quiet. Tiberius Caesar passed the last seven years of his
life in the island of Capreae; and that sacred governing spirit that
swayed the whole world, and was enclosed as it were in his breast, yet
for so long time never removed nor changed place. And yet the thoughts
and cares of the empire, that were poured in upon him and invaded him
on every side, made that island’s repose and retirement to be less pure
and undisturbed to him. But he that by retreating to a small island can
free himself from great evils is a miserable man, if he does not often
say and sing those verses of Pindar to himself,—
Where slender cypress grows I’d have a seat,
But care not for the shady woods of Crete!
I’ve little land and so not many trees,
But free from sorrow I enjoy much ease,—
not being disquieted with seditions or the edicts of princes, nor with
administering affairs when the public is in straits, nor undergoing
officers that are hard to be put by and denied.
10. For if that be a good saying of Callimachus, that we ought not to
measure wisdom by a Persian cord, much less should we measure happiness
by cords of furlongs, or, if we chance to inhabit an island of two
hundred furlongs and not (like Sicily) of four days’ sail in compass,
think that we ought to disquiet ourselves and lament as if we were
very miserable and unfortunate. For what does a place of large extent
contribute to the tranquillity of one’s life? Do you not hear Tantalus
saying in the tragedy:
I sow the Berecyntian ground,
A field of twelve days’ journey round?
But he says a little after:
My mind, that used to mount the skies,
Fallen to the earth dejected lies,
And now this friendly counsel brings,—
Less to admire all earthly things.[11]
Nausithous, forsaking the spacious country of Hyperia because the
Cyclops bordered upon it, and removing to an island far distant from
all other people, chose there,
Remote from all commerce t’ abide,
By sea’s surrounding waves denied;[12]
and yet he procured a very pleasant way of living to his own citizens.
The Cyclades islands were formerly inhabited by the children of Minos,
and afterwards by the children of Codrus and Neleus; in which now
fools that are banished thither think they are punished. And indeed,
what island is there to which men are wont to be banished that is not
larger than the land that lies about Scillus, in which Xenophon after
his military expedition passed delicately his old age? The Academy
near Athens, that was purchased for three thousand drachmas, was the
place where Plato, Xenocrates, and Polemo dwelt; there they held their
schools, and there they lived all their lifetime, except one day every
year, when Xenocrates came into the city at the time of the Bacchanals
and the new tragedies, to grace the feast, as they say. Theocritus of
Chios reproached Aristotle, who affected a court-life with Philip and
Alexander, that he chose instead of the Academy rather to dwell at the
mouth of Borborus. For there is a river by Pella, which the Macedonians
call by that name.
But as for islands, Homer sets himself as it were studiously to commend
them in these verses:
He comes to the isle of Lemnos, and the town
Where divine Thoas dwelt, of great renown;
and
As much as fruitful Lesbos does contain,
A seat which Gods above do not disdain;
and
When he to th’ lofty hills of Scyros came,
And took the town that boasts Enyeus’s name;
and
These from Dulichium and th’ Echinades,
Blest isles, that lie ’gainst Elis, o’er the seas.[13]
And among the famous men that dwelt in islands they reckon Aeolus, a
great favorite of the Gods, the most prudent Ulysses, the most valiant
Ajax, and Alcinous, the most courteous entertainer of strangers.
11. When Zeno was told that the only ship he had remaining was cast
away at sea with all her lading, he replied: Well done Fortune, that
hast reduced me to the habit and life of a philosopher. And, indeed, a
man that is not puffed up with conceit nor madly in love with a crowd
will not, I suppose, have any reason to accuse Fortune for constraining
him to live in an island, but will rather commend her for removing
so much anxiety and agitation of his mind, for putting a stop to his
rambles in foreign countries, to his dangers at sea, and the noise and
tumult of the exchange, and for giving him a fixed, vacant, undisturbed
life, such a life as he may truly call his own, describing as it
were a circle about him, in which is contained the use of all things
necessary. For what island is there that has not a horse, a walk,
and a bath in it; that has not fishes and hares for such as delight
in hunting and angling and such like sports? But the chiefest of all
is, that the quiet which others thirst so much after thou commonly
mayst have here without seeking. For those that are gamesters at dice,
shutting up themselves at home, there are sycophants and busy spies
that hunt them out, and prosecute them from their houses of pleasure
and gardens in the suburbs, and hale them by violence before the
judges or the court. But none sails to an island to give a man any
disturbance, no petitioner, no borrower, no urger to suretyship, no one
that comes to beg his voice when he stands candidate for an office;
only the best friends and familiars, out of good-will and desire to
see him, may come over thither; and the rest of his life is safe and
inviolable to him, if he has the will and the skill to live at ease.
But he that cries up the happiness of those that run about in other
countries, or spend the most of their life in inns and passage-boats,
is no wiser than he is that thinks the planets in a better estate
than the fixed stars. And yet every planet rolling about in its
proper sphere, as in an island, keeps its order. For the sun never
transgresses its limited measures, as Heraclitus says; if it did do so,
the Furies, which are the attendants of Justice, would find it out and
punish it.
12. These things, my friend, and such like we say and sing to those
who, by being banished into an island, have no correspondence or
commerce with other people,
Hindered by waves of the surrounding deep,
Which many ’gainst their mind close prisoners keep.[14]
But as for thee, who art not assigned to one place only, but forbidden
only to live in one, the prohibiting thee one is the giving thee leave
to dwell anywhere else besides. If on one hand it is urged thus against
you: You are in no office, you are not of the senate, nor preside
as moderator at the public games, you may oppose on the other hand
thus: We head no factions, we make no expensive treats, nor give long
attendance at the governor’s gates; we care not at all who is chosen
into our province, though he be choleric or unsufferably vexatious.
But just as Archilochus disparaged the island of Thasos because of its
asperity and inequality in some places overlooking its fruitful fields
and vineyards, saying thus of it,
Like ridge of ass’s back it stood,
Full of wild plants, for nothing good;
so we, whilst we pore upon one part of banishment which is ignominious,
overlook its vacancy from business, and that leisure and freedom it
affords us.
Men admired the happiness of the Persian kings, that passed their
winter in Babylon, their summer in Media, and the pleasant spring-time
at Susa. And he that is an exile may, if he pleases, when the mysteries
of Ceres are celebrated, go and live at Eleusis; and he may keep the
feasts of Bacchus at Argos; at the time of the Pythian games, he
may pass over to Delphi, and of the Isthmian, to Corinth, if public
spectacles and shows are the things he admires; if not, then he may
be idle, or walk, or read, or sleep quietly; and you may add that
privilege Diogenes bragged of when he said, “Aristotle dines when it
seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases,”
having no business, no magistrate, no prefect to interrupt and disturb
his customary way of living.
13. For this reason, you will find that very few of the most prudent
and wise men were buried in their own country, but the most of them,
when none forced them to it, weighed anchor and steered their course to
live in another port, removing some to Athens, and others from it.
Who ever gave a greater encomium of his own country than Euripides in
the following verses?
We are all of this country’s native race,
Not brought-in strangers from another place,
As some, like dice hither and thither thrown,
Remove in haste from this to t’other town.
And, if a woman may have leave to boast,
A temperate air breathes here in every coast;
We neither curse summer’s immoderate heat,
Nor yet complain the winter’s cold’s too great.
If aught there be that noble Greece doth yield,
Or Asia rich, by river or by field,
We seek it out and bring it to our doors.
And yet he that wrote all this went himself into Macedonia, and passed
the rest of his days in the court of Archelaus. I suppose you have also
heard of this short epigram:
Here lieth buried Aeschylus, the son
Of the Athenian Euphorion;
In Sicily his latest breath did yield,
And buried lies by Gela’s fruitful field.
For both he and Simonides before him went into Sicily. And whereas we
meet with this title, “This publication of the History of Herodotus
of Halicarnassus,” many have changed it into Herodotus of Thurii, for
he dwelt at Thurii, and was a member of that colony. And that sacred
and divine poet Homer, that adorned the Trojan war,—why was he a
controversy to so many cities (every one pleading he was theirs) but
because he did not cry up any one of them to the disparagement of the
rest? Many also and great are the honors that are paid to Jupiter
Hospitalis.
14. If any one object, that these men hunted ambitiously after glory
and honor, let him go to the philosophers and the schools and nurseries
of wisdom at Athens, those in the Lyceum, the Academy, the Stoa,
the Palladium, the Odeum. If he admires and prefers the Peripatetic
philosophy before the rest, Aristotle was a native of Stagira,
Theophrastus of Ephesus, Straton of Lampsacus, Glycon of Troas, Ariston
of Ceus, Critolaus of Phaselis. If thou art for the Stoic philosophy,
Zeno was of Citium, Cleanthes of Assus, Chrysippus of Soli, Diogenes
of Babylon, Antipater of Tarsus, and Archedemus who was of Athens went
over to the Parthians, and left a succession of Stoic philosophers in
Babylon. And who, I pray, persecuted and chased these men out of their
country? Nobody at all; but they pursued their own quiet, which men
cannot easily enjoy at home that are in any reputation or have any
power; other things they taught us by what they said, but this by what
they did. For even now the most approved and excellent persons live
abroad out of their own country, not being transported, but departing
voluntarily, not being driven thence, but flying from business and from
the disquiets and molestations which they are sure to meet with at home.
It seems to me that the Muses helped the ancient writers to finish
their choicest and most approved compositions, by calling in, as it
were, banishment to their assistance. Thucydides the Athenian wrote
the Peloponnesian and Athenian War in Thrace, hard by the forest of
Scapte; Xenophon wrote his history in Scillus belonging to Elis;
Philistus in Epirus, Timaeus of Tauromenum at Athens, Androtion the
Athenian in Megara, Bacchylides the poet in Peloponnesus. These and
many more, after they had lost their country, did not lose all hope nor
were dejected in their minds, but took occasion thereupon to express
the vivacity of their spirit and the dexterity of their wit, receiving
their banishment at the hands of Fortune as a viaticum that she had
sent them; whereby they became renowned everywhere after death, whereas
there is no remaining mention of those factious persons that expelled
them.
15. He therefore is ridiculous that looks upon it as an ignominious
thing to be banished. For what is it that thou sayest? Was Diogenes
ignominious, when Alexander, who saw him sitting and sunning himself,
came and asked him whether he wanted any thing, and he answered him,
that he lacked nothing but that he would go a little aside and not
stand in his light? The king, admiring the presence of his mind,
turned to his followers and said: If I were not Alexander, I would
be Diogenes. Was Camillus inglorious because he was expelled Rome,
considering he has got the reputation of being its second founder?
Neither did Themistocles by his banishment lose any of the renown he
had gained in Greece, but added to it that which he had acquired among
the barbarians; neither is there any so without all sense of honor,
or of such an abject mind, that had not rather be Themistocles the
banished, than Leobates that indicted him; or be Cicero that had the
same fate, than Clodius that expelled him Rome; or be Timotheus that
abandoned his country, than Aristophon that was his accuser.
16. But because the words of Euripides move many, who seems to frame a
heavy charge against banishment and to urge it home, let us see what he
says more particularly in his questions and answers about it.
JOCASTA. But is’t so sad one’s country to forego,
And live in exile? Pray, son, let me know.
POL. Some ills when told are great, when tried are less;
But this is saddest felt, though sad t’ express.
JOC. What is’t, I pray, afflicts the banished most?
POL. That liberty to speak one’s mind is lost.
JOC. He is indeed a slave that dares not utter
His thoughts, nor ’gainst his cruel masters mutter.
POL. But all their insolencies must o’erpass,
And bear their follies tamely like an ass.[15]
These assertions of his are neither good nor true. For first, not to
speak what one thinks is not a piece of slavery; but it is the part
of a prudent man to hold one’s peace and be silent when time and
the circumstances of affairs require it; as he himself says better
elsewhere, that a wise man knows
Both when it’s best no tongue to find,
And when it’s safe to speak his mind.
Again, as for the rudeness and insolency of such as have power in their
hands, they that stay in their country are no less forced to bear and
endure it than those that are driven out of it; nay, commonly the
former stand more in fear of false informations and the violence of
unjust rulers in cities than the latter. But his greatest mistake and
absurdity is his taking away all freedom of speech from exiles. It is
wonderful indeed if Theodorus had no freedom of this kind, who,—when
King Lysimachus said to him: Thou being such a criminal, the country
cast thee forth, did it not?—replied: Yes, not being able to bear me;
just as Semele cast out Bacchus, when she could bear him no longer. And
when the king showed him Telesphorus in an iron cage, with his eyes
digged out of their holes, his nose and ears and tongue cut off, and
said: So I deal with those that injure me, he was not abashed. What!
did not Diogenes retain his wonted freedom of speaking, who coming into
King Philip’s camp, when he was going to give the Grecians battle, was
brought before him for a spy; and confessed that he was so, but that he
came to take a view of his unsatiable greediness of empire and of his
madness and folly who was going in the short time of a fight to throw a
die for his crown and life?
And what say you to Hannibal the Carthaginian? Did not he use a
convenient freedom towards Antiochus (he at that time an exile, and
the other a king), when upon an advantageous occasion he advised him
to give his enemies battle? He, when he had sacrificed, told him the
entrails forbade it. Hannibal sharply rebuked him thus: You are for
doing what the flesh of a beast, not what the reason of a wise man,
adviseth.
Neither does banishment deprive geometricians or mathematicians of
the liberty of discoursing freely concerning matters they know and
have skill in; and why should any worthy or good man be denied it? But
meanness of thought obstructs and hinders the voice, strangles the
power of speech, and makes a man a mute. But let us see what follows
from Euripides:
JOC. Upon good hopes exiles can thrive, they say.
POL. Hopes have fine looks, but kill one with delay.[16]
This is also an accusation of men’s folly rather than of banishment;
for it is not the well instructed and those that know how to use what
they have aright, but such as depend upon what is to come and desire
what they have not, that are carried and tossed up and down by hopes,
as in a floating vessel, though they have scarce ever stirred beyond
the gates of their own city. But to go on:
JOC. Did not your father’s friends aid your distress?
POL. Take care to thrive; for if you once are poor,
Those you call friends will know you then no more.
JOC. Did not your high birth stand you in some stead?
POL. It’s sad to want, for honor buys no bread.
These also are ungrateful speeches of Polynices, who accuses banishment
as casting disparagement upon noble birth and leaving a man without
friends, who yet because of his high birth was thought worthy, though
an exile, to have a king’s daughter given him in marriage, and also by
the powerful assistance of his friends gathered such an army as to make
war against his own country, as he confesses himself a little after:
Many a famous Grecian peer
And captain from Mycenae here
In readiness t’ assist me tarry;
Sad service ’tis, but necessary.[17]
Neither are the words of his lamenting mother any wiser:
No nuptial torch at all I lighted have
To thee, as doth a wedding-feast beseem;
No marriage-song was sung; nor thee to lave
Was water brought from fair Ismenus’ stream.
She ought to have been well pleased and rejoiced when she heard that
her son dwelt in such kingly palaces; but, whilst she laments that the
nuptial torch was not lighted, and the want of waters from Ismenus’s
river for him to have bathed in (as if people at Argos were destitute
both of fire and water at their weddings), she makes those evils, which
her own conceit and folly produced, to be the effects of banishment.
17. But is it not then an ignominious thing to be an exile? Yes, it is
among fools, with whom it is a reproach to be poor, to be bald, or of
low stature, and (with as much reason) to be a stranger or a pilgrim.
But they that do not fall into these mistakes admire good men, though
they happen to be poor or strangers or in exile. Do not we see the
temple of Theseus venerated by all men, as well as the Parthenon and
Eleusinium? And yet Theseus was banished from Athens, by whose means
it is at this time inhabited; and lost his abode in that city, which
he did not hold as a tenant, but himself built. And what remarkable
thing is there remaining in Eleusis, if we are ashamed of Eumolpus, who
coming thither from Thrace initiated the Greeks, and still does so,
in the mysteries of religion? And whose son was Codrus, that reigned
at Athens, but of that Melanthus who was banished from Messene? Will
you not commend that speech of Antisthenes, who, when one said to him,
Phrygia is thy mother, replied, She was also the mother of the Gods?
And if any one reproach thee with thy banishment, why canst not thou
answer, that the father of the great conqueror Hercules was an exile?
And so was Cadmus the grandfather of Bacchus, who, being sent abroad in
search for Europa, did return no more:
Sprung from Phoenicia, to Thebes he came;
Thebes to his grandson Bacchus lays a claim,
Who there inspires with rage the female rout,
That worship him by running mad about.[18]
As for those things which Aeschylus obscurely insinuates in that
expression of his,
And of Apollo, chaste God, banished heaven,
I’ll favor my tongue, as Herodotus phrases it, and say nothing.
Empedocles, when he prefaces to his philosophy thus,—
This old decree of fate unchanged stands,—
Whoso with horrid crimes defiles his hands,
To long-lived Daemons this commission’s given
To chase him many ages out of heaven.
Into this sad condition I am hurled,
Banished from God to wander through the world,—
does not here only point at himself; but in what he says of himself he
shows the condition of us all, that we are pilgrims and strangers and
exiles here in this world. For know, says he, O men, that it is not
blood nor a spirit tempered with it that gave being and beginning to
the soul, but it is your terrestrial and mortal body that is made up of
these. And by the soft name of pilgrimage, he insinuates the origin of
the soul, that comes hither from another place. And the truth is, she
flies and wanders up and down, being driven by the divine decrees and
laws; and afterwards, as in an island surrounded with a great sea, as
Plato speaks, she is tied and linked to the body, just like an oyster
to its shell, and because she is not able to remember nor relate,
From what a vast and high degree
Of honor and felicity
she has removed,—not from Sardis to Athens, not from Corinth to
Lemnos or Scyros, but having changed heaven and the moon for earth and
an earthly life,—if she is forced to make little removes here from
place to place, the soul hereupon is ill at ease and troubled at her
new and strange state, and hangs her head like a decaying plant. And
indeed some one country is found to be more agreeable to a plant than
another, in which it thrives and flourishes better; but no place can
deprive a man of his happiness, unless he pleases, no more than of his
virtue and prudence. For Anaxagoras wrote his book of the Squaring
of a Circle in prison; and Socrates, just when he was going to drink
the poison that killed him, discoursed of philosophy, and exhorted his
friends to the study of it; who then admired him as a happy man. But
Phaëton and Tantalus, though they mounted up to heaven, yet, the poets
tell us, through their folly fell into the extremest calamities.
OF BROTHERLY LOVE.
1. The ancient statues of Castor and Pollux are called by the Spartans
Docana; and they are two pieces of wood one over against the other
joined with two other cross ends, and the community and undividedness
of this consecrated representation seems to resemble the fraternal
love of these two Gods. In like manner do I devote this discourse
of Brotherly Love to you, Nigrinus and Quintus, as a gift in common
betwixt you both, who well deserve it. For as to the things it advises
to, you will, while you already practise them, seem rather to give your
testimonies to them than to be exhorted by them. And the satisfaction
you have from well-doing will give the more firm durance to your
judgment, when you shall find yourselves approved by wise and judicious
spectators. Aristarchus the father of Theodectes said indeed once, by
way of flout of the Sophists, that formerly there were scarce seven
Sophists to be found, but that in his time there could hardly be found
so many who were not Sophists. But I see brotherly love is as scarce
in our days as brotherly hatred was in ancient times, the instances
of which have been publicly exposed in tragedies and public shows for
their strangeness. But all in our times, when they have fortuned to
have good brothers, do no less admire them than the famed Molionidae,
that are supposed to have been born with their bodies joined with each
other. And to enjoy in common their fathers’ wealth, friends, and
slaves is looked upon as incredible and prodigious, as if one soul
should make use of the hands, feet, and eyes of two bodies.
2. And Nature hath given us very near examples of the use of
brothers, by contriving most of the necessary parts of our bodies
double, as it were, brothers and twins,—as hands, feet, eyes, ears,
nostrils,—thereby telling us that all these were thus distinguished
for mutual benefit and assistance, and not for variance and discord.
And when she parted the very hands into many and unequal fingers, she
made them thereby the most curious and artificial of all our members;
insomuch that the ancient philosopher Anaxagoras assigned the hands for
the reason of all human knowledge and discretion. But the contrary to
this seems the truth. For it is not man’s having hands that makes him
the wisest animal, but his being naturally reasonable and capable of
art was the reason why such organs were conferred upon him. And this
also is most manifest to every one, that the reason why Nature out of
one seed and source formed two, three, and more brethren was not for
difference and opposition, but that their being apart might render
them the more capable of assisting one another. For those that were
treble-bodied and hundred-handed, if any such there were, while they
had all their members joined to each other, could do nothing without
them or apart, as brothers can who can live together and travel,
undertake public employments and practise husbandry, by one another’s
help, if they preserve but that principle of benevolence and concord
that Nature hath bestowed upon them. But if they do not, they will not
at all differ in my opinion from feet that trip up one another, and
fingers that are unnaturally writhen and distorted by one another. Yea,
rather, as things moist and dry, cold and hot, partake of one nature in
the same body, and by their consent and agreement engender the best
and most pleasant temperament and harmony,—without which (they say)
there is neither satisfaction nor benefit in either riches or kingship
itself, which renders man equal to Gods,—but if excess and discord
befall them, they miserably ruinate and confound the animal; so, where
there is an unanimous accordance amongst brothers, the family thrives
and flourishes, and friends and acquaintance, like a well furnished
choir, in all their actions, words, and thoughts maintain a delightful
harmony.
But jarring feuds advance the worst of men,
such as a vile ill-tongued slave at home, an insinuating parasite
abroad, or some other envious person. For as diseases in bodies
nauseating their ordinary diet incline the appetite to every improper
and noxious thing; so calumny freely entertained against relations,
and through prejudging credulity enhanced into suspicion, occasions an
adopting the pernicious acquaintance of such as are ready enough to
crowd into the room of their betters.
3. The Arcadian prophet in Herodotus was forced to supply the loss of
one of his feet with an artificial one made of wood. But he who in a
difference throws off his brother, and out of places of common resort
takes a stranger for his comrade, seems to do no less than wilfully
to mangle off a part of himself, attempting to repair the barbarous
breach by the unnatural application of an extraneous member. For the
ordinary inclinations and desires of men, being after some sort of
society or other, sufficiently admonish them to set the highest value
upon relations, to pay them all becoming respects, and to have a tender
regard for their persons, nothing being more irksome to nature than to
live in that destitution and solitude that denies them the happiness of
a friend and the privilege of communication. Well therefore was that of
Menander:
’Tis not o’th’ store of sprightly wine,
Nor plenty of delicious meats,
Though generous Nature should design
T’ oblige us with perpetual treats;
’Tis not on these we for content depend,
So much as on the shadow of a friend.
For a great deal of friendship in the world is really no better and no
more than the mere imitation and resemblance of that first affection
that Nature wrought in parents towards their children, and in their
children towards one another. And whoever has not a particular esteem
and regard for this kind of friendship, I know no reason any one has to
credit his kindest pretensions. For what shall we make of that man who
in his complaisance, either in company or in his letters, salutes his
friend by the name of brother, and yet scorns the company of that very
brother whose name was so serviceable to him in his compliment? For,
as it is the part of a madman to adorn and set out the effigies of his
brother, and in the mean time to abuse, beat, and maim his person; so,
to value and honor the name in others but to hate and shun the brother
himself is likewise an action of one that is not so well in his wits
as he should be, and that never yet considered that Nature is a most
sacred thing.
4. I remember, when I was at Rome, I undertook an umpirage between two
brothers. The one pretended to the study of philosophy, but (as it
appeared by the event) with as little reason as to the relation of a
brother. For, when I advised him that now was the time for him to show
his philosophy, in the prudent managery and government of himself,
whilst he was to treat with so dear a relation as a brother, and such
a one especially as wanted those advantages of knowledge and education
that he had; Your counsel, replied my philosopher, may do well with
some illiterate novice or other; but, for my part, I see no such great
matter in that which you so gravely allege, our being the issue of the
same parents. True, I answered, you declare evidently enough that you
make no account of your affinity. But, by your favor, Mr. Philosopher,
all of your profession that I ever was acquainted with, whatever their
private opinions were, affirm both in their prose and poetry that,
next to the Gods and the laws, her conservators and guardians, Nature
had assigned to parents the highest honor and veneration. And there is
nothing that men can perform more grateful to the Gods, than freely
and constantly to pay their utmost acknowledgments and thanks to their
parents, and those from whom they received their nurture and education;
as, on the other hand, there is no greater argument of a profane and
impious spirit than a contemptuous and surly behavior towards them. We
are therefore enjoined to take heed of doing any one wrong. But he that
demeans not himself with that exactness before his parents that all his
actions may afford them a pleasure and satisfaction, though he give
them no other distaste, is sure to undergo a very hard censure. Now
what can more effectually express the gratitude of children to their
parents, or what actions or dispositions in their children can be more
delightful and rejoicing, than firm love and amity amongst them?
5. And this may be understood by lesser instances. For, if parents will
be displeased when an old servant that has been favored by them shall
be reproached and flouted at by the children, or if the plants and the
fields wherein they took pleasure be neglected, if the forgetting a
dog or a beloved horse fret their humorsome age (that is very apt to
be jealous of the love and obedience of their children), if, lastly,
when they disaffect and despise those recreations that are pleasing
to the eye and ear, or those juvenile exercises and games which they
themselves formerly delighted in,—if at any of all these things the
parents will be angry and offended,—how will they endure such discord
as inflames their children with mutual malice and hatred, fills their
mouths with opprobrious and execrating language and works them into
such an inveteracy that the contrary and spiteful method of their
actions declares a drift and design of ruining one another? If, I say,
those smaller matters provoke their anger, how will all the rest be
resented? Who can resolve me? But, on the other hand, where the love
of brothers is such that they make up that distance Nature has placed
them at (in respect of their different bodies) by united affections,
insomuch that their studies and recreations, their earnest and their
jest, keep true time and agree exactly together, such a pleasing
consort amongst their children proves a nursing melody to the decayed
parents to preserve and maintain their quiet and peace in their old
(though tender) age. For never was any father so intent upon oratory,
ambitious of honor, or craving after riches, as fond of his children.
Wherefore neither is it so great a satisfaction to hear them speak
well, find them grow wealthy, or see them honored with the power of
magistracy, as to be endeared to each other in mutual affection.
Wherefore it is reported of Apollonis of Cyzicum, mother of King
Eumenes and three other sons, Attalus, Philetaerus, and Athenaeus, that
she always accounted herself happy and gave the Gods thanks, not so
much for wealth or empire, as because she saw her three sons guarding
the eldest, and him reigning securely among his armed brothers. And on
the contrary, Artaxerxes, understanding that his son Ochus had laid a
plot against his brothers, died with sorrow at the surprise. For the
quarrels of brothers are pernicious, saith Euripides, but most of all
to the parents themselves. For he that hates and plagues his brother
can hardly forbear blaming the father who begot and the mother who bare
him.
6. Wherefore Pisistratus, being about to marry again, his sons being
grown up to a mature age, gave them their deserved character of praise,
together with the reason of his designs for a second marriage,—that
he might be the happy father of more such children. Now those who are
truly ingenious do not only love one another the more entirely for the
sake of their common parents, but they love their very parents for the
sake of one another; always owning themselves bound to their parents
especially for the mutual happiness that they enjoy in each other,
and looking upon their brethren as the dearest and the most valuable
treasure they could have received from their parents. And thus Homer
elegantly expresses Telemachus bewailing the want of a brother:
Stern Jove has in some angry mood
Condemned our race to solitude.[19]
But I like not Hesiod’s judgment so well, who is all for a single
son’s inheriting. Not so well (I say) from Hesiod, a pupil of the
Muses, who being endeared sisters kept always together, and therefore
from that inseparate union (ὁμοῦ οὖσαι) were called Muses. To parents
therefore the love of brothers is a plain argument of their children’s
love to themselves. And to the children of the brothers themselves it
is the best of precedents, and that which affords the most effectual
advice that can be thought of; as again, they will be forward enough
in following the worst of their parents’ humors and inheriting their
animosities. But for one who has led his relations a contentious life,
and quarrelled himself up into wrinkles and gray hairs,—for such a one
to begin a lecture of love to his children is just like him.
Who boldly takes the fees,
To cure in others what’s his own disease.[20]
In a word, his own actions weaken and confute all the arguments of his
best counsel. Take Eteocles of Thebes reflecting upon his brother and
flying out after this manner.
I’d mount the Heavens, I’d strive to meet the sun
In’s setting forth, I’d travel with him down
Beneath the earth, I’d balk no enterprise.
To gain Jove’s mighty power and tyrannize.[21]
Suppose, I say, out of this rage, he had presently fallen into the
softer strain of good advice to his children, charging them thus:
Prize gentle amity that vies
With none for grandeur; concord prize
That joins together friends and states.
And keeps them long confederates.
Equality!—whatever else deceives
Our trust, ’tis this our very selves outlives;
who is there that would not have despised him? Or what would you have
thought of Atreus, after he had treated his brother at a barbarous
supper, to hear him afterwards thus instructing his children:
Such love as doth become related friends
Alone, when ills betide, its succor lends?
7. It is therefore very needful to throw off those ill dispositions,
as being very grievous and troublesome to their parents, and more
destructive to children in respect of the ill example. Besides, it
occasions many strange censures and much obloquy amongst men. For they
will not be apt to imagine that so near and intimate relations as
brothers, that have eaten of the same bread and all along participated
of the same common maintenance, and who have conversed so familiarly
together, should break out into contention, except they were conscious
to themselves of a great deal of naughtiness. For it must be some
great matter that violates the bonds of natural affection; whence it
is that such breaches are so hardly healed up again. For, as those
things which are joined together by art, being parted, may by the
same art be compacted again, but if there be a fracture in a natural
body, there is much difficulty in setting and uniting the broken
parts; so, if friendships that through a long tract of time have been
firmly and closely contracted come once to be violated, no endeavors
will bring them together any more. And brothers, when they have once
broke natural affection, are hardly made true friends again; or, if
there be some kind of peace made betwixt them, it is like to prove but
superficial only, and such as carries a filthy festering scar along
with it. Now all enmity between man and man which is attended with
these perturbations of quarrelsomeness, passion, envy, recording of
an injury, must needs be troublesome and vexatious; but that which is
harbored against a brother, with whom they communicate in sacrifices
and other religious rites of their parents, with whom they have the
same common charnel-house and the same or a near habitation, is much
more to be lamented,—especially if we reflect upon the horrid madness
of some brothers, in being so prejudiced against their own flesh and
blood, that his face and person once so welcome and familiar, his voice
all along from his childhood as well beloved as known, should on a
sudden become so very detestable. How loudly does this reproach their
ill-nature and savage dispositions, that, whilst they behold other
brethren lovingly conversing in the same house and dieting together
at the same table, managing the same estate and attended by the same
servants, they alone divide friends, choose contrary acquaintance,
resolving to abandon every thing that their brother may approve of? Now
it is obvious to any to understand, that new friends and companions may
be compassed and new kindred may come in when the old, like decayed
weapons and worn-out utensils, are lost and gone. But there is no more
regaining of a lost brother, than of a hand that is cut off or an eye
that is beaten out. The Persian woman therefore spake truth, when she
preferred the saving her brother’s life before her very children’s,
alleging that she was in a possibility of having more children if she
should be deprived of those she had, but, her parents being dead, she
could hope for no more brothers after him.[22]
8. You will ask me then, What shall a man do with an untoward brother?
I answer, every kind and degree of friendship is subject to abuse from
the persons, and in that respect has its taint, according to that of
Sophocles:
Who into human things makes scrutinies,
He may on most his censures exercise.
For, if you examine the love of relations, the love of associates, or
the more sensual passion of fond lovers, you will find none of them
all clear, pure, and free from all faults. Wherefore the Spartan, when
he married a little wife, said that of evils he had to choose the
least. But brothers would do well to bear with one another’s familiar
failings, rather than to adventure upon the trial of strangers. For
as the former is blameless because it is necessary, so the other is
blameworthy because it is voluntary. For it is not to be expected that
a sociable guest or a wild crony should be bound by the same
Chains of respect, forged by no human hand,
as one who was nourished from the same breast and carries the same
blood in his veins. And therefore it would become a virtuous mind to
make a favorable construction of his brother’s miscarriages, and to
bespeak him with this candor:
I cannot leave you thus under a cloud
Of infelicities,[23]
whether debauched with vice or eclipsed with ignorance, for fear my
inadvertency to some failing that naturally descends upon you from
one of our parents should make me too severe against you. For, as
Theophrastus said, as to strangers, judgment must rule affection rather
than affection prescribe to judgment; but where nature denies judgment
this prerogative, and will not wait for the bushel of salt (as the
proverb has it) to be eaten, but has already infused and begun in us
the principle of love, there we should not be too rigid and exact in
the examining of faults. Now what would you think of men when they
can easily dispense with and smile at the sociable vices of their
acquaintance, and in the mean time be so implacably incensed with the
irregularities of a brother? Or when fierce dogs, horses, wolves, cats,
apes, lions, are so much their favorites that they feed and delight in
them, and yet cannot stomach only their brother’s passion, ignorance,
or ambition? Or of others who have made away their houses and lands to
harlots, and quarrelled with their brothers only about the floor or
corner of the house? Nay, further, such a prejudice have they to them,
that they justify the hating them from the rule of hating every ill
thing, maliciously accounting them as such; and they go up and down
cursing and reproaching their brothers for their vices, while they are
never offended or discontented therewith in others, but are willing
enough daily to frequent and haunt their company.
9. And this may serve for the beginning of my discourse. I shall enter
upon my instructions not as others do, with the distribution of the
parents’ goods, but with advice rather to avoid envious strifes and
emulation whilst the parents are living. Agesilaus was punished with a
mulct by the Lacedaemonian council for sending every one of the ancient
men an ox as a reward of his fortitude; the reason they gave for their
distaste was, that by this means he won too much upon the people,
and made the commonalty become wholly serviceable to his own private
interest. Now I would persuade the son to show all possible honor and
reverence to his parents, but not with that greedy design of engrossing
all their love to himself,—of which too many have been guilty, working
their brethren out of favor, on purpose to make way for their own
interest,—a fault which they are apt to palliate with specious,
but unjust pretences. For they deprive and cheat their brethren out
of the greatest and most valuable good they are capable of receiving
from their parents, viz., their kindness and affection, whilst they
slyly and disingenuously steal in upon them in their business, and
surprise them in their errors, demeaning themselves with all imaginable
observance to their parents, and especially with the greatest care and
preciseness in those things wherein they see their brethren have been
faulty or suspected to be so. But a kind brother, and one that truly
deserves the name, will make his brother’s condition his own, freely
take upon himself a share of his sufferings, particularly in the anger
of his parents, and be ready to do any thing that may conduce to the
restoring him into favor; but if he has neglected some opportunity or
something which ought to have been done by him, to excuse it upon his
nature, as being more ready and seriously disposed for other things.
That of Agamemnon therefore was well spoken in the behalf of his
brother:
Nor sloth, nor silly humor makes him stay;
I am the only cause. All his delay
Waits my attempts:[24]
and he says that this charge was delivered him by his brother. Fathers
willingly allow of the changing of names, and have an inclination to
believe their children when they make the best interpretation of their
brother’s failings,—as when they call carelessness simple honesty, or
stupidity goodness, or, if he be quarrelsome, term him a smart-spirited
youth and one that will not endure to be trampled on. By this means it
comes to pass, that he who makes his brother’s peace and ingratiates
him with his offended father at the same time fairly advances his own
interest, and grows deservedly the more in favor.
10. But when the storm is once over, it is necessary to be serious
with him, to reprehend him sharply for his crime, discovering to him
with all freedom wherein he has been wanting in his duty. For as such
guilty brothers are not to be allowed in their faults, neither are they
to be insulted with raillery. For to do the latter were to rejoice and
find advantage in their failings, and to do the former were to take
part in them. Therefore ought they so to manage their severities that
they may show a solicitude and concernedness for their brethren and
much discomposure and trouble at their follies. Now he is the fittest
person to school his brother smartly who has been a ready and earnest
advocate in his behalf. But suppose the brother wrongfully charged, it
is fitting he should be obsequious to his parents in all other things
whatsoever, and to bear with their angry humors; but a defence made
before them for a brother that suffers by slander and false accusation
is unreprovable and very good. In all such there is no need to fear
that check in Sophocles,
Curst son! who with thy father durst contend;[25]
for there is allowed a liberty of vindicating a traduced brother. And
where the parents are convinced of their injury, in cases of this kind
defeat is more pleasant to them than victory.
11. But when the father is dead, it is fitting brothers should close
the nearer in affection; immediately in their sadness and sorrow
communicating their mutual love, and, in the next place, rejecting
the suspicious stories and suggestions of servants, discountenancing
their sly methods and subtle applications, and amongst other stories,
adverting to the fable of Jupiter’s sons, Castor and Pollux, whose
love to one another was such that Pollux, when one was whispering to
him somewhat against his brother, killed him with a blow of his fist.
And when they come to dividing their parents’ goods, let them take
heed that they come not with prejudice and contentious resolutions,
giving defiance and shouting the warcry, as so many do. But let them
observe with caution that day above all others, as it may be to them
the beginning either of mortal enmity or of friendship and concord. And
then, either amongst themselves, or, if need be, in the presence of
some common and indifferent friend, let them deal fairly and openly,
allowing Justice (as Plato says) to draw the lot, giving and receiving
what may consist with love and friendship. Thus they will appear to
be sharers only in the care and disposal of these things, whilst the
propriety and enjoyment is free and common to them all. But they that
take an advantage in the controversy, and seize from one another
nurses and children who have been fostered and brought up with them,
prevailing by their eagerness, may perhaps go away with the gain of
a single slave, but they have forfeited in the stead of it the best
legacy their parents could have left them, the love and confidence of
their brothers. I have known some brothers, without the instigation of
lucre, and merely out of a savage disposition, fly upon the goods of
their deceased parents with as much ravine and fierceness as they would
upon the spoil of an enemy. Such were the actions of Charicles and
Antiochus the Opuntians, who divided a silver cup and a garment in two
pieces, as though by some tragical imprecation they had been set on
To share the patrimony with a sword.[26]
Others I have known proclaiming the success of their subtle methods
of fierce and eager and sometimes sly and fallacious reasonings, by
which means they have compassed larger proportion from their deluded
brethren. Whereas their just actions and their kind and humble carriage
had less reproached their pride, but raised the esteem of their
persons. Wherefore that action of Athenodorus is very memorable,
and indeed generally remembered by our countrymen. His elder brother
Xeno in the time of his guardianship had wasted a great part of his
substance, and at last was condemned for a rape, and all that was left
was confiscated. Athenodorus was then but a youth; but when his share
of the estate was given to him, he had that regard to his brother,
that he brought all his own proportion and freely exposed it to a new
division with him. And though in the dividing it he suffered great
abuse from him, he resented it not so much as to repent of what he had
done, but endured with most remarkable meekness and unconcerned ease
his brother’s outrage, that was become notorious throughout all Greece.
12. Solon discoursing about the commonwealth approved of equality, as
being that which would occasion no tumult or faction. But this opinion
appeared too popular; for by this arithmetical method he would have
set up democracy in the room of a far happier government, consisting
with a more suitable (viz., a geometrical) proportion. But he that
advises brethren in the dividing of an estate should give them Plato’s
counsel to the citizens, that they would lay aside self-interest, or,
if they cannot be persuaded to that, to be satisfied with an equal
division. And this is the way to lay a good and lasting foundation of
love and peace betwixt them. Besides that, he may have the advantage
of naming eminent instances. Such was that of Pittacus, who, being
asked of the Lydian king whether he had any estate, replied that he
had twice as much as he wanted, his brother being dead. But since that
not only in the affluence or want of riches he that has a less share
is liable to hostility with him that has more, but generally, as Plato
says, in all inequality there is inquietude and disturbance, and in
the contrary a during confidence; so a disparity among brethren tends
dangerously to discord. But for them to be equal in all respects, I
grant, is impossible. For what through the difference that nature made
immediately betwixt them at the first, and what through the following
contingencies of their lives, it comes to pass that they contract an
envy and hatred against one another, and such abominable humors as
render them the plagues not only of their private families but even
of commonwealths. And this indeed is a disease which it were well
to prevent, or to cure when it is engendered. I would persuade that
brother therefore that excels his fellows in any accomplishments, in
those very things to communicate and impart to them the utmost he can,
that they may shine in his honor, and flourish with his interest. For
instance, if he be a good orator, to endeavor to make that faculty
theirs, accounting it never the less for being imparted. And care ought
to be taken that all this kindness be not followed with a fastidious
pride, but rather with such a becoming condescension and familiarity
as may secure his worth from envy, and by his own equanimity and sweet
disposition, as far as is possible, make up the inequality of their
fortunes. Lucullus refused the honor of magistracy on purpose to give
way to his younger brother, contentedly waiting for the expiration of
his year. Pollux chose rather to be half a deity with his brother than
a deity by himself, and therefore to debase himself into a share of
mortality, that he might raise his brother as much above it. You then
are a happy man, one would think, that can oblige your brother at a
cheaper rate, illustrate him with the honor of your virtues, and make
him great like yourself, without any damage or derogation. Thus Plato
made his brothers famous by mentioning them in the choicest of his
books,—Glauco and Adimantus in that concerning the Commonwealth, and
Antipho his youngest brother in his Parmenides.
13. Besides, as there is difference in the natures and fortunes of
brothers, so neither is it possible that the one should excel the
other in every particular thing. The elements exist out of one common
matter, yet they are qualified with quite contrary faculties. No one
ever saw two brothers by the same father and mother so strangely
distinguished that, whereas the one was a Stoic and withal a wise
man,—a comely, pleasant, liberal, eminent, wealthy, eloquent,
studious, courteous man,—the other was quite contrary to all these.
But, however, the vilest, the most despicable things have some
proportion of good, or natural disposition to it.
Thus amongst hated thorns and prickly briers
The fragrant violet retires.
Now therefore, he who has the eminency in other things, if he yet do
not hinder nor stifle the credit of what is laudable in his brother,
like an ambitious antagonist that grasps at all the applause, but if
he rather yield to him, and declare that in many things he excels him,
by this means takes away all occasion of envy, which being like fire
without fuel, must needs die without it. Or rather he prevents the very
beginnings of envy, and suffers it not so much as to kindle betwixt
them. But he who, where he knows himself far superior to his brother,
calls for his help and advice, whether it be in the business of a
rhetorician, a magistrate, or a friend,—in a word, he that neglects
or leaves him out in no honorable employment or concern, but joins him
with himself in all his noble and worthy actions, employs him when
present, waits for him when absent, and makes the world take notice
that he is as fit for business as himself, but of a more modest and
yielding disposition,—all this while has done himself no wrong, and
has bravely advanced his brother.
14. And this is the advice one would offer to the excelling brother.
The other should consider that, as his brother excels him in wealth,
learning, esteem, he must expect to come behind not him only but
millions more,
Who live o’ th’ offsprings of the spacious earth.
But if he envies all that are so happy, or is the only one in the world
that repines at his own brother’s felicity, his malicious temper speaks
him one of the most wretched creatures in the world. Wherefore, as
Metellus’s opinion was, that the Romans were bound to thank the Gods
that Scipio, being such a brave man, was not born in another city;
so he who aspires after great things, if he miss of his designs for
himself, can do no less than entitle his brother to his best wishes.
But some are so unlucky in estimating of virtuous and worthy actions
that, whereas they are overjoyed to see their friends grow in esteem,
and are not a little proud of entertaining persons of honor or great
opulency, their brother’s worth and eminency is in the mean time looked
upon with a jealous eye, as though it threatened to cloud and eclipse
the splendor of their condition. How do they exalt themselves at the
memory of some prosperous exploits of their father, or the wise conduct
of their great-grandfather, by all which they are nothing advantaged?
But again, how are they daunted and dispirited to see a brother
preferred to inheritances, dignities, or honorable marriage? But we
should not envy any one; but if this cannot be, we ought at least to
turn our malice and rancor out of the family against worse objects, in
imitation of those who ease the city of sedition by turning the same
upon their enemies without. We may say, as Diomedes said to Glaucus:
Trojans I have and friends; you, what I hate,—
Grecians to envy and to emulate.[27]
15. Brothers should not be like the scales of a balance, the one rising
upon the other’s sinking; but rather like numbers in arithmetic,
the lesser and greater mutually helping and improving each other.
For that finger which is not active in writing or touching musical
instruments is not inferior to those that can do both; but they all
move and act, one as well as another, and are assistant to each other,
which makes the inequality among them seem designed by Nature, when
the greatest cannot be without the help of the least that is placed
in opposition to it. Thus Craterus and Perilaus, brothers to kings
Antigonus and Cassander, betook themselves, the one to managing of
military, the other of his domestic affairs. On the other hand, the
men like Antiochus, Seleucus, Grypus, and Cyzicenus, disdaining any
meaner things than purple and diadems, brought a great deal of trouble
and mischief upon one another, and made Greece itself miserable with
their quarrels. But in regard that men of ambitious inclinations will
be apt to envy those who have got the start of them in honor, I judge
it most convenient for brothers to take different methods in pursuit of
it, rather than to vex and emulate one another in the same way. Those
beasts fight and war one with another who feed in one pasture, and
wrestlers are antagonists when they strive in the same game. But those
that pretend to different games are the greatest friends, and ready to
take one another’s parts with the utmost of their skill and power. So
the two sons of Tyndarus, Castor and Pollux, carried the day,—Pollux
at cuffs, and Castor at racing. Thus Homer brings in Teucer as expert
in the bow, whom his brother Ajax, who was best in close fight,
Protected over with a glittering shield.[28]
And amongst those who are concerned in the Commonwealth a general of an
army does not much envy the leaders of the people, nor among those that
profess rhetoric do the lawyers envy the sophisters, nor amongst the
physicians do those who prescribe rules for diet envy the chirurgeon;
but they mutually aid and assert the credit of one another. But for
brothers to study to be eminent in the same art and faculty is all
the same, amongst ill men, as if rival lovers, courting one and the
same mistress, should both strive to gain the greatest interest in her
affections. Those indeed that travel different ways can probably do
one another but little good; but those who carry on quite different
designs, and take several methods in their conversations, avoid envy,
and many times do one another a kindness. As Demosthenes and Chares,
and again Aeschines and Eubulus, Hyperides and Leosthenes, the one
treating the people with their discourses and writings, the others
assisting them by action and conduct. Therefore, where the disposition
of brothers is such that they cannot agree in prosecuting the same
methods of becoming great, it is convenient that one of them should
so command himself as to assume the most different inclinations and
designs from his brother; that, if they both aim at honor, they may
serve their ambition by different means, and that they may cheerfully
congratulate each other on the success of their designs, and so enjoy
at once their honor and themselves.
16. But, besides this, they must beware of the suggestions of kindred,
servants, or even wives, that may work much in a vain-glorious mind.
Your brother, say they, is the great man of action, whom the people
honor and admire; but nobody comes near or regards you. Now a man that
well understood himself would answer, I have indeed a brother that is a
plausible man in the world, and the greatest part of his honor I have
a right to. For Socrates said that he would rather have Darius for his
friend than a Daric. But to a prudent and ingenious brother, it would
be as great a satisfaction to see his brother an excellent orator, a
person of great wealth or authority, as if he had been any or all these
himself. And thus especially may that trouble and discontent, that
arises from the great odds that are betwixt brethren, be mitigated.
But there are other differences that happen amongst ill-constructed
brothers in respect of their age. For, whilst the elder justly claim
the privilege of pre-eminence and authority over the younger, they
become troublesome and uneasy to them; and the younger, growing pert
and refractory, begin to slight and contemn the elder. Hence it is that
the younger, looking upon themselves as hated and curbed, decline and
stomach their admonitions. The elder again, being fond of superiority,
are jealous of their brothers’ advancement, as though it tended to
lessen them. Therefore, as we judge of a kindness that it ought to
be valued more by the party obliged than by him who bestows it, so,
if the elder would be persuaded to set less by his seniority and the
younger to esteem it more, there would be no supercilious slighting
and contemptuous carriage betwixt them. But, seeing it is fitting
the elder should take care of them, lead, and instruct them, and the
younger respect, observe, and follow them; it is likewise convenient
that the elder’s care should carry more of familiarity in it, and
that he should act more by persuasion than command, being readier to
express much satisfaction and to applaud his brother when he does well
than to reprove and chastise him for his faults. Now the younger’s
imitation should be free from such a thing as angry striving. For
unprejudiced endeavors in following another speak the esteem of a
friend and admirer, the other the envy of an antagonist. Whence it is
that those who, out of love to virtue, desire to be like their brother
are beloved; but those again who, out of a stomaching ambition, contend
to be equal with them meet with answerable usage. But above all other
respects due from the younger to the elder, that of observance is
most commendable, and occasions the return of a strong affection and
equal regard. Such was the obsequious behavior of Cato to his elder
brother Caepio all along from their childhood, that, when they came
to be men, he had so much overcome him with his humble and excellent
disposition, and his meek silence and attentive obedience had begot
in him such a reverence towards him, that Caepio neither spake nor
did any thing material without him. It is recorded that, when Caepio
had sealed some writing of depositions, and his brother coming in was
against it, he called for the writing and took off his seal, without
so much as asking Cato why he did suspect the testimony. The reverence
that Epicurus’s brothers showed him was likewise remarkable, and well
merited by his good will and affectionate care for them. They were so
especially influenced by him in the way of his philosophy, that they
began betimes to entertain a high opinion of his accomplishments, and
to declare that there was never a wiser man heard of than Epicurus. If
they erred, yet we may here observe the obliging behavior of Epicurus,
and the return of their passionate respects to him. And amongst later
philosophers, Apollonius the Peripatetic convinced him who said honor
was incommunicable, by raising his younger brother Sotion to a higher
degree of eminence than himself. Amongst all the good things I am
bound to Fortune for, I have that of a kind and affectionate brother
Timon, which cannot be unknown to any who have conversed with me, and
especially those of my own family.
17. There are yet other disturbances that brothers near the same age
ought to be warned of; they are but small indeed at present, but they
are frequent and leave a lasting grudge, such as makes them ready
upon all occasions to fret and exasperate one another, and conclude
at last in implacable hatred and malice. For, having once begun to
fall out in their sports, and to differ about little things, like
the feeding and fighting of cocks and other fowl, the exercises of
children, the hunting of dogs, the racing of horses, it comes to pass
that they have no government of themselves in greater matters, nor
the power to restrain a proud and contentious humor. So the great
men among the Grecians in our time, disagreeing first about players
and musicians, afterward about the bath in Aedepsus, and again about
rooms of entertainment, from contending and opposing one another about
places, and from cutting and turning water-courses, they were grown
so fierce and mad against one another, that they were dispossessed
of all their goods by a tyrant, reduced to extreme poverty, and put
to very hard shifts. In a word, so miserably were they altered from
themselves, that there was nothing of the same but their inveterate
hatred remaining in them. Wherefore there is no small care to be taken
by brothers in subduing their passions and preventing quarrels about
small matters, yielding rather for peace’s sake, and taking greater
pleasure in indulging than crossing and conquering one another’s
humors. For the ancients accounted the Cadmean victory to be no other
than that between the brothers at Thebes, esteeming that the worst
and basest of victories. But you will say, Are there not some things
wherein men of mild and quiet dispositions may have occasion to dissent
from others? There are, doubtless; but then they must take care that
the main difference be betwixt the things themselves, and that their
passions be not too much concerned. But they must rather have a regard
to justice, and as soon as they have referred the controversy to
arbitrament, immediately discharge their thoughts of it, for fear too
much ruminating leave a deep impression of it in the mind, and render
it hard to be forgotten. The Pythagoreans were imitable for this, that,
though no nearer related than by mere common discipline and education,
if at any time in a passion they broke out into opprobrious language,
before the sun set they gave one another their hands, and with them a
discharge from all injuries, and so with a mutual salutation concluded
friends. For as a fever attending an inflamed sore threatens no great
danger to the body, but, if the sore being healed the fever stays,
it appears then to be a distemper and to have some deeper cause; so,
when among brothers upon the ending of a difference all discord ceases
betwixt them, it is an argument that the cause lay in the matter of
difference only, but, if the discord survive the decision of the
controversy, it is plain that the pretended matter served only for a
false scar, drawn over on purpose to hide the cause of an incurable
wound.
18. It is worth the while at present to hear an account of a dispute
between two foreign brothers, not concerning a little patch of land,
nor a few servants or cattle, but no less than the kingdom of Persia.
When Darius was dead, some were for Ariamenes’s succeeding to the
crown as being eldest son; others were for Xerxes, who was born to
Darius of Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, in the time of his reign over
Persia. Ariamenes therefore came from Media in no hostile posture,
but very peaceably, to hear the matter determined. Xerxes being there
used the majesty and power of a king. But when his brother was come,
he laid down his crown and other royal ornaments, went and meeting
greeted him. And sending him presents, he gave a charge to his servants
to deliver them with these words: With these presents your brother
Xerxes expresses the honor he has for you; and, if by the judgment
and suffrage of the Persians I be declared king, I place you next to
myself. Ariamenes replied: I accept your gifts, but presume the kingdom
of Persia to be my right. Yet for all my younger brethren I shall have
an honor, but for Xerxes in the first place. The day of determining who
should reign being come, the Persians made Artabanus brother to Darius
judge. Xerxes excepting against him, confiding most in the multitude,
his mother Atossa reproved him, saying: Why, son, are you so shy of
Artabanus, your uncle, and one of the best men amongst the Persians?
And why should you dread the trial, where the worst you can fear is
to be next the throne, and to be called the king of Persia’s brother?
Xerxes at length submitting, after some debate Artabanus adjudged the
kingdom to Xerxes. Ariamenes presently started up, and went and showed
obeisance to his brother, and taking him by the hand, placed him in the
throne. And from that time, being placed himself by Xerxes next in the
kingdom, he continued the same affection to him, insomuch that, for
his brother’s honor engaging himself in the naval fight at Salamis, he
was killed there. And this may serve for a clear and unquestionable
instance of true kindness and greatness of mind.
Antiochus’s restless ambition after a crown was as much to be
condemned; but still we may admire this in him, that it did not totally
extinguish natural affection and destroy the love of a brother. He
went to war with his brother Seleucus for the kingdom, himself being
the younger brother, and having the assistance of his mother. In the
durance of which war Seleucus joins battle with the Galatians and is
defeated; being not heard of for a time, he is supposed to be slain and
his whole army to be slaughtered by the enemy. Antiochus, understanding
it, put off his purple, went into mourning, caused his palace to be
shut up, and retired to lament the death of his brother. But, within
a short time after, hearing that his brother was safe and raising new
forces, he went and offered sacrifices for joy, and commanded his
subjects to do the like and to crown themselves with garlands. But
the Athenians, though they made a ridiculous story about a falling
out amongst the Deities, compensated for the absurdity pretty well in
striking out the second day of their month Boedromion, because upon
that day Neptune and Minerva were at variance. And why should not we
cancel out of our memories, as an unhappy day and no more to be spoken
of, that wherein we have differed with any of our family or relations?
But rather, far be it from us that the feuds of that day should bury
the memory of all that happier time wherein we were educated and
conversed together. For, except nature has bestowed those virtues
of meekness and patience upon us in vain and to no purpose, we have
certainly the greatest reason to exercise them towards our intimate
friends and kindred. Now the acknowledgments of the offender and the
begging pardon for the crime express a kind and amicable nature no
less than the remitting of it. Wherefore it is not for us to slight
the anger of those whom we have incensed through our folly, neither
should they be so implacable as to refuse an humble submission; but
rather, where we have done the wrong, we should endeavor to prevent a
distaste by the earliest and humblest acknowledgments and impetrations
of pardon, and where we have received any, to be as ready and free in
the forgiving of it. Euclides, Socrates’s auditor, was famous in the
schools for his mild return to his raving brother, whom he heard bellow
out threats against him after this manner: Let me perish, if I be not
revenged on you. He answered: And let me perish, if I do not prevail
with you to desist from this passion, and to let us be as good friends
as ever we were. This Euclides spake; but what king Eumenes did was
an act of meekness seldom to be paralleled, and never yet outdone.
For Perseus king of Macedon, being his great enemy, had engaged some
persons to attempt the killing him. In order to which barbarous act
they lay in wait for him at Delphi, and, when they perceived him going
from the sea toward the Oracle, came behind him and set upon him with
great stones, wounding him in the head and neck, till reeling with
his hurt he fell down and was supposed dead. The rumor of this action
dispersed every way, and some friends and servants of his coming to
Pergamus, who were the amazed spectators of the supposed murder,
brought the news. Whereupon Attalus, Eumenes’s eldest brother, a
well-tempered man and one that had showed the greatest affection and
respect to his brother, was proclaimed king, and not only assumed
the crown, but married his deceased brother’s queen, Stratonica. But
intelligence coming a while after that Eumenes was alive and coming
home, he presently laid aside the crown, and putting on his usual
habiliments, went with the rest of the guard to meet and attend him.
Eumenes received him with the most affectionate embrace, and saluted
the queen with honorable respect and much endearment. And not long
after, at his death, he was so free from passion or jealousy against
his brother, that he bequeathed to him both his crown and his queen.
The return of Attalus to his brother’s kindness was ingenuous and very
remarkable. For after his brother’s death he took no care to advance
his own children, though he had many, but provided especially for the
education of Eumenes’s son, and when he came to age, placed the crown
upon his head, and saluted him with the title of king. But Cambyses,
being disturbed only with a dream that his brother was like to reign
over Asia, without any enquiry after farther evidence or ground for his
jealousy, caused him to be put to death. Whereupon the succession went
out of Cyrus’s family into the line of Darius, a prince who understood
how to share the management of his affairs and even his regal authority
not merely with his brothers, but also with his friends.
19. Again, this rule is to be observed, that, whenever any difference
happens betwixt brothers, during the time of strangeness especially
they hold a correspondence with one another’s friends, but by all
means avoid their enemies. The Cretans are herein very observable;
who, being accustomed to frequent skirmishes and fights, nevertheless,
as soon as they were attacked by a foreign enemy, were reconciled and
went together. And that was it which they commonly called Syncretism.
For there are some who, like waters running among loose and chinky
grounds, overthrow all familiarity and friendship; enemies to both
parties, but especially bent upon the ruining of him whose weakness
exposes him most to danger. For every sincere substantial friend joins
in affection with one that approves himself such to him. And you shall
observe, on the other hand, that the most inveterate and pernicious
enemy contributes the poison of his ill-nature to heighten the passion
of an angry brother. Therefore as the cat, in Aesop, out of pretended
kindness asked the sick hen how she did, and she answered, The better
if you were further off; after the same manner one would answer an
incendiary that throws in words to breed discord, and to that end pries
into things that are not to be spoken of, saying: I have no controversy
with my brother nor he with me, if neither of us shall hearken to such
sycophants as you are. I cannot understand why—seeing it is commonly
held convenient for those who have tender eyes and a weak sight to shun
those objects that are apt to make a strong reflection—the rule should
not hold good in morals, and why those whom we would imagine sick of
the trouble of fraternal quarrels and contentions should rather seem
to take pleasure in them, and even seek the company of those who will
only excite them the more and make all worse. How much more prudential
a course would they take in avoiding the enemies of their offended
brethren, and rather conversing with their relations and friends or
even with their wives, and discovering their grievances to them frankly
and with plainness of speech! But some are of that scrupulous opinion,
that brothers walking together must not suffer a stone to lie in the
way betwixt them, and are very much concerned if a dog happen to run
betwixt them; and many such things, being looked upon as ominous,
discompose and terrify them. Whereas none of them all any way tends
to the breaking of friendship or the causing of dissension; but they
are not in the least aware that men of snarling dispositions, base
detractors, and instigators of mischief, whom they improvidently admit
into their society, are the things that do them the greatest hurt.
20. Therefore (this discourse suggesting one thing after another)
Theophrastus said well: If there ought to be all things common amongst
friends, why should not the best of those things, their friends
themselves, be communicated? And this is advice that cannot be too soon
tendered to brethren, for their separate acquaintance and conversation
conduce to the estranging them from one another. For those who affect
divers friends will be apt to delight in them so much as to emulate
them, and will therefore be easily drawn and persuaded by them; for
friendships have their distinctive marks and manners, and there is
no greater argument of a different genius and disposition than the
choice of different friends. Wherefore neither the common table nor
the common recreations nor any other sort of intimacy comprehends so
much of amity betwixt brothers, as to be united in their interest and
to have the same common friends and enemies; for ordinary friendship
suffers neither calumnies nor clashings, but if there be any anger
or discontent, honest and impartial friends make an end of it. For
as tin unites and solders up broken brass, being put to the ends and
attempered to the nature of the broken pieces; so it is the part of a
friend betwixt two brothers, to suit and accommodate himself to the
humors of both, that he may confirm and secure their friendship. But
those of different and uncomplying tempers are like improper notes in
music, that serve only to spoil the consort, and offend the ear with a
harsh noise. It is a question therefore whether Hesiod was in the right
or not when he said:
Let not thy friend become thy brother’s peer.[29]
For one of an even behavior, that freely communicates himself between
both, may by his interest in both contract a firm and happy tie and
engagement of love between brothers. But Hesiod, it seems, spoke
of those he suspected,—the greatest part and the worst sort of
friends,—men of envious and selfish designs. He is wise who avoids
such friends; and if in the mean time he divide his kindness equally
between a true friend and a brother, let him do it with this reserve
always, that the brother have the preference in magistracy and the
management of public affairs, that he have the greater respect
shown him in invitations and in contracting acquaintance with great
persons, and in any thing that looks honorable and great in the eyes
of the people, that the pre-eminence be given to Nature; for in these
instances to prefer a friend does him not so much credit as that base
and unworthy action of lessening and slighting a brother does the
vilifying brother disgrace. But several have given their opinions in
this thing. That of Menander is very well,
No one who loves will bear to be contemned.
This may remind brothers to preserve a tender regard to one another,
and not to presume that Nature will overcome all their slights and
disdain. A horse naturally loves a man, and a dog his master; but, if
they are neglected in what is fitting and necessary for them, they will
grow strange and unmanageable. The body, that is so intimately united
to the soul, if the soul suspend a careful influence from it, will not
be forward to assist it in its operations; it may rather spoil and
cross them.
21. Now as the kind regards of brother to brother are highly
commendable, so may they be expressed to the greater advantage,
when he confines them not wholly to his person, but pays them, as
occasion serves, rather by reflection to his kindred and such as
retain to him; when he maintains a kind and complaisant humor amidst
all contingencies, when he obliges the servile part of the family
with a courteous and affable carriage, when he is grateful to the
physician and good friends for the safe recovery of his brother, and
is ready to go upon any expedition or service for him. Again, it is
highly commendable in him to have the highest esteem and honor for
his brother’s wife, reputing and honoring her as the most sacred of
all his brother’s sacred treasures, and thus to do honor to him;
condoling with her when she is neglected, and appeasing her when
she is angered; if she have a little offended, to intercede and sue
for her peace; if there have been any private difference between
himself and his brother, to make his complaint before her in order
to a reconcilement. But especially let him be much troubled at his
brother’s single state; or, if he be married, at his want of children.
If not married, let him follow him with arguments and persuasions,
to teaze him with rebukes and reproaches, and to do every thing that
may incline him to enter into a conjugal state. When he has children,
let him express his affection and respects to both parents with the
greater ardency. Let him love the children equally with his own, but
be more favorable and indulgent to them, that, if it chance that they
commit some of their youthful faults, they may not run away and hide
themselves among naughty acquaintances through fear of their parents’
anger, but may have in their uncle a recourse and refuge, where they
will be admonished lovingly and will find an intercessor to make
their excuse and get their pardon. So Plato reclaimed his nephew
Speusippus, that was far gone in idleness and debauchery; the young
man, impatient of his parents’ reprehensions, ran away from them, who
were more impatient of his extravagancies. His uncle expressed nothing
of disturbance at all this, but continued calm and free from passion;
whereupon Speusippus was seized with an extraordinary shame, and from
that time became an admirer of both his uncle and his philosophy. Many
of Plato’s friends blamed him that he had not instructed the youth; he
made answer, that he instructed him by his life and conversation, from
which he might learn, if he pleased, the difference betwixt ill and
virtuous actions. The father of Aleuas the Thessalian, looking upon his
son as of a fierce and injurious nature, kept him under with a great
deal of severity, but his uncle received him with as great kindness.
When therefore the Thessalians sent some lots to the oracle at Delphi,
to enquire by them who should be their king, his uncle stole in one
lot privately in the name of Aleuas; the priestess answered from the
oracle, that Aleuas should be king. His father being surprised averred
that there was never a lot thrown in for Aleuas that he knew of; at
last all concluded that some mistake was committed in putting down
the names, whereupon they sent again to enquire of the oracle. The
priestess, confirming her first words, answered:
I mean the youth with reddish hair,
Whom dame Archedice did bear.
Thus Aleuas was by the oracle, through his uncle’s kind policy,
declared king; by which means he surmounted all his ancestors, and
advanced his family into a splendid condition. For it is prudence
in a brother, when he beholds with joy the brave and worthy actions
of his nephews growing great and honorable by their own deserts, to
prompt and encourage them on by congratulation and applause. For to
praise his own son may be absurd and offensive, but to commend the
good actions of a brother’s son, is an excellent thing, and one which
proceeds from no self-interest, nor any other principle but a true
veneration for virtue. Now the very name of uncle (θεῖος) intimates
that mutual beneficence and friendship that ought to be between him and
his nephews. Besides this, we have a precedent from those that are
of a sublimer make and nature than ourselves. Hercules, who was the
father of sixty-eight sons, had a brother’s son that was as dear to
him as any of his own; and even to this time Hercules and his nephew
Iolaus have in many places one common altar betwixt them, and share in
the same adorations. He is called literally Hercules’s assistant. And
when his brother Iphicles was slain in a battle at Lacedaemon, in his
exceeding grief he left the whole of Peloponnesus. Also Leucothea, her
sister being dead, took her infant, nursed him up, and consecrated him
with herself among the deities; from whence the Roman matrons, upon the
festivals of Leucothea (whom they call also Matuta) have a custom of
nursing their sisters’ children instead of their own, during the time
of the festival.
WHEREFORE THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS NOW CEASES TO DELIVER HER ORACLES IN
VERSE.
I. BASILOCLES, PHILINUS.
II. PHILINUS, DIOGENIANUS, THEO, SERAPIO, BOETHUS, INTERPRETERS.
1. BASILOCLES. You have spun out the time, Philinus, till it
is late in the evening, in giving the strangers a full sight of all the
consecrated rarities; so that I am quite tired with waiting longer for
your society.
PHILINUS. Therefore we walked slowly along, talking and
discoursing, O Basilocles, sowing and reaping by the way such sharp and
hot disputes as offered themselves, which sprung up anew and grew about
us as we walked, like the armed men from the Dragon’s teeth of Cadmus.
BASILOCLES. Shall we then call some of those that were
present; or wilt thou be so kind as to tell us what were the discourses
and who were the disputants?
PHILINUS. That, Basilocles, it must be my business to do.
For thou wilt hardly meet with any one else in the city able to serve
thee; for we saw most of the rest ascending with the stranger up to the
Corycian cave and to Lycorea.
BASILOCLES. This same stranger is not only covetous of seeing
what may be seen, but wonderfully civil and genteel.
PHILINUS. He is besides a great lover of science, and studious
to learn. But these are not the only exercises which are to be admired
in him. He is a person modest, yet facetious, smart and prudent in
dispute, void of all passion and contumacies in his answers; in short,
you will say of him at first sight that he is the son of a virtuous
father. For dost thou not know Diogenianus, a most excellent person?
BASILOCLES. I have not seen him, Philinus, but many report
several things of the young gentleman, much like what you say. But,
pray now, what was the beginning of these discourses? Upon what
occasion did they arise?
2. PHILINUS. The interpreters of the sacred mysteries acted
without any regard to us, who desired them to contract their relation
into as few words as might be, and to pass by the most part of the
inscriptions. But the stranger was but indifferently taken with the
form and workmanship of the statues, being one, as it appeared, who had
already been a spectator of many rare pieces of curiosity. He admired
the beautiful color of the brass, not foul and rusty, but shining with
a tincture of blue. What, said he, was it any certain mixture and
composition of the ancient artists in brass, like the famous art of
giving a keen edge to swords, without which brass could not be used
in war? For Corinthian brass received its lustre not from art, but by
chance, when a fire had devoured some house wherein there was both gold
and silver, but of brass the greater plenty; which, being intermixed
and melted into one mass, derives its name from the brass, of which
there was the greater quantity. Then Theo interposing said: But we have
heard another more remarkable reason than this; how an artist in brass
at Corinth, happening upon a chest full of gold, and fearing to have it
divulged, cut the gold into small pieces, and mixed it by degrees with
the brass, till he found the more noble metal gave a more than usual
lustre to the baser, and so transformed it that he sold at a great rate
the unknown mixture, that was highly admired for its beauty and color.
But I believe both the one and the other to be fabulous; for by all
likelihood this Corinthian brass was a certain mixture and temperature
of metals, prepared by art; just as at this day artisans temper gold
and silver together, and make a peculiar and wonderful pale yellow
metal; howbeit, in my eye it is of a sickly color and a corrupt hue,
without any beauty in the world.
3. What then, said Diogenianus, do you believe to be the cause of
this extraordinary color in the brass? And Theo replied: Seeing that
of those first and most natural elements, which are and ever will
be,—that is to say, fire, air, earth, and water,—there is none that
approaches so near to brass or that so closely environs it as air
alone, we have most reason to believe that the air occasions it, and
that from thence proceeds the difference which brass displays from
other metals. Or did you know this even “before Theognis was born,” as
the comic poet intimates; but would you know by what natural quality
or by what virtual power this same air thus colors the brass, being
touched and surrounded by it? Yes, said Diogenianus; and so would
I, dear son, replied the worthy Theo. First then let us endeavor,
altogether with submission to your good pleasure, said the first
propounder, to find out the reason wherefore of all moistures oil
covers brass with rust. For it cannot be imagined that oil of itself
causes that defilement, if when first laid on it is clean and pure.
By no means, said the young gentleman, in regard the effect seems to
proceed from another cause; for the rust appears through the oil, which
is thin, pure, and transparent, whereas it is clouded by other more
thick and muddy liquors, and so is not able to show itself. It is well
said, son, replied the other, and truly; but hear, however, and then
consider the reason which Aristotle produces. I am ready, returned
the young gentleman. He says then, answered the other, that the rust
insensibly penetrates and dilates itself through other liquids, as
being of parts unequal, and of a thin substance; but that it grows
to a consistency, and is, as it were, incorporated by the more dense
substance of the oil. Now if we could but suppose how this might be
done, we should not want a charm to lull this doubt asleep.
4. When we had made our acknowledgment that he had spoken truth, and
besought him to proceed, he told us that the air of the city of Delphi
is heavy, compacted, thick, and forcible, by reason of the reflection
and resistency of the adjacent mountains, and besides that, is sharp
and cutting (as appears by the eager stomachs and swift digestion of
the inhabitants); and that this air, entering and penetrating the brass
by its keenness, fetches forth from the body of the brass much rust
and earthy matter, which afterwards it stops and coagulates by its own
density, ere it can get forth; by which means the rust abounding in
quantity gives that peculiar grain and lustre to the superficies. When
we approved this argument, the stranger declared his opinion, that it
needed no more than one of those suppositions to clear the doubt; for,
said he, that tenuity or subtilty seems to be in some measure contrary
to that thickness supposed to be in the air, and therefore there is no
reason to suppose it; for the brass, as it grows old, of itself exhales
and sends forth that rust, which afterwards, being stopped and fixed by
the thickness of the air, becomes apparent by reason of its quantity.
Then Theo replied: and what hinders but that the same thing may be
thick and thin both together, like the woofs of silk or fine linen?—of
which Homer says:
Thin was the stuff,
Yet liquid oil ran o’er the tissued woof,[30]
intimating the extreme fineness of the texture, yet so close woven that
it could not suffer oil to pass through it. In like manner may we make
use of the subtilty of the air, not only to scour the brass and fetch
the rust out of it, but also to render the color more pleasing and more
azure-like, by intermixing light and splendor amidst the blue.
5. This said, after short silence, the guides began again to cite
certain words of an ancient oracle in verse, which, as it seemed to
me, pointed at the sovereignty of Aegon king of Argos. I have often
wondered, said Diogenianus, at the meanness and ill-contrived hobbling
of the verses which conveyed the ancient oracles into the world. And
yet Apollo is called the chief of the Muses; whom it therefore behooved
to take no less care of elegancy and beauty in style and language, than
of the voice and manner of singing. Besides, he must needs be thought
to surpass in a high degree either Homer or Hesiod in poetic skill.
Nevertheless we find several of the oracles lame and erroneous, as
well in reference to the measure as to the words. Upon which the poet
Serapio, newly come from Athens, being then in company, said: If we
believe that those verses were composed by Apollo, can we acknowledge
what you allege, that they come short of the beauty and elegancy which
adorn the writings of Homer and Hesiod; and shall we not make use of
them as examples of neatness and curiosity, correcting our judgment
anticipated and forestalled by evil custom? To whom Boethus the
geometer (the person who you know has lately gone over to the camp of
Epicurus) said: Have you not heard the story of Pauson the painter?
Not I, replied Serapio. It is worth your attention, answered Boethus.
He, having contracted to paint a horse wallowing upon his back, drew
the horse galloping at full speed; at which when the person that had
agreed with him seemed to be not a little displeased, Pauson fell a
laughing, and turned the picture upside downward; by which means the
posture was quite altered, and the horse that seemed to run before lay
tumbling now upon the ground. This (as Bion says) frequently happens
to propositions, when they are once inverted; for some will deny the
oracles to be elegant, because they come from Apollo; others will
deny Apollo to be the author, because of their rude and shapeless
composure. For the one is dubious and uncertain; but this is manifest,
that the verses wherein the oracles are generally delivered are no way
laboriously studied. Nor can I appeal to a better judge than yourself,
whose compositions and poems are not only written so gravely and
philosophically, but, for invention and elegancy, more like to those of
Homer and Hesiod than the homely Pythian raptures.
6. To whom Serapio: We labor, Boethus, said he, under the distempered
senses both of sight and hearing, being accustomed through niceness
and delicacy to esteem and call that elegant which most delights; and
perhaps we may find fault with the Pythian priestess because she does
not warble so charmingly as the fair lyric songstress Glauca, or else
because she does not perfume herself with precious odors or appear
in rich and gaudy habit. And some may mislike her because she burns
for incense rather barley-meal and laurel than frankincense, ladanon,
and cinnamon. Do you not see, some one will say, what a grace there
is in Sappho’s measures, and how they delight and tickle the ears and
fancies of the hearers? Whereas the Sibyl with her frantic grimaces, as
Heraclitus says, uttering sentences altogether thoughtful and serious,
neither bespiced nor perfumed, continues her voice a thousand years by
the favor of the Deity that speaks within her. Pindar therefore tells
us that Cadmus heard from heaven a sort of music that was neither lofty
nor soft, nor shattered into trills and divisions; for severe holiness
will not admit the allurements of pleasure, that was for the most part
thrown into the world and flowed (as it appears) into the ears of men
at the same time with the Goddess of mischief.
7. Serapio thus concluding, Theo with a smile proceeded. Serapio,
said he, has not forgot his wonted custom of taking an opportunity to
discourse of pleasure. But we, Boethus, believe not these prophetic
verses to be the compositions of Apollo, if they are worse than
Homer’s; but we believe that he supplied the principle of motion,
and that every one of the prophetesses was disposed to receive his
inspiration. For if the oracles were to be set down in writing, not
verbally to be pronounced, surely we should not find fault with the
hand, taking it to be Apollo’s, because the letters were not so fairly
written as in the epistles of kings. For neither the voice, nor the
sound, nor the word, nor the metre proceeds from the God, but from the
woman. God only presents the visions, and kindles in the soul a light
to discover future events; which is called divine inspiration. But in
short, I find it is a hard matter to escape the hands of Epicurus’s
priests (of which number I perceive you are), since you reprove the
ancient priestesses for making bad verses, and the modern prophetesses
for delivering the oracles in prose and vulgar language, which they do
that they may escape being by you called to an account for their lame
and mistaken verses. But then, Diogenianus, I beseech you, said he, in
the name of all the Gods, be serious with us; unriddle this question,
and explain this mystery unto us, which is now grown almost epidemical.
For indeed there is hardly any person that does not with an extreme
curiosity search after the reason wherefore the Pythian oracle has
ceased to make use of numbers and verse. Hold, son, said Theo, we shall
disoblige our historical directors by taking their province out of
their hands. First suffer them to make an end, and then at leisure we
will go on with what you please.
8. Thus walking along, we were by this time got as far as the statue
of Hiero the tyrant, while the stranger, although a most learned
historian, yet out of his complaisant and affable disposition,
attentively leaned to the present relations. But then, among other
things, hearing how that one of the brazen pillars that supported the
said statue of Hiero fell of itself the same day that the tyrant died
at Syracuse, he began to admire the accident. Thereupon at the same
time I called to mind several other examples of the like nature: as
that of Hiero the Spartan, the eyes of whose statue fell out of its
head just before he was slain at the battle of Leuctra;—how the two
stars vanished which Lysander offered and consecrated to the Gods
after the naval engagement near Aegos Potami, and how there sprung of
a sudden from his statue of stone such a multitude of thorny bushes
and weeds as covered all his face;—how, when those calamities and
misfortunes befell the Athenians in Sicily, the golden dates dropped
from the palm-tree, and the ravens with their beaks pecked holes in
the shield of Pallas;—how the crown of the Cnidians which Philomelus,
the tyrant of the Phocians, gave Pharsalia, a female dancer, was the
occasion of her death; for, passing out of Greece into Italy, one day
as she was playing and dancing in the temple of Apollo in the city
of Metapontum, having that crown upon her head, the young men of the
place falling upon her, and fighting one among another for lucre of the
gold, tore the damsel in pieces. Now, though Aristotle was wont to say
that only Homer composed names and terms that had motion, by reason
of the vigor and vivacity of his expressions, for my part I am apt to
believe that the offerings made in this city of statues and consecrated
presents sympathize with Divine Providence, and move themselves jointly
therewith to foretell and signify future events; and that no part of
all those sacred donatives is void of sense, but that every part is
full of the Deity.
It is very probable, answered Boethus; for, to tell you truth, we do
not think it sufficient to enclose the Divinity every month in a mortal
body, unless we incorporate him with every stone and lump of brass; as
if Fortune and Chance were not sufficient artists to bring about such
accidents and events. Say ye so then? said I. Seems it to you that
these things happen accidentally and by hap-hazard; and is it likely
that your atoms never separate, never move or incline this or that way
either before or after, but just in that nick of time when some one of
those who have made these offerings is to fare either better or worse?
Shall Epicurus avail thee by his writings and his sayings, which he
wrote and uttered above three hundred years ago, and shall the Deity,
unless he crowd himself into all substances and blend himself with all
things, not be allowed to be a competent author of the principles of
motion and affection?
9. This was the reply I made Boethus, and the same answer I gave him
touching the Sibyl’s verses; for when we drew near that part of the
rock which joins to the senate-house, which by common fame was the
seat of the first Sibyl that came to Delphi from Helicon, where she
was bred by the Muses (though others affirm that she fixed herself
at Maleo, and that she was the daughter of Lamia, the daughter of
Neptune), Serapio made mention of certain verses of hers, wherein she
had extolled herself as one that should never cease to prophesy even
after her death; for that after her decease she should make her abode
in the orb of the moon, being metamorphosed into the face of that
planet; that her voice and prognostications should be always heard in
the air, intermixed with the winds and by them driven about from place
to place; and that from her body should spring various plants, herbs,
and fruits to feed the sacred victims, which should have sundry forms
and qualities in their entrails, whereby men would be able to foretell
all manner of events to come. At this Boethus laughed outright; but
the stranger replied that, though the Sibyl’s vain-glory seemed
altogether fabulous, yet the subversions of several Grecian cities,
transmigrations of the inhabitants, several invasions of barbarian
armies, the destructions of kingdoms and principalities, testified
the truth of ancient prophecies and predictions. And were not those
accidents that fell out not many years ago in our memories at Cumae and
Puteoli, said he, long before that time the predictions and promises
of the Sibyl, which Time, as a debtor, afterwards discharged and paid?
Such were the breaking forth of kindled fire from the sulphuric wombs
of mountains, boiling of the sea, cities so swallowed up as not to
leave behind the least footsteps of the ruins where they stood; things
hard to be believed, much harder to be foretold, unless by Divine
foresight.
10. Then Boethus said: I would fain know what accidents fall out
which time does not owe at length to Nature. What so prodigious or
unlooked for, either by land or sea, either in respect of cities or
men, which, if it be foretold, may not naturally come to pass at one
season or other, in process of time? So that such a prophecy, to speak
properly, cannot be called a prediction, but a bare speech or report,
or rather a scattering or sowing of words in boundless infinity that
have no probability or foundation; which, as they rove and wander in
the air, Fortune accidentally meets, and musters together by chance, to
correspond and agree with some event. For, in my opinion, there is a
great difference between the coming to pass of what has been said and
the saying of what shall happen. For the discourse of things that are
not, being already in itself erroneous and faulty, cannot, in justice,
claim the honor of after-credit from a fortuitous accident. Nor is it a
true sign that the prophet foretells of his certain knowledge, because
what he spoke happened to come to pass; in regard there are an infinite
number of accidents, that fall in the course of nature, suitable to all
events. He therefore that conjectures best, and whom the common proverb
avers to be the exactest diviner, is he who finds out what shall
happen hereafter, by tracing the footsteps of future probabilities.
Whereas these Sibyls and enthusiastic wizards have only thrown into
the capacious abyss of time, as into a vast and boundless ocean, whole
heaps of words and sentences, comprehending all sorts of accidents and
events, which, though some perchance may come to pass, were yet false
when uttered, though afterwards by chance they may happen to be true.
11. Boethus having thus discoursed, Serapio replied, that Boethus had
rightly and judiciously argued in reference to cursory predictions
uttered not determinately and without good ground. One fairly guessed
that such a captain should get the victory, and he won the field;
another cried that such things portended the subversion of such a
city, and it was laid in ashes. But when the person does not only
foretell the event, but how and when, by what means, and by whom it
shall come to pass, this is no hazardous conjecture, but an absolute
demonstration, and pre-inspired discovery of what shall come to pass
hereafter, and that too by the determined decree of fate, long before
it comes to pass. For example, to instance the halting of Agesilaus,
Sparta, beware, though thou art fierce and proud,
Lest a lame king thy ancient glories cloud;
For then 'twill be thy fate to undergo
Tedious turmoils of war, and sudden woe;
together with what was prophesied concerning the island which the sea
threw up right against Thera and Therasia; as also the prediction of
the war between King Philip and the Romans,
When Trojan race shall tame Phoenicians bold,
Prodigious wonders shall the world behold;
From burning seas shall flames immense ascend;
Lightning and whirlwinds hideous rocks shall rend
From their foundations, and an island rear,
Dreadful to sight and terrible to hear.
In vain shall greater strength and valor then
Withstand the contemned force of weaker men.
Soon after this island shot up out of the ocean, surrounded with flames
and boiling surges; and then it was that Hannibal was overthrown, and
the Carthaginians were subdued by the distressed and almost ruined
Romans, and that the Aetolians, assisted by the Romans, vanquished
Philip King of Macedon. So that it is never to be imagined that these
things were the effects of negligent and careless chance; besides, the
series and train of events ensuing the prodigy clearly demonstrate
the foreknowledge of a prophetic spirit. The same may be said of the
prophecy made five hundred years beforehand to the Romans of the time
when they should be engaged in war with all the world at once; which
happened when their own slaves made war upon their masters. In all this
there was nothing of conjecture, nothing of blind uncertainty, nor
is there any occasion to grope into the vast obscurity of chance for
the reason of these events; but we have many pledges of experience,
that plainly demonstrate the beaten path by which destiny proceeds.
For certainly there is no man who will believe that ever those events
answered accidentally the several circumstances of the prediction;
otherwise we may as well say that Epicurus himself never wrote his book
of dogmatic precepts, but that the work was perfected by the accidental
meeting and interchange of the letters, one among another.
12. Thus discoursing, we kept on our walk; but when we came into the
Corinthian Hall and observed the brazen palm-tree, the only remainder
left of all the consecrated donatives, Diogenianus wondered to observe
several figures of frogs and water-snakes, all in cast work about the
root of the tree. Nor were we less at a stand, well knowing the palm
to be no tree that grows by the water or delights in moist or fenny
places; neither do frogs at all concern or belong to the Corinthians,
either by way of emblem or religious ceremony, or as the city arms; as
the Selinuntines formerly offered to their Gods parsley or smallage
(_selinon_) of goldsmith’s work and of the choicest yellow
metal; and the inhabitants of Tenedos always kept in their temple a
consecrated axe, a fancy taken from their esteem of the crab-fish
that breed in that island near the promontory of Asterium, they being
the only crabs that carry the figure of an axe upon the upper part of
their shells. For as for Apollo, we were of opinion that crows, swans,
wolves, sparrow-hawks, or any other sort of creature, would be more
acceptable to him than despicable animals. To this Serapio replied,
that sure the workman thereby designed to show that the Sun was
nourished by moisture and exhalations; whether it was that he thought
at that time of that verse in Homer
The rising Sun then causing day to break,
Quits the cool pleasure of the oozy lake,[31]
or whether he had seen how the Egyptians, to represent sunrise, paint
a little boy sitting upon a lotus. Thereupon, not able to refrain
laughing, What, said I, are you going about to obtrude your stoicisms
again upon us; or do you think to slide insensibly into our discourse
your exhalations and fiery prodigies? What is this but, like the
Thessalian women, to call down the Sun and Moon by enchantments from
the skies, while you derive their original from the earth and water?
Therefore Plato will have a man to be a heavenly tree, growing with
his root, which is his head, upward. But you deride Empedocles for
affirming that the Sun, being illumined by the reflection of the
celestial light, with an intrepid countenance casts a radiant lustre
back upon the convex of heaven; while you yourselves make the Sun to
be a mere terrestrial animal or water plant, confining him to ponds,
lakes, and such like regions of frogs. But let us refer these things
to the tragical monstrosity of Stoical opinions, and now make some
particular reflections touching the extravagant pieces of certain
artificers, who, as they are ingenious and elegant in some things, so
are no less weakly curious and ambitious in others of their inventions;
like him who, designing to signify the dawn of day-light or the hours
of sunrise, painted a cock upon the hand of Apollo. And thus may
these frogs be thought to have been designed by the artist to denote
the spring, when the Sun begins to exercise his power in the air and
to dissolve the winter congealments; at least, if we may believe, as
you yourselves affirm, that Apollo and the Sun are both one God, and
not two distinct Deities. Why, said Serapio, do you think the Sun and
Apollo differ the one from the other? Yes, said I, as the Moon differs
from the Sun. Nay, the difference is somewhat greater. For the Moon
neither very often nor from all the world conceals the Sun; but the Sun
is the cause that all men are ignorant of Apollo, by sense withdrawing
the rational intellect from that which is to that which appears.
13. After this, Serapio put the question to the Historical Directors,
why that same hall did not bear the name of Cypselus, who was both the
founder and the consecrator, but was called the Corinthians’ Hall?
When all the rest were silent, because perhaps they knew not what
to say; How can we imagine, said I with a smile, that these people
should either know or remember the reason, having been so amused and
thunderstruck by your high-flown discourses of prodigies altogether
supernatural? However we have heard it reported, when the monarchical
government of Corinth was dissolved by the ruin of Cypselus, the
Corinthians claimed the honor to own both the golden statue at Pisa,
and the treasure that lay in that place; which was also by the
Delphians decreed to be their just right. This glory being envied
them by the Eleans, they were by a decree of the Corinthians utterly
excluded from the solemnities of the Isthmian games. This is the true
reason, that never since any person of the country of Elis was admitted
to any trial of skill at those festivals. For as for that murder of the
Molionidae, slain by Hercules near Cleonae, that was not the reason
wherefore Eleans were excluded, as some have vainly alleged; for on
the contrary it had been more proper for the Eleans themselves to have
excluded the Corinthians from the Olympic games, had they any animosity
against them on this account. And this is all that I have to say in
reference to this matter.
14. But when we came into the treasury of the Acanthians and Brasidas,
the director showed us the place where formerly stood the obelisks
dedicated to the memory of the courtesan Rhodopis. Then Diogenianus
in a kind of passion said: It was no less ignominy for this city to
allow Rhodopis a place wherein to deposit the tenth of her gains got
by the prostitution of her body, than to put Aesop her fellow-servant
to death. But why should you be offended at this, said Serapio, when
you have but to cast up your eye, and you may yonder behold the golden
statue of Mnesarete standing between kings and emperors, which Crates
averred to be a trophy of the Grecian intemperance? The young man
observed the statue, and said: But it was Phryne of whom Crates uttered
that expression. That is very true, replied Serapio; for her proper
name was Mnesarete; but Phryne was a nickname, given her by reason of
the yellowness of her complexion, like the color of a toad that lies
among moist and overgrown bushes, called in Greek φρύνη. For many times
it happens that nicknames eclipse and drown the proper names both
of men and women. Thus the mother of Alexander, whose true name was
Polyxena, was afterwards called Myrtale, then Olympias, and Stratonice;
Eumetis the Corinthian was afterwards called from her father’s
name Cleobule; and Herophyle of the city of Erythraea, skilful in
divination, was called Sibylla. And the grammarians will tell you that
Leda herself was first called Mnesionoe, and Orestes Achaeus. But how,
said he, looking upon Theo, can you answer this complaint concerning
Phryne, for being placed in so much state above her quality?
15. In the same manner, and as easily, replied Serapio, as I may
charge and accuse yourself for reproaching the slightest faults among
the Greeks. For as Socrates reprehended Callias for being always at
enmity with perfumes and precious odors, while yet he could endure to
see boys and girls dance and tumble together, and to be a spectator of
the lascivious gestures of wanton mummers and merry-andrews; so, in my
opinion, it is with you that envy the standing of a woman’s statue in
the temple, because she made ill use of her beauty. Yet, though you
see Apollo surrounded with the first-fruits and tenths of murders,
wars, and plunder, and all the temple full of spoils and pillage
taken from the Greeks, these things never move your indignation;
you never commiserate your countrymen, when you read engraved upon
these gaudy donatives such doleful inscriptions as these,—Brasidas
and the Acanthians dedicate these spoils taken from Athenians,—the
Athenians these from the Corinthians,—the Phocians these from the
Thessalians,—the Orneatae these from the Sicyonians,—the Amphictyons
these from the Phocians. Now if it is true that Praxiteles offended
Crates by erecting a statue in honor of his mistress, in my opinion
Crates rather ought to have commended him for placing among the golden
monuments of kings and princes the statue of a courtesan, thereby
showing a contempt and scorn of riches, to which there is nothing
of grandeur or veneration due; for it becomes princes and kings to
consecrate to the God the lasting monuments of justice, temperance,
magnanimity, not of golden and superfluous opulency, which are as
frequently erected to the most flagitious of men.
16. But you forgot, said one of the directors, that Croesus honored
the woman that baked his bread with a golden statue, which he caused
to be set up in this place, not to make a show of royal superfluity,
but upon a just and honest occasion of gratitude, which happened thus.
It is reported that Alyattes, the father of Croesus, married a second
wife, by whom he had other children. This same step-dame, therefore,
designing to remove Croesus out of the way, gave the woman-baker a dose
of poison, with a strict charge to put it in the bread which she made
for the young prince. Of this the woman privately informed Croesus, and
gave the poisoned bread to the queen’s children. By which means Croesus
quietly succeeded his father; when he did no less than acknowledge the
fidelity of the woman by making even the God himself a testimony of
his gratitude, wherein he did like a worthy and virtuous prince. And
therefore it is but fitting that we should extol, admire, and honor
the magnificent presents and offerings consecrated by several cities
upon such occasions, like that of the Opuntines. For when the tyrants
of Phocis had broken to pieces, melted down, and coined into money the
most precious of their sacred donatives, which they spent as profusely
in the neighboring parts, the Opuntines made it their business to
buy up all the plundered metal, wherever they could meet with it;
and putting it up into a vessel made on purpose, they sent it as an
offering to Apollo. And, for my part, I cannot but highly applaud the
inhabitants of Myrina and Apollonia, who sent hither the first-fruits
of their harvests in sheaves of gold; but much more the Eretrians and
Magnesians, who dedicated to our God the first-fruits of their men, not
only acknowledging that from him all the fruits of the earth proceeded,
but that he was also the giver of children, as being the author of
generation and a lover of mankind. But I blame the Megarians, for that
they alone erected here a statue of our God holding a spear in his
hand, in memory of the battle which they won from the Athenians, whom
they vanquished after the defeat of the Medes, and expelled their city,
of which they were masters before. However, afterwards they presented
a golden plectrum to Apollo, remembering perhaps those verses of
Scythinus, who thus wrote of the harp:
This was the harp which Jove’s most beauteous son
Framed by celestial skill to play upon;
And for his plectrum the Sun’s beams he used,
To strike those cords that mortal ears amused.
17. Now as Serapio was about to have added something of the same
nature, the stranger, taking the words out of his mouth, said: I am
wonderfully pleased to hear discourses upon such subjects as these; but
I am constrained to claim your first promise, to tell me the reason
wherefore now the Pythian prophetess no longer delivers her oracles
in poetic numbers and measures. And therefore, if you please, we will
surcease the remaining sight of these curiosities, choosing rather to
sit a while and discourse the matter among ourselves. For it seems to
be an assertion strangely repugnant to the belief and credit of the
oracle, in regard that of necessity one of these two things must be
true, either that the Pythian prophetess does not approach the place
where the deity makes his abode, or that the sacred vapor that inspired
her is utterly extinct, and its efficacy lost. Walking therefore to
the south side of the temple, we took our seats within the portico,
over against the temple of Tellus, having from thence a prospect of
the Castalian fountain; insomuch that Boethus presently told us that
the very place itself favored the stranger’s question. For formerly
there stood a temple dedicated to the Muses, close by the source of the
rivulet, whence they drew their water for the sacrifices, according to
that of Simonides:
There flows the spring, whose limpid stream supplies
The fair-haired Muses water for their hands,
Before they touch the hallowed sacrifice.
And the said Simonides a little lower calls Clio somewhat more curiously
The chaste inspectress of those sacred wells,
Whose fragrant water all her cisterns fills;
Water, through dark ambrosial nooks conveyed,
By which Castalian rivulets are fed.
And therefore Eudoxus erroneously gave credit to those that gave the
epithet of Stygian to this water, near which the wiser sort placed
the temple of the Muses, as guardians of the springs and assistants
to prophecy; as also the temple of Tellus, to which the oracle
appertained, and where the answers were delivered in verses and songs.
And here it was, as some report, that first a certain heroic verse was
heard to this effect:
Ye birds, bring hither all your plumes;
Ye bees, bring all your wax;
which related to the time that the oracle, forsaken by the Deity, lost
its veneration.
18. These things, then said Serapio, seem to belong of right to the
Muses, as being their particular province; for it becomes us not to
fight against the gods, nor with divination to abolish providence and
divinity, but to search for convincement to refel repugnant arguments;
and, in the mean time, not to abandon that religious belief and
persuasion which has been so long propagated among us, from father to
son, for so many generations.
You say very right, said I, Serapio; for we do not as yet despair
of philosophy or give it over for lost, because, although formerly
the ancient philosophers published their precepts and sentences in
verse,—as did Orpheus, Hesiod, Parmenides, Xenophanes, Empedocles,
and Thales,—yet that custom has been lately laid aside by all others
except yourself. For you indeed once more have arrayed philosophy in
poetic numbers, on purpose to render it more sprightly, more charming,
and delightful to youth. Nor is astrology as yet become more ignoble
or less valued, because Aristarchus, Timochares, Aristillus, and
Hipparchus have written in prose, though formerly Eudoxus, Hesiod,
and Thales wrote of that science in verse; at least if that astrology
was the legitimate offspring of Thales which goes under his name.
Pindar also acknowledges his dissatisfaction touching the manner
of melody neglected in this time, and wonders why it should be so
despised. Neither is it a thing that looks like hurtful or absurd,
to enquire into the causes of these alterations. But to destroy the
arts and faculties themselves because they have undergone some certain
mutations, is neither just nor rational.
19. Upon which Theo interposing said: It cannot be denied but that
there have been great changes and innovations in reference to poetry
and the sciences; yet is it as certain, that from all antiquity oracles
have been delivered in prose. For we find in Thucydides, that the
Lacedaemonians, desirous to know the issue of the war then entered
into against the Athenians, were answered in prose, that they should
become potent and victorious, and that the Deity would assist them,
whether invoked or not invoked; and again, that unless they recalled
Pausanias, they would plough with a silver ploughshare.[32] To the
Athenians consulting the oracle concerning their expedition into
Sicily, he gave order to send for the priestess of Minerva from the
city of Erythrae; which priestess went by the name of Hesychia, or
repose. And when Dinomenes the Sicilian enquired what should become
of his children, the oracle returned for answer, that they should all
three be lords and princes. And when Dinomenes replied, But then, most
powerful Apollo, let it be to their confusion; the God made answer,
That also I both grant and promise. The consequence of which was,
that Gelo was troubled with the dropsy during his reign, Hiero was
afflicted with the stone, and the third, Thrasybulus, surrounded with
war and sedition, was in a short time expelled his dominions. Procles
also, the tyrant of Epidaurus, after he had cruelly and tyrannically
murdered several others, put Timarchus likewise to death, who fled to
him for protection from Athens with a great sum of money,—after he had
pledged him his faith and received him at his first arrival with large
demonstrations of kindness and affection,—and then threw his carcass
into the sea, enclosed in a pannier. All this he did by the persuasion
of one Cleander of Aegina, no other of his courtiers being privy to it.
After which, meeting with no small trouble and misfortune in all his
affairs, he sent to the oracle his brother Cleotimus, with orders to
enquire whether he should provide for his safety by flight, or retire
to some other place. Apollo made answer, that he advised Procles to fly
where he had directed his Aeginetan guest to dispose of the pannier, or
where the hart had cast his horns. Upon which the tyrant, understanding
that the oracle commanded him either to throw himself into the sea or
to bury himself in the earth (in regard that a stag, when he sheds his
antlers, scrapes a hole in the ground and hides his ignominy), demurred
a while; but at length, seeing the condition of his affairs grew every
day worse and worse, he resolved to save himself by flight; at which
time the friends of Timarchus, having seized upon his person, slew
him and threw his body into the sea. But what is more than all this,
the oracular answers according to which Lycurgus composed the form of
the Lacedaemonian commonwealth were given in prose. Besides, Alyrius,
Herodotus, Philochorus and Ister, than whom no men have been more
diligent to collect the answers of the oracles, among the many which
they cite in verse, quote several also in prose. And Theopompus, the
most diligent that ever made scrutiny into oracular history, sharply
reprehends those who believed the Pythian oracles were not delivered in
verse at that time; and yet, when he labors to prove his assertion, he
is able to produce but very few, because doubtless the rest even then
were uttered in prose.
20. Yet there are some that now at this day run in verse; one of which
has become notorious above the rest. There is in Phocis a temple
consecrated to Hercules the woman-hater, the chief priest of which is
forbid by the law and custom of the place to have private familiarity
with his wife during the year that he officiates; for which reason
they most commonly make choice of old men to perform that function.
Nevertheless, some time since a young man, no way vicious and covetous
of honor, yet doting upon a new married wife, took upon him the
dignity. At first he was very chaste and temperate, and abstained from
the woman; but soon after, the young lady coming to give him a visit
as he was laid down to rest himself after a brisk dancing and drinking
bout, he could not resist the charming temptation. But then, coming
to himself and remembering what he had done, perplexed and terrified,
he fled to the oracle to consult Apollo upon the crime which he had
committed; who returned him this answer,
All things necessary God permitteth.
But should we grant that in our age no oracles are delivered in verse,
we should be still doubtful about the ancient times, when the oracles
were delivered sometime in verse sometime in prose. Though, whether it
be in prose or verse, the oracle is never a whit the falser or the more
miraculous, so that we have but a true and religious opinion of the
Deity; not irreverently conceiting that formerly he composed a stock
of verses to be now repeated by the prophetess, as if he spoke through
masks and visors.
21. But these things require a more prolix discourse and a stricter
examination, to be deferred till another time. For the present,
therefore, let us only call to mind thus much, that the body makes
use of several instruments, and the soul employs the body and its
members; the soul being the organ of God. Now the perfection of the
organ is to imitate the thing that makes use of it, so far as it is
capable, and to exhibit the operation of its thought, according to
the best of its own power; since it cannot show it as it is in the
divine operator himself,—neat, without any affection, fault, or error
whatsoever,—but imperfect and mixed. For of itself, the thing is to
us altogether unknown, till it is infused by another and appears to us
as fully partaking of the nature of that other. I forbear to mention
gold or silver, brass or wax, or whatever other substances are capable
to receive the form of an imprinted resemblance. For true it is, they
all admit the impression; but still one adds one distinction, another
another, to the imitation arising from their presentation itself; as
we may readily perceive in mirrors, both plane, concave, and convex,
infinite varieties of representations and faces from one and the same
original; there being no end of that diversity.
But there is no mirror that more exactly represents any shape or
form, nor any instrument that yields more obsequiously to the use of
Nature, than the Moon herself. And yet she, receiving from the Sun his
masculine splendor and fiery light, does not transmit the same to us;
but when it intermixes with her pellucid substance, it changes color
and loses its power. For warmth and heat abandon the pale planet, and
her light grows dim before it can reach our sight. And this is that
which, in my opinion, Heraclitus seems to have meant, when he said
that the prince who rules the oracle of Delphi neither speaks out
nor conceals, but signifies. Add then to these things thus rightly
spoken this farther consideration, that the Deity makes use of the
Pythian prophetess, so far as concerns her sight and hearing, as the
Sun makes use of the Moon; for he makes use of a mortal body and an
immortal soul as the organs of prediction. Now the body lies dull and
immovable of itself; but the soul being restless, when once the soul
begins to be in motion, the body likewise stirs, not able to resist
the violent agitation of the nimbler spirit, while it is shaken and
tossed as in a stormy sea by the tempestuous passions that ruffle
within it. For as the whirling of bodies that merely move circularly
is nothing violent, but when they move round by force and tend
downward by nature, there results from both a confused and irregular
circumrotation; thus that divine rapture which is called enthusiasm is
a commixture of two motions, wherewith the soul is agitated, the one
extrinsic, as by inspiration, the other by nature. For, seeing that as
to inanimate bodies, which always remain in the same condition, it is
impossible by preternatural violence to offer a force which is contrary
to their nature and intended use, as to move a cylinder spherically
or cubically, or to make a lyre sound like a flute, or a trumpet like
a harp; how is it possible to manage an animate body, that moves of
itself, that is indued with reason, will, and inclination, otherwise
than according to its pre-existent reason, power, or nature; as (for
example) to incline to music a person altogether ignorant and an utter
enemy to music, or to make a grammarian of one that never knew his
letters, or to make him speak like a learned man that never understood
the least tittle of any science in the world?
22. For proof of this I may call Homer for my witness, who affirms
that there is nothing done or brought to perfection of which God
is not the cause, supposing that God makes use not of all men for
all things alike, but of every man according to his ability either
of art or nature. Thus, dost thou not find it to be true, friend
Diogenianus, that when Minerva would persuade the Greeks to undertake
any enterprise, she brings Ulysses upon the stage?—when she designs to
break the truce, she finds out Pandarus?—when she designs a rout of
the Trojans, she addresses herself to Diomede? For the one was stout of
body and valiant; the other was a good archer, but without brains; the
other a shrewd politician and eloquent. For Homer was not of the same
opinion with Pindar, at least if it was Pindar that made the following
verses:
Were it the will of Heaven, an ozier bough
Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough.[33]
For he well knew that there were different abilities and natures
designed for different effects, every one of which is qualified with
different motions, though there be but one moving cause that gives
motion to all. So that the same virtual power which moves the creature
that goes upon all four cannot cause it to fly, no more than he that
stammers can speak fluently and eloquently, or he that has a feeble
squeaking voice can give a loud hollow. Therefore in my opinion it
was that Battus, when he consulted the oracle, was sent into Africa,
there to build a new city, as being a person who, although he lisped
and stammered, had nevertheless endowments truly royal, which rendered
him fit for sovereign government. In like manner it is impossible the
Pythian priestess should learn to speak learnedly and elegantly; for,
though it cannot be denied but that her parentage was virtuous and
honest, and that she always lived a sober and a chaste life, yet her
education was among poor laboring people; so that she was advanced to
the oracular seat rude and unpolished, void of all the advantages of
art or experience. For as it is the opinion of Xenophon, that a virgin
ready to be espoused ought to be carried to the bridegroom’s house when
she has seen and heard as little as possible; so the Pythian priestess
ought to converse with Apollo, illiterate and ignorant almost of every
thing, still approaching his presence with a truly and pure virgin soul.
But it is a strange fancy of men; they believe that the God makes
use of herons, wrens, and crows to signify future events, expressing
himself according to their vulgar notes, but do not expect of these
birds, although they are the messengers and ambassadors of the God, to
deliver their predictions in words clear and intelligible; but they
will not allow the Pythian priestess to pronounce her answers in plain,
sincere, and natural expressions, but they demand that she shall speak
in the poetical magnificence of high and stately verses, like those of
a tragic chorus, with metaphors and figurative phrases, accompanied
with the delightful sounds of flutes and hautboys.
23. What then shall we say of the ancients? Not one, but many things.
First then, as hath been said already, that the ancient Pythian
priestesses pronounced most of their oracles in prose. Secondly, that
those ages produced complexions and tempers of body much more prone
and inclined to poetry, with which immediately were associated those
other ardent desires, affections, and preparations of the mind, which
wanted only something of a beginning and a diversion of the fancy from
more serious studies, not only to draw to their purpose (according to
the saying of Philinus) astrologers and philosophers, but also in the
heat of wine and pathetic affections, either of sudden compassion or
surprising joy, to slide insensibly into voices melodiously tuned, and
to fill banquets with charming odes or love songs, and whole volumes
with amorous canzonets and mirthful inventions. Therefore, though
Euripides tells us,
Love makes men poets who before no music knew,
he does not mean that love infuses music and poetry into men that
were not already inclined to those accomplishments, but that it warms
and awakens that disposition which lay unactive and drowsy before.
Otherwise we might say that now there were no lovers in the world, but
that Cupid himself was vanished and gone, because that now-a-days there
is not one
Who now, true archer-like,
Lets his poetic raptures fly
To praise his mistress’s lip or eye,
as Pindar said. But this were absurd to affirm. For amorous
impatiencies torment and agitate the minds of many men not addicted
either to music or poetry, that know not how to handle a flute or touch
a harp, and yet are no less talkative and inflamed with desire than the
ancients. And I believe there is no person who would be so unkind to
himself as to say that the Academy or the quires of Socrates and Plato
were void of love, with whose discourses and conferences touching that
passion we frequently meet, though they have not left any of their
poems behind. And would it not be the same thing to say, there never
was any woman that studied courtship but Sappho, nor ever any that
were endued with the gift of prophecy but Sibylla and Aristonica and
those that delivered their oracles and sacred raptures in verse? For
wine, as saith Chaeremon, soaks and infuses itself into the manners and
customs of them that drink it. Now poetic rapture, like the raptures of
love, makes use of the ability of its subject, and moves every one that
receives it, according to its proper qualification.
24. Nevertheless, if we do but make a right reflection upon God and his
Providence, we shall find the alteration to be much for the better. For
the use of speech seems to be like the exchange of money; that which is
good and lawful is commonly current and known, and goes sometimes at a
higher, sometimes at a lower value. Thus there was once a time when the
stamp and coin of language was approved and passed current in verses,
songs, and sonnets; for then all histories, all philosophical learning,
all affections and subjects that required grave and solid discussion,
were written in poetry and fitted for musical composition. For what now
but a few will scarce vouchsafe to hear, then all men listened to,
The shepherd, ploughman, and bird-catcher too,[34]
as it is in Pindar; all delighted in songs and verses. For such was
the inclination of that age and their readiness to versify, that they
fitted their very precepts and admonitions to vocal and instrumental
music. If they were to teach, they did it in songs fitted to the harp.
If they were to exhort, reprove, or persuade, they made use of fables
and allegories. And then for their praises of the Gods, their vows,
and paeans after victory, they were all composed in verse; by some,
as being naturally airy and flowing in their invention; by others,
as habituated by custom. And therefore it is not that Apollo envies
this ornament and elegancy to the science of divination; nor was it
his design to banish from the Tripos his beloved Muse, but rather to
introduce her when rejected by others, being rather a lover and kindler
of poetic rapture in others, and choosing rather to furnish laboring
fancies with imaginations, and to assist them to bring forth the lofty
and learned kind of language, as most becoming and most to be admired.
But afterwards, when the conversation of men and custom of living
altered with the change of their fortunes and dispositions, consuetude
expelling and discarding all manner of superfluity rejected also
golden top-knots, and silken vestments loosely flowing in careless
folds, clipped their long dishevelled locks, and, laying aside their
embroidered buskin, taught men to glory in sobriety and frugality
in opposition to wantonness and superfluity, and to place true honor
in simplicity and modesty, not in pomp and vain curiosity. And then
it was that, the manner of writing being quite altered, history
alighted from versifying, as it were from riding in chariots, and on
foot distinguished truth from fable; and philosophy, in a clear and
plain style, familiar and proper to instruct rather than to astonish
the world with metaphors and figures, began to dispute and enquire
after truth in common and vulgar terms. And then it was, that Apollo
caused the Pythian priestess to surcease calling her fellow-citizens
fire-inflaming, the Spartans serpent-devourers, men by the name of
Oreanes, and rivers by the name of mountain-drainers; and discarding
verses, uncouth words, circumlocutions, and obscurity, taught the
oracles to speak as the laws discourse to cities, and as princes speak
to their people and their subjects, or as masters teach their scholars,
appropriating their manner of speech to good sense and persuasive grace.
25. For, as Sophocles tells us, we are to believe the Deity to be
Easy to wise men, who can truth discern;
The fool’s bad teacher, who will never learn.
And ever since belief and perspicuity thus associated together,
it came to pass by alteration of circumstances that, whereas
formerly the vulgar looked with a high veneration upon whatever was
extraordinary and extravagant, and conceived a more than common
sanctity to lie concealed under the veil of obscurity, afterwards men
desirous to understand things clearly and easily, without flowers of
circumlocutions and disguisements of dark words, not only began to
find fault with oracles enveloped with poetry, as repugnant to the
easy understanding of the real meaning, and overshadowing the sentence
with mist and darkness, but also suspected the truth of the very
prophecy itself which was muffled up in so many metaphors, riddles,
and ambiguities, which seemed no better than holes to creep out at and
evasions of censure, should the event prove contrary to what had been
foretold. And some there were who reported that there were several
extempore poets entertained about the Tripos, who were to receive
the words as they dropped roughly from the oracle, and presently by
virtue of their extempore fancy to model them into verses and measures,
that served (as it were) instead of hampers and baskets to convey
the answers from place to place. I forbear to tell how far those
treacherous deceivers like Onomacritus, Herodotus (?), and Cyneso,
have contributed to dishonor the sacred oracles, by their interlarding
of bombast expressions and high-flown phrases, where there was no
necessity of any such alteration. It is also as certain, that those
mountebanks, jugglers, impostors, gipsies, and all that altar-licking
tribe of vagabonds that set up their throats at the festivals and
sacrifices to Cybele and Serapis, have highly undervalued poesy; some
of them extempore, and others by lottery from certain little books,
composing vain predictions, which they may sell to servants and silly
women, that easily suffer themselves to be deluded by the overawing
charms of serious ambiguity couched in strained and uncouth ballatry.
Whence it comes to pass, that poetry, seeming to prostitute itself
among cheats and deluders of the people, among mercenary gipsies and
mumping charlatans, has lost its ancient credit, and is therefore
thought unworthy the honor of the Tripos.
26. And therefore I do not wonder that the ancients stood in need of
double meaning, of circumlocution, and obscurity. For certainly never
any private person consulted the oracle when he went to buy a slave or
hire workmen; but potent cities, kings and princes, whose undertakings
and concernments were of vast and high concernment, and whom it was
not expedient for those that had the charge of the oracle to disoblige
or incense by the return of answers ungrateful to their ears. For the
deity is not bound to observe that law of Euripides, where he says,
Phoebus alone, and none but he,
Should unto men the prophet be.
Therefore, when he makes use of mortal prophets and agents, of whom it
behooves him to take a more especial care that they be not destroyed
in his service, he does not altogether go about to suppress the truth,
but only eclipses the manifestation of it, like a light divided into
sundry reflections, rendering it by the means of poetic umbrage less
severe and ungrateful in the delivery. For it is not convenient that
princes or their enemies should presently know what is by Fate decreed
to their disadvantage. Therefore he so envelops his answers with doubts
and ambiguities as to conceal from others the true understanding of
what was answered; though to them that came to the oracle themselves,
and gave due attention to the deliverer, the meaning of the answer
is transparently obvious. Most impertinent therefore are they who,
considering the present alteration of things, accuse and exclaim
against the Deity for not assisting in the same manner as before.
27. And this may be farther said, that poetry brings no other advantage
to the answer than this, that the sentence being comprised and confined
within a certain number of words and syllables bounded by poetic
measure is more easily carried away and retained in memory. Therefore
it behooved those that formerly lived to have extraordinary memories,
to retain the marks of places, the times of such and such transactions,
the ceremonies of deities beyond the sea, the hidden monuments of
heroes, hard to be found in countries far from Greece. For in those
expeditions of Phalanthus and several other admirals of great navies,
how many signs were they forced to observe, how many conjectures to
make, ere they could find the seat of rest allotted by the oracle! In
the observance of which there were some nevertheless that failed, as
Battus among others. For he said that he failed because he had not
landed in the right place to which he was sent; and therefore returning
back he complained to the oracle. But Apollo answered:
As well as I thou knowest, who ne’er hast been
In Libya covered o’er with sheep and kine;
If this is true, thy wisdom I admire:
and so sent him back again. Lysander also, ignorant of the hillock
Archelides, also called Alopecus, and the river Hoplites, nor
apprehensive of what was meant by
The earth-born dragon, treacherous foe behind,
being overthrown in battle, was there slain by Neochorus the
Haliartian, who bare for his device a dragon painted upon his shield.
But it is needless to recite any more of these ancient examples of
oracles, difficult to be retained in memory, especially to you that are
so well read.
28. And now, God be praised, there is an end of all those questions
which were the grounds of consulting the oracle. For now we repose
altogether in the soft slumbers of peace, all our wars are at an
end. There are now no tumults, no civil seditions, no tyrannies, no
pestilences nor calamities depopulating Greece, no epidemic diseases
needing powerful and choice drugs and medicines. Now, when there is
nothing of variety, nothing of mystery, nothing dangerous, but only
bare and ordinary questions about small trifles and vulgar things, as
whether a man may marry, whether take a voyage by sea, or lend his
money safely at interest,—and when the most important enquiries of
cities are concerning the next harvest, the increase of their cattle,
or the health of the inhabitants,—there to make use of verses,
ambiguous words, and confounding obscurities, where the questions
require short and easy answers, causes us to suspect that the sacred
minister studies only cramp expressions, like some ambitious sophister,
to wrest admiration from the ignorant. But the Pythian priestess is
naturally of a more generous disposition; and therefore, when she is
busy with the Deity, she has more need of truth than of satisfying her
vain-glory, or of minding either the commendations or the dispraise of
men.
29. And well it were, that we ourselves should be so affected. But on
the contrary, being in a quandary and jealousy lest the oracle should
lose the reputation it has had for these three thousand years, and lest
people should forsake it and forbear going to it, we frame excuses to
ourselves, and feign causes and reasons of things which we do not know,
and which it is not convenient for us to know; out of a fond design to
persuade the persons thus oddly dissatisfied, whom it became us rather
to let alone. For certainly the mistake must redound to ourselves,[35]
when we shall have such an opinion of our Deity as to approve and
esteem those ancient and pithy proverbs of wise men, written at the
entrance into the temple, “Know thyself,” “Nothing to excess,” as
containing in few words a full and close compacted sentence, and yet
find fault with the modern oracle for delivering answers concise and
plain. Whereas those apophthegms are like waters crowded and pent up
in a narrow room or running between contracted banks, where we can
no more discern the bottom of the water than we can the depth and
meaning of the sentence. And yet, if we consider what has been written
and said concerning those sentences by such as have dived into their
signification with an intent to clear their abstruseness, we shall
hardly find disputes more prolix than those are. But the language of
the Pythian priestess is such as the mathematicians define a right
line to be, that is to say, the shortest that may be drawn betwixt
two points. So likewise doth she avoid all winding and circles, all
double meanings and abstruse ambiguities, and proceed directly to the
truth. And though she has been obnoxious to strict examination, yet is
she not to be misconstrued without danger, nor could ever any person
to this very day convict her of falsehood; but on the other side, she
has filled the temple with presents, gifts, and offerings, not only of
the Greeks but barbarians, and adorned the seat of the oracle with the
magnificent structures and fabrics of the Amphictyons. And we find many
additions of new buildings, many reparations of the old ones that were
fallen down or decayed by time. And as we see from trees overgrown with
shade and verdant boughs other lesser shoots sprout up; thus has the
Delphian concourse afforded growth and grandeur to the assembly of the
Amphictyons, which is fed and maintained by the abundance and affluence
arising from thence, and has the form and show of magnificent temples,
stately meetings, and sacred waters; which, but for the ceremonies of
the altar, would not have been brought to perfection in a thousand
years. And to what other cause can we attribute the fertility of the
Galaxian Plains in Boeotia but to their vicinity to this oracle, and
to their being blessed with the neighboring influences of the Deity,
where from the well-nourished udders of the bleating ewes milk flows in
copious streams, like water from so many fountain-heads?
Their pails run o’er, and larger vessels still
With rich abundance all their dairies fill.
To us appear yet more clear and remarkable signs of the Deity’s
liberality, while we behold the glory of far-famed store and plenty
overflowing former penury and barrenness. And I cannot but think much
the better of myself for having in some measure contributed to these
things with Polycrates and Petraeus. Nor can I less admire the first
author and promoter of this good order and management. And yet it is
not to be thought that such and so great change should come to pass
in so small a time by human industry, without the favor of the Deity
assisting and blessing his oracle.
30. But although there were some formerly who blamed the ambiguity and
obscurity of the oracle, and others who at this day find fault with its
modern plainness and perspicuity, yet are they both alike unjust and
foolish in their passion; for, like children better pleased with the
sight of rainbows, comets, and those halos that encircle the sun and
moon, than to see the sun and moon themselves in their splendor, they
are taken with riddles, abstruse words, and figurative speeches, which
are but the reflections of oracular divination to the apprehension
of our mortal understanding. And because they are not able to make a
satisfactory judgment of this change, they find fault with the God
himself, not considering that neither we nor they are able by discourse
of reason to reach unto the hidden counsels and designs of the Deity.
OF THOSE SENTIMENTS CONCERNING NATURE WITH WHICH PHILOSOPHERS WERE
DELIGHTED.
BOOK I.
It being our determination to discourse of Natural Philosophy, we
judge it necessary, in the first place and chiefly, to divide the body
of philosophy into its proper members, that we may know what is that
which is called philosophy, and what part of it is physical, or the
explanation of natural things. The Stoics affirm that wisdom is the
knowledge of things human and divine; that philosophy is the exercise
of that art which is expedient to this knowledge; that virtue is the
sole and sovereign art which is thus expedient; and this distributes
itself into three general parts,—natural, moral, and logical. By
which just reason (they say) philosophy is tripartite; of which one
is natural, the other moral, the third logical. The natural is when
our enquiries are concerning the world and all things contained in
it; the ethical is the employment of our minds in those things which
concern the manners of man’s life; the logical (which they also call
dialectical) regulates our conversation with others in speaking.
Aristotle, Theophrastus, and after them almost all the Peripatetics
give the following division of philosophy. It is absolutely requisite
that the complete person be contemplator of things which have a being,
and the practiser of those things which are decent; and this easily
appears by the following instances. If the question be proposed,
whether the sun, which is so conspicuous to us, be informed with a
soul or inanimate, he that makes this disquisition is the thinking
man; for he proceeds no farther than to consider the nature of that
thing which is proposed. Likewise, if the question be proposed,
whether the world be infinite, or whether beyond the system of this
world there is any real being, all these things are the objects about
which the understanding of man is conversant. But if these be the
questions,—what measures must be taken to compose the well ordered
life of man, what are the best methods to govern and educate children,
or what are the exact rules whereby sovereigns may command and
establish laws,—all these queries are proposed for the sole end of
action, and the man conversant therein is the moral and practical man.
CHAPTER I.
WHAT IS NATURE?
Since we have undertaken to make a diligent search into Nature, I
cannot but conclude it necessary to declare what Nature is. It is very
absurd to attempt a discourse of the essence of natural things, and
not to understand what is the power and sphere of Nature. If Aristotle
be credited, Nature is the principle of motion and rest, in that thing
in which it exists principally and not by accident. For all things
that are conspicuous to our eyes, which are neither fortuitous nor
necessary, nor have a divine original, nor acknowledge any such like
cause, are called natural and enjoy their proper nature. Of this sort
are earth, fire, water, air, plants, animals; to these may be added all
things produced from them, such as showers, hail, thunders, hurricanes,
and winds. All these confess they had a beginning, none of these were
from eternity, but had something as the origin of them; and likewise
animals and plants have a principle whence they are produced. But
Nature, which in all these things hath the priority, is the principle
not only of motion but of repose; whatsoever enjoys the principle of
motion, the same has a possibility to find a dissolution. Therefore on
this account it is that Nature is the principle of motion and rest.
CHAPTER II.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PRINCIPLE AND AN ELEMENT?
The followers of Aristotle and Plato conclude that the elements are
discriminated from a principle. Thales the Milesian supposeth that
a principle and the elements are one and the same thing, but it is
evident that they vastly differ one from another. For the elements
are things compounded; but we do pronounce that principles admit not
of a composition, nor are the effects of any other being. Those which
we call elements are earth, water, air, and fire. But we term those
principles which have nothing precedent to them out of which they are
produced; for otherwise not these themselves, but rather those things
whereof they are produced, would be the principles. Now there are
some things which have a pre-existence to earth and water, from which
they are begotten; to wit, matter, which is without form or shape;
then form, which we call ἐντελέχεια (_actuality_); and lastly,
privation. Thales therefore is very peccant, by affirming that water is
both an element and a principle.
CHAPTER III.
OF PRINCIPLES, AND WHAT THEY ARE.
Thales the Milesian doth affirm that water is the principle whence all
things in the universe spring. This person appears to be the first of
philosophers; from him the Ionic sect took its denomination, for there
are many families and successions amongst philosophers. After he had
professed philosophy in Egypt, when he was very old, he returned to
Miletus. He pronounced, that all things had their original from water,
and into water all things are resolved. His first reason was, that
whatsoever was the prolific seed of all animals was a principle, and
that is moist; so that it is probable that all things receive their
original from humidity. His second reason was, that all plants are
nourished and fructified by that thing which is moist, of which being
deprived they wither away. Thirdly, that that fire of which the sun and
stars are made is nourished by watery exhalations,—yea, and the world
itself; which moved Homer to sing that the generation of it was from
water:—
The ocean is
Of all things the kind genesis.[36]
Anaximander, who himself was a Milesian, assigns the principle of all
things to the Infinite, from whence all things flow, and into the same
are corrupted; hence it is that infinite worlds are framed, and those
vanish again into that whence they have their original. And thus he
farther proceeds, For what other reason is there of an Infinite but
this, that there may be nothing deficient as to the generation or
subsistence of what is in nature? There is his error, that he doth not
acquaint us what this Infinite is, whether it be air, or water, or
earth, or any other such like body. Besides he is peccant, in that,
giving us the material cause, he is silent as to the efficient cause of
beings; for this thing which he makes his Infinite can be nothing but
matter; but operation cannot take place in the sphere of matter, except
an efficient cause be annexed.
Anaximenes his fellow-citizen pronounceth, that air is the principle
of all beings; from it all receive their original, and into it all
return. He affirms that our soul is nothing but air; it is that which
constitutes and preserves; the whole world is invested with spirit
and air. For spirit and air are synonymous. This person is in this
deficient, that he concludes that of pure air, which is a simple body
and is made of one only form, all animals are composed. It is not
possible to think that a single principle should be the matter of all
things, from whence they receive their subsistence; besides this there
must be an operating cause. Silver (for example) is not of itself
sufficient to frame a drinking cup; an operator also is required, which
is the silversmith. The like may be applied to vessels made of wood,
brass, or any other material.
Anaxagoras the Clazomenian asserted Homoeomeries (or parts similar or
homogeneous) to be the original cause of all beings; it seemed to him
impossible that any thing could arise of nothing or be resolved into
nothing. Let us therefore instance in nourishment, which appears simple
and uniform, such as bread which we owe to Ceres, and water which we
drink. Of this very nutriment, our hair, our veins, our arteries,
nerves, bones, and all our other parts are nourished. These things
thus being performed, it must be granted that the nourishment which
is received by us contains all those things by which these parts of
us are increased. In it there are those particles which are producers
of blood, bones, nerves, and all other parts; which particles (as he
thought) reason discovers for us. For it is not necessary that we
should reduce all things under the objects of sense; for bread and
water are fitted to the senses, yet in them there are those particles
latent which are discoverable only by reason. It being therefore
evident that there are particles in the nourishment similar to what is
produced thereby, he terms these homogeneous parts, averring that they
are the principles of beings. Matter is according to him these similar
parts, and the efficient cause is a Mind, which orders all things
that have an existence. Thus he begins his discourse: “All things
were confused one among another; but Mind divided and reduced them to
order.” In this he is to be commended, that he yokes together matter
and an intellectual agent.
Archelaus the son of Apollodorus, the Athenian, pronounceth, that the
principles of all things have their original from an infinite air
rarefied or condensed. Air rarefied is fire, condensed is water.
These philosophers, the followers of Thales, succeeding one another,
made up that sect which takes to itself the denomination of the Ionic.
* * * * *
Pythagoras the Samian, the son of Mnesarchus, from another origin
deduces the principles of all things; it was he who first gave
philosophy its name. He assigns the first principles to be numbers,
and those symmetries resulting from them which he styles harmonies;
and the result of both combined he terms elements, called geometrical.
Again, he enumerates unity and the indefinite binary number amongst the
principles. One of these principles tends to an efficient and forming
cause, which is Mind, and that is God; the other to the passive and
material part, and that is the visible world. Moreover the nature of
number (he saith) consists in the ten; for all people, whether Grecians
or barbarians, reckon from one to ten, and thence return to one
again. Farther he avers the virtue of ten consists in the quaternion;
the reason whereof is this,—if any person reckon from one, and by
addition place his numbers so as to take in the quaternary, he shall
complete the number ten; if he exceed the four, he shall go beyond
the ten; for one, two, three, and four being cast up together make
up ten. The nature of numbers, therefore, if we regard the units,
resteth in the ten; but if we regard its power, in the four. Therefore
the Pythagoreans say that their most sacred oath is by that God who
delivered to them the quaternary.
By th’ founder of the sacred number four,
Eternal Nature’s font and root, they swore.
Of this number the soul of man is composed; for mind, knowledge,
opinion, and sense are the four that complete the soul, from which all
sciences, all arts, all rational faculties derive themselves. For what
our mind perceives, it perceives after the manner of a thing that is
one, the soul itself being a unity; as for instance, a multitude of
persons are not the object of our sense nor are comprehended by us, for
they are infinite; our understanding gives the general notion of _a
man_, in which all individuals agree. The number of individuals is
infinite; the generic or specific nature of all being is a unit, or
to be apprehended as one only thing; from this one conception we give
the genuine measures of all existence, and therefore we affirm that
a certain class of beings are rational and discoursive beings. But
when we come to give the nature of a horse, it is that animal which
neighs; and this being common to all horses, it is manifest that the
understanding, which hath such like conceptions, is in its nature
unity. The number which is called the infinite binary must needs be
science; in every demonstration or belief belonging to science, and in
every syllogism, we draw that conclusion which is the question doubted
of, from those propositions which are by all granted, by which means
another proposition is demonstrated. The comprehension of these we call
knowledge; for which reason science is the binary number. But opinion
is the ternary; for that rationally follows from comprehension. The
objects of opinion are many things, and the ternary number denotes a
multitude, as “Thrice happy Grecians;” for which reason Pythagoras
admits the ternary. This sect of philosophers is called the Italic, by
reason Pythagoras opened his school in Italy; his hatred of the tyranny
of Polycrates enforced him to leave his native country Samos.
Heraclitus and Hippasus of Metapontum suppose that fire gives the
origination to all beings, that they all flow from fire, and in fire
they all conclude; for of fire when first quenched the world was
constituted. The first part of the world, being most condensed and
contracted within itself, made the earth; but part of that earth being
loosened and made thin by fire, water was produced; afterwards this
water being exhaled and rarefied into vapors became air; after all this
the world itself, and all other corporeal beings, shall be dissolved by
fire in the universal conflagration. By them therefore it appears that
fire is what gives beginning to all things, and is that in which all
things receive their period.
Epicurus the son of Neocles, the Athenian, his philosophical sentiments
being the same with those of Democritus, affirms that the principles of
all being are bodies which are perceptible only by reason; they admit
not of a vacuity, nor of any original, but being of a self-existence
are eternal and incorruptible; they are not liable to any diminution,
they are indestructible, nor is it possible for them to receive any
transformation of parts, or admit of any alterations; of these reason
only is the discoverer; they are in a perpetual motion in vacuity,
and by means of the empty space; for the vacuum itself is infinite,
and the bodies that move in it are infinite. Those bodies acknowledge
these three accidents, figure, magnitude, and gravity. Democritus
acknowledged but two, magnitude and figure. Epicurus added the third,
to wit, gravity; for he pronounced that it is necessary that bodies
receive their motion from that impression which springs from gravity,
otherwise they could not be moved. The figures of atoms cannot be
apprehended by our senses, but they are not infinite. These figures
are neither hooked nor trident-shaped nor ring-shaped, such figures as
these being easily broken; but the atoms are impassible, impenetrable;
they have indeed figures proper to themselves, which are discovered
only by reason. It is called an atom, by reason not of its smallness
but of its indivisibility; in it no vacuity, no passible affection is
to be found. And that there is an atom is perfectly clear; for there
are elements which have a perpetual duration, and there are animals
which admit of a vacuity, and there is a unity.
Empedocles the Agrigentine, the son of Meton, affirms that there are
four elements, fire, air, earth, and water, and two powers which bear
the greatest command in nature, concord and discord, of which one is
the union, the other the division of beings. Thus he sings,
Mark the four roots of all created things:—
Bright shining Jove, Juno that giveth life,
Pluto beneath the earth, and Nestis who
Doth with her tears supply the mortal fount.
By Jupiter he means fire and aether, by Juno that gives life he means
the air, by Pluto the earth, by Nestis and the fountain of all mortals
(as it were) seed and water.
Socrates the son of Sophroniscus, and Plato son of Ariston, both
natives of Athens, entertain the same opinion concerning the universe;
for they suppose three principles, God, matter, and the idea. God
is the universal understanding; matter is that which is the first
substratum, accommodated for the generation and corruption of beings;
the idea is an incorporeal essence, existing in the cogitations and
apprehensions of God; for God is the soul and mind of the world.
Aristotle the son of Nichomachus, the Stagirite, constitutes three
principles; Entelecheia (which is the same with form), matter, and
privation. He acknowledges four elements, and adds a certain fifth
body, which is ethereal and not obnoxious to mutation.
Zeno son of Mnaseas, the native of Citium, avers these principles to be
God and matter, the first of which is the efficient cause, the other
the passible and receptive. Four elements he likewise confesses.
CHAPTER IV.
HOW WAS THIS WORLD COMPOSED IN THAT ORDER AND AFTER THAT MANNER IT IS?
The world being broken and confused, after this manner it was reduced
into figure and composure as now it is. The insectible bodies or
atoms, by a wild and fortuitous motion, without any governing power,
incessantly and swiftly were hurried one amongst another, many bodies
being jumbled together; upon this account they have a diversity in
the figures and magnitude. These therefore being so jumbled together,
those bodies which were the greatest and heaviest sank into the lowest
place; they that were of a lesser magnitude, being round, smooth,
and slippery, meeting with those heavier bodies were easily broken
into pieces, and were carried into higher places. But when that force
whereby these variously figured particles fought with and struck one
another, and forced the lighter upwards, did cease, and there was no
farther power left to drive them into superior regions, yet they were
wholly hindered from descending downwards, and were compelled to reside
in those places capable to receive them; and these were the heavenly
spaces, unto which a multitude of these little bodies were whirled,
and these being thus shivered fell into coherence and mutual embraces,
and by this means the heaven was produced. Then a various and great
multitude of atoms enjoying the same nature, as it is before asserted,
being hurried aloft, did form the stars. The multitude of these
exhaled bodies, having struck and broke the air in shivers, forced a
passage through it; this being converted into wind invested the stars,
as it moved, and whirled them about, by which means to this present
time that circulary motion which these stars have in the heavens is
maintained. Much after the same manner the earth was made; for by those
little particles whose gravity made them to reside in the lower places
the earth was formed. The heaven, fire, and air were constituted of
those particles which were carried aloft. But a great deal of matter
remaining in the earth, this being condensed by the forcible driving
of the winds and the breathings from the stars, every little part and
form of it was broken in pieces, which produced the element of water;
but this being fluidly disposed did run into those places which were
hollow, and these places were those that were capable to receive and
protect it; or else the water, subsisting by itself, did make the lower
places hollow. After this manner the principal parts of the world were
constituted.
CHAPTER V.
WHETHER THE UNIVERSE IS ONE.
The Stoics pronounce that the world is one thing, and this they say is
the universe and is corporeal.
Empedocles’s opinion is, that the world is one; yet by no means the
system of this world must be styled the universe, but that it is a
small part of it, and the remainder is idle matter.
What to Plato seems the truest he thus declares, that there is one
world, and that world is the universe; and this he endeavors to evince
by three arguments. First, that the world could not be complete and
perfect, if it did not within itself include all beings. Secondly,
nor could it give the true resemblance of its original and exemplar,
if it were not the one only begotten thing. Thirdly, it could not be
incorruptible, if there were any being out of its compass to whose
power it might be obnoxious. But to Plato it may be thus returned.
First, that the world is not complete and perfect, nor doth it contain
all things within itself. And if man is a perfect being, yet he doth
not encompass all things. Secondly, that there are many exemplars and
originals of statues, houses, and pictures. Thirdly, how is the world
perfect, if any thing beyond it is possible to be moved about it? But
the world is not incorruptible, nor can it be so conceived, because it
had an original.
To Metrodorus it seems absurd, that in a large field one only stalk
should grow, and in an infinite space one only world exist; and that
this universe is infinite is manifest by this, that there are causes
infinite. Now if this world were finite and the causes which produced
it infinite, it is necessary that the worlds likewise be infinite; for
where all causes do concur, there the effects also must appear, let the
causes be what they will, either atoms or elements.
CHAPTER VI.
WHENCE DID MEN OBTAIN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE OF A
DEITY?
The Stoics thus define the essence of a God. It is a spirit
intellectual and fiery, which acknowledges no shape, but is continually
changed into what it pleases, and assimilates itself to all things. The
knowledge of this Deity they first received from the pulchritude of
those things which so visibly appeared to us; for they concluded that
nothing beauteous could casually or fortuitously be formed, but that
it was framed from the art of a great understanding that produced the
world. That the world is very resplendent is made perspicuous from the
figure, the color, the magnitude of it, and likewise from the wonderful
variety of those stars which adorn this world. The world is spherical;
the orbicular hath the pre-eminence above all other figures, for being
round itself it hath its parts likewise round. (On this account,
according to Plato, the understanding, which is the most sacred part
of man, is in the head.) The color of it is most beauteous; for it is
painted with blue; which, though little blacker than purple, yet hath
such a shining quality, that by reason of the vehement efficacy of its
color it cuts through such an interval of air; whence it is that at so
great a distance the heavens are to be contemplated. And in this very
greatness of the world the beauty of it appears. View all things: that
which contains the rest carries a beauty with it, as an animal or a
tree. Also all things which are visible to us accomplish the beauty of
the world. The oblique circle called the Zodiac in the heaven is with
different images painted and distinguished:
There’s Cancer, Leo, Virgo, and the Claws;
Scorpio, Arcitenens, and Capricorn;
Amphora, Pisces, then the Ram, and Bull;
The lovely pair of Brothers next succeed.[37]
There are a thousand others that give us the suitable reflections of
the beauty of the world. Thus Euripides:
The starry splendor of the skies,
The wondrous work of that most wise
Creator, Time.[38]
From this the knowledge of a God is conveyed to man; that the sun, the
moon, and the rest of the stars, being carried under the earth, rise
again in their proper color, magnitude, place, and times. Therefore
they who by tradition delivered to us the knowledge and veneration of
the Gods did it by these three manner of ways:—first, from Nature;
secondly, from fables; thirdly, from the testimony given by the laws
of commonwealths. Philosophers taught the natural way; poets, the
fabulous; and the political way is received from the constitutions of
each commonwealth. All sorts of this learning are distinguished into
these seven parts. The first is from things that are conspicuous, and
the observation of those bodies which are in places superior to us. To
men the heavenly bodies that are so visible did give the knowledge of
the Deity; when they contemplated that they are the causes of so great
an harmony, that they regulate day and night, winter and summer, by
their rising and setting, and likewise considered those things which
by their influences in the earth do receive a being and do likewise
fructify. It was manifest to men that the Heaven was the father of
those things, and the Earth the mother; that the Heaven was the father
is clear, since from the heavens there is the pouring down of waters,
which have their spermatic faculty; the Earth the mother, because she
receives them and brings forth. Likewise men considering that the stars
are running (θέοντες) in a perpetual motion, that the sun and moon give
us the power to view and contemplate (θεωρεῖν), they call them all Gods
(θεούς).
In the second and third place, they thus distinguished the Deities into
those which are beneficial and those that are injurious to mankind.
Those which are beneficial they call Jupiter, Juno, Mercury, Ceres;
those who are mischievous the Dirae, Furies, and Mars. These, which
threaten dangers and violence, men endeavor to appease and conciliate
by sacred rites. The fourth and the fifth order of Gods they assign to
things and passions; to passions, Love, Venus, and Desire; the Deities
that preside over things, Hope, Justice, and Eunomia.
The sixth order of deities are those made by the poets; Hesiod, willing
to find out a father for those Gods that acknowledge an original,
invented their progenitors,
Hyperion, Coeus, and Iapetus,
With Creius:[39]
upon which account this is called the fabulous. The seventh rank of
the deities added to the rest are those which, by their beneficence
to mankind, were honored with a divine worship, though they were
born of mortal race; of this sort were Hercules, Castor and Pollux,
and Bacchus. These are reputed to be of a human species; for of all
beings that which is divine is most excellent, and man amongst all
animals is adorned with the greatest beauty, and is also the best,
being distinguished by virtue above the rest because of his intellect:
therefore it was thought that those who were admirable for goodness
should resemble that which is the best and most beautiful.
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT IS GOD?
Some of the philosophers, such as Diagoras the Melian, Theodorus the
Cyrenean, and Euemerus the Tegeatan, did unanimously deny there were
any Gods; and Callimachus the Cyrenean discovered his mind touching
Euemerus in these Iambic verses, thus writing:
To th’ ante-mural temple flock apace,
Where he that long ago composed of brass[40]
Great Jupiter, Thrasonic old bald pate,
Now writes his impious books,—a boastful ass!
meaning books which denote there are no Gods. Euripides the tragedian
durst not openly declare his sentiment; the court of Areopagus
terrified him. Yet he sufficiently manifested his thoughts by this
method. He presented in his tragedy Sisyphus, the first and great
patron of this opinion, and introduced himself as one agreeing with him:
Disorder in those days did domineer,
And brutal power kept the world in fear.
Afterwards by the sanction of laws wickedness was suppressed; but by
reason that laws could prohibit only public villanies, yet could not
hinder many persons from acting secret impieties, some wise persons
gave this advice, that we ought to blind truth with lying disguises,
and to persuade men that there is a God:
There’s an eternal God does hear and see
And understand every impiety;
Though it in dark recess or thought committed be.
But this poetical fable ought to be rejected, he thought, together with
Callimachus, who thus saith:
If you believe a God, it must be meant
That you conceive this God omnipotent.
But God cannot do every thing; for, if it were so, then God could
make snow black, and the fire cold, and him that is in a posture of
sitting to be upright, and so on the contrary. The brave-speaking Plato
pronounceth that God formed the world after his own image; but this
smells rank of the old dotages, old comic poets would say; for how did
God, casting his eye upon himself, frame this universe? Or how can God
be spherical, and not be inferior to man?
Anaxagoras avers that bodies did consist from all eternity, but the
divine intellect did reduce them into their proper orders, and effected
the origination of all beings. Plato did not suppose that the primary
bodies had their consistence and repose, but that they were moved
confusedly and in disorder; but God, knowing that order was better
than confusion, did digest them into the best methods. Both these were
equally peccant; for both suppose God to be the great moderator of
human affairs, and for that cause to have formed this present world;
when it is apparent that an immortal and blessed being, replenished
with all his glorious excellencies, and not at all obnoxious to any
sort of evil, but being wholly occupied with his own felicity and
immortality, would not employ himself with the concerns of men; for
certainly miserable is the being which, like a laborer or artificer,
is molested by the troubles and cares which the forming and governing
of this world must give him. Add to this, that the God whom these men
profess was either not at all existing previous to this present world
(when bodies were either reposed or in a disordered motion), or that
then God did either sleep, or else was in a perpetual watchfulness, or
that he did neither of these. Now neither the first nor the second can
be entertained, because they suppose God to be eternal; if God from
eternity was in a continual sleep, he was in an eternal death,—and
what is death but an eternal sleep?—but no sleep can affect a Deity,
for the immortality of God and alliance to death are vastly different.
But if God was in a continual vigilance, either there was something
wanting to make him happy, or else his beatitude was perfectly
complete; but according to neither of these can God be said to be
blessed; not according to the first, for if there be any deficiency
there is no perfect bliss; not according to the second, for, if there
be nothing wanting to the felicity of God, it must be a useless
enterprise for him to busy himself in human affairs. And how can it be
supposed that God administers by his own providence human concerns,
when to vain and trifling persons prosperous things happen, to great
and high adverse? Agamemnon was both
A virtuous prince, for warlike acts renowned,[41]
and by an adulterer and adulteress was vanquished and perfidiously
slain. Hercules, after he had freed the life of man from many things
that were pernicious to it, perished by the witchcraft and poison of
Deianira.
Thales said that the intelligence of the world was God.
Anaximander concluded that the stars were heavenly Deities.
Democritus said that God, being a globe of fire, is intelligence and
the soul of the world.
Pythagoras says that, of his principles, unity is God; and the perfect
good, which is indeed the nature of a unity, is mind itself; but the
binary number, which is infinite, is a devil, and in its own nature
evil,—about which the multitude of material beings, and this world
which is the object of our eyes, are conversant.
Socrates and Plato agree that God is that which is one, hath its
original from its own self, is of a singular subsistence, is one only
being perfectly good; all these various names signifying goodness do
all centre in mind; hence God is to be understood as that mind and
intellect, which is a separate idea, that is to say, pure and unmixed
of all matter, and not twisted with any thing obnoxious to passions.
Aristotle’s sentiment is, that God hath his residence in superior
regions, and hath placed his throne in the sphere of the universe, and
is a separate idea; which sphere is an ethereal body, which is by him
styled the fifth essence or quintessence. For there is a division of
the universe into spheres, which are contiguous by their nature but
appear to reason to be separated; and he concludes that each of the
spheres is an animal, composed of a body and soul; the body of them is
ethereal, moved orbicularly, the soul is the rational form, which is
unmoved, and yet is the cause that the sphere is actually in motion.
The Stoics affirm that God is a thing more common and obvious, and is
a mechanic fire which every way spreads itself to produce the world; it
contains in itself all seminal virtues, and by this means all things by
a fatal necessity were produced. This spirit, passing through the whole
world, received various names from the mutations in the matter through
which it ran in its journey. God therefore is the world, the stars, the
earth, and (highest of all) the supreme mind in the heavens.
In the judgment of Epicurus all the Gods are anthropomorphites, or have
the shape of men; but they are perceptible only by reason, for their
nature admits of no other manner of being apprehended, their parts
being so small and fine that they give no corporeal representations.
The same Epicurus asserts that there are four other natural beings
which are immortal: of this sort are atoms, the vacuum, the infinite,
and the similar parts; and these last are called Homoeomeries and
likewise elements.
CHAPTER VIII.
OF THOSE THAT ARE CALLED GENIUSES AND HEROES.
Having treated of the essence of the deities in a just order, it
follows that we discourse of daemons and heroes. Thales, Pythagoras,
Plato, and the Stoics do conclude that daemons are essences which are
endowed with souls; that the heroes are the souls separated from their
bodies, some are good, some are bad; the good are those whose souls are
good, the evil those whose souls are wicked. All this is rejected by
Epicurus.
CHAPTER IX.
OF MATTER.
Matter is that first being which is substrate for generation,
corruption, and all other alterations.
The disciples of Thales and Pythagoras, with the Stoics, are of opinion
that matter is changeable, mutable, convertible, and sliding through
all things.
The followers of Democritus aver that the vacuum, the atom, and the
incorporeal substance are the first beings, and not obnoxious to
passions.
Aristotle and Plato affirm that matter is of that species which is
corporeal, void of any form, species, figure, and quality, but apt to
receive all forms, that she may be the nurse, the mother, and origin
of all other beings. But they that do say that water, earth, air, and
fire are matter do likewise say that matter cannot be without form, but
conclude it is a body; but they that say that individual particles and
atoms are matter do say that matter is without form.
CHAPTER X.
OF IDEAS.
An idea is a being incorporeal, which has no subsistence by itself, but
gives figure and form unto shapeless matter, and becomes the cause of
its manifestation.
Socrates and Plato conjecture that these ideas are essences separate
from matter, having their existence in the understanding and fancy of
the Deity, that is, of mind.
Aristotle objected not to forms and ideas; but he doth not believe them
separated from matter, or patterns of what God has made.
Those Stoics, that are of the school of Zeno, profess that ideas are
nothing else but the conceptions of our own mind.
CHAPTER XI.
OF CAUSES.
A cause is that by which any thing is produced, or by which any thing
is effected.
Plato gives this triple division of causes,—the material, the
efficient, and the final cause; the principal cause he judges to be the
efficient, which is the mind and intellect.
Pythagoras and Aristotle judge the first causes are incorporeal beings,
but those that are causes by accident or participation become corporeal
substances; by this means the world is corporeal.
The Stoics grant that all causes are corporeal, inasmuch as they are
breath.
CHAPTER XII.
OF BODIES.
A body is that being which hath these three dimensions, breadth,
depth, and length;—or a bulk which makes a sensible resistance;—or
whatsoever of its own nature possesseth a place.
Plato saith that it is neither heavy nor light in its own nature, when
it exists in its own place; but being in the place where another should
be, then it has an inclination by which it tends to gravity or levity.
Aristotle saith that, if we simply consider things in their own nature,
the earth only is to be judged heavy, and fire light; but air and water
are sometimes heavy and sometimes light.
The Stoics think that of the four elements two are light, fire and air;
two ponderous, earth and water; that which is naturally light doth by
its own nature, not by any inclination, recede from its own centre; but
that which is heavy doth by its own nature tend to its centre; for the
centre is not a heavy thing of itself.
Epicurus thinks that bodies are not to be limited; but the first
bodies, which are simple bodies, and all those composed of them, all
acknowledge gravity; that all atoms are moved, some perpendicularly,
some obliquely; some are carried aloft either by direct impulse or with
vibrations.
CHAPTER XIII.
OF THOSE THINGS THAT ARE LEAST IN NATURE.
Empedocles, precedent to the four elements, introduceth the most minute
bodies which resemble elements; but they did exist before the elements,
having similar parts and orbicular.
Heraclitus brings in the smallest fragments, and those indivisible.
CHAPTER XIV.
OF FIGURES.
A figure is the exterior appearance, the circumscription, and the
boundary of a body.
The Pythagoreans say that the bodies of the four elements are
spherical, fire being in the supremest place only excepted, whose
figure is conical.
CHAPTER XV.
OF COLORS.
Color is the visible quality of a body.
The Pythagoreans called color the outward appearance of a body.
Empedocles, that which is consentaneous to the passages of the eye.
Plato, that they are fires emitted from bodies, which have parts
harmonious for the sight. Zeno the Stoic, that colors are the first
figurations of matter. The Pythagoreans, that colors are of four sorts,
white and black, red and pale; and they derive the variety of colors
from the diversity of the elements, and that seen in animals also from
the variety of food and the air in which they live and are bred.
CHAPTER XVI.
OF THE DIVISION OF BODIES.
The disciples of Thales and Pythagoras grant that all bodies are
passible and divisible unto infinity. Others hold that atoms and
indivisible parts are there fixed, and admit not of a division into
infinity. Aristotle, that all bodies are potentially but not actually
divisible into infinity.
CHAPTER XVII.
HOW BODIES ARE MIXED AND CONTEMPERATED ONE WITH ANOTHER.
The ancient philosophers held that the mixture of elements proceeded
from the alteration of qualities; but the disciples of Anaxagoras
and Democritus say it is done by apposition. Empedocles composes the
elements of still smaller bulks, those which are the most minute and
may be termed the elements of elements. Plato assigns three bodies (but
he will not allow these to be elements, nor properly so called), air,
fire, and water, which are mutable into one another; but the earth is
mutable into none of these.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OF A VACUUM.
All the natural philosophers from Thales to Plato rejected a vacuum.
Empedocles says that there is nothing of a vacuity in nature, nor any
thing superabundant. Leucippus, Democritus, Demetrius, Metrodorus,
Epicurus, that the atoms are infinite in number; and that a vacuum
is infinite in magnitude. The Stoics, that within the compass of
the world there is no vacuum, but beyond it the vacuum is infinite.
Aristotle,[42] that the vacuum beyond the world is so great that the
heaven has liberty to breathe into it, for the heaven is fiery.
CHAPTER XIX.
OF PLACE.
Plato, to define place, calls it that thing which in its own bosom
receives forms and ideas; by which metaphor he signifies matter, being
(as it were) a nurse or receptacle of beings. Aristotle, that it is
the ultimate superficies of the circumambient body, contiguous to that
which it doth encompass.
CHAPTER XX.
OF SPACE.
The Stoics and Epicureans make a place, a vacuum, and a space to
differ. A vacuum is that which is void of any thing that may be called
a body; place is that which is possessed by a body; a space that which
is partly filled with a body, as a cask with wine.
CHAPTER XXI.
OF TIME.
In the sense of Pythagoras, time is that sphere which encompasses the
world. Plato says that it is a movable image of eternity, or the
interval of the world’s motion. Eratosthenes, that it is the solar
motion.
CHAPTER XXII.
OF THE ESSENCE AND NATURE OF TIME.
Plato says that the heavenly motion is time. Most of the Stoics affirm
that motion itself is time. Most philosophers think that time had no
beginning; Plato, that time had only an ideal beginning.
CHAPTER XXIII.
OF MOTION.
Plato and Pythagoras say that motion is a change and alteration in
matter. Aristotle, that it is the actual operation of that which may be
moved. Democritus, that there is but one sort of motion, and it is that
which is vibratory. Epicurus, that there are two species of motion,
one perpendicular, and the other oblique. Herophilus, that one species
of motion is obvious only to reason, the other to sense. Heraclitus
utterly denies that there is any thing of quiet or repose in nature;
for that is the state of the dead; one sort of motion is eternal, which
he assigns to beings eternal, the other perishable, to those things
which are perishable.
CHAPTER XXIV.
OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION.
Parmenides, Melissus, and Zeno deny that there are any such things
as generation and corruption, for they suppose that the universe is
unmovable. Empedocles, Epicurus, and other philosophers that combine
in this, that the world is framed of small corporeal particles meeting
together, affirm that corruption and generation are not so properly to
be accepted; but there are conjunctions and separations, which do not
consist in any alteration according to their qualities, but are made
according to quantity by coalition or disjunction. Pythagoras, and all
those who take for granted that matter is subject to mutation, say that
generation and corruption are to be accepted in their proper sense, and
that they are accomplished by the alteration, mutation, and dissolution
of elements.
CHAPTER XXV.
OF NECESSITY.
Thales says that necessity is omnipotent, and that it exerciseth
an empire over every thing. Pythagoras, that the world is invested
by necessity. Parmenides and Democritus, that there is nothing in
the world but what is necessarily, and that this same necessity is
otherwise called fate, justice, providence, and the architect of the
world.
CHAPTER XXVI.
OF THE NATURE OF NECESSITY.
Plato distinguisheth and refers some things to Providence, others to
necessity. Empedocles makes the nature of necessity to be that cause
which employs principles and elements. Democritus makes it to be a
resistance, impulse, and force of matter. Plato sometimes says that
necessity is matter; at other times, that it is the habitude or respect
of the efficient cause towards matter.
CHAPTER XXVII.
OF DESTINY OR FATE.
Heraclitus, who attributes all things to fate, makes necessity to
be the same thing with it. Plato admits of a necessity in the minds
and the actions of men, but yet he introduceth a cause which flows
from ourselves. The Stoics, in this agreeing with Plato, say that
necessity is a cause invincible and violent; that fate is the ordered
complication of causes, in which there is an intexture of those things
which proceed from our own determination, so that some things are to be
attributed to fate, others not.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
OF THE NATURE OF FATE.
According to Heraclitus, the essence of fate is a certain reason which
penetrates the substance of all being; and this is an ethereal body,
containing in itself that seminal faculty which gives an original to
every being in the universe. Plato declares that it is the eternal
reason and the eternal law of the nature of the universe. Chrysippus,
that it is a spiritual faculty, which in due order doth manage and rule
the universe. Again, in his book styled the Definitions, that fate is
the reason of the world, or that it is that law whereby Providence
rules and administers every thing that is in the world; or it is that
reason by which all things past have been, all things present are,
and all things future will be. The Stoics say that it is a chain of
causes, that is, it is an order and connection of causes which cannot
be resisted. Posidonius, that it is a being the third in degree from
Jupiter; the first of beings is Jupiter, the second nature, and the
third fate.
CHAPTER XXIX.
OF FORTUNE.
Plato says, that it is an accidental cause and a casual consequence
in things which proceed from the election and counsel of men.
Aristotle, that it is an accidental cause in those things which are
done by an impulse to a certain end; and this cause is uncertain and
unstable: there is a great deal of difference betwixt that which flows
from chance and that which falls out by Fortune; for that which is
fortuitous admits also of chance, and belongs to things practical; but
what is by chance cannot be also by Fortune, for it belongs to things
without action: Fortune, moreover, belongs to rational beings, but
chance to rational and irrational beings alike, and even to inanimate
things. Epicurus, that it is a cause not always consistent, but various
as to persons, times, and manners. Anaxagoras and the Stoics, that it
is that cause which human reason cannot comprehend; for there are some
things which proceed from necessity, some things from Fate, some from
choice and free-will, some from Fortune, some from chance.
CHAPTER XXX.
OF NATURE.
Empedocles believes that Nature is nothing else but the mixture and
separation of the elements; for thus he writes in the first book of his
natural philosophy:
Nature gives neither life nor death,
Mutation makes us die or breathe.
The elements first are mixed, then all
Do separate: this mortals Nature call.
Anaxagoras is of the same opinion, that Nature is coalition and
separation, that is, generation and corruption.
BOOK II.
Having finished my dissertation concerning principles and elements and
those things which chiefly appertain to them, I will turn my pen to
discourse of those things which are produced by them, and will take my
beginning from the world, which contains and encompasseth all beings.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE WORLD.
Pythagoras was the first philosopher that gave the name of κόσμος to
the world, from the order and beauty of it; for so that word signifies.
Thales and his followers say the world is one. Democritus, Epicurus,
and their scholar Metrodorus affirm that there are infinite worlds
in an infinite space, for that infinite vacuum in its whole extent
contains them. Empedocles, that the circle which the sun makes in its
motion circumscribes the world, and that circle is the utmost bound of
the world. Seleucus, that the world knows no limits. Diogenes, that
the universe is infinite, but this world is finite. The Stoics make a
difference between that which is called the universe, and that which is
called the whole world;—the universe is the infinite space considered
with the vacuum, the vacuity being removed gives the right conception
of the world; so that the universe and the world are not the same
thing.
CHAPTER II.
OF THE FIGURE OF THE WORLD.
The Stoics say that the figure of the world is spherical, others that
it is conical, others oval. Epicurus, that the figure of the world may
be globular, or that it may admit of other shapes.
CHAPTER III.
WHETHER THE WORLD BE AN ANIMAL.
Democritus, Epicurus, and those philosophers who introduced atoms and
a vacuum, affirm that the world is not an animal, nor governed by any
wise Providence, but that it is managed by a nature which is void of
reason. All the other philosophers affirm that the world is informed
with a soul, and governed by reason and Providence. Aristotle is
excepted, who is somewhat different; he is of opinion, that the whole
world is not acted by a soul in every part of it, nor hath it any
sensitive, rational, or intellectual faculties, nor is it guided by
reason and Providence in every part of it; of all which the heavenly
bodies are made partakers, for the circumambient spheres are animated
and are living beings; but those things which are about the earth are
void of those endowments; and though those terrestrial bodies are of an
orderly disposition, yet that is casual and not primogenial.
CHAPTER IV.
WHETHER THE WORLD IS ETERNAL AND INCORRUPTIBLE.
Pythagoras [and Plato], with the Stoics, affirm that the world was
framed by God, and being corporeal is obvious to the senses, and in
its own nature is obnoxious to destruction; but it shall never perish,
it being preserved by the providence of God. Epicurus, that the world
had a beginning, and so shall have an end, as plants and animals have.
Xenophanes, that the world never had a beginning, is eternal and
incorruptible. Aristotle, that the part of the world which is sublunary
is obnoxious to change, and there terrestrial beings find a decay.
CHAPTER V.
WHENCE DOES THE WORLD RECEIVE ITS NUTRIMENT?
Aristotle says that, if the world be nourished, it will likewise be
dissolved; but it requires no aliment, and will therefore be eternal.
Plato, that this very world prepares for itself a nutriment, by the
alteration of those things which are corruptible in it. Philolaus
believes that a destruction happens to the world in two ways; either
by fire falling from heaven, or by the lunary water being poured down
through the whirling of the air; and the exhalations proceeding from
thence are the aliment of the world.
CHAPTER VI.
FROM WHAT ELEMENT GOD DID BEGIN TO RAISE THE FABRIC OF THE WORLD.
The natural philosophers pronounce that the forming of this world took
its original from the earth, it being its centre, for the centre is
the principal part of the globe. Pythagoras, from the fire and the
fifth element. Empedocles determines, that the first and principal
element separated from the rest was the ether, then fire, after that
the earth, which earth being strongly compacted by the force of a
violent revolution, water springs from it, the exhalations of which
water produce the air; the heaven took its origin from the ether, and
fire gave a being to the sun; those things that belong to the earth
are condensed from the remainders. Plato, that the visible world was
framed after the exemplar of the intellectual world; the soul of the
visible world was first produced, then the corporeal figure, first that
which came from fire and earth, afterwards that which came from air
and water. Pythagoras, that the world was formed of five solid figures
which are called mathematical; the earth was produced by the cube,
the fire by the pyramid, the air by the octahedron, the water by the
icosahedron, and the globe of the universe by the dodecahedron. In all
these Plato hath the same sentiments with Pythagoras.
CHAPTER VII.
IN WHAT FORM AND ORDER THE WORLD WAS COMPOSED.
Parmenides believes that there are small coronets alternately twisted
one within another, some made up of a thin, others of a condensed
matter; and there are others between them mixed mutually together of
light and of darkness, and about them all there is a solid substance,
which like a firm wall surrounds these coronets. Leucippus and
Democritus wrap the world round about, as with a garment and membrane.
Epicurus says that that which bounds some worlds is thin, and that
which limits others is gross and condensed; and of these worlds some
are in motion, others are fixed. Plato, that fire takes the first place
in the world, the second the ether, after that the air, under that
the water; the last place the earth possesseth: sometimes he puts the
ether and the fire in the same place. Aristotle gives the first place
to the ether, as that which is impassible, it being a kind of fifth
body; after which he placeth those that are passible, fire, air, and
water, and last of all the earth. To those bodies that are accounted
celestial he assigns a motion that is circular, but to those that are
seated under them, if they be light bodies, an ascending, if heavy, a
descending motion. Empedocles, that the places of the elements are not
always fixed and determined, but they all succeed one another in their
respective stations.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THE WORLD’S INCLINATION.
Diogenes and Anaxagoras affirm that, after the world was composed and
the earth had produced living creatures, the world out of its own
propensity made an inclination towards the south. Perhaps this may be
attributed to a wise Providence (they say), that thereby some parts
of the world may be habitable, others uninhabitable, according as the
various climates are affected with a rigorous cold, or a scorching
heat, or a just temperament of cold and heat. Empedocles, that the air
yielding to the impetuous force of the solar rays, the pole received an
inclination; whereby the northern parts were exalted and the southern
depressed, by which means the whole world received its inclination.
CHAPTER IX.
OF THAT THING WHICH IS BEYOND THE WORLD, AND WHETHER IT BE A VACUUM OR
NOT.
Pythagoras and his followers say that beyond the world there is a
vacuum, into which and out of which the world hath its respiration.
The Stoics, that there is a vacuum into which the infinite world by a
conflagration shall be dissolved. Posidonius, not an infinite vacuum,
but as much as suffices for the dissolution of the world; and this he
asserts in his first book concerning the Vacuum. Aristotle affirms,
that there is no vacuum. Plato concludes that neither within nor
without the world there is any vacuum.
CHAPTER X.
WHAT PARTS OF THE WORLD ARE ON THE RIGHT HAND, AND WHAT PARTS ARE ON
THE LEFT.
Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle say that the eastern parts of the
world, from whence motion commences, are of the right, those of the
western are of the left-hand of the world. Empedocles, that those that
are of the right-hand are towards the summer solstice, those of the
left towards the winter solstice.
CHAPTER XI.
OF HEAVEN, WHAT IS ITS NATURE AND ESSENCE.
Anaximenes declares that the circumference of heaven is the limit
of the earth’s revolution. Empedocles, that the heaven is a solid
substance, and hath the form and hardness of crystal, it being composed
of the air compacted by fire, and that in both hemispheres it invests
the elements of air and fire. Aristotle, that it is formed by the fifth
body, and by the mixture of extreme heat and cold.
CHAPTER XII.
INTO HOW MANY CIRCLES IS THE HEAVEN DISTINGUISHED; OR, OF THE DIVISION
OF HEAVEN.
Thales, Pythagoras, and the followers of Pythagoras do distribute the
universal globe of heaven into five circles which they denominate
zones; one of which is called the arctic circle, which is always
conspicuous to us, another is the summer tropic, another is the
equinoctial, another is the winter tropic, another is the antarctic
circle, which is always invisible. The circle called the zodiac is
placed under the three that are in the midst, and lies obliquely,
gently touching them all. Likewise, they are all cut in right angles
by the meridian, which runs from pole to pole. It is supposed that
Pythagoras made the first discovery of the obliquity of the zodiac, but
one Oenopides of Chios challenges to himself the invention of it.
CHAPTER XIII.
WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF THE STARS, AND HOW THEY ARE COMPOSED.
Thales believes that they are globes of earth set on fire. Empedocles,
that they are fiery bodies arising from that fire which the ether
embraced within itself, and did shatter in pieces when the elements
were first separated one from another. Anaxagoras, that the
circumambient ether is of a fiery substance, which, by a vehement
force in its whirling about, did tear stones from the earth, and by
its own power set them on fire, and establish them as stars in the
heavens. Diogenes thinks they resemble pumice stones, and that they are
the breathings of the world; again he supposeth that there are some
invisible stones, which sometimes fall from heaven upon the earth, and
are there quenched; as it happened at Aegos-potami, where a stony star
resembling fire did fall. Empedocles, that the fixed stars are fastened
to the crystal, but the planets are loosened. Plato, that the stars
for the most part are of a fiery nature, but they are made partakers
of another element, with which they are mixed after the resemblance of
glue. Xenophanes, that they are composed of inflamed clouds, which
in the daytime are quenched, and in the night are kindled again. The
like we see in coals; for the rising and setting of the stars is
nothing else but the quenching and kindling of them. Heraclides and
the Pythagoreans, that every star is a world in an infinite ether, and
itself encompasseth air, earth, and ether; this opinion is current
among the followers of Orpheus, for they suppose that each of the stars
does make a world. Epicurus condemns none of these opinions, for he
embraces any thing that is possible.
CHAPTER XIV.
OF WHAT FIGURE THE STARS ARE.
The Stoics say that the stars are of a circular form, like the sun,
the moon, and the world. Cleanthes, that they are of a conical figure.
Anaximenes, that they are fastened as nails in the crystalline
firmament; some others, that they are fiery plates of gold, resembling
pictures.
CHAPTER XV.
OF THE ORDER AND PLACE OF THE STARS.
Xenocrates says that the stars are moved in one and the same
superficies. The other Stoics say that they are moved in various
superficies, some being superior, others inferior. Democritus, that the
fixed stars are in the highest place; after those the planets; after
which the sun, Venus, and the moon, in their order. Plato, that the
first after the fixed stars that makes its appearance is Phaenon, the
star of Saturn; the second Phaëton, the star of Jupiter; the third the
fiery, which is the star of Mars; the fourth the morning star, which is
the star of Venus the fifth the shining star, and that is the star of
Mercury; in the sixth place is the sun, in the seventh the moon. Plato
and some of the mathematicians conspire in the same opinion; others
place the sun as the centre of the planets. Anaximander, Metrodorus of
Chios, and Crates assign to the sun the superior place, after him they
place the moon, after them the fixed stars and planets.
CHAPTER XVI.
OF THE MOTION AND CIRCULATION OF THE STARS.
Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Cleanthes say that all the stars have their
motion from east to west. Alcmaeon and the mathematicians, that the
planets have a contrary motion to the fixed stars, and in opposition
to them are carried from the west to the east. Anaximander, that they
are moved by those circles and spheres on which they are placed.
Anaximenes, that they are turned under and about the earth. Plato
and the mathematicians, that the sun, Venus, and Mercury have equal
measures in their motions.
CHAPTER XVII.
WHENCE DO THE STARS RECEIVE THEIR LIGHT?
Metrodorus says that all the fixed stars derive their light from the
sun. Heraclitus and the Stoics, that earthly exhalations are those by
which the stars are nourished. Aristotle, that the heavenly bodies
require no nutriment, for they being eternal cannot be obnoxious to
corruption. Plato and the Stoics, that the whole world and the stars
are fed by the same things.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHAT ARE THOSE STARS WHICH ARE CALLED THE DIOSCURI, THE TWINS, OR
CASTOR AND POLLUX?
Xenophanes says that those which appear as stars in the tops of ships
are little clouds shining by their peculiar motion. Metrodorus, that
the eyes of frighted and astonished people emit those lights which are
called the Twins.
CHAPTER XIX.
HOW STARS PROGNOSTICATE, AND WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF WINTER AND SUMMER.
Plato says that the summer and winter indications proceed from the
rising and setting of the stars, that is, from the rising and setting
of the sun, the moon, and the fixed stars. Anaximenes, that the others
in this are not at all concerned, but that it is wholly performed by
the sun. Eudoxus and Aratus assign it in common to all the stars, for
thus Aratus sings:
Thund’ring Jove stars in heaven hath fixed,
And them in such beauteous order mixed,
Which yearly future things predict.
CHAPTER XX.
OF THE ESSENCE OF THE SUN.
Anaximander says, that the sun is a circle eight and twenty times
bigger than the earth, and has a circumference which very much
resembles that of a chariot-wheel, which is hollow and full of fire;
the fire of which appears to us through its mouth, as by a hole in a
pipe; and this is the sun. Xenophanes, that the sun is constituted
of small bodies of fire compact together and raised from a moist
exhalation, which collected together make the body of the sun; or that
it is a cloud enfired. The Stoics, that it is an intelligent flame
proceeding from the sea. Plato, that it is composed of abundance of
fire. Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Metrodorus, that it is an enfired
stone, or a burning mass. Aristotle, that it is a sphere formed out
of the fifth body. Philolaus the Pythagorean, that the sun shines as
crystal, which receives its splendor from the fire of the world and so
reflecteth its light upon us; so that first, the body of fire which
is celestial belongs to the sun; and secondly, the fiery reflection
that proceeds from it, in the form of a mirror; and lastly, the light
which is spread upon us by way of reflection from that mirror; and
this last we call the sun, which is (as it were) an image of an image.
Empedocles, that there are two suns; the one the prototype, which is
a fire placed in the other hemisphere, which it totally fills, and is
always ordered in a direct opposition to the reflection of its own
light; and the sun which is visible to us, formed by the reflection of
that splendor in the other hemisphere (which is filled with air mixed
with heat), the light reflected from the circular sun in the opposite
hemisphere falling upon the crystalline sun; and this reflection is
carried round with the motion of the fiery sun. To give briefly the
full sense, the sun is nothing else but the light and brightness of
that fire which encompasseth the earth. Epicurus, that it is an earthy
bulk well compacted, with hollow passages like a pumice-stone or a
sponge, which is kindled by fire.
CHAPTER XXI.
OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SUN.
Anaximander says, that the sun itself in greatness is equal to the
earth, but that the circle from whence it receives its respiration and
in which it is moved is seven and twenty times larger than the earth.
Anaxagoras, that it is far greater than Peloponnesus. Heraclitus, that
it is no broader than a man’s foot. Epicurus, that he equally embraceth
all the foresaid opinions,—that the sun may be of magnitude as it
appears, or it may be somewhat greater or somewhat less.
CHAPTER XXII.
WHAT IS THE FIGURE OR SHAPE OF THE SUN.
Anaximenes affirms that in its dilatation it resembles a leaf.
Heraclitus, that it hath the shape of a boat, and is somewhat crooked.
The Stoics, that it is spherical, and it is of the same figure with the
world and the stars. Epicurus, that the recited dogmas may be defended.
CHAPTER XXIII.
OF THE TURNING AND RETURNING OF THE SUN, OR THE SUMMER AND WINTER
SOLSTICE.
Anaximenes thinks that the stars are forced by a condensed and
resisting air. Anaxagoras, by the repelling force of the northern
air, which is violently pushed on by the sun, and thus rendered more
condensed and powerful. Empedocles, that the sun is hindered from
a continual direct course by its spherical vehicle and by the two
circular tropics. Diogenes, that the sun, when it comes to its utmost
declination, is extinguished, a rigorous cold damping the heat. The
Stoics, that the sun maintains its course only through that space in
which its aliment is seated, let it be the ocean or the earth; by the
exhalations proceeding from these it is nourished. Plato, Pythagoras,
and Aristotle, that the sun receives a transverse motion from the
obliquity of the zodiac, which is guarded by the tropics; all these the
globe clearly manifests.
CHAPTER XXIV.
OF THE ECLIPSES OF THE SUN.
Thales was the first who affirmed that the eclipse of the sun was
caused by the moon’s running in a perpendicular line between it and
the earth; for the moon in its own nature is terrestrial. And by
mirrors it is made perspicuous that, when the sun is eclipsed, the moon
is in a direct line below it. Anaximander, that the sun is eclipsed
when the fiery mouth of it is stopped and hindered from expiration.
Heraclitus, that it is after the manner of the turning of a boat, when
the concave appears uppermost to our sight, and the convex nethermost.
Xenophanes, that the sun is eclipsed when it is extinguished; and that
a new sun is created to rise in the east. He gives a farther account
of an eclipse of the sun which remained for a whole month, and again
of a total eclipse which changed the day into night. Some say that the
cause of an eclipse is the invisible concourse of condensed clouds
which cover the orb of the sun. Aristarchus placeth the sun amongst
the fixed stars, and believeth that the earth [the moon?] is moved
about the sun, and that by its inclination and vergency it intercepts
its light and shadows its orb. Xenophanes, that there are many suns
and many moons, according as the earth is distinguished by climates,
circles, and zones. At some certain times the orb of the sun, falling
upon some part of the world which is uninhabited, wanders in a vacuum
and becomes eclipsed. The same person affirms that the sun, proceeding
in its motion in the infinite space, appears to us to move orbicularly,
receiving that representation from its infinite distance from us.
CHAPTER XXV.
OF THE ESSENCE OF THE MOON.
Anaximander affirms that the circle of the moon is nineteen times
bigger than the earth, and resembles the sun, its orb being full of
fire; and it suffers an eclipse when the wheel turneth,—which he
describes by the divers turnings of a chariot-wheel, in the midst of it
there being a hollow replenished with fire, which hath but one way of
expiration. Xenophanes, that it is a condensed cloud. The Stoics, that
it is mixed of fire and air. Plato, that it is a body of the greatest
part earthy. Anaxagoras and Democritus, that it is a solid, condensed,
and fiery body, in which there are champaign countries, mountains,
and valleys. Heraclitus, that it is an earth covered with a cloud.
Pythagoras, that the body of the moon was of a nature like a mirror.
CHAPTER XXVI.
OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE MOON.
The Stoics declare, that in magnitude it exceeds the earth, as the sun
itself doth. Parmenides, that it is equal to the sun, from whom it
receives its light.
CHAPTER XXVII.
OF THE FIGURE OF THE MOON.
The Stoics believe that it is of the same figure with the sun,
spherical. Empedocles, that the figure of it resembles a quoit.
Heraclitus, a boat. Others, a cylinder.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
FROM WHENCE IS IT THAT THE MOON RECEIVES HER LIGHT?
Anaximander thinks that she gives light to herself, but it is very
slender and faint. Antiphon, that the moon shines by its own proper
light; but when it absconds itself, the solar beams darting on it
obscure it. Thus it naturally happens, that a more vehement light
puts out a weaker; the same is seen in other stars. Thales and his
followers, that the moon borrows all her light of the sun. Heraclitus,
that the sun and moon are after the same manner affected; in their
configurations both are shaped like boats, and are made conspicuous to
us, receiving their light from moist exhalations. The sun appears to us
more refulgent, by reason it is moved in a clearer and purer air; the
moon appears more duskish, it being carried in an air more troubled and
gross.
CHAPTER XXIX.
OF THE ECLIPSE OF THE MOON.
Anaximenes believes that the mouth of the hollow wheel, about which
the moon is turned, being stopped is the cause of an eclipse. Berosus,
that it proceeds from the turning of the dark side of the lunar orb
towards us. Heraclitus, that it is performed just after the manner of
a boat turned upside downwards. Some of the Pythagoreans say, that the
splendor arises from the earth, its obstruction from the Antichthon
(or _counter-earth_). Some of the later philosophers, that
there is such a distribution of the lunar flame, that it gradually
and in a just order burns until it be full moon; in like manner,
that this fire decays by degrees, until its conjunction with the sun
totally extinguisheth it. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and all the
mathematicians agree in this, that the obscurity with which the moon is
every month affected ariseth from a conjunction with the sun, by whose
more resplendent beams she is darkened; and the moon is then eclipsed
when she falls upon the shadow of the earth, the earth interposing
between the sun and moon, or (to speak more properly) the earth
intercepting the light of the moon.
CHAPTER XXX.
OF THE PHASES OF THE MOON, OR THE LUNAR ASPECTS; OR HOW IT COMES TO
PASS THAT THE MOON APPEARS TO US TERRESTRIAL.
The Pythagoreans say, that the moon appears to us terraneous, by reason
it is inhabited as our earth is, and in it there are animals of a
larger size and plants of a rarer beauty than our globe affords; that
the animals in their virtue and energy are fifteen degrees superior to
ours; that they emit nothing excrementitious; and that the days are
fifteen times longer. Anaxagoras, that the reason of the inequality
ariseth from the commixture of things earthy and cold; and that fiery
and caliginous matter is jumbled together, whereby the moon is said to
be a star of a counterfeit aspect. The Stoics, that by reason of the
diversity of her substance the composition of her body is subject to
corruption.
CHAPTER XXXI.
HOW FAR THE MOON IS REMOVED FROM THE SUN.
Empedocles affirms, that the distance of the moon from the sun is
double her remoteness from the earth. The mathematicians, that her
distance from the sun is eighteen times her distance from the earth.
Eratosthenes, that the sun is remote from the earth seven hundred and
eighty thousand furlongs.
CHAPTER XXXII.
OF THE YEAR, AND HOW MANY CIRCULATIONS MAKE UP THE GREAT YEAR OF EVERY
PLANET.
The year of Saturn is completed when he has had his circulation in the
space of thirty solar years; of Jupiter in twelve; of Mars in two, of
the sun in twelve months; in so many Mercury and Venus, the spaces of
their circulation being equal; of the moon in thirty days, in which
time her course from her prime to her conjunction is finished. As to
the great year, some make it to consist of eight years solar, some
of nineteen, others of fifty-nine. Heraclitus, of eighteen thousand.
Diogenes, of three hundred and sixty-five such years as Heraclitus
assigns. Others there are who lengthen it to seven thousand seven
hundred and seventy-seven years.
BOOK III.
In my two precedent treatises having in due order taken a compendious
view and given an account of the celestial bodies, and of the moon
which divides between them and the terrestrial, I must now convert my
pen to discourse in this third book of Meteors, which are beings above
the earth and below the moon, and are extended to the site and position
of the earth, which is supposed to be the centre of the sphere of this
world; and from thence will I take my beginning.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE GALAXY, OR THE MILKY WAY.
It is a cloudy circle, which continually appears in the air, and by
reason of the whiteness of its colors is called the galaxy, or the
milky way. Some of the Pythagoreans say that, when Phaëton set the
world on fire, a star falling from its own place in its circular
passage through the region caused an inflammation. Others say that
originally it was the first course of the sun; others, that it is an
image as in a looking-glass, occasioned by the sun’s reflecting its
beams towards the heavens, and this appears in the clouds and in the
rainbow. Metrodorus, that it is merely the solar course, or the motion
of the sun in its own circle. Parmenides, that the mixture of a thick
and thin substance gives it a color which resembles milk. Anaxagoras,
that the sun moving under the earth and not being able to enlighten
every place, the shadow of the earth, being cast upon the part of
the heavens, makes the galaxy. Democritus, that it is the splendor
which ariseth from the coalition of many small bodies, which, being
firmly united amongst themselves, do mutually enlighten one another.
Aristotle, that it is the inflammation of dry, copious, and coherent
exhalations, by which the fiery train, whose seat is beneath the ether
and the planets, is produced. Posidonius, that it is a combination of
fire, of rarer substance than the stars, but denser than light.
CHAPTER II.
OF COMETS AND SHOOTING FIRES, AND THOSE WHICH RESEMBLE BEAMS.
Some of the Pythagoreans say, that a comet is one of those stars which
do not always appear, but after they have run through their determined
course, they then rise and are visible to us. Others, that it is the
reflection of our sight upon the sun, which gives the resemblance of
comets much after the same manner as images are reflected in mirrors.
Anaxagoras and Democritus, that two or more stars being in conjunction
by their united light make a comet. Aristotle, that it is a fiery
coalition of dry exhalations. Strato, that it is the light of the star
darting through a thick cloud that hath invested it; this is seen in
light shining through lanterns. Heraclides, native of Pontus, that
it is a lofty cloud inflamed by a sublime fire. The like causes he
assigns to the bearded comet, to those circles that are seen about the
sun or stars, or those meteors which resemble pillars or beams, and
all others which are of this kind. This way unanimously go all the
Peripatetics, believing that these meteors, being formed by the clouds,
do differ according to their various configurations. Epigenes, that a
comet arises from an elevation of spirit or wind, mixed with an earthy
substance and set on fire. Boëthus, that it is a phantasy presented to
us by inflamed air. Diogenes, that comets are stars. Anaxagoras, that
those styled shooting stars fall down from the ether like sparks, and
therefore are soon extinguished. Metrodorus, that it is a forcible
illapse of the sun upon clouds which makes them to sparkle as fire.
Xenophanes, that all such fiery meteors are nothing else but the
conglomeration of the enfired clouds, and the flashing motions of them.
CHAPTER III.
OF VIOLENT ERUPTION OF FIRE OUT OF THE CLOUDS. OF LIGHTNING. OF
THUNDER. OF HURRICANES. OF WHIRLWINDS.
Anaximander affirms that all these are produced by the wind after this
manner: the wind being enclosed by condensed clouds, by reason of its
minuteness and lightness it violently endeavors to make its passage;
and in breaking through the cloud it gives the noise; and the rending
the cloud, because of the blackness of it, gives a resplendent flame.
Metrodorus, that when the wind falls upon a cloud whose densing firmly
compacts it, by breaking the cloud it causeth a great noise, and by
striking and rending the cloud it gives the flame; and in the swiftness
of its motion, the sun imparting heat to it, it throws out the
thunderbolt. The weak declining of the thunderbolt ends in a violent
tempest. Anaxagoras, that when heat and cold meet and are mixed
together (that is, ethereal parts with airy), thereby a great noise
of thunder is produced, and the color seen against the blackness of
the cloud causes the flashing of fire; the full and great splendor is
lightning, the more enlarged and embodied fire becomes a whirlwind, the
cloudiness of it gives the hurricane. The Stoics, that thunder is the
clashing of clouds one upon another, the flash of lightning is their
fiery inflammation; their more rapid splendor is the thunderbolt, the
faint and weak the whirlwind. Aristotle, that all these proceed from
dry exhalations, which, if they meet with moist vapors, force their
passage, and the breaking of them gives the noise of thunder; they,
being very dry, take fire and make lightning; tempests and hurricanes
arise from the plenitude of matter which each draw to themselves, the
hotter parts attracted make the whirlwinds, the duller the tempests.
CHAPTER IV.
OF CLOUDS, RAIN, SNOW, AND HAIL.
Anaximenes thinks that by the air being very much condensed clouds are
formed; this air being more compacted, rain is compressed through it;
when water in its falling down freezeth, then snow is generated; when
it is encompassed with a moist air, it is hail. Metrodorus, that a
cloud is composed of a watery exhalation carried into a higher place.
Epicurus, that they are made of vapors; and that hail and rain are
formed in a round figure, being in their long descent pressed upon by
the circumambient air.
CHAPTER V.
OF THE RAINBOW.
Those things which affect the air in the superior places of it are
of two sorts. Some have a real subsistence, such are rain and hail;
others not. Those which enjoy not a proper subsistence are only in
appearance; of this sort is the rainbow. Thus the continent to us that
sail seems to be in motion.
Plato says, that men admiring it feigned that it took origination from
one Thaumas, which word signifies admiration. Homer says:
Jove paints the rainbow with a purple dye,
Alluring man to cast his wandering eye.[43]
Others therefore fabled that the bow hath a head like a bull, by which
it swallows up rivers.
But what is the cause of the rainbow? It is evident that what apparent
things we see come to our eyes in right or in crooked lines, or by
reflection: these last are incorporeal and to sense obscure, but to
reason they are obvious. Those which are seen in right lines are those
which we see through the air or horn or transparent stones, for all
the parts of these things are very fine and tenuious; but those which
appear in crooked lines are in water, the thickness of the water
presenting them bended to our sight. This is the reason that oars in
themselves straight, when put into the sea, appear to us crooked. The
third manner of our seeing is by reflection, and this is perspicuous
by mirrors. After this third sort the rainbow is affected. We conceive
it is a moist exhalation converted into a cloud, and in a short space
it is dissolved into small and moist drops. The sun declining towards
the west, it will necessarily follow that the whole bow is seen
opposite to the sun; for the eye being directed to those drops receives
a reflection, and by this means the bow is formed. The eye doth not
consider the figure and form, but the color of these drops; the first
of which colors is a shining red, the second a purple, the third is
blue and green. Let us consider whether the reason of this shining red
color be the splendor of the sun falling upon these small drops, the
whole body of light being reflected, by which this bright red color is
produced; the second part being troubled, and the light languishing
in the drops, the color becomes purple (for the purple is the faint
red); but the third part, being more and more troubled, is changed
into the green color. And this is proved by other effects of Nature;
if any one shall put water in his mouth and spit it out so opposite to
the sun that its rays may be reflected on the drops, he shall see the
resemblance of a rainbow; the same appears to men that are blear-eyed,
when they fix their watery eyes upon a candle.
Anaximenes thinks the bow is thus formed; the sun casting its splendor
upon a thick, black, and gross cloud, and the rays not being in a
capacity to penetrate beyond the superficies. Anaxagoras, that, the
solar rays being reflected from a condensed cloud, the sun being
placed directly opposite to it forms the bow after the mode of the
repercussion of a mirror; after the same manner he assigns the natural
cause of the Parhelia or mock-suns, which are often seen in Pontus.
Metrodorus, that when the sun casts its splendor through a cloud, the
cloud gives itself a blue, and the light a red color.
CHAPTER VI.
OF METEORS WHICH RESEMBLE RODS, OR OF RODS.
These rods and the mock-suns are constituted of a double nature, a real
subsistence, and a mere appearance;—of a real subsistence, because
the clouds are the object of our eyes; of a mere appearance, for their
proper color is not seen, but that which is adventitious. The like
affections, natural and adventitious, in all such things do happen.
CHAPTER VII.
OF WINDS.
Anaximander believes that wind is a fluid air, the sun putting into
motion or melting the moist subtle parts of it. The Stoics, that all
winds are a flowing air, and from the diversity of the regions whence
they have their origin receive their denomination; as, from darkness
and the west the western wind; from the sun and its rising the eastern;
from the north the northern, and from the south the southern winds.
Metrodorus, that moist vapors heated by the sun are the cause of the
impetuousness of violent winds. The Etesian, or those winds which
annually commence about the rising of the Little Dog, the air about the
northern pole being more compacted, blow vehemently following the sun
when he returns from the summer solstice.
CHAPTER VIII.
OF WINTER AND SUMMER.
Empedocles and the Stoics believe that winter is caused by the
thickness of the air prevailing and mounting upwards; and summer by
fire, it falling downwards.
* * * * *
This description being given by me of Meteors, or those things that are
above us, I must pass to those things which are terrestrial.
CHAPTER IX.
OF THE EARTH, WHAT IS ITS NATURE AND MAGNITUDE.
Thales and his followers say that there is but one earth. Hicetes the
Pythagorean, that there are two earths, this and the Antichthon, or
the earth opposite to it. The Stoics, that this earth is one, and that
finite and limited. Xenophanes, that the earth, being compacted of fire
and air, in its lowest parts hath laid a foundation in an infinite
depth. Metrodorus, that the earth is mere sediment and dregs of water,
as the sun is of the air.
CHAPTER X.
OF THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH.
Thales, the Stoics, and their followers say that the earth is globular.
Anaximander, that it resembles a smooth stony pillar. Anaximenes, that
it hath the shape of a table. Leucippus, of a drum. Democritus, that it
is like a quoit in its surface, and hollow in the middle.
CHAPTER XI.
OF THE SITE AND POSITION OF THE EARTH.
The disciples of Thales say that the earth is the centre of the
universe. Xenophanes, that it is first, being rooted in the infinite
space. Philolaus the Pythagorean gives to fire the middle place, and
this is the hearth-fire of the universe; the second place to the
Antichthon; the third to that earth which we inhabit, which is seated
in opposition unto and whirled about the opposite,—which is the reason
that those which inhabit that earth cannot be seen by us. Parmenides
was the first that confined the habitable world to the two solstitial
(or temperate) zones.
CHAPTER XII.
OF THE INCLINATION OF THE EARTH.
Leucippus affirms that the earth vergeth towards the southern parts, by
reason of the thinness and fineness that is in the south; the northern
parts are more compacted, they being congealed by a rigorous cold, but
those parts of the world that are opposite are enfired. Democritus,
because, the southern parts of the atmosphere being the weaker, the
earth as it enlarges bends towards the south; the northern parts are
of an unequal, the southern of an equal temperament; and this is the
reason that the earth bends towards those parts where the earth is
laden with fruits and its own increase.
CHAPTER XIII.
OF THE MOTION OF THE EARTH.
Most of the philosophers say that the earth remains fixed in the same
place. Philolaus the Pythagorean, that it is moved about the element of
fire, in an oblique circle, after the same manner of motion that the
sun and moon have. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean
assign a motion to the earth, but not progressive, but after the manner
of a wheel being carried on its own axis; thus the earth (they say)
turns itself upon its own centre from west to east. Democritus, that
when the earth was first formed it had a motion, the parts of it being
small and light; but in process of time the parts of it were condensed,
so that by its own weight it was poised and fixed.
CHAPTER XIV.
INTO HOW MANY ZONES IS THE EARTH DIVIDED?
Pythagoras says that, as the celestial sphere is distributed into
five zones, into the same number is the terrestrial; which zones are
the arctic and antarctic, the summer and winter tropics (or temperate
zones), and the equinoctial; the middle of which zones equally divides
the earth and constitutes the torrid zone; but that part which is in
the middle of the summer and winter tropics is habitable, by reason the
air is there temperate.
CHAPTER XV.
OF EARTHQUAKES.
Thales and Democritus assign the cause of earthquakes to water. The
Stoics say that it is a moist vapor contained in the earth, making an
irruption into the air, that makes the earthquake. Anaximenes, that
the dryness and rarety of the earth are the cause of earthquakes, the
one of which is produced by extreme drought, the other by immoderate
showers. Anaxagoras, that the air endeavoring to make a passage out of
the earth, meeting with a thick superficies, is not able to force its
way, and so shakes the circumambient earth with a trembling. Aristotle,
that a cold vapor encompassing every part of the earth prohibits the
evacuation of vapors; for those which are hot, being in themselves
light, endeavor to force a passage upwards, by which means the dry
exhalations, being left in the earth, use their utmost endeavor to make
a passage out, and being wedged in, they suffer various circumvolutions
and shake the earth. Metrodorus, that whatsoever is in its own place
is incapable of motion, except it be pressed upon or drawn by the
operation of another body; the earth being so seated cannot naturally
be removed, yet divers parts and places of the earth may move one
upon another. Parmenides and Democritus, that the earth being so
equally poised hath no sufficient cause why it should incline rather
to one side than to the other; so that it may be shaken, but cannot be
removed. Anaximenes, that the earth by reason of its latitude is borne
upon the air which presseth upon it. Others opine that the earth swims
upon the waters, as boards and broad planks, and by that reason is
moved. Plato, that motion is by six manner of ways, upwards, downwards,
on the right-hand and on the left, behind and before; therefore it is
not possible that the earth should be moved in any of these modes,
for it is altogether seated in the lowest place; it therefore cannot
receive a motion, since there is nothing about it so peculiar as to
make it incline any way; but some parts of it are so rare and thin
that they are capable of motion. Epicurus, that the possibility of the
earth’s motion ariseth from a thick and aqueous air beneath the earth,
which may, by moving or pushing it, be capable of its quaking; or that
being so compassed, and having many passages, it is shaken by the wind
which is dispersed through the hollow dens of it.
CHAPTER XVI.
OF THE SEA, AND HOW IT IS COMPOSED, AND HOW IT BECOMES TO THE TASTE
BITTER.
Anaximander affirms that the sea is the remainder of the primogenial
humidity, the greatest part of which being dried up by the fire, the
influence of the great heat altered its quality. Anaxagoras, that in
the beginning water did not flow, but was as a standing pool; and that
it was burnt by the motion of the sun about it, by which the oily
part of the water being exhaled, the residue became salt and bitter.
Empedocles, that the sea is the sweat of the earth burnt by the sun.
Antiphon, that the sweat of that which was hot was separated from the
other parts which were moist; these by seething and boiling became
bitter, as happens in all sweats. Metrodorus, that the sea was strained
through the earth, and retained some part of the density thereof; the
same is observed in all those things which are strained through ashes.
The schools of Plato, that the element of water being compacted by the
rigor of the air became sweet, but that part which was exhaled from the
earth, being enfired, became of a brackish taste.
CHAPTER XVII.
OF TIDES, OR OF THE EBBING AND FLOWING OF THE SEA.
Aristotle and Heraclides say, they proceed from the sun, which moves
and whirls about the winds; and these falling with a violence upon the
Atlantic, it is pressed and swells by them, by which means the sea
flows; and their impression ceasing, the sea retracts, hence they ebb.
Pytheas the Massilian, that the fulness of the moon gives the flow, the
wane the ebb. Plato attributes it all to a certain oscillation of the
sea, which by means of a mouth or orifice causes the alternate ebb and
flow; and by this means the seas do rise and flow contrarily. Timaeus
believes that those rivers which fall from the mountains of the Celtic
Gaul into the Atlantic produce a tide. For upon their entering upon
that sea, they violently press upon it, and so cause the flow; but they
disemboguing themselves, there is a cessation of the impetuousness, by
which means the ebb is produced. Seleucus the mathematician attributes
a motion to the earth; and thus he pronounceth that the moon in its
circumlation meets and repels the earth in its motion; between these
two, the earth and the moon, there is a vehement wind raised and
intercepted, which rushes upon the Atlantic Ocean, and gives us a
probable argument that it is the cause the sea is troubled and moved.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OF THE HALO, OR A CIRCLE ABOUT A STAR.
The halo or circle is thus formed. A thick and dark air intervening
between the moon or any other star and our eye, by which means our
sight is dilated and reflected, when now our sight is incident upon the
outward circumference of the orb of that star, there presently seems
a circle to appear. This circle thus appearing is called the ἅλως or
_halo_; and there is constantly such a circle seen by us, when
such a density of sight happens.
BOOK IV.
Having taken a survey of the general parts of the world, I will take a
view of the particular members of it.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE OVERFLOWING OF THE NILE.
Thales conjectures that the Etesian or anniversary northern winds
blowing strongly against Egypt heighten the swelling of the Nile, the
mouth of that river being obstructed by the force of the sea rushing
into it. Euthymenes the Massilian concludes that the Nile is filled by
the ocean and that sea which is outward from it, this being naturally
sweet. Anaxagoras, that the snow in Ethiopia which is frozen in winter
is melted in summer, and this makes the inundation. Democritus, that
the snows which are in the northern climates when the sun enters the
summer solstice are dissolved and diffused; from those vapors clouds
are compacted, and these are forcibly driven by the Etesian winds
into the southern parts and into Egypt, from whence violent showers
are poured; and by this means the fens of Egypt are filled with water,
and the river Nile hath its inundation. Herodotus the historian, that
the waters of the Nile receive from their fountain an equal portion of
water in winter and in summer; but in winter the water appears less,
because the sun, making its approach nearer to Egypt, draws up the
rivers of that country into exhalations. Ephorus the historiographer,
that in summer all Egypt seems to be melted and sweats itself
into water, to which the thin and sandy soils of Arabia and Lybia
contribute. Eudoxus relates that the Egyptian priests affirm that, when
it is summer to us who dwell under the northern tropic, it is winter
with them that inhabit under the southern tropic; by this means there
is a various contrariety and opposition of the seasons in the year,
which cause such showers to fall as make the water to overflow the
banks of the Nile and diffuse itself throughout all Egypt.
CHAPTER II.
OF THE SOUL.
Thales first pronounced that the soul is that being which is in
a perpetual motion, or that whose motion proceeds from itself.
Pythagoras, that it is a number moving itself; he takes a number to be
the same thing with a mind. Plato, that it is an intellectual substance
moving itself, and that motion is in a numerical harmony. Aristotle,
that it is the first actuality (ἐντελέχεια) of a natural organical body
which has life potentially; and this actuality must be understood to be
the same thing with energy or operation. Dicaearchus, that it is the
harmony of the four elements. Asclepiades the physician, that it is the
concurrent exercitation of the senses.
CHAPTER III.
WHETHER THE SOUL BE A BODY, AND WHAT IS THE NATURE AND ESSENCE OF IT.
All those that have been named by me do affirm that the soul itself is
incorporeal, and by its own nature is in a perpetual motion, and in its
own essence is an intelligent substance, and the actuality of a natural
organical body which has life. The followers of Anaxagoras, that it is
airy and a body. The Stoics, that it is a hot breath. Democritus, that
it is a fiery composition of things which are perceptible by reason,
the same having their forms spherical and without an inflaming faculty;
and it is a body. Epicurus, that it is constituted of four qualities,
of a fiery quality, of an aerial quality, a pneumatical, and of a
fourth quality which hath no name, but it contains the virtue of the
sense. Heraclitus, that the soul of the world is the exhalation which
proceeds from the moist parts of it; but the soul of animals, arising
from exhalations that are exterior and from those that are within them,
is homogeneous to it.
CHAPTER IV.
OF THE PARTS OF THE SOUL.
Plato and Pythagoras, according to their former account distribute the
soul into two parts, the rational and irrational. By a more accurate
and strict account the soul is branched into three parts; they divide
the unreasonable part into the concupiscible and the irascible. The
Stoics say the soul is constituted of eight parts; five of which are
the senses, hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, the sixth
is the faculty of speaking, the seventh of generating, the eighth of
commanding; this is the principal of all, by which all the other are
guided and ordered in their proper organs, as we see the arms of a
polypus aptly disposed. Democritus and Epicurus divide the soul into
two parts, the rational, which hath its residence in the breast, and
the irrational, which is diffused through the whole structure of the
body. Democritus, that the quality of the soul is communicated to every
thing, yea, to the dead corpses; for they are partakers of heat and
some sense, when the most of both is expired out of them.
CHAPTER V.
WHAT IS THE PRINCIPAL PART OF THE SOUL, AND IN WHAT PART OF THE BODY IT
RESIDES.
Plato and Democritus place its residence in the whole head. Strato,
in that part of the forehead where the eyebrows are separated.
Erasistratus, in the Epikranis, or membrane which involves the brain.
Herophilus, in that sinus of the brain which is the basis of it.
Parmenides, in the whole breast; which opinion is embraced by Epicurus.
The Stoics are generally of this opinion, that the seat of the soul is
throughout the heart, or in the spirit which is about it. Diogenes, in
the arterial ventricle of the heart, which is also filled with vital
spirit. Empedocles, in the mass of the blood. There are that say it
is in the neck of the heart, others in the pericardium, others in
the midriff. Certain of the Neoterics, that the seat of the soul is
extended from the head to the diaphragm. Pythagoras, that the animal
part of the soul resides in the heart, the intellectual in the head.
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE MOTION OF THE SOUL.
Plato believes that the soul is in perpetual motion, but that the mind
is immovable with respect to motion from place to place. Aristotle,
that the soul is not naturally moved, but its motion is accidental,
resembling that which is in the forms of bodies.
CHAPTER VII.
OF THE SOUL’S IMMORTALITY.
Plato and Pythagoras say that the soul is immortal; when it departs
out of the body, it retreats to the soul of the world, which is a
being of the same nature with it. The Stoics, when the souls leave the
bodies, they are carried to divers places; the souls of the unlearned
and ignorant descend to the coagmentation of earthly things, but
the learned and vigorous endure till the general fire. Epicurus and
Democritus, the soul is mortal, and it perisheth with the body. Plato
and Pythagoras, that part of the soul of man which is rational is
eternal; for though it be not God, yet it is the product of an eternal
Deity; but that part of the soul which is divested of reason dies.
CHAPTER VIII.
OF THE SENSES, AND OF THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE OBJECTS OF THE SENSES.
The Stoics give this definition of sense: Sense is the apprehension
or comprehension of an object by means of an organ. There are several
ways of expressing what sense is; it is either a habit, a faculty, an
operation, or an imagination which apprehends by means of an organ of
sense,—and also the eighth principal thing, from whence the senses
are derived. The instruments of sense are intelligent spirits, which
from the said commanding part reach unto all the organs of the body.
Epicurus, that sense is a faculty, and that which is perceived
by the sense is the product of it; so that sense hath a double
acceptation,—sense which is the faculty, and the thing received by
the sense, which is the effect. Plato, that sense is that commerce
which the soul and body have with those things that are exterior to
them; the power of which is from the soul, the organ by which is from
the body; but both of them apprehend exterior objects by means of the
imagination. Leucippus and Democritus, that sense and intelligence
arise from external images; so neither of them can operate without the
assistance of an image falling upon us.
CHAPTER IX.
WHETHER WHAT APPEARS TO OUR SENSES AND IMAGINATIONS BE TRUE OR NOT.
The Stoics say that what the senses represent is true; what the
imagination, is partly false, partly true. Epicurus, that every
impression which either the sense or fancy gives us is true, but of
those things that fall under the account of opinion, some are true,
some false: sense gives us a false representation of those things
only which are the objects of our understanding; but the fancy gives
us a double error, both of things sensible and things intellectual.
Empedocles and Heraclides, that the senses perceive by a just
accommodation of the pores in every case; every thing that is perceived
by the sense being congruously adapted to its proper organ.
CHAPTER X.
HOW MANY SENSES ARE THERE?
The Stoics say that there are five senses properly so called, seeing,
hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. Aristotle indeed doth not
add a sixth sense; but he assigns a common sense, which is the judge
of all compounded species; into this each sense casts its proper
representation, in which is discovered a transition of one thing into
another, like as we see in figure and motion where there is a change of
one into another. Democritus, that there are several species of senses,
which appertain to beings destitute of reason, to the Gods, and to wise
men.
CHAPTER XI.
HOW THE ACTIONS OF THE SENSES, THE CONCEPTIONS OF OUR MINDS, AND THE
HABIT OF OUR REASON ARE FORMED.
The Stoics affirm that every man, as soon as he is born, has the
principal and commanding part of his soul, which is in him like a sheet
of writing-paper, to which he commits all his notions. The first manner
of his inscribing is by denoting those notions which flow from the
senses. Suppose it be of a thing that is white; when the present sense
of it is vanished, there is yet retained the remembrance; when many
memorative notions of the same similitude do concur, then he is said to
have an experience; for experience is nothing else but the abundance of
notions that are of the same form met together. Some of these notions
are naturally begotten according to the aforesaid manner, without the
assistance of art; the others are produced by discipline, learning,
and industry; these only are properly called notions, the others are
prenotions. But reason, which gives us the denomination of rational,
is completed by prenotions in the first seven years. The conception
of the mind is the vision that the intelligence of a rational animal
hath received; when that vision falls upon the rational soul, then it
is called the conception of the mind, for it hath derived its name
from the mind (ἐννόημα from νοῦς). Therefore these visions are not
to be found in any other animals; they are appropriated only to Gods
and to us men. If these we consider generally, they are phantasms; if
specifically, they are notions. As pence or staters, if you consider
them according to their own value, are merely pence and staters; but if
you give them as a price for a naval voyage, they are called not merely
pence, &c., but your fraught.
CHAPTER XII.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IMAGINATION (φαντασια[** φαντασία]),
IMAGINABLE (φανταστόν), FANCY (φανταστικόν), AND PHANTOM (φάντασμα)?
Chrysippus affirms, these four are different one from another.
Imagination (he says) is that passion raised in the soul which
discovers itself and that which was the efficient of it; for example,
after the eye hath looked upon a thing that is white, the sight of
which produceth in the mind a certain impression, this gives us
reason to conclude that the object of this impression is white, which
affecteth us. So is it with touching and smelling.
Phantasy or imagination is denominated from φῶς, which denotes
light; for as light discovers itself and all other things which it
illuminates, so this imagination discovers itself and that which is
the cause of it. The imaginable is the efficient cause of imagination;
as any thing that is white, or any thing that is cold, or every thing
that may make an impression upon the imagination. Fancy is a vain
impulse upon the mind of man, proceeding from nothing which is really
imaginable; this is experienced in those that whirl about their idle
hands and fight with shadows; for to the imagination there is always
some real imaginable thing presented, which is the efficient cause of
it; but to the fancy nothing. A phantom is that to which we are led by
such a fanciful and vain attraction; this is to be seen in melancholy
and distracted persons. Of this sort was Orestes in the tragedy,
pronouncing these words:
Mother, these maids with horror me affright;
Oh hurl them not, I pray, into my sight!
They’re smeared with blood, and cruel, dragon-like,
Skipping about with deadly fury strike.
These rave as frantic persons, they see nothing, and yet imagine they
see. Thence Electra thus returns to him:
O wretched man, securely sleep in bed;
Nothing thou seest, thy fancy’s vainly led.[44]
After the same manner Theoclymenus in Homer.
CHAPTER XIII.
OF OUR SIGHT, AND BY WHAT MEANS WE SEE.
Democritus and Epicurus suppose that sight is caused by the insinuation
of little images into the visive organ, and by the entrance of certain
rays which return to the eye after striking upon the object. Empedocles
supposes that images are mixed with the rays of the eye; these he
styles the rays of images. Hipparchus, that the visual rays extend
from both the eyes to the superficies of bodies, and give to the sight
the apprehension of those same bodies, after the same manner in which
the hand touching the extremity of bodies gives the sense of feeling.
Plato, that the sight is the splendor of united rays; there is a light
which reaches some distance from the eyes into a congruous air, and
there is likewise a light emitted from bodies, which meets and is
joined with the fiery visual light in the intermediate air (which is
liquid and mutable); and the conjunction of these rays gives the sense
of seeing. This is Plato’s corradiancy, or splendor of united rays.
CHAPTER XIV.
OF THOSE IMAGES WHICH ARE PRESENTED TO OUR EYES IN MIRRORS.
Empedocles says that these images are caused by certain effluvias
which, meeting together and insisting upon the superficies of the
mirror, are perfected by that fiery quality emitted by the said mirror,
which transmutes withal the air that surrounds it. Democritus and
Epicurus, that the specular appearances are formed by the subsistence
of the images which flow from our eyes; these fall upon the mirror
and remain, while the light rebounds to the eye. The followers of
Pythagoras explain it by the reflection of the sight; for our sight
being extended (as it were) to the brass, and meeting with the smooth
dense surface thereof it is struck back, and caused to return upon
itself: the same appears in the hand, when it is stretched out and then
brought back again to the shoulder. Any one may apply these instances
to explain the manner of seeing.
CHAPTER XV.
WHETHER DARKNESS CAN BE VISIBLE TO US.
The Stoics say that darkness is seen by us, for out of our eyes there
issues out some light into it; and our eyes do not impose upon us,
for they really perceive there is darkness. Chrysippus says that we
see darkness by the striking of the intermediate air; for the visual
spirits which proceed from the principal part of the soul and reach to
the ball of the eye pierce this air, which, after they have made those
strokes upon it, presses conically on the surrounding air, where this
is homogeneous. For from the eyes those rays are poured forth which are
neither black nor cloudy. Upon this account darkness is visible to us
CHAPTER XVI.
OF HEARING.
Empedocles says that hearing is formed by the insidency of the air
upon the spiral, which it is said hangs within the ear as a bell, and
is beat upon by the air. Alcmaeon, that the vacuity that is within
the ear makes us to have the sense of hearing, for the air forcing a
vacuum gives the sound; every inanity affords a ringing. Diogenes, the
air which is in the head, being struck upon by the voice, gives the
hearing. Plato and his followers, the air which exists in the head
being struck upon, is reflected to the principal part of the soul, and
this causeth the sense of hearing.
CHAPTER XVII.
OF SMELLING.
Alcmaeon believes that the principal part of the soul, residing in the
brain, draws to itself odors by respiration. Empedocles, that scents
insert themselves into the breathing of the lungs; for, when there is a
great difficulty in breathing, odors are not perceived by reason of the
sharpness; and this we experience in those who have the defluxion of
rheum.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OF TASTE.
Alcmaeon says that a moist warmth in the tongue, joined with the
softness of it, gives the difference of taste. Diogenes, that by the
softness and sponginess of the tongue, and because the veins of the
body are joined in it, tastes are diffused by the tongue; for they are
attracted from it to that sense and to the commanding part of the soul,
as from a sponge.
CHAPTER XIX.
OF THE VOICE.
Plato thus defines a voice,—that it is a breath drawn by the mind
through the mouth, and a blow given to the air and through the
ear, brain, and blood transmitted to the soul. Voice is abusively
attributed to irrational and inanimate beings; thus we improperly
call the neighing of horses or any other sound by the name of voice.
But properly a voice (φωνή) is an articulate sound, which illustrates
(φωτίζει) the understanding of man. Epicurus says that it is an efflux
emitted from things that are vocal, or that give sounds or great
noises; this is broken into those fragments which are after the same
configuration. Like figures are round figures with round, and irregular
and triangular with those of the same nature. These falling upon the
ears produce the sense of hearing. This is seen in leaking vessels, and
in fullers when they fan or blow their cloths.
Democritus, that the air is broken into bodies of similar
configuration, and these are rolled up and down with the fragments of
the voice; as it is proverbially said, One daw lights with another, or,
God always brings like to like. Thus we see upon the shore, that stones
like to one another are found in the same place, in one place the
long-shaped, in another the round are seen. So in sieves, things that
are of the same form meet together, but those that are different are
divided; as pulse and beans falling from the same sieve are separated
one from another. To this it may be objected: How can some fragments of
air fill a theatre in which there is an infinite company of persons?
The Stoics, that the air is not composed of small fragments, but is a
continued body and nowhere admits a vacuum; and being struck with the
breath, it is infinitely moved in waves and in right circles, until it
fill that air which invests it; as we see in a fish-pool which we smite
by a falling stone cast upon it; yet the air is moved spherically, the
water orbicularly. Anaxagoras says a voice is then formed, when upon a
solid air the breath is incident, which being repercussed is carried to
the ears; after the same manner the echo is produced.
CHAPTER XX.
WHETHER THE VOICE IS INCORPOREAL. WHAT IS IT THAT GIVES THE ECHO?
Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle say that the voice is incorporeal; for
it is not the air that makes the voice, but the figure which compasseth
the air and its superficies, having received a stroke, give the voice.
But every superficies of itself is incorporeal. True it is that it
moveth with the body, but of itself it hath no body; as we perceive
in a staff that is bended, the matter only admits of an inflection,
while the superficies doth not. According to the Stoics, a voice is
corporeal, since every thing that is an agent or operates is a body; a
voice acts and operates, for we hear it and are sensible of it; for it
falls and makes an impression on the ear, as a seal of a ring gives its
similitude upon the wax. Moreover, every thing that creates a delight
or molestation is a body; harmonious music affects with delight, but
discord is tiresome. And every thing that is moved is a body; and the
voice moves, and having its illapse upon smooth places is reflected, as
when a ball is cast against a wall it rebounds. A voice spoken in the
Egyptian pyramids is so broken, that it gives four or five echoes.
CHAPTER XXI.
BY WHAT MEANS THE SOUL IS SENSIBLE, AND WHAT IS THE PRINCIPAL AND
COMMANDING PART OF IT.
The Stoics say that the highest part of the soul is the commanding
part of it: this is the cause of sense, imagination, consents, and
desires; and this we call the rational part. From this principal and
commander there are produced seven parts of the soul, which are spread
through the body, as the seven arms in a polypus. Of these seven parts,
five are assigned to the senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting,
touching. Sight is a spirit which is extended from the commanding
part to the eyes; hearing is that spirit which from the principal
reacheth to the ears; smelling a spirit drawn from the principal to the
nostrils; tasting a spirit extended from the principal to the tongue;
touching is a spirit which from the principal is drawn to the extremity
of those bodies which are obnoxious to a sensible touch. Of the rest,
the one called the spermatical is a spirit which reacheth from the
principal to the generating vessels; the other, which is the vocal
and termed the voice, is a spirit extended from the principal to the
throat, tongue, and other proper organs of speaking. And this principal
part itself hath that place in our spherical head which God hath in the
world.
CHAPTER XXII.
OF RESPIRATION OR BREATHING.
Empedocles thinks, that the first breath the first animal drew was
when the moisture in unborn infants was separated, and by that means
an entrance was given to the external air into the gaping vessels, the
moisture in them being evacuated. After this the natural heat, in a
violent force pressing upon the external air for a passage, begets an
expiration; but this heat returning to the inward parts, and the air
giving way to it, causeth an inspiration. The respiration that now is
arises when the blood is carried to the exterior surface, and by this
fluxion drives the airy substance through the nostrils; thus in its
recess it causeth expiration, but the air being again forced into those
places which are emptied of blood, it causeth an inspiration. To evince
which, he proposeth the instance of a water-clock which gives the
account of time by the running of water.
Asclepiades supposeth the lungs to be in the manner of a tunnel, and
maketh the cause of breathing to be the fineness of the inward parts of
the breast; for thither the outward air which is more gross hastens,
but is forced backward, the breast not being capable either to receive
or want it. But there being always some of the more tenuous parts of
the air left, so that all of it is not exploded, to that which there
remains the more ponderous external air with equal violence is forced;
and this he compares to cupping-glasses. All spontaneous breathings are
formed by the contracting of the smaller pores of the lungs, and to the
closing up of the pipes in the neck; for these are at our command.
Herophilus attributes a moving faculty to the nerves, arteries, and
muscles, but believes that the lungs are affected only with a natural
desire of enlarging and contracting themselves. Farther, there is the
first operation of the lungs by attraction of the outward air, which is
drawn in because of the abundance of the external air. Next to this,
there is a second natural appetite of the lungs; the breast, pouring in
upon itself the breath, and being filled, is no longer able to make an
attraction, and throws the superfluity of it upon the lungs, whereby
it is in turn sent forth by way of expiration; the parts of the body
mutually concurring to this function by the alternate participation of
fulness and emptiness. So that to lungs pertain four motions;—first,
when the lungs receive the outward air; secondly, when the outward air
thus entertained is transmitted to the breast; thirdly, when the lungs
again receive that air which they imparted to the breast; fourthly,
when this air then received from the breast is thrown outwards. Of
these four motions two are dilatations, one when the lungs attract the
external air, another when the breast dischargeth itself of it upon the
lungs; two are contractions, one when the breast draws into itself the
air, the second when it expels this which was insinuated into it. The
breast admits only of two motions;—of dilatation, when it draws from
the lungs the breath, and of contraction, when it returns what it did
receive.
CHAPTER XXIII.
OF THE PASSIONS OF THE BODY, AND WHETHER THE SOUL HATH A SYMPATHETICAL
CONDOLENCY WITH IT.
The Stoics say that all the passions are seated in those parts of
the body which are affected, the senses have their residence in the
commanding part of the soul. Epicurus, that all the passions and all
the senses are in those parts which are affected, but the commanding
part is subject to no passion. Strato, that all the passions and senses
of the soul are in the rational or commanding part of it, and are not
fixed in those places which are affected; for in this part patience
takes its residence, and this is apparent in terrible and dolorous
things, as also in timorous and valiant persons.
BOOK V.
CHAPTER I.
OF DIVINATION.
Plato and the Stoics introduce divination as a divine enthusiasm, the
soul itself being of a divine constitution, and this prophetic faculty
being an inspiration, or an illapse of the divine knowledge into man;
and so likewise they explain interpretation by dreams. And these same
admit many divisions of the art of divination. Xenophanes and Epicurus
utterly refuse any such art of foretelling future contingencies.
Pythagoras rejects all manner of divination which is by sacrifices.
Aristotle and Dicaearchus admit only these two kinds of it, a fury by a
divine inspiration, and dreams; they deny the immortality of the soul,
yet they affirm that the mind of man hath a participation of something
that is divine.
CHAPTER II.
WHENCE DREAMS DO ARISE.
Democritus says that dreams are formed by the illapse of adventitious
representations. Strato, that the irrational part of the soul in sleep
becoming more sensible is moved by the rational part of it. Herophilus,
that dreams which are caused by divine instinct have a necessary cause;
but dreams which have their origin from a natural cause arise from
the soul’s forming within itself the images of those things which are
convenient for it, and which will happen; those dreams which are of a
constitution mixed of both these have their origin from the fortuitous
appulse of images, as when we see those things which please us; thus
it happens many times to those persons who in their sleep imagine they
embrace their mistresses.
CHAPTER III.
OF THE NATURE OF GENERATIVE SEED.
Aristotle says, that seed is that thing which contains in itself a
power of moving, whereby it is enabled to produce a being like unto
that from whence it was emitted. Pythagoras, that seed is the sediment
of that which nourisheth us, the froth of the purest blood, of the
same nature as the blood and marrow of our bodies. Alcmaeon, that it
is a part of the brain. Plato, that it is the deflux of the spinal
marrow. Epicurus, that it is a fragment torn from the body and soul.
Democritus, that it proceeds from all the parts of the body, and
chiefly from the principal parts, as the flesh and muscles.
CHAPTER IV.
WHETHER THE SPERM BE A BODY.
Leucippus and Zeno say, that it is a body and a fragment of the
soul. Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, that the spermatic faculty
is incorporeal, as the mind is which moves the body; but the effused
matter is corporeal. Strato and Democritus, that the very power is a
body; for it is like spirit.
CHAPTER V.
WHETHER WOMEN DO GIVE A SPERMATIC EMISSION AS MEN DO.
Pythagoras, Epicurus, and Democritus say, that women have a seminal
projection, but their spermatic vessels are inverted; and it is this
that makes them have a venereal appetite. Aristotle and Plato, that
they emit a material moisture, as sweat we see produced by exercise and
labor; but that moisture has no spermatic power. Hippo, that women
have a seminal emission, but not after the mode of men; it contributes
nothing to generation, for it falls without the matrix; and therefore
some women without coition, especially widows, give the seed. The same
also asserts that from men the bones, from women the flesh proceeds.
CHAPTER VI.
HOW IT IS THAT CONCEPTIONS ARE MADE.
Aristotle says, that conception takes place when the womb is drawn
forward by the natural purgation, and the monthly terms attract from
the whole bulk part of the purest blood, and this is met by the genital
seed of man. On the contrary, there is a failure by the impurity and
inflation of the womb, by the passions of fear and grief, by the
weakness of women, or the decay of strength in men.
CHAPTER VII.
AFTER WHAT MANNER MALES AND FEMALES ARE GENERATED.
Empedocles affirms, that heat and cold give the difference in the
generation of males and females. Hence is it, as histories acquaint us,
that the first men had their original from the earth in the eastern and
southern parts, and the first females in the northern parts thereof.
Parmenides is of opinion perfectly contrariant. He affirms that men
first sprouted out of the northern earth, for their bodies are more
dense; women out of the southern, for theirs are more rare and fine.
Hippo, that the more compacted and strong sperm, and the more fluid and
weak, discriminate the sexes. Anaxagoras and Parmenides, that the seed
of the man is naturally cast from his right side into the right side
of the womb, or from the left side of the man into the left side of
the womb; when there is an alteration in this course of nature, females
are generated. Cleophanes, whom Aristotle makes mention of, assigns
the generation of men to the right testicle, of women to the left.
Leucippus gives the reason of it to the alteration or diversity of
parts, according to which the man hath a yard, the female the matrix;
as to any other reason he is silent. Democritus, that the parts which
are common to both sexes are engendered indifferently by one or the
other; but the peculiar parts by the one that is more prevalent. Hippo,
that if the spermatic faculty be more effectual, the male, if the
nutritive aliment, the female is generated.
CHAPTER VIII.
BY WHAT MEANS IT IS THAT MONSTROUS BIRTHS ARE EFFECTED.
Empedocles believes that monsters receive their origination from the
abundance or defect of seed, or from its division into parts which are
superabundant, or from some perturbation in the motion, or else that
there is an error by a lapse into an improper receptacle; and thus he
presumes he hath given all the causes of monstrous conceptions. Strato,
that it comes from addition, subtraction, or transposition of the seed,
or the distension or inflation of the matrix. And some physicians say
that the matrix suffers distortion, being distended with wind.
CHAPTER IX.
HOW IT COMES TO PASS THAT A WOMAN’S TOO FREQUENT CONVERSATION WITH A
MAN HINDERS CONCEPTION.
Diocles the physician says that either no genital sperm is projected,
or, if there be, it is in a less quantity than nature requires, or
there is no prolific faculty in it; or there is a deficiency of a
due proportion of heat, cold, moisture, and dryness; or there is a
resolution of the generative parts. The Stoics attribute sterility to
the obliquity of the yard, by which means it is not able to ejaculate
in a due manner, or to the unproportionable magnitude of the parts,
the matrix being so contracted as not to be in a capacity to receive.
Erasistratus assigns it to the womb’s being more callous or more
carneous, thinner or smaller, than nature does require.
CHAPTER X.
WHENCE IT IS THAT ONE BIRTH GIVES TWO OR THREE CHILDREN.
Empedocles affirms, that the superabundance of sperm and the division
of it causes the bringing forth of two or three infants. Asclepiades,
that it is performed from the excellent quality of the sperm, after
the manner that from the root of one barleycorn two or three stalks do
grow; sperm that is of this quality is the most prolific. Erasistratus,
that superfetation may happen to women as to irrational creatures; for,
if the womb be well purged and very clean, then there may be divers
births. The Stoics, that it ariseth from the various receptacles that
are in the womb: when the seed illapses into the first and second of
them at once, then there are conceptions upon conception; and so two or
three infants are born.
CHAPTER XI.
WHENCE IT IS THAT CHILDREN REPRESENT THEIR PARENTS AND PROGENTITORS.
Empedocles says, that the similitude of children to their parents
proceeds from the vigorous prevalency of the generating sperm; the
dissimilitude from the evaporation of the natural heat contained in
the same. Parmenides, that when the sperm descends from the right side
of the womb, then the infant gives the resemblance of the father; if
from the left, it is stamped with the similitude of the mother. The
Stoics, that the whole body and soul give the sperm; and hence arise
the resemblances in the characters and figures of the children, as a
painter in his copy imitates the colors which are in the picture before
him. Women have a concurrent emission of seed; if the feminine seed
have the predominancy, then the child resembles the mother; if the
masculine, the father.
CHAPTER XII.
HOW IT COMES TO PASS THAT CHILDREN HAVE A GREATER SIMILITUDE WITH
STRANGERS THAN WITH THEIR PARENTS.
The greatest part of physicians affirm, that this happens casually and
fortuitously; for, when the sperm of the man and woman is too much
refrigerated, then children carry a dissimilitude to their parents.
Empedocles, that a woman’s imagination when she conceives impresses
a shape upon the infant; for women have been enamored with images
and statues, and the children which were born of them gave their
similitudes. The Stoics, that the resemblances flow from the sympathy
and consent of minds, by the insertion of effluvias and rays, not of
images or pictures.
CHAPTER XIII.
WHENCE ARISETH BARRENNESS IN WOMEN, AND IMPOTENCY IN MEN?
The physicians maintain, that sterility in women may arise from the
womb; for if it be after any ways thus affected, there will be
barrenness,—if it be more condensed, or more spongy, or more hardened,
or more callous, or more carneous; or it may be from low spirits,
or from an atrophy or vicious distemper of body; or, lastly, it may
arise from a twisted or distorted configuration. Diocles holds that
the sterility in men ariseth from some of these causes,—either that
they cannot at all ejaculate any sperm, or if they do, it is less
than nature doth require, or else there is no generative faculty in
the sperm, or the genital members are flagging; or from the obliquity
of the yard. The Stoics attribute the cause of sterility to the
contrariant qualities and dispositions of those who lie with one
another; but if it chance that these persons are separated, and there
happen a conjunction of those who are of a suitable temperament, then
there is a commixture according to nature, and by this means an infant
is formed.
CHAPTER XIV.
HOW IF COMES TO PASS THAT MULES ARE BARREN.
Alcmaeon says, that the barrenness of the male mules ariseth from the
thinness of the genital sperm, that is, the seed is too chill; the
female mules are barren, for their womb does not open its mouth (as
he expresses it). Empedocles, the matrix of the mule is so small, so
depressed, so narrow, so invertedly growing to the belly, that the
sperm cannot be regularly cast into it, and if it could, there would be
no capacity to receive it. Diocles concurs in this opinion with him;
for, saith he, in our anatomical dissection of mules we have seen that
their matrices are of such configurations; and it is possible that
there may be the same reason why some women are barren.
CHAPTER XV.
WHETHER THE INFANT IN THE MOTHER’S WOMB BE AN ANIMAL.
Plato says, that the embryo is an animal; for, being contained in the
mother’s womb, motion and aliment are imparted to it. The Stoics say
that it is not an animal, but to be accounted part of the mother’s
belly; like as we see the fruit of trees is esteemed part of the
trees, until it be full ripe; then it falls and ceaseth to belong to
the tree; and thus it is with the embryo. Empedocles, that the embryo
is not an animal, yet whilst it remains in the belly it breathes. The
first breath that it draws as an animal is when the infant is newly
born; then the child having its moisture separated, the extraneous
air making an entrance into the empty places, a respiration is caused
in the infant by the empty vessels receiving of it. Diogenes, that
infants are bred in the matrix inanimate, yet they have a natural
heat; but presently, when the infant is cast into the open air, its
heat draws air into the lungs, and so it becomes an animal. Herophilus
acknowledgeth that infants have a natural, but not a respiratory
motion, and that the nerves are the cause of that motion; that then
they become animals, when being first born they suck in something of
the air.
CHAPTER XVI.
HOW EMBRYOS ARE NOURISHED, OR HOW THE INFANT IN THE BELLY RECEIVES ITS
ALIMENT.
Democritus and Epicurus say, that the embryos in the womb receive their
aliment by the mouth, for we perceive, as soon as ever the infant is
born, it applies its mouth to the breast; in the wombs of women (our
understanding concludes) there are little dugs, and the embryos have
small mouths by which they receive their nutriment. The Stoics, that
by the secundines and navel they partake of aliment, and therefore the
midwife instantly after their birth binds the navel, and opens the
infant’s mouth, that it may receive another sort of aliment. Alcmaeon,
that they receive their nourishment from every part of the body; as a
sponge sucks in water.
CHAPTER XVII.
WHAT PART OF THE BODY IS FIRST FORMED IN THE WOMB.
The Stoics believe that the greater part is formed at the same time.
Aristotle, as the keel of a ship is first made, so the first part that
is formed is the loins. Alcmaeon, the head, for that is the commanding
and the principal part of the body. The physicians, the heart, in which
are the veins and arteries. Some think the great toe is first formed;
others affirm the navel.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHENCE IS IT THAT INFANTS BORN IN THE SEVENTH MONTH ARE BORN ALIVE.
Empedocles says, that when the human race took first its original from
the earth, the sun was so slow in its motion that then one day in its
length was equal to ten months, as now they are; in process of time one
day became as long as seven months are; and there is the reason that
those infants which are born at the end of seven months or ten months
are born alive, the course of nature so disposing that the infant
shall be brought to maturity in one day after that night in which it
is begotten. Timaeus says, that we count not ten months but nine, by
treason that we reckon the first conception from the retention of
the menstruas; and so it may generally pass for seven months when
really there are not seven; for it sometimes happens that even after
conception a woman is purged in some degree. Polybus, Diocles, and the
Empirics acknowledge that the eighth month gives a vital birth to the
infant, though the life of it is more faint and languid; many therefore
we see born in that month die out of mere weakness. Though we see many
born in that month arrive at the state of man, yet (they affirm) if
children be born in that month, none are willing to rear them.
Aristotle and Hippocrates, that if the womb is grown full in seven
months, then the child falls from the mother and is born alive; but if
it falls from her but is not properly nourished, the navel being weak
on account of the heavy burden of the infant, then it doth not thrive;
but if the infant continues nine months in the womb, and then breaks
forth from the woman, it is entire and perfect. Polybus, that a hundred
and eighty-two days and a half suffice for the bringing forth of a
living child; that is, six months, in which space of time the sun moves
from one tropic to the other; and this is called seven months, for the
days which are overplus in the sixth are accounted to give the seventh
month. Those children which are born in the eighth month cannot live,
for, the infant then falling from the womb, the navel, which is the
cause of nourishment, is thereby too much stretched; and is the reason
that the infant languishes and hath an atrophy. The astrologers, that
eight months are enemies to every birth, seven are friends and kind
to it. The signs of the zodiac are then enemies, when they fall upon
those stars which are lords of houses; whatever infant is then born
will have a life short and unfortunate. Those signs of the zodiac which
are malevolent and injurious to generation are those pairs of which
the last is reckoned the eighth from the first, as the first and the
eighth, the second and the ninth, &c.; so is the Ram unsociable with
Scorpio, the Bull with Sagittarius, the Twins with the Goat, the Crab
with Aquarius, the Lion with Pisces, the Virgin with the Ram. Upon this
reason those infants that are born in the seventh or tenth months are
like to live, but those in the eighth month will die.
CHAPTER XIX.
OF THE GENERATION OF ANIMALS, HOW ANIMALS ARE BEGOTTEN, AND WHETHER
THEY ARE OBNOXIOUS TO CORRUPTION.
Those philosophers who entertain the opinion that the world had
an original do likewise assert that all animals are generated and
corruptible. The followers of Epicurus, who gives an eternity to the
world, affirm the generation of animals ariseth from the various
permutation of parts mutually among themselves, for they are parts of
this world. With them Anaxagoras and Euripides concur:
For nothing dies,
But different changes give their various forms.
Anaximander’s opinion is, that the first animals were generated in
moisture, and were enclosed in bark on which thorns grew; but in
process of time they came upon dry land, and this thorny bark with
which they were covered being broken, they lived for a short space of
time. Empedocles says, that the first generation of animals and plants
was by no means completed, for the parts were disjoined and would not
admit of a union; the second preparation for their being generated was
when their parts were united and appeared in the form of images; the
third preparation for generation was when their parts mutually amongst
themselves gave a being to one another; the fourth, when there was no
longer a mixture of similar elements (like earth and water), but a
union of animals among themselves,—in some the nourishment being made
dense, in others female beauty provoking a lust of spermatic motion.
All sorts of animals are discriminated by their proper temperament and
constitution; some are carried by a proper appetite and inclination to
water; some, which partake of a more fiery quality, to breathe in the
air; those that are heavier incline to the earth; but those animals
whose parts are of a just and equal temperament are fitted equally for
all places.
CHAPTER XX.
HOW MANY SPECIES OF ANIMALS THERE ARE, AND WHETHER ALL ANIMALS HAVE THE
ENDOWMENTS OF SENSE AND REASON.
There is a certain treatise of Aristotle, in which animals are
distributed into four kinds, terrestrial, aqueous, fowl, and heavenly;
and he calls the stars and the world also animals, yea, and God himself
he defines to be an animal endowed with reason and immortal. Democritus
and Epicurus esteem all animals rational which have their residence in
the heavens. Anaxagoras says that animals have only that reason which
is operative, but not that which is passive, which is justly styled the
interpreter of the mind, and is like the mind itself. Pythagoras and
Plato, that the souls of all those who are styled brutes are rational;
but by the evil constitution of their bodies, and because they have
a want of a discoursive faculty, they do not act rationally. This is
manifested in apes and dogs, which have voice but not speech. Diogenes,
that this sort of animals are partakers of intelligence and air, but
by reason of the density in some parts of them, and by the superfluity
of moisture in others, they enjoy neither understanding nor sense; but
they are affected as madmen are, the commanding rational part being
defectuous and impeached.
CHAPTER XXI.
WHAT TIME IS REQUIRED TO SHAPE THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN THE WOMB.
Empedocles believes, that the joints of men begin to be formed from
the thirty-sixth day, and their shape is completed in the nine and
fortieth. Asclepiades, that male embryos, by reason of a greater
natural heat, have their joints begun to be formed in the twenty-sixth
day,—many even sooner,—and that they are completed in all their parts
on the fiftieth day; the parts of the females are articulated in two
months, but by the defect of heat are not consummated till the fourth;
but the members of brutes are completed at various times, according to
the commixture of the elements of which they consist.
CHAPTER XXII.
OF WHAT ELEMENTS EACH OF THE MEMBERS OF US MEN IS COMPOSED.
Empedocles says, that the fleshy parts of us are constituted by the
contemperation of the four elements in us; earth and fire mixed with a
double proportion of water make the nerves; but when it happens that
the nerves are refrigerated where they meet the air, then the nails are
made; the bones are produced by two parts of water and the same of air,
with four parts of fire and the same of earth, duly mixed together;
sweat and tears flow from the liquefaction of these bodies of ours.
CHAPTER XXIII.
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF SLEEP AND DEATH?
Alcmaeon says, that sleep is caused when the blood retreats to the
concourse of the veins, but when the blood diffuses itself, then we
awake; and when there is a total retirement of the blood, then men die.
Empedocles, that a moderate cooling of the blood causeth sleep, but a
total remotion of heat from blood causeth death. Diogenes, that when
all the blood is so diffused as that it fills all the veins, and forces
the air contained in them to the back and to the belly that is below
it, the breast being thereby more heated, thence sleep arises; but if
every thing that is airy in the breast forsakes the veins, then death
succeeds. Plato and the Stoics, that sleep ariseth from the relaxation
of the sensitive spirit, it not receiving such total remission as if
it fell to the earth, but so that that spirit is carried about the
intestine parts of the eyebrows, in which the principal part has its
residence; but when there is a total remission of the sensitive spirit,
then death ensues.
CHAPTER XXIV.
WHEN AND FROM WHENCE THE PERFECTION OF A MAN COMMENCES.
Heraclitus and the Stoics say, that men begin their completeness when
the second septenary of years begins, about which time the seminal
serum is emitted. Trees first begin their perfection when they give
their seeds; till then they are immature, imperfect, and unfruitful.
After the same manner a man is completed in the second septenary
of years, and is capable of learning what is good and evil, and of
discipline therein.
CHAPTER XXV.
WHETHER SLEEP OR DEATH APPERTAINS TO THE SOUL OR BODY.
Aristotle’s opinion is, that both the soul and body sleep; and this
proceeds from the moisture in the breast, which doth steam and arise
in the manner of a vapor into the head, and from the aliment in the
stomach, whose natural heat is cooled in the heart. Death is the
perfect refrigeration of all heat in the body; but death is only of
the body, and not of the soul, for the soul is immortal. Anaxagoras
thinks, that sleep makes the operations of the body to cease; it is a
corporeal passion and affects not the soul. Death is the separation of
the soul from the body. Leucippus, that sleep is only of the body; but
when the smaller particles cause immoderate evaporation from the soul’s
heat, this makes death; but these affections of death and sleep are of
the body, not of the soul. Empedocles, that death is nothing else but
separation of those fiery parts by which man is composed, and according
to this sentiment both body and soul die; but sleep is only a smaller
separation of the fiery qualities.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HOW PLANTS GROW, AND WHETHER THEY ARE ANIMALS.
Plato and Empedocles believe, that plants are animals, and are informed
with a soul; of this there are clear arguments, for they have tossing
and shaking, and their branches are extended; when the woodmen bend
them they yield, but they return to their former straightness and
strength again when they are let loose, and even draw up weights that
are laid upon them. Aristotle doth grant that they live, but not that
they are animals; for animals are affected with appetite, sense, and
reason. The Stoics and Epicureans deny that they are informed with a
soul; by reason that all sorts of animals have either sense, appetite,
or reason; but plants move fortuitously, and not by means of any soul.
Empedocles, that the first of all animals were trees, and they sprang
from the earth before the sun in its glory enriched the world, and
before day and night were distinguished; but by the harmony which is
in their constitution they partake of a masculine and feminine nature;
and they increase by that heat which is exalted out of the earth, so
that they are parts belonging to it, as embryos in the womb are parts
of the womb. Fruits in plants are excrescences proceeding from water
and fire; but the plants which have a deficiency of water, when this
is dried up by the heat of summer, lose their leaves; whereas they
that have plenty thereof keep their leaves on still, as the olive,
laurel, and palm. The differences of their moisture and juice arise
from the difference of particles and various other causes, and they
are discriminated by the various particles that feed them. And this
is apparent in vines; for the excellence of wine flows not from the
difference in the vines, but from the soil from whence they receive
their nutriment.
CHAPTER XXVII.
OF NOURISHMENT AND GROWTH.
EMPEDOCLES believes, that animals are nourished by the
remaining in them of that which is proper to their own nature; they are
augmented by the application of heat; and the subtraction of either
of these makes them to languish and decay. The stature of men in this
present age, if compared with the magnitude of those men which were
first produced, is no other than a mere infancy.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
WHENCE IT IS THAT IN ANIMALS THERE ARE APPETITES AND PLEASURES.
Empedocles says that the want of those elements which compose animals
gives to them appetite, and pleasures spring from humidity. As to the
motions of dangers and such like things, as perturbations, &c....
CHAPTER XXIX.
WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF A FEVER, OR WHETHER IT IS AN AFFECTION OF THE BODY
ANNEXED TO A PRIMARY PASSION.
Erasistratus gives this definition of a fever: A fever is a quick
motion of blood, not produced by our consent, which enters into the
vessels proper unto the vital spirits. This we see in the sea; it is
in a serene calm when nothing disturbs it, but is in motion when a
violent preternatural wind blows upon it, and then it rageth and is
circled with waves. After this manner it is in the body of man; when
the blood is in a nimble agitation, then it falls upon those vessels
in which the spirits are, and there being in an extraordinary heat,
it fires the whole body. The opinion that a fever is an appendix to a
preceding affection pleaseth him. Diocles proceeds after this manner:
Those things which are internal and latent are manifested by those
which externally break forth and appear; and it is clear to us that a
fever is annexed to certain outward affections, for example, to wounds,
inflaming tumors, inguinary abscesses.
CHAPTER XXX.
OF HEALTH, SICKNESS, AND OLD AGE.
Alcmaeon says that the preserver of health is an equal proportion of
the qualities of heat, moisture, cold, dryness, bitterness, sweetness,
and the other qualities; on the contrary, the prevailing empire of one
above the rest is the cause of diseases and author of destruction. The
efficient cause of disease is the excess of heat or cold, the material
cause is superabundance or defect, the place is the blood or brain.
But health is the harmonious commixture of the elements. Diocles, that
sickness for the most part proceeds from the irregular disposition of
the elements in the body, for that makes an ill habit or constitution
of it. Erasistratus, that sickness is caused by the excess of food,
indigestion, and corruptions; on the contrary, health is the moderation
of the diet, and the taking that which is convenient and sufficient for
us. It is the unanimous opinion of the Stoics that the want of heat
brings old age, for (they say) those persons in whom heat more abounds
live the longer. Asclepiades, that the Ethiopians soon grow old, and
at thirty years of age are ancient men, their bodies being excessively
heated and scorched by the sun; in Britain persons live a hundred and
twenty years, on account of the coldness of the country, and because
the people contain the fiery element within their bodies; for the
bodies of the Ethiopians are more fine and thin, because they are
relaxed by the sun’s heat, while they who live in northern countries
have a contrary state of their bodies, for they are condensed and
robust, and by consequence live the longer.
A BREVIATE OF A DISCOURSE, SHOWING THAT THE STOICS SPEAK GREATER
IMPROBABILITIES THAN THE POETS.
1. Pindar’s Caeneus hath been taken to task by several, being
improbably feigned, impenetrable by steel and impassible in his body,
and so
Descending into hell without a wound,
And with sound foot parting in two the ground.
But the Stoics’ Lapithes, as if they had carved him out of the
very adamantine matter of impassibility itself, though he is not
invulnerable, nor exempt from either sickness or pain, yet remains
fearless, regretless, invincible, and unconstrainable in the midst
of wounds, dolors, and torments, and in the very subversions of the
walls of his native city, and other such like great calamities. Again,
Pindar’s Caeneus is not wounded when struck; but the Stoics’ wise
man is not detained when shut up in a prison, suffers no compulsion
by being thrown down a precipice, is not tortured when on the rack,
takes no hurt by being maimed, and when he catches a fall in wrestling
he is still unconquered; when he is encompassed with a rampire,
he is not besieged; and when sold by his enemies, he is still not
made a prisoner. The wonderful man is like to those ships that have
inscribed upon them A PROSPEROUS VOYAGE, or PROTECTING
PROVIDENCE, or A PRESERVATIVE AGAINST DANGERS, and yet
for all that endure storms, and are miserably shattered and overturned.
2. Euripides’s Iolaus of a feeble, superannuated old man, by means of
a certain prayer, became on a sudden youthful and strong for battle;
but the Stoics’ wise man was yesterday most detestable and the worst of
villains, but to-day is changed on a sudden into a state of virtue, and
is become of a wrinkled, pale fellow, and, as Aeschylus speaks,
Of an old sickly wretch with stitch in’s back,
Distent with rending pains as on a rack,
a gallant, god-like, and beauteous person.
3. The Goddess Minerva took from Ulysses his wrinkles, baldness,
and deformity, to make him appear a handsome man. But these men’s
wise man, though old age quits not his body, but contrariwise still
lays on and heaps more upon it, though he remains (for instance)
hump-backed, toothless, one-eyed, is yet neither deformed, disfigured,
nor ill-favored. For as beetles are said to relinquish perfumes and to
pursue after ill scents; so Stoical love, having used itself to the
most foul and deformed persons, if by means of philosophy they change
into good form and comeliness, becomes presently disgusted.
4. He that in the Stoics’ account was in the forenoon (for example) the
worst man in the world is in the afternoon the best of men; and he that
falls asleep a very sot, dunce, miscreant, and brute, nay, by Jove, a
slave and a beggar to boot, rises up the same day a prince, a rich and
a happy man, and (which is yet more) a continent, just, determined,
and unprepossessed person;—not by shooting forth out of a young and
tender body a downy beard or the sprouting tokens of mature youth,
but by having in a feeble, soft, unmanful, and undetermined mind, a
perfect intellect, a consummate prudence, a godlike disposition, an
unprejudiced science, and an unalterable habit. All this time his
viciousness gives not the least ground in order to it, but he becomes
in an instant, I had almost said, of the vilest brute, a sort of hero,
genius, or God. For he that receives his virtue from the Stoics’
portico may say,
Ask what thou wilt, it shall be granted thee.[45]
It brings wealth along with it, it contains kingship in it, it confers
fortune; it renders men prosperous, and makes them to want nothing and
to have a sufficiency of every thing, though they have not one drachm
of silver in the house.
5. The fabular relations of the poets are so careful of decorum, that
they never leave a Hercules destitute of necessaries; but those still
spring, as out of some fountain, as well for him as for his companions.
But he that hath received of the Stoics Amalthaea becomes indeed a rich
man, but he begs his victuals of other men; he is a king, but resolves
syllogisms for hire; he is the only man that hath all things, but yet
he pays rent for the house he lives in, and oftentimes buys bread with
borrowed money, or else begs it of those that have nothing themselves.
6. The king of Ithaca begs with a design that none may know who he is,
and makes himself
As like a dirty sorry beggar[46]
as he can. But he that is of the Portico, while he bawls and cries out,
It is I only that am a king, It is I only that am a rich man, is yet
many times seen at other people’s doors saying:
On poor Hipponax, pray, some pity take.
Bestow an old cast coat for heaven’s sake;
I’m well nigh dead with cold, and all o’er quake.
PLUTARCH’S SYMPOSIACS.
BOOK I.
Some, my dear Sossius Senecio, imagine that this sentence, μισέω
μνάμονα συμπόταν, was principally designed against the stewards of
a feast, who are usually troublesome and press liquor too much upon
the guests. For the Dorians in Sicily (as I am informed) called the
steward μνάμονα, _a remembrancer_. Others think that this
proverb admonisheth the guests to forget every thing that is spoken
or done in company; and agreeably to this, the ancients used to
consecrate forgetfulness with a ferula to Bacchus, thereby intimating
that we should either not remember any irregularity committed in
mirth and company, or apply a gentle and childish correction to the
faults. But because you are of opinion that to forget absurdities is
indeed (as Euripides says) a piece of wisdom, but to deliver over to
oblivion all sort of discourse that merry meetings do usually produce
is not only repugnant to that endearing quality that most allow to
an entertainment, but against the known practice of the greatest
philosophers (for Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Speusippus, Epicurus,
Prytanis, Hieronymus, Dion the Academic, have thought it a worthy
and noble employment to deliver down to us those discourses they had
at table), and since it is your pleasure that I should gather up the
chiefest of those scattered topics which both at Rome and Greece
amidst our cups and feasting we have disputed on, in obedience to your
commands I have sent three books, each containing ten problems; and
the rest shall quickly follow, if these find good acceptance and do not
seem altogether foolish and impertinent.
_QUESTION I._
WHETHER MIDST OUR CUPS IT IS FIT TO TALK LEARNEDLY AND
PHILOSOPHIZE?
SOSSIUS SENECIO, ARISTO, PLUTARCH, CRATO, AND OTHERS.
1. The first question is, Whether at table it is allowable to
philosophize? For I remember at a supper at Athens this doubt was
started, whether at a merry meeting it was fit to use philosophical
discourse, and how far it might be used? And Aristo presently cried
out: What then, for heaven’s sake, are there any that banish philosophy
from company and wine? And I replied: Yes, sir, there are, and such
as with a grave scoff tell us that philosophy, like the matron of the
house, should never be heard at a merry entertainment; and commend
the custom of the Persians, who never let their wives appear, but
drink, dance, and wanton with their whores. This they propose for us
to imitate; they permit us to have mimics and music at our feasts, but
forbid philosophy; she, forsooth, being very unfit to be wanton with
us, and we in a bad condition to be serious. Isocrates the rhetorician,
when at a drinking bout some begged him to make a speech, only
returned: With those things in which I have skill the time doth not
suit; and in those things with which the time suits I have no skill.
2. And Crato cried out: By Bacchus, he was right in forswearing
talk, if he designed to make such long-winded discourses as would
have spoiled all mirth and conversation; but I do not think there is
the same reason to forbid philosophy as to take away rhetoric from
our feasts. For philosophy is quite of another nature; it is an art
of living, and therefore must be admitted into every part of our
conversation, into all our gay humors and our pleasures, to regulate
and adjust them, to proportion the time, and keep them from excess;
unless, perchance, upon the same scoffing pretence of gravity, they
would banish temperance, justice, and moderation. It is true, were we
to feast in a court-room, as those that entertained Orestes, and were
silence enjoined by law, that might prove a not unlucky cloak of our
ignorance; but if Bacchus is really λύσιος (_a looser_ of
every thing), and chiefly takes off all restraints and bridles from the
tongue, and gives the voice the greatest freedom, I think it is foolish
and absurd to deprive that time in which we are usually most talkative
of the most useful and profitable discourse; and in our schools to
dispute of the offices of company, in what consists the excellence
of a guest, how mirth, feasting, and wine are to be used, and yet
deny philosophy a place in these feasts, as if not able to confirm by
practice what by precepts it instructs.
3. And when you affirmed that none ought to oppose what Crato said, but
determine what sorts of philosophical topics were to be admitted as fit
companions at a feast, and so avoid that just and pleasant taunt put
upon the wrangling disputers of the age.
Come now to supper, that we may contend;
and when you seemed concerned and urged us to speak to that head, I
first replied: Sir, we must consider what company we have; for if
the greater part of the guests are learned men,—as for instance,
at Agatho’s entertainment, men like Socrates, Phaedrus, Pausanias,
Euryximachus; or at Callias’s board, Charmides, Antisthenes,
Hermogenes, and the like,—we will permit them to philosophize, and to
mix Bacchus with the Muses as well as with the Nymphs; for the latter
make him wholesome and gentle to the body, and the other pleasant
and agreeable to the soul. And if there are some few illiterate
persons present, they, as mute consonants with vowels, in the midst
of the other learned, will participate in a voice not altogether
inarticulate and insignificant. But if the greater part consists of
such who can better endure the noise of any bird, fiddle-string, or
piece of wood than the voice of a philosopher, Pisistratus hath shown
us what to do; for being at difference with his sons, when he heard
his enemies rejoiced at it, in a full assembly he declared that he had
endeavored to persuade his sons to submit to him, but since he found
them obstinate, he was resolved to yield and submit to their humors.
So a philosopher, midst those companions that slight his excellent
discourse, will lay aside his gravity, follow them, and comply with
their humor as far as decency will permit; knowing very well that
men cannot exercise their rhetoric unless they speak, but may their
philosophy even whilst they are silent or jest merrily, nay, whilst
they are piqued upon or repartee. For it is not only (as Plato says)
the highest degree of injustice not to be just and yet seem so; but
it is the top of wisdom to philosophize, yet not appear to do it; and
in mirth to do the same with those that are serious, and yet seem in
earnest. For as in Euripides, the Bacchae, though unprovided of iron
weapons and unarmed, wounded their invaders with their boughs, thus the
very jests and merry talk of true philosophers move and correct in some
sort those that are not altogether insensible.
4. I think there are topics fit to be used at table, some of which
reading and study give us, others the present occasion; some to incite
to study, others to piety and great and noble actions, others to make
us rivals of the bountiful and kind; which if a man cunningly and
without any apparent design inserts for the instruction of the rest,
he will free these entertainments from many of those considerable
evils which usually attend them. Some that put borage into the wine,
or sprinkle the floor with water in which verbena and maiden-hair have
been steeped, as good to raise mirth and jollity in the guests (in
imitation of Homer’s Helen, who with some medicament diluted the pure
wine she had prepared), do not understand that that fable, coming round
from Egypt, after a long way ends at last in easy and fit discourse.
For whilst they were drinking, Helen relates the story of Ulysses,
How Fortune’s spite the hero did control,
And bore his troubles with a manly soul.[47]
For that, in my opinion, was the Nepenthe, the care-dissolving
medicament,—that story exactly fitted to the then disasters and
juncture of affairs. The pleasing men, though they designedly and
apparently instruct, draw on their maxims with persuasive and smooth
arguments, rather than the violent force of demonstrations. You see
that even Plato in his Symposium, where he disputes of the chief end,
the chief good, and is altogether on subjects theological, doth not
lay down strong and close demonstrations; he doth not prepare himself
for the contest (as he is wont) like a wrestler, that he may take the
faster hold of his adversary and be sure of giving him the trip; but he
draws men on by more soft and pliable attacks, by pleasant fictions and
pat examples.
5. Besides, the questions should be easy, the problems known, the
interrogations plain and familiar, not intricate and dark, that they
might neither vex the unlearned, nor fright them from the disquisition.
For—as it is allowable to dissolve our entertainment into a dance, but
if we force our guests to pitch quoits or play at cudgels, we shall
not only make our feast unpleasant, but hurtful and unnatural—thus
light and easy disquisitions do pleasantly and profitably excite us,
but we must forbear all contentious and (to use Democritus’s word)
wrangling disputes, which perplex the proposers with intricate and
inexplicable doubts, and trouble all the others that are present. Our
discourse should be like our wine, common to all, and of which every
one may equally partake; and they that propose hard problems seem no
better fitted for society than Aesop’s fox and crane. For the fox vexed
the crane with thin broth poured out upon a flat stone, and laughed at
her when he saw her, by reason of the narrowness of her bill and the
thinness of the broth, incapable of partaking what he had prepared;
and the crane, in requital, inviting the fox to supper, brought forth
her dainties in a pot with a long and narrow neck, which she could
conveniently thrust her bill into, whilst the fox could not reach one
bit. Just so, when philosophers midst their cups dive into minute
and logical disputes, they are very troublesome to those that cannot
follow them through the same depths; and those that bring in idle
songs, trifling disquisitions, common talk, and mechanical discourse
destroy the very end of conversation and merry entertainments, and
abuse Bacchus. Therefore, as when Phrynichus and Aeschylus brought
tragedy to discourse of fables and misfortunes, it was asked, What is
this to Bacchus?—so methinks, when I hear some pedantically drawing
a syllogism into table-talk, I have reason to cry out, Sir, what is
this to Bacchus? Perchance one, the great bowl standing in the midst,
and the chaplets given round, which the God in token of the liberty
he bestows sets on every head, sings one of those songs called σκολιά
(_crooked_ or _obscure_); this is not fit nor agreeable
to a feast. Though some say these σκολιά were not dark and
intricate composures; but that the guests sang the first song all
together, praising Bacchus and describing the power of the God; and the
second each man sang singly in his turn, a myrtle bough being delivered
to every one in order, which they call an αἴσακον because he that
received it was obliged to sing (ᾄδειν); and after this a harp being
carried round the company, the skilful took it, and fitted the music
to the song; this when the unskilful could not perform, the song was
called σκολιόν, because it was hard to them, and one in which they
could not bear a part. Others say this myrtle bough was not delivered
in order, but from bed to bed; and when the uppermost of the first
table had sung, he sent it to the uppermost of the second, and he to
the uppermost of the third; and so the second in like manner to the
second; and from these many windings and this circuit it was called
σκολιόν, _crooked_.
_QUESTION II._
WHETHER THE ENTERTAINER SHOULD SEAT THE GUESTS, OR LET EVERY MAN
TAKE HIS OWN PLACE.
TIMON, A GUEST, PLUTARCH, PLUTARCH’S FATHER, LAMPRIAS, AND OTHERS.
1. My brother Timon, making a great entertainment, desired the guests
as they came to seat themselves; for he had invited strangers and
citizens, neighbors and acquaintance, and all sorts of persons to the
feast. A great many being already come, a certain stranger at last
appeared, dressed as fine as hands could make him, his clothes rich,
and an unseemly train of foot-boys at his heels; he walked up to the
parlor-door, and, staring round upon those that were already seated,
turned his back and scornfully retired; and when a great many stepped
after him and begged him to return, he said, I see no fit place left
for me. At that, the other guests (for the glasses had gone round)
laughed abundantly, and desired his room rather than his company.
2. But after supper, my father addressing himself to me, who sat at
another quarter of the table,—Timon, said he, and I have a dispute,
and you are to be judge, for I have been upon his skirts already about
that stranger; for if according to my directions he had seated every
man in his proper place, we had never been thought unskilful in this
matter, by one
Whose art is great in ordering horse and foot.[48]
And story says that Paulus Aemilius, after he had conquered Perseus
the king of Macedon, making an entertainment, besides his costly
furniture and extraordinary provision, was very critical in the order
of his feast; saying, It is the same man’s task to order a terrible
battle and a pleasing entertainment, for both of them require skill
in the art of disposing right. Homer often calls the stoutest and the
greatest princes κοσμήτορας λαῶν, _disposers of the people_; and
you use to say that the great Creator, by this art of disposing, turned
disorder into beauty, and neither taking away nor adding any new being,
but setting every thing in its proper place, out of the most uncomely
figure and confused chaos produced this beauteous, this surprising
face of nature that appears. In these great and noble doctrines indeed
you instruct us; but our own observation sufficiently assures us,
that the greatest profuseness in a feast appears neither delightful
nor genteel, unless beautified by order. And therefore it is absurd
that cooks and waiters should be solicitous what dish must be brought
first, what next, what placed in the middle, and what last; and that
the garlands, and ointment, and music (if they have any) should have
a proper place and order assigned, and yet that the guests should be
seated promiscuously, and no respect be had to age, honor, or the like;
no distinguishing order by which the man in dignity might be honored,
the inferior learn to give place, and the disposer be exercised in
distinguishing what is proper and convenient. For it is not rational
that, when we walk or sit down to discourse, the best man should have
the best place, and that the same order should not be observed at
table; or that the entertainer should in civility drink to one before
another, and yet make no difference in their seats, at the first dash
making the whole company one Myconus[49] (as they say), a hodge-podge
and confusion. This my father brought for his opinion.
3. And my brother said: I am not so much wiser than Bias, that, since
he refused to be arbitrator between two only of his friends, I should
pretend to be a judge between so many strangers and acquaintance;
especially since it is not a money matter, but about precedence and
dignity, as if I invited my friends not to treat them kindly, but to
abuse them. Menelaus is accounted absurd and passed into a proverb,
for pretending to advise when unasked; and sure he would be more
ridiculous that instead of an entertainer should set up for a judge,
when nobody requests him or submits to his determination which is the
best and which the worst man in the company; for the guests do not
come to contend about precedency, but to feast and be merry. Besides,
it is no easy task for him to distinguish; for some claim respect by
reason of their age, others from their familiarity and acquaintance;
and, like those that make declamations consisting of comparisons, he
must have Aristotle’s τόποι and Thrasymachus’s ὑπερβάλλοντες (books
that furnish him with heads of argument) at his fingers’ end; and all
this to no good purpose or profitable effect, but to bring vanity from
the bar and the theatre into our feasts and entertainments, and, whilst
by good fellowship we endeavor to remit all other passions, to intend
pride and arrogance, from which, in my opinion, we should be more
careful to cleanse our souls than to wash our feet from dirt, that our
conversation may be free, simple, and full of mirth. And while by such
meetings we strive to end all differences that have at any time risen
amongst the invited, we should make them flame anew, and kindle them
again by emulation, by thus debasing some and puffing up others. And
if, according as we seat them, we should drink oftener and discourse
more with some than others, and set daintier dishes before them,
instead of being friendly we should be lordly in our feasts. And if
in other things we treat them all equally, why should we not begin at
the first part, and bring it into fashion for all to take their seats
promiscuously, without ceremony or pride, and to let them see, as soon
as they enter, that they are invited to a dinner whose order is free
and democratical, and not as particular chosen men to the government of
a city where aristocracy is the form; since the richest and the poorest
sit promiscuously together.
4. When this had been offered on both sides, and all present required
my determination, I said: Being an arbitrator and not a judge, I shall
close strictly with neither side, but go indifferently in the middle
between both. If a man invites young men, citizens, or acquaintance,
they should (as Timon says) be accustomed to be content with any
place, without ceremony or concernment; and this good-nature and
unconcernedness would be an excellent means to preserve and increase
friendship. But if we use the same method to strangers, magistrates,
or old men, I have just reason to fear that, whilst we seem to thrust
our pride at the fore-door, we bring it in again at the back, together
with a great deal of indifferency and disrespect. But in this, custom
and the established rules of decency must guide; or else let us abolish
all those modes of respect expressed by drinking to or saluting first;
which we do not use promiscuously to all the company, but according to
their worth we honor every one
With better places, meat, and larger cups,[50]
as Agamemnon says, naming the place first, as the chiefest sign of
honor. And we commend Alcinous for placing his guest next himself:
He stout Laomedon his son removed,
Who sat next him, for him he dearly loved;[51]
For to place a suppliant stranger in the seat of his beloved son was
wonderful kind, and extreme courteous. Nay, even amongst the Gods
themselves this distinction is observed; for Neptune, though he came
last into the assembly,
Sat in the middle seat,[52]
as if that was his proper place. And Minerva seems to have that
assigned her which is next Jupiter himself; and this the poet
intimates, when speaking of Thetis he says,
She sat next Jove, Minerva giving place.[53]
And Pindar plainly says,
She sits just next the thunder-breathing flames
Indeed Timon urges, we ought not to rob many to honor one. Now it
seems to me that he does this very thing himself, even more than
others; for he robs that makes something that is proper common; and
suitable honor to his worth is each man’s property. And he gives
that pre-eminence to running fast and making haste, which is due to
virtue, kindred, magistracies, and such other qualities; and whilst he
endeavors not to affront his guests, he necessarily falls into that
very inconvenience; for he must affront every one by defrauding them
of their proper honor. Besides, in my opinion it is no hard matter to
make this distinction, and seat our guests according to their quality;
for first, it very seldom happens that many of equal honor are invited
to the same banquet; and then, since there are many honorable places,
you have room enough to dispose them according to content, if you can
but guess that this man must be seated uppermost, that in the middle,
another next to yourself, or with his friend, acquaintance, tutor, or
the like, appointing every one some place of honor; and as for the
rest, I would supply their want of honor with some little presents,
affability, and kind discourse. But if their qualities are not easy to
be distinguished, and the men themselves hard to be pleased, see what
device I have in that case; for I seat in the most honorable place my
father, if invited; if not, my grandfather, father-in-law, uncle, or
somebody whom the entertainer hath a more particular reason to esteem.
And this is one of the many rules of decency that we have from Homer;
for in his poem, when Achilles saw Menelaus and Antilochus contending
about the second prize of the horse-race, fearing that their strife and
fury would increase, he gave the prize to another, under pretence of
comforting and honoring Eumelus, but indeed to take away the cause of
their contention.
5. When I had said this, Lamprias, sitting (as he always doth) upon
a low bed, cried out: Sirs, will you give me leave to correct this
sottish judge? And the company bidding him speak freely and tell me
roundly of my faults, and not spare, he said: And who can forbear that
philosopher, who disposes of places at a feast according to the birth,
wealth, or offices of the guests, as if they were seats in a theatre or
the Amphictyonic Council, so that pride and arrogance must be admitted
even into our mirth and entertainments? In seating our guests we should
not have respect to honor, but mirth and conversation; not look after
every man’s quality, but their agreement and harmony with one another,
as those do that join several different things in one composure. Thus
a mason doth not set an Athenian or a Spartan stone, because formed in
a more noble country, before an Asian or a Spanish; nor does a painter
give the most costly color the chiefest place; nor a shipwright the
Corinthian fir or Cretan cypress; but they so distribute them as will
best serve to the common end, and make the whole composure strong,
beautiful, and fit for use. Nay, you see even the Deity himself (by our
Pindar named the most skilful artificer) doth not everywhere place the
fire above and the earth below; but, as Empedocles hath it,
The oysters, murets of the sea, and shell-fish every one,
With massy coat, the tortoise eke, with crust as hard as stone,
And vaulted back, which archwise he aloft doth hollow rear,
Show all that heavy earth they do above their bodies bear;
the earth not having that place that Nature appoints, but that which
is necessary to compound bodies and serviceable to the common end, the
preservation of the whole. Disorder is in every thing an evil; but then
its badness is principally discovered, when it is amongst men whilst
they are making merry; for then it breeds contentions and a thousand
unspeakable mischiefs, which to foresee and hinder shows a man well
skilled in good order and disposing right.
6. We all agreed that he said well, but asked him why he would not
instruct us how to order things aright, and communicate his skill. I
am content, says he, to instruct you, if you will permit me to change
the present order of the feast, and will yield as ready obedience to
me as the Thebans to Epaminondas when he altered the order of their
battle. We gave him full power; and he, having turned all the servants
out, looked round upon every one, and said: Hear (for I will tell you
first) how I design to order you together. In my mind, the Theban
Pammenes justly taxeth Homer as unskilful in love matters, for setting
together, in his description of an army, tribe and tribe, family and
family; for he should have joined the lover and the beloved, so that
the whole body being united in their minds might perfectly agree. This
rule will I follow, not set one rich man by another, a youth by a
youth, a magistrate by a magistrate, and a friend by a friend; for such
an order is of no force, either to beget or increase friendship and
good-will. But fitting that which wants with something that is able
to supply it, next one that is willing to instruct I will place one
that is as desirous to be instructed; next a morose, one good-natured;
next a talkative old man, a youth patient and eager for a story;
next a boaster, a jeering smooth companion; and next an angry man, a
quiet one. If I see a wealthy fellow bountiful and kind, I will take
some poor honest man from his obscure place, and set him next, that
something may run out of that full vessel into the other empty one. A
sophister I will forbid to sit by a sophister, and one poet by another;
For beggars beggars, poets poets, envy[54]
I separate the clamorous scoffers and the testy, by putting some
good-nature between them, that they may not justle so roughly on one
another; but wrestlers, hunters, and farmers I put in one company. For
some of the same nature, when put together, fight as cocks; others
are very sociable as daws. Drinkers and lovers I set together, not
only those who (as Sophocles says) feel the sting of masculine love,
but those that are mad after virgins or married women; for they being
warmed with the like fire, as two pieces of iron to be joined, will
more readily agree; unless perhaps they both fancy the same person.
_QUESTION III._
UPON WHAT ACCOUNT IS THE PLACE AT THE TABLE CALLED CONSULAR
ESTEEMED HONORABLE.
THE SAME.
This raised a dispute about the dignity of places, for the same place
is not accounted honorable amongst all nations; in Persia the midst,
for that is the place proper to the king himself; in Greece the
uppermost; at Rome the lowermost of the middle bed, and this is called
the consular; the Greeks about Pontus, as those of Heraclea, reckon
the uppermost of the middle bed to be the chief. But we were most
puzzled about the place called consular; for though it is esteemed most
honorable, yet it is not for any well-defined reason, as if it were
either the first or the midst; and its other circumstances are either
not proper to that alone, or very frivolous. Though I confess three of
the reasons alleged seemed to have something in them. The first was,
that the consuls, having dissolved the monarchy, and reduced every
thing to a more equal level and popular estate, left the middle, the
kingly place, and sat in a lower seat; that by this means their power
and authority might be less subject to envy, and not so grievous to
their fellow-citizens. The second was, that, two beds being appointed
for the invited guests, the third—and the first place in this—is most
convenient for the master of the feast, whence, like a coachman or a
pilot, he can guide and order every thing, and readily overlook the
management of the whole affair. Besides, he is not so far removed but
that he may easily discourse, talk to, and compliment his guests; for
next below him his wife and children usually are placed; next above
him the most honorable of the invited, that being the most proper
place, as near the master of the feast. The third reason was, that it
is peculiar to this place to be most convenient for the despatch of
any sudden business; for the Roman consul is not such a one as Archias
the governor of Thebes, so as to say, when letters of importance are
brought to him at dinner, “serious things to-morrow,” and then throw
aside the packet and take the great bowl; but he will be careful,
circumspect, and mind it at that very instant. For not only (as the
common saying hath it)
Each throw doth make the skilful dicer fear,
but even midst his feasting and his pleasure a magistrate should be
intent on intervening business; and he hath this place appointed, as
the most convenient for him to receive any message, answer it, or
sign a bill; for there the second bed joining with the third,[55] the
turning at the corner leaves a vacant space, so that a notary, servant,
guardsman, or a messenger from the army might approach, deliver the
message, and receive commands; and the consul, having room enough to
speak or use his hand, neither troubles any one, nor is hindered by any
of the guests.
_QUESTION IV._
WHAT MANNER OF MAN SHOULD A STEWARD OF A FEAST BE?
CRATO, THEON, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
1. Crato a relative of ours, and Theon my acquaintance, at a certain
banquet, where the glasses had gone round freely, and a little stir
arose but was suddenly appeased, began to discourse of the office of
the steward of a feast; declaring that it was my duty to wear the
chaplet, assert the decaying privilege, and restore that office which
should take care for the decency and good order of the banquet. This
proposal pleased every one, and they were all an end begging me to do
it. Well then, said I, since you will have it so, I make myself steward
and director of you all, and command the rest of you to drink every
one what he will, but Crato and Theon, the first proposers and authors
of this decree, I enjoin to declare in short what qualifications fit a
man for this office, what he should principally aim at, and how behave
himself towards those under his command. This is the subject, and let
them agree amongst themselves which head each shall manage.
2. They made some slight excuse at first; but the whole company urging
them to obey, Crato began thus. A captain of a watch (as Plato says)
ought to be most watchful and diligent himself, and the director of
merry companions ought to be the best. And such a one he is, that will
not be easily overtaken or apt to refuse a glass; but as Cyrus in his
epistle to the Spartans says, that in many other things he was more
fit than his brother to be a king, and chiefly because he could bear
abundance of wine. For one that is drunk must have an ill carriage and
be apt to affront; and he that is perfectly sober, must be unpleasant,
and fitter to be a governor of a school than of a feast. Pericles,
as often as he was chosen general, when he first put on his cloak,
used to say to himself, as it were to refresh his memory, Take heed,
Pericles, thou dost govern free-men, thou dost govern Greeks, thou dost
govern Athenians. So let our director say privately to himself, Thou
art a governor over friends, that he may remember to neither suffer
them to be debauched nor stint their mirth. Besides, he ought to have
some skill in the serious studies of the guests, and not be altogether
ignorant of mirth and humor; yet I would have him (as pleasant wine
ought to be) a little severe and rough, for the liquor will soften and
smooth him, and make his temper pleasant and agreeable. For as Xenophon
says, that Clearchus’s rustic and morose humor in a battle, by reason
of his bravery and heat, seemed pleasant and surprising; thus one that
is not of a very sour nature, but grave and severe, being softened by
a chirping cup, becomes more pleasant and complaisant. But chiefly
he should be acquainted with every one of the guests’ humors, what
alteration the liquor makes in him, what passion he is most subject
to, and what quantity he can bear; for it is not to be supposed the
water bears various proportions to different sorts of wine (which
kings’ cup-bearers understanding sometimes pour in more, sometimes
less) and that man hath no such relation to them. This our director
ought to know, and knowing, punctually observe; so that like a good
musician, screwing up one and letting down another, he may make between
these different natures a pleasing harmony and agreement; so that he
shall not proportion his wine by measure, but give every one what was
proper and agreeable, according to the present circumstances of time
and strength of body. But if this is too difficult a task, yet it is
necessary that a steward should know the common accidents of age and
nature, such as these,—that an old man will be sooner overtaken than a
youth, one that leaps about or talks sooner than he that is silent or
sits still, the thoughtful and melancholy sooner than the cheerful and
the brisk. And he that understands these things is much more able to
preserve quietness and order, than one that is perfectly ignorant and
unskilful. Besides, I think none will doubt but that the steward ought
to be a friend, and have no pique at any of the guests; for otherwise
in his injunctions he will be intolerable, in his distributions
unequal, in his jests apt to scoff and give offence. Such a figure,
Theon, as out of wax, hath my discourse framed for the steward of a
feast; and now I deliver him to you.
3. And Theon replied: He is welcome,—a very well-shaped gentleman,
and fitted for the office; but whether I shall not spoil him in my
particular application, I cannot tell. In my opinion he seems such a
one as will keep an entertainment to its primitive institution, and
not suffer it to be changed, sometimes into a mooting hall, sometimes
a school of rhetoric, now and then a dicing-room, a play house, or a
stage. For do not you observe some making fine orations and putting
cases at a supper, others declaiming or reading some of their own
compositions, and others proposing prizes to dancers and mimics?
Alcibiades and Theodorus turned Polition’s banquet into a place of
initiation, representing there the sacred procession and mysteries
of Ceres; now such things as these, in my opinion, ought not to be
suffered by a steward, but he must permit such discourse only, such
shows, such merriment, as promote the particular end and design of
such entertainments; and that is, by pleasant conversation either to
beget or maintain friendship and good-will among the guests; for an
entertainment is only a pleasant recreation at the table with a glass
of wine, aiming to contract friendship through mutual good-will.
But now because things pure and unmixed are usually surfeiting and
odious, and the very mixture itself, unless the simples be well
proportioned and opportunely put together, spoils the sweetness and
goodness of the composition; it is evident that there ought to be a
director who shall take care that the mirth and jollity of the guests
be exactly and opportunely tempered. It is a common saying, that a
voyage near the land and a walk near the sea are the best recreation.
Thus our steward should place seriousness and gravity next jollity and
humor; that, when they are merry, they should be on the very borders of
gravity itself, and when grave and serious, they might be refreshed as
sea-sick persons, having an easy and short prospect to the mirth and
jollity on the shore. For mirth may be exceeding useful, and make our
grave discourses smooth and pleasant,—
As near the bramble oft the lily grows,
And neighboring rue commends the blushing rose.
But against vain and empty humors, that wantonly break in upon our
feasts, like henbane mixed with the wine, he must caution the guests,
lest scoffing and affronts creep in under these, lest in their
questions or commands they grow scurrilous and abuse, as for instance
by enjoining stutterers to sing, bald-pates to comb their heads, or
a cripple to rise and dance. So the company once abused Agapestor
the Academic, one of whose legs was lame and withered, when in a
ridiculing frolic they ordained that every man should stand upon his
right leg and take off his glass, or pay a forfeit; and he, when it
was his turn to command, enjoined the company to follow his example
and drink as he did, and having a narrow earthen pitcher brought in,
he put his withered leg into it, and drank his glass, and every one in
the company, after a fruitless endeavor to imitate, paid his forfeit.
It was a good humor of Agapestor’s, and thus every little merry abuse
must be as merrily revenged. Besides, he must give such commands as
will both please and profit, putting such as are familiar and easy to
the person, and when performed will be for his credit and reputation. A
songster must be enjoined to sing, an orator to speak, a philosopher to
solve a problem, and a poet to make a song; for every one very readily
and willingly undertakes that
In which he may outdo himself.
An Assyrian king by public proclamation promised a reward to him
that would find out any new sort of luxury and pleasure. And let
the governor, the king of an entertainment, propose some pleasant
reward for any one that introduceth inoffensive merriment, profitable
delight and laughter, such as attends not scoffs and abusive jests,
but kindness, pleasant humor, and good-will; for these matters not
being well looked after and observed spoil and ruin most of our
entertainments. It is the office of a prudent man to hinder all sort
of anger and contention; in the exchange, that which springs from
covetousness; in the fencing and wrestling schools, from emulation;
in offices and state affairs, from ambition; and in a feast or
entertainment, from pleasantness and joke.
_QUESTION V._
WHY IT IS COMMONLY SAID THAT LOVE MAKES A MAN A POET.
SOSSIUS, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
1. One day when Sossius entertained us, after singing some Sapphic
verses, this question was started, how it could be true
That love in all doth vigorous thoughts inspire,
And teaches ignorants to tune the lyre?[56]
Since Philoxenus, on the contrary, asserts, that the Cyclops
With sweet-tongued Muses cured his love.
Some said that love was bold and daring, venturing at new contrivances,
and eager to accomplish, upon which account Plato calls it the
enterpriser of every thing; for it makes the reserved man talkative,
the modest complimental, the negligent and sluggish industrious and
observant; and, what is the greatest wonder, a close, hard, and
covetous fellow, if he happens to be in love, as iron in fire, becomes
pliable and soft, easy, good-natured, and very pleasant; as if there
were something in that common jest, A lover’s purse is tied with
the blade of a leek. Others said that love was like drunkenness; it
makes men warm, merry, and dilated; and, when in that condition, they
naturally slide down to songs and words in measure; and it is reported
of Aeschylus, that he wrote tragedies after he was heated with a glass
of wine; and my grandfather Lamprias in his cups seemed to outdo
himself in starting questions and smart disputing, and usually said
that, like frankincense, he exhaled more freely after he was warmed.
And as lovers are extremely pleased with the sight of their beloved,
so they praise with as much satisfaction as they behold; and as love
is talkative in every thing, so more especially in commendation; for
lovers themselves believe, and would have all others think, that the
object of their passion is pleasing and excellent; and this made
Candaules the Lydian force Gyges into his chamber to behold the beauty
of his naked wife. For they delight in the testimony of others, and
therefore in all composures upon the lovely they adorn them with
songs and verses, as we dress images with gold, that more may hear of
them, and that they may be remembered the more. For if they present a
cock, horse, or any other thing to the beloved, it is neatly trimmed
and set off with all the ornaments of art; and therefore, when they
would present a compliment, they would have it curious, pleasing, and
majestic, as verse usually appears.
2. Sossius applauding these discourses added: Perhaps we may make a
probable conjecture from Theophrastus’s discourse of Music, for I
have lately read the book. Theophrastus lays down three causes of
music,—grief, pleasure, and enthusiasm; for each of these changes
the usual tone, and makes the voice slide into a cadence; for deep
sorrow has something tunable in its groans, and therefore we perceive
our orators in their conclusions, and actors in their complaints, are
somewhat melodious, and insensibly fall into a tune. Excess of joy
provokes the more airy men to frisk and dance and keep their steps,
though unskilful in the art; and, as Pindar hath it,
They shout, and roar, and wildly toss their heads.
But the graver sort are excited only to sing, raise their voice, and
tune their words into a sonnet. But enthusiasm quite changes the body
and the voice, and makes it far different from its usual constitution.
Hence the very Bacchae use measure, and the inspired give their oracles
in measure. And we shall see very few madmen but are frantic in rhyme
and rave in verse. This being certain, if you will but anatomize love
a little, and look narrowly into it, it will appear that no passion in
the world is attended with more violent grief, more excessive joy, or
greater ecstasies and fury; a lover’s soul looks like Sophocles’s city:
At once ’tis full of sacrifice,
Of joyful songs, of groans and cries.[57]
And therefore it is no wonder, that since love contains all the causes
of music,—grief, pleasure, and enthusiasm,—and is besides industrious
and talkative, it should incline us more than any other passion to
poetry and songs.
_QUESTION VI._
WHETHER ALEXANDER WAS A GREAT DRINKER.
PHILINUS, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
1. Some said that Alexander did not drink much, but sat long in
company, discoursing with his friends; but Philinus showed this to be
an error from the king’s diary, where it was very often registered that
such a day, and sometimes two days together, the king slept after a
debauch; and this course of life made him cold in love, but passionate
and angry, which argues a hot constitution. And some report his sweat
was fragrant and perfumed his clothes; which is another argument of
heat, as we see the hottest and driest climates bear frankincense and
cassia; for a fragrant smell, as Theophrastus thinks, proceeds from a
due concoction of the humors, when the noxious moisture is conquered
by the heat. And it is thought probable, that he took a pique at
Calisthenes for avoiding his table because of the hard drinking, and
refusing the great bowl called Alexander’s in his turn, adding, I will
not drink of Alexander’s cup, to stand in need of Aesculapius’s. And
thus much of Alexander’s drinking.
2. Story tells us, that Mithridates, the famous enemy of the Romans,
among other trials of skill that he instituted, proposed rewards to
the greatest eater and to the stoutest drinker in his kingdom. He
won both the prizes himself; he out-drank every man living, and for
his excellency that way he was called Bacchus. But this reason for
his surname is a vain fancy and an idle story; for whilst he was an
infant a flash of lightning burnt his cradle, but did his body no harm,
and only left a little mark on his forehead, which his hair covered
when he was grown a boy; and after he came to be a man, another flash
broke into his bed-chamber, and burnt the arrows in a quiver that was
hanging under him; from whence his diviners presaged, that archers and
light-armed men should win him considerable victories in his wars;
and the vulgar gave him this name, because in those many dangers by
lightning he bore some resemblance to the Theban Bacchus.
3. From hence great drinkers were the subject of our discourse; and
the wrestler Heraclides (or, as the Alexandrians mince it, Heraclus),
who lived but in the last age, was accounted one. He, when he could
get none to hold out with him, invited some to take their morning’s
draught, others to dinner, to supper others, and others after, to take
a merry glass of wine; so that as the first went off, the second came,
and the third and fourth company, and he all the while without any
intermission took his glass round, and outsat all the four companies.
4. Amongst the retainers to Drusus, the Emperor Tiberius’s son, there
was a physician that drank down all the court; he, before he sat down,
would usually take five or six bitter almonds to prevent the operation
of the wine; but whenever he was forbidden that, he knocked under
presently, and a single glass dozed him. Some think these almonds have
a penetrating, abstersive quality, are able to cleanse the face, and
clear it from the common freckles; and therefore, when they are eaten,
by their bitterness vellicate and fret the pores, and by that means
draw down the ascending vapors from the head. But, in my opinion,
a bitter quality is a drier, and consumes moisture; and therefore a
bitter taste is the most unpleasant. For, as Plato says, dryness, being
an enemy to moisture, unnaturally contracts the spongy and tender
nerves of the tongue. And green ulcers are usually drained by bitter
injections. Thus Homer:
He squeezed his herbs, and bitter juice applied;
And straight the blood was stanched, the sore was dried.[58]
And he guesses well, that what is bitter to the taste is a drier.
Besides, the powders women use to dry up their sweat are bitter, and by
reason of that quality astringent. This then being certain, it is no
wonder that the bitterness of the almonds hinders the operation of the
wine, since it dries the inside of the body and keeps the veins from
being overcharged; for from their distention and disturbance they say
drunkenness proceeds. And this conjecture is much confirmed from that
which usually happens to a fox; for if he eats bitter almonds without
drinking, his moisture suddenly fails, and it is present death.
_QUESTION VII._
WHY OLD MEN LOVE PURE WINE.
PLUTARCH AND OTHERS.
It was debated why old men loved the strongest liquors. Some, fancying
that their natural heat decayed and their constitution grew cold, said,
such liquors were most necessary and agreeable to their age; but this
was mean and obvious, and besides, neither a sufficient nor a true
reason; for the like happens to all their other senses. They are not
easily moved or wrought on by any qualities, unless they are in intense
degrees and make a vigorous impression; but the reason is the laxity
of the habit of their body, for that, being grown lax and weak, loves
a smart stroke. Thus their taste is pleased most with strong sapors,
their smelling with brisk odors; for strong and unalloyed qualities
make a more pleasing impression on the sense. Their touch is almost
senseless to a sore, and a wound generally raises no sharp pain. The
like also in their hearing may be observed; for old musicians play
louder and sharper than others, that they may move their own dull
tympanum with the sound. For what steel is to the edge in a knife, that
spirit is to the sense in the body; and therefore, when the spirits
fail, the sense grows dull and stupid, and cannot be raised, unless by
something, such as strong wine, that makes a vigorous impression.
_QUESTION VIII._
WHY OLD MEN READ BEST AT A DISTANCE.
PLUTARCH, LAMPRIAS, AND OTHERS.
1. To my discourse in the former problem some objection may be drawn
from the sense of seeing in old men; for, if they hold a book at a
distance, they will read pretty well, nearer they cannot see a letter.
This Aeschylus means by these verses:
Behold from far; for near thou canst not see;
A good old scribe thou mayst much sooner be.
And Sophocles more plainly:
Old men are slow in talk, they hardly hear;
Far off they see; but all are blind when near
And therefore, if old men’s organs are more obedient to strong and
intense qualities, why, when they read, do they not take the reflection
near at hand, but, holding the book a good way off, mix and weaken it
by the intervening air, as wine by water?
2. Some answered, that they did not remove the book to lessen the
light, but to receive more rays, and let all the space between the
letters and their eyes be filled with lightsome air. Others agreed
with those that imagine the rays of vision mix with one another; for
since there is a cone stretched between each eye and the object, whose
point is in the eye and whose basis is the object, it is probable
that for some way each cone extends apart and by itself; but, when
the distance increases, they mix and make but one common light; and
therefore every object appears single and not two, though it is seen
by both eyes at once; for the conjunction of the cones makes these
two appearances but one. These things supposed, when old men hold the
letters near to their eyes, the cones not being joined, but each apart
and by itself, their sight is weak; but when they remove it farther,
the two lights being mingled and increased, they see better, as a man
with both hands can hold that for which either singly is too weak.
3. But my brother Lamprias, though unacquainted with Hieronymus’s
notions, gave us the same reason. We see, said he, some species that
come from the object to the eye, which at their first rise are thick
and great, and therefore when near disturb old men, whose eyes are
stiff and not easily penetrated; but when they are separated and
diffused into the air, the thick obstructing parts are easily removed,
and the subtile remainders coming to the eye slide gently and easily
into the pores; and so the disturbance being less, the sight is more
vigorous and clear. Thus a rose smells most fragrant at a distance; but
if you bring it near the nose, it is not so pure and delightful; and
the reason is this,—many earthy disturbing particles are carried with
the smell, and spoil the fragrancy when near, but in a longer passage
those are lost, and the pure brisk odor, by reason of its subtility,
reaches and acts upon the sense.
4. But we, according to Plato’s opinion, assert that a bright spirit
darted from the eye mixes with the light about the object, and those
two are perfectly blended into one similar body; now these must be
joined in due proportion one to another; for one part ought not wholly
to prevail on the other, but both, being proportionally and amicably
joined, should agree in one third common power. Now this (whether flux,
illuminated spirit, or ray) in old men being very weak, there can be no
combination, no mixture with the light about the object; but it must
be wholly consumed, unless, by removing the letters from their eyes,
they lessen the brightness of the light, so that it comes to the sight
not too strong or unmixed, but well proportioned and blended with the
other. And this explains that common affection of creatures seeing in
the dark; for their eye-sight being weak is overcome and darkened by
the splendor of the day; because the little light that flows from their
eyes cannot be proportionably mixed with the stronger and more numerous
beams; but it is proportionable and sufficient for the feeble splendor
of the stars, and so can join with it, and co-operate to move the sense.
_QUESTION IX._
WHY FRESH WATER WASHES CLOTHES BETTER THAN SALT.
THEON, THEMISTOCLES, METRIUS FLORUS, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
1. Theon the grammarian, when Metrius Florus gave us an entertainment,
asked Themistocles the Stoic, why Chrysippus, though he frequently
mentioned some strange phenomena in nature (as that salt fish soaked in
salt water grows fresher than before, fleeces of wool are more easily
separated by a gentle than a quick and violent force, and men that are
fasting eat slower than those who took a breakfast), yet never gave any
reason for the appearance. And Themistocles replied, that Chrysippus
only proposed such things by the by, as instances to correct us,
who easily and without any reason assent to what seems likely, and
disbelieve every thing that seems unlikely at the first sight. But why,
sir, are you concerned at this? For if you are speculative and would
enquire into the causes of things, you need not want subjects in your
own profession; but pray tell me why Homer makes Nausicaa wash in the
river rather than the sea, though it was near, and in all likelihood
hotter, clearer, and fitter to wash with than that?
2. And Theon replied: Aristotle hath already given an account for
this from the grossness of the sea water; for in this an abundance of
rough earthy particles is mixed, and those make it salt; and upon this
account swimmers or any other weights sink not so much in sea water as
in fresh, for the latter, being thin and weak, yields to every pressure
and is easily divided, because it is pure and unmixed; and by reason of
this subtility of parts it penetrates better than salt water, and so
looseneth from the clothes the sticking particles of the spot. And is
not this discourse of Aristotle very probable?
3. Probable indeed, I replied, but not true; for I have observed that
with ashes, gravel, or, if these are not to be gotten, with dust itself
they usually thicken the water, as if the earthy particles being rough
would scour better than fair water, whose thinness makes it weak and
ineffectual. Therefore he is mistaken when he says the thickness of
the sea water hinders the effect, since the sharpness of the mixed
particles very much conduces to make it cleansing; for that opens the
pores, and draws out the stain. But since all oily matter is most
difficult to be washed out and spots a cloth, and the sea is oily,
that is the reason why it doth not scour as well as fresh; and that it
is oily, even Aristotle himself asserts, for salt in his opinion hath
some oil in it, and therefore makes candles, when sprinkled on them,
burn the better and clearer than before. And sea water sprinkled on a
flame increaseth it, and is more easily kindled than any other; and
this, in my opinion, makes it hotter than the fresh. Besides, I may
urge another cause; for the end of washing is drying, and that seems
cleanest which is driest; and the moisture that scours (as hellebore,
with the humors that it purges) ought to fly away quickly together
with the stain. The sun quickly draws out the fresh water, because it
is so light; but the salt water being rough lodges in the pores, and
therefore is not easily dried.
4. And Theon replied: You say just nothing, sir; for Aristotle in the
same book affirms that those that wash in the sea, if they stand in the
fresh sun, are sooner dried than those that wash in the fresh streams.
It is true, I answered, he says so; but I hope that Homer asserting the
contrary will, by you especially, be more easily believed; for Ulysses
(as he writes) after his shipwreck meeting Nausicaa,
A frightful sight, and with the salt besmeared,
said to her maidens,
Retire a while, till I have washed my skin.
And when he had leaped into the river,
He from his head did scour the foaming sea.[59]
The poet knew very well what happens in such a case; for when those
that come wet out of the sea stand in the sun, the subtilest and
lightest parts suddenly exhale, but the salt and rough particles stick
upon the body in a crust, till they are washed away by the fresh water
of a spring.
_QUESTION X._
WHY AT ATHENS THE CHORUS OF THE TRIBE AEANTIS WAS NEVER DETERMINED
TO BE THE LAST.
PHILOPAPPUS, MARCUS, MILO, GLAUCIAS, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
1. When we were feasting at Serapion’s, who gave an entertainment after
the chorus of the tribe Leontis under his order and direction had
won the prize (for we were citizens and free of that tribe), a very
pertinent discourse, and proper to the then occasion, happened. It had
been a very notable trial of skill, the king Philopappus being very
generous and magnificent in his rewards, and defraying the expenses
of all the tribes. He was at the same feast with us, and being a very
good-humored man and eager for instruction, he would now and then
freely discourse of ancient customs, and as freely hear.
2. Marcus the grammarian began thus: Neanthes the Cyzicenian, in his
book called the Fabulous Narrations of the City, affirms that it was
a privilege of the tribe Aeantis that their chorus should never be
determined to be the last. It is true, he brings some stories for
confirmation of what he says; but if he falsifies, the matter is open,
and let us all enquire after the reason of the thing. But, says Milo,
suppose it be a mere tale. It is no strange thing, replied Philopappus,
if in our disquisitions after truth we meet now and then with such
a thing as Democritus the philosopher did; for he one day eating a
cucumber, and finding it of a honey taste, asked his maid where she
bought it; and she telling him such a garden, he rose from table and
bade her direct him to the place. The maid surprised asked him what he
meant; and he replied, I must search after the cause of the sweetness
of the fruit, and shall find it the sooner if I see the place. The maid
with a smile replied, Sit still, pray sir, for I unwittingly put it
into a honey barrel. And he, as it were discontented, cried out, Shame
take thee, yet I will pursue my purpose, and seek after the cause,
as if this sweetness were a taste natural and proper to the fruit.
Therefore neither will we admit Neanthes’s credulity and inadvertency
in some stories as an excuse and a good reason for avoiding this
disquisition; for we shall exercise our thoughts by it, though no other
advantage rises from that enquiry.
3. Presently every one poured out something in commendation of that
tribe, mentioning every matter that made for its credit and reputation.
Marathon was brought in as belonging to it, and Harmodius with his
associates, by birth Aphidneans, were also produced as glorious
members of that tribe. The orator Glaucias proved that that tribe
made up the right wing in the battle at Marathon, from the elegies of
Aeschylus, who had himself fought valiantly in the same encounter;
and farther evinced that Callimachus the field marshal was of that
tribe, who behaved himself very bravely, and was the principal cause
next to Miltiades, with whose opinion he concurred, that that battle
was fought. To this discourse of Glaucias I added, that the edict
which impowered Miltiades to lead forth the Athenians, was made when
the tribe Aeantis was chief of the assembly, and that in the battle
of Plataea the same tribe acquired the greatest glory; and upon that
account, as the oracle directed, that tribe offered a sacrifice for
this victory to the nymphs Sphragitides, the city providing a victim
and all other necessaries belonging to it. But you may observe (I
continued) that other tribes likewise have their peculiar glories; and
you know that mine, the tribe Leontids, yields to none in any point
of reputation. Besides, consider whether it is not more probable that
this was granted out of a particular respect, and to please Ajax, from
whom this tribe received its name; for we know he could not endure to
be outdone, but was easily hurried on to the greatest enormities by his
contentious and passionate humor; and therefore to comply with him and
afford him some comfort in his disasters, they secured him from the
most vexing grievance that follows the misfortune of the conquered, by
ordering that his tribe should never be determined to be last.
BOOK II.
Of the several things that are provided for an entertainment, some, my
Sossius Senecio, are absolutely necessary; such are wine, bread, meat,
couches, and tables. Others are brought in, not for necessity, but
pleasure; such are songs, shows, mimics, and buffoons (like Philip who
came from the house of Callias); which, when present, delight indeed,
but when absent, are not eagerly desired; nor is the entertainment
looked upon as mean because such are wanting. Just so of discourses;
some the sober men admit as necessary to a banquet, and others for
their pretty speculations, as more profitable and agreeable than a
fiddle and a pipe. My former book gives you examples of both sorts. Of
the first are these, Whether we should philosophize at table?—Whether
the entertainer should appoint proper seats, or leave the guests to
agree upon their own? Of the second, Why lovers are inclined to poetry?
and the question about the tribe Aeantis. The former I call properly
συμποτικά, _table-talk_, but both together I comprehend
under the general name of Symposiacs. They are promiscuously set down,
not in any exact method, but as each singly occurred to memory. And let
not my readers wonder that I dedicate these collections to you, which I
have received from others or your own mouth; for if all learning is not
bare remembrance, yet to learn and to remember are very commonly one
and the same thing.
_QUESTION I._
WHAT, AS XENOPHON INTIMATES, ARE THE MOST AGREEABLE QUESTIONS AND
MOST PLEASANT RAILLERY AT AN ENTERTAINMENT?
SOSSIUS SENECIO AND PLUTARCH.
1. Now each book being divided into ten questions, that shall make the
first in this, which Socratical Xenophon hath as it were proposed;
for he tells us that, Gobryas banqueting with Cyrus, amongst other
things that he found admirable in the Persians, he was surprised to
hear them ask one another such questions that it was more delightful
to be interrogated than to be let alone, and pass such jests on one
another that it was more pleasant to be jested on than not. For if
some, even whilst they praise, offend, why should not their polite
and neat facetiousness be admired, whose very raillery is delightful
and pleasant to him that is the subject of it? Once when you were
entertaining us at Patrae, you said: I wish I could learn what kind
of questions those are; for to be skilled in and make right use of
apposite questions and pleasant raillery, I think is no small part of
conversation.
2. A considerable one, I replied; but pray observe whether Xenophon
himself, in his descriptions of Socrates’s and the Persian
entertainments, hath not sufficiently explained them. But if you would
have my thoughts,—first, men are pleased to be asked those questions
to which they have an answer ready; such are those in which the persons
asked have some skill and competent knowledge; for when the enquiry
is above their reach, those that can return nothing are troubled, as
if requested to give something beyond their power; and those that do
answer, producing some crude and insufficient demonstration, must
needs be very much concerned, and apt to blunder on the wrong. Now, if
the answer not only is easy but hath something not common, it is more
pleasing to them that make it; and this happens, when their knowledge
is greater than that of the vulgar, as suppose they are well skilled
in points of astrology or logic. For not only in action and serious
matters, but also in discourse, every one hath a natural disposition to
be pleased (as Euripides hath it)
To seem far to outdo himself.[60]
And all are delighted when men put such questions as they understand,
and would have others know that they are acquainted with; and therefore
travellers and merchants are most satisfied when their company is
inquisitive about other countries, the unknown ocean, and the laws and
manners of the barbarians; they are ready to inform them, and describe
the countries and the creeks, imagining this to be some recompense
for their toil, some comfort for the dangers they have passed. In
short, whatever we are wont to discourse of though unrequested, we
are desirous to be asked; because then we seem to gratify those whom
otherwise our prattle would disturb and force from our conversation.
And this is the common disease of navigators. But more genteel and
modest men love to be asked about those things which they have bravely
and successfully performed, and which modesty will not permit to be
spoken by themselves before company; and therefore Nestor did well
when, being acquainted with Ulysses’s desire of reputation, he said,
Tell, brave Ulysses, glory of the Greeks,
How you the horses seized.[61]
For man cannot endure the insolence of those who praise themselves
and repeat their own exploits, unless the company desires it and they
are forced to a relation; therefore it tickles them to be asked about
their embassies and administrations of the commonwealth, if they have
done any thing notable in either. And upon this account the envious
and ill-natured start very few questions of that sort; they thwart
and hinder all such kind of motions, being very unwilling to give any
occasion or opportunity for that discourse which shall tend to the
advantage of the relator. In short, we please those to whom we put
them, when we start questions about those matters which their enemies
hate to hear.
3. Ulysses says to Alcinous,
You bid me tell what various ills I bore,[62]
That the sad tale might make me grieve the more.
And Oedipus says to the chorus,
’Tis pain to raise again a buried grief.[63]
But Euripides on the contrary,
How sweet it is, when we are lulled in ease,
To think of toils!—when well, of a disease![64]
True indeed, but not to those that are still tossed, still under
a misfortune. Therefore be sure never to ask a man about his own
calamities; it is irksome to relate his losses of children or estate,
or any unprosperous adventure by sea or land; but ask a man how he
carried the cause, how he was caressed by the King, how he escaped such
a storm, such an assault, thieves, and the like; this pleaseth him, he
seems to enjoy it over again in his relation, and is never weary of
the topic. Besides, men love to be asked about their happy friends,
or children that have made good progress in philosophy or the law, or
are great at court; as also about the disgrace and open conviction of
their enemies; for of such matters they are most eager to discourse,
yet are cautious of beginning it themselves, lest they should seem to
insult over and rejoice at the misery of others. You please a hunter
if you ask him about dogs, a wrestler about exercise, and an amorous
man about beauties; the ceremonious and superstitious man discourses
about dreams, and what success he hath had by following the directions
of omens or sacrifices, and by the kindness of the Gods; and questions
concerning those things will extremely please him. He that enquires any
thing of an old man, though the story doth not at all concern him, wins
his heart, and urges one that is very willing to discourse:
Nelides Nestor, faithfully relate
How great Atrides died, what sort of fate;
And where was Menelaus largely tell?
Did Argos hold him when the hero fell?[65]
Here is a multitude of questions and variety of subjects; which is much
better than to confine and cramp his answers, and so deprive the old
man of the most pleasant enjoyment he can have. In short, they that
had rather please than distaste will still propose such questions, the
answers to which shall rather get the praise and good-will than the
contempt and hatred of the hearers. And so much of questions.
4. As for raillery, those that cannot use it cautiously with art, and
time it well, should never venture at it. For as in a slippery place,
if you but just touch a man as you pass by, you throw him down; so when
we are in drink, we are in danger of tripping at every little word that
is not spoken with due address. And we are sometimes more offended with
a joke than a plain and scurrilous abuse; for we see the latter often
slip from a man unwittingly in passion, but consider the former as a
thing voluntary, proceeding from malice and ill-nature; and therefore
we are generally more offended at a sharp jeerer than a whistling
snarler. Such a jeer has indeed something artfully malicious about it,
and often seems to be an insult devised and thought of beforehand.
For instance, he that calls thee salt-fish monger plainly and openly
abuseth; but he that says, I remember when you wiped your nose upon
your sleeve, maliciously jeers. Such was Cicero’s to Octavius, who
was thought to be descended from an African; for when Cicero spoke
something, and Octavius said he did not hear him, Cicero rejoined,
Strange, for you have a hole through your ear. And Melanthius, when
he was ridiculed by a comedian, said, You pay me now something that
you do not owe me. And upon this account jeers vex more; for like
bearded arrows they stick a long while, and gall the wounded sufferer.
Their smartness is pleasant, and delights the company; and those that
are pleased with the saying seem to believe the detracting speaker.
For, according to Theophrastus, a jeer is a figurative reproach for
some fault or misdemeanor; and therefore he that hears it supplies the
concealed part, as if he knew and gave credit to the thing. For he that
laughs and is tickled at what Theocritus said to one whom he suspected
of a design upon his purse, and who asked him if he went to supper at
such a place,—Yes, he replied, I go, but shall likewise lodge there
all night,—doth, as it were confirm the accusation, and believe the
fellow was a thief. Therefore an impertinent jeerer makes the whole
company seem ill-natured and abusive, as being pleased with and
consenting to the scurrility of the jeer. It was one of the excellent
rules in Sparta, that none should be bitter in their jests, and the
jeered should patiently endure; but if he took offence, the other
was to forbear, and pursue the frolic no farther. How is it possible
therefore to determine such raillery as shall delight and please the
person that is jested on, when to be smart without offence is no mean
piece of cunning and address?
5. First then, such as will vex and gall the conscious must please
those that are clean, innocent, and not suspected of the matter.
Such a joke is Xenophon’s, when he pleasantly brings in a very ugly
ill-looking fellow, and is smart upon him for being Sambaulas’s minion.
Such was that of Aufidius Modestus, who, when our friend Quintius in
an ague complained his hands were cold, replied, Sir, you brought them
warm from your province; for this made Quintius laugh, and extremely
pleased him; yet it had been a reproach and abuse to a covetous and
oppressing governor. Thus Socrates, pretending to compare faces with
the beauteous Critobulus, rallied only, and not abused. And Alcibiades
again was smart on Socrates, as his rival in Agatho’s affection. Kings
are pleased when jests are put upon them as if they were private and
poor men. Such was the flatterer’s to Philip, who chided him: Sir,
don’t I keep you? For those that mention faults of which the persons
are not really guilty intimate those virtues with which they are
really adorned. But then it is requisite that those virtues should be
evident and certainly belong to them; otherwise the discourse will
breed disturbance and suspicion. He that tells a very rich man that
he will procure him a sum of money,—a temperate sober man, and one
that drinks water only, that he is foxed, or hath taken a cup too
much,—a hospitable, generous, good-humored man, that he is a niggard
and pinch-penny,—or threatens an excellent lawyer to meet him at the
bar,—must make the persons smile and please the company. Thus Cyrus
was very obliging and complaisant, when he challenged his play-fellows
at those sports in which he was sure to be overcome. And Ismenias
piping at a sacrifice, when no good omens appeared, the man that hired
him snatched the pipe, and played very ridiculously himself; and when
all found fault, he said: To play satisfactorily is the gift of Heaven.
And Ismenias with a smile replied: Whilst I played, the Gods were so
well pleased that they were careless of the sacrifice; but to be rid of
thy noise they presently received it.
6. But more, those that jocosely put scandalous names upon things
commendable, if it be opportunely done, please more than he that
plainly and openly commends; for those that cover a reproach under
fair and respectful words (as he that calls an unjust man Aristides, a
coward Achilles) gall more than those that openly abuse. Such is that
of Oedipus, in Sophocles,
The faithful Creon, my most constant friend.[66]
The familiar irony in commendations answers to this on the other side.
Such Socrates used, when he called the kind endeavor and industry of
Antisthenes to make men friends pimping, bawds-craft, and allurement;
and others that called Crates the philosopher, who wherever he went was
caressed and honored, the door-opener.
7. Again, a complaint that implies thankfulness for a received favor is
pleasant raillery. Thus Diogenes of his master Antisthenes:
That man that made me leave my precious ore,
Clothed me with rags, and forced me to be poor;
That man that made me wander, beg my bread,
And scorn to have a house to hide my head.
For it had not been half so pleasant to have said, that man that made
me wise, content, and happy. And thus a Spartan, making as if he would
find fault with the master of the exercises for giving him wood that
would not smoke, said, He will not permit us even to shed a tear. So he
that calls a hospitable man, and one that treats often, a kidnapper,
and a tyrant who for a long time would not permit him to see his own
table; and he whom the King hath raised and enriched, that says he had
a design upon him and robbed him of his sleep and quiet. So if he that
hath an excellent vintage should complain of Aeschylus’s Cabeiri for
making him want vinegar, as they had jocosely threatened. For such as
these have a pungent pleasantness, so that the praised are not offended
nor take it ill.
8. Besides, he that would be civilly facetious must know the difference
between a vice and a commendable study or recreation; for instance,
between the love of money or contention and of music or hunting; for
men are grieved if twitted with the former, but take it very well if
they are laughed at for the latter. Thus Demosthenes the Mitylenæan was
pleasant enough when, knocking at a man’s door that was much given
to singing and playing on the harp, and being bid come in, he said, I
will, if you will tie up your harp. But the flatterer of Lysimachus was
offensive; for being frighted at a wooden scorpion that the king threw
into his lap, and leaping out of his seat, he said after he knew the
humor, And I’ll fright your majesty too; give me a talent.
9. In several things about the body too the like caution is to be
observed. Thus he that is jested on for a flat or hooked nose usually
laughs at the jest. Thus Cassander’s friend was not at all displeased
when Theophrastus said to him, ’Tis strange, sir, that your eyes don’t
sing, since your nose is so near to give them the tune; and Cyrus
commanded a long hawk-nosed fellow to marry a flat-nosed girl, for
then they would very well agree. But a jest on any for his stinking
breath or filthy nose is irksome; for baldness it may be borne, but
for blindness or infirmity in the eyes it is intolerable. It is true,
Antigonus would joke upon himself, and once, receiving a petition
written in great letters, he said, This a man may read if he were
stark blind. But he killed Theocritus the Chian for saying,—when one
told him that as soon as he appeared before the King’s eyes he would
be pardoned,—Sir, then it is impossible for me to be saved. And
the Byzantine to Pasiades saying, Sir, your eyes are weak, replied,
You upbraid me with this infirmity, not considering that thy son
carries the vengeance of Heaven on his back: now Pasiades’s son was
hunch-backed. And Archippus the popular Athenian was much displeased
with Melanthius for being smart on his crooked back; for Melanthius
had said that he did not stand at the head of the state (προεστάναι)
but bowed down before it (προκεκυφέναι). It is true, some are not much
concerned at such jeers. Thus Antigonus’s friend, when he had begged
a talent and was denied, desired a guard, lest somebody should rob
him of that talent he was now to carry home. Different tempers make
men differently affected, and that which troubles one is not regarded
by another. Epaminondas feasting with his fellow-magistrates drank
vinegar; and some asking if it was good for his health, he replied,
I cannot tell that, but I know it makes me remember what I drink at
home. Therefore it becomes every man that would rally, to look into the
humors of his company, and take heed to converse without offence.
10. Love, as in most things else, so in this matter causes different
effects; for some lovers are pleased and some displeased at a merry
jest. Therefore in this case a fit time must be accurately observed;
for as a blast of wind puffs out a fire whilst it is weak and little,
but when thoroughly kindled strengthens and increaseth it; so love,
before it is evident and confessed, is displeased at a discoverer,
but when it breaks forth and blazes in everybody’s eyes, then it is
delighted and gathers strength by the frequent blasts of joke and
raillery. When their beloved is present it will gratify them most
to pass a jest upon their passion, but to fall on any other subject
will be counted an abuse. If they are remarkably loving to their
own wives, or entertain a generous affection for a hopeful youth,
then are they proud, then tickled when jeered for such a love. And
therefore Arcesilaus, when an amorous man in his school laid down this
proposition, In my opinion one thing cannot touch another, replied,
Sir, you touch this person, pointing to a lovely boy that sat near him.
11. Besides, the company must be considered; for what a man will only
laugh at when mentioned amongst his friends and familiar acquaintance,
he will not endure to be told of before his wife, father, or tutor,
unless perhaps it be something that will please those too; as for
instance, if before a philosopher one should jeer a man for going
barefoot or studying all night; or before his father, for carefulness
and thrift; or in the presence of his wife, for being cold to his
companions and doating upon her. Thus Tigranes, when Cyrus asked him,
What will your wife say when she hears that you are put to servile
offices? replied, Sir, she will not hear it, but be present herself and
see it.
12. Again, those jokes are accounted less affronting which reflect
somewhat also on the man that makes them; as when one poor man,
base-born fellow, or lover jokes upon another. For whatever comes
from one in the same circumstances looks more like a piece of mirth
than a designed affront; but otherwise it must needs be irksome and
distasteful. Upon this account, when a slave whom the King had lately
freed and enriched behaved himself very impertinently in the company
of some philosophers, asking them, how it came to pass that the broth
of beans, whether white or black, was always green, Aridices putting
another question, why, let the whips be white or not, the wales and
marks they made were still red, displeased him extremely, and made him
rise from the table in a great rage and discontent. But Amphias the
Tarsian, who was supposed to be sprung from a gardener, joking upon
the governor’s friend for his obscure and mean birth, and presently
subjoining, But ’tis true, I sprung from the same seed, caused much
mirth and laughter. And the harper very facetiously put a check to
Philip’s ignorance and impertinence; for when Philip pretended to
correct him, he cried out, God forbid, sir, that ever you should be
brought so low as to understand these things better than I. For by this
seeming joke he instructed him without giving any offence. Therefore
some of the comedians seem to lay aside their bitterness in every jest
that may reflect upon themselves; as Aristophanes, when he is merry
upon a bald-pate; and Cratinus in his play Pytine upon drunkenness and
excess.
13. Besides, you must be very careful that the jest should seem to
be extempore, taken from some present question or merry humor; not
far fetched, as if premeditate and designed. For as men are not much
concerned at the anger and debates among themselves at table while they
are in the midst of their cups, but if any stranger should come in and
offer abuse to any of the guests, they would hate and look upon him as
an enemy; so they will easily pardon and indulge a jest if undesignedly
taken from any present circumstance; but if it is nothing to the matter
in hand but fetched from another thing, it must look like a design and
be resented as an affront. Such was that of Timagenes to the husband
of a woman that often vomited,—“Thou beginnest thy troubles when thou
bringest home this vomiting woman,”[67]—saying τήνδ’ ἐμοῦσαν (_this
vomiting woman_), when the poet had written τήνδε Μοῦσαν (_this
Muse_); and also his question to Athenodorus the philosopher,—Is
the affection to our children natural? For when the raillery is not
founded on some present circumstance, it is an argument of ill-nature
and a mischievous temper; and such as delight in jests like these do
often for a mere word, the lightest thing in the world (as Plato says),
suffer the heaviest punishment. But those that know how to time and
apply a jest confirm Plato’s opinion, that to rally pleasantly and
facetiously is the business of a scholar and a wit.
_QUESTION II._
WHY IN AUTUMN MEN HAVE BETTER STOMACHS THAN IN OTHER SEASONS OF THE
YEAR.
GLAUCIAS, XENOCLES, LAMPRIAS, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
In Eleusis, after the solemn celebration of the sacred mysteries,
Glaucias the orator entertained us at a feast; where, after the rest
had done, Xenocles of Delphi, as his humor is, began to be smart upon
my brother Lamprias for his good Boeotian stomach. I in his defence
opposing Xenocles, who was an Epicurean, said, Pray, sir, do not all
place the very essence of pleasure in privation of pain and suffering?
But Lamprias, who prefers the Lyceum before the Garden, ought by his
practice to confirm Aristotle’s doctrine; for he affirms that every
man hath a better stomach in the autumn than in other seasons of the
year, and gives the reason, which I cannot remember at present. So much
the better (says Glaucias), for when supper is done, we will endeavor
to discover it ourselves. That being over, Glaucias and Xenocles drew
various reasons from the autumnal fruit. One said, that it scoured the
body, and by this evacuation continually raised new appetites. Xenocles
affirmed, that ripe fruit had usually a pleasing vellicating sapor,
and thereby provoked the appetite better than sauces or sweetmeats;
for sick men of a vitiated stomach usually recover it by eating fruit.
But Lamprias said, that our natural heat, the principal instrument of
nutrition, in the midst of summer is scattered and becomes rare and
weak, but in autumn it unites again and gathers strength, being shut
in by the ambient cold and contraction of the pores. I for my part
said: In summer we are more thirsty and use more moisture than in other
seasons; and therefore Nature, observing the same method in all her
operations, at this change of seasons employs the contrary and makes us
hungry; and to maintain an equal temper in the body, she gives us dry
food to countervail the moisture taken in the summer. Yet none can deny
but that the food itself is a partial cause; for not only new fruit,
bread, or corn, but flesh of the same year, is better tasted than that
of the former, more forcibly provokes the guests, and enticeth them to
eat on.
_QUESTION III._
WHICH WAS FIRST, THE BIRD OR THE EGG?
PLUTARCH, ALEXANDER, SYLLA, FIRMUS, SOSSIUS SENECIO, AND OTHERS.
1. When upon a dream I had forborne eggs a long time, on purpose
that in an egg (as in a Carian[68]) I might make experiment of a
notable vision that often troubled me; some at Sossius Senecio’s table
suspected that I was tainted with Orpheus’s or Pythagoras’s opinions,
and refused to eat an egg (as some do the heart and brain) imagining
it to be the principle of generation. And Alexander the Epicurean
ridiculingly repeated,—
To feed on beans and parents’ heads
Is equal sin;
as if the Pythagoreans covertly meant eggs by the word κύαμοι
(_beans_), deriving it from κύω or κυέω (_to conceive_), and
thought it as unlawful to feed on eggs as on the animals that lay them.
Now to pretend a dream for the cause of my abstaining, to an Epicurean,
had been a defence more irrational than the cause itself; and therefore
I suffered jocose Alexander to enjoy his opinion, for he was a pleasant
man and excellently learned.
2. Soon after he proposed that perplexed question, that plague of the
inquisitive, Which was first, the bird or the egg? And my friend Sylla,
saying that with this little question, as with an engine, we shook
the great and weighty question (whether the world had a beginning),
declared his dislike of such problems. But Alexander deriding the
question as slight and impertinent, my relation Firmus said: Well, sir,
at present your atoms will do me some service; for if we suppose that
small things must be the principles of greater, it is likely that the
egg was before the bird; for an egg amongst sensible things is very
simple, and the bird is more mixed, and contains a greater variety of
parts. It is universally true, that a principle is before that whose
principle it is; now the seed is a principle, and the egg is somewhat
more than the seed, and less than the bird; for as a disposition or a
progress in goodness is something between a tractable mind and a habit
of virtue, so an egg is as it were a progress of Nature tending from
the seed to a perfect animal. And as in an animal they say the veins
and arteries are formed first, upon the same account the egg should be
before the bird, as the thing containing before the thing contained.
Thus art first makes rude and ill-shapen figures, and afterwards
perfects every thing with its proper form; and it was for this reason
that the statuary Polycletus said, Then our work is most difficult,
when the clay comes to be fashioned by the nail. So it is probable that
matter, not readily obeying the slow motions of contriving Nature,
at first frames rude and indefinite masses, as the egg, and of these
moulded anew, and joined in better order, the animal afterward is
formed. As the canker is first, and then growing dry and cleaving
lets forth a winged animal, called psyche; so the egg is first as it
were the subject matter of the generation. For it is certain that,
in every change, that out of which the thing changes must be before
the thing changing. Observe how worms and caterpillars are bred in
trees from the moisture corrupted or concocted; now none can say but
that the engendering moisture is naturally before all these. For (as
Plato says) matter is as a mother or nurse in respect of the bodies
that are formed, and we call that matter out of which any thing that
is is made. And with a smile continued he, I speak to those that are
acquainted with the mystical and sacred discourse of Orpheus, who not
only affirms the egg to be before the bird, but makes it the first
being in the whole world. The other parts, because deep mysteries (as
Herodotus would say), we shall now pass by; but let us look upon the
various kinds of animals, and we shall find almost every one beginning
from an egg,—fowls and fishes; land animals, as lizards; amphibious,
as crocodiles; some with two legs, as a cock; some without any, as a
snake; and some with many, as a locust. And therefore in the solemn
feast of Bacchus it is very well done to dedicate an egg, as the emblem
of that which begets and contains every thing in itself.
3. To this discourse of Firmus, Senecio replied: Sir, your last
similitude contradicts your first, and you have unwittingly opened the
world (instead of the door, as the saying is) against yourself. For
the world was before all, being the most perfect; and it is rational
that the perfect in Nature should be before the imperfect, as the
sound before the maimed, and the whole before the part. For it is
absurd that there should be a part when there is nothing whose part
it is; and therefore nobody says the seed’s man or egg’s hen, but the
man’s seed and hen’s egg; because those being after these and formed
in them, pay as it were a debt to Nature, by bringing forth another.
For they are not in themselves perfect, and therefore have a natural
appetite to produce such a thing as that out of which they were first
formed; and therefore seed is defined as a thing produced that is to
be perfected by another production. Now nothing can be perfected by
or want that which as yet is not. Everybody sees that eggs have the
nature of a concretion or consistence in some animal or other, but
want those organs, veins, and muscles which animals enjoy. Therefore
no story delivers that ever any egg was formed immediately from earth;
and the poets themselves tell us, that the egg out of which came the
Tyndaridae fell down from heaven. But even till this time the earth
produceth some perfect and organized animals, as mice in Egypt, and
snakes, frogs, and grasshoppers almost everywhere, some external and
invigorating principle assisting in the production. And in Sicily,
where in the servile war much blood was shed, and many carcasses rotted
on the ground, whole swarms of locusts were produced, and spoiled the
corn over the whole isle. Such spring from and are nourished by the
earth; and seed being formed in them, pleasure and titillation provoke
them to mix, upon which some lay eggs, and some bring forth their
young alive; and this evidently proves that animals first sprang from
earth, and afterwards by copulation, after different ways, propagated
their several kinds. In short, it is the same thing as if you said
the womb was before the woman; for as the womb is to the egg, the egg
is to the chick that is formed in it; so that he that inquires how
birds should be when there were no eggs, might ask as well how men
and women could be before any organs of generation were formed. Parts
generally have their subsistence together with the whole; particular
powers follow particular members, and operations follow those powers,
and effects those operations. Now the effect of the generative power
is the seed and egg; so that these must be after the formation of the
whole. Therefore consider, as there can be no digestion of food before
the animal is formed, so there can be no seed nor egg; for those, it
is likely, are made by some digestion and alterations; nor can it be
that, before the animal is, the superfluous parts of the food of the
animal should have a being. Besides, though seed may perhaps pretend
to be a principle, the egg cannot; for it doth not subsist first, nor
hath it the nature of a whole, for it is imperfect. Therefore we do not
affirm that the animal is produced without a principle of its being;
but we call the principle that power which changes, mixes, and tempers
the matter, so that a living creature is regularly produced; but the
egg is an after-production, as the blood or milk of an animal after the
taking in and digestion of the food. For we never see an egg formed
immediately of mud, for it is produced in the bodies of animals alone;
but a thousand living creatures rise from the mud. What need of many
instances? None ever found the spawn or egg of an eel; yet if you empty
a pit and take out all the mud, as soon as other water settles in it,
eels likewise are presently produced. Now that must exist first which
hath no need of any other thing that it may exist, and that after,
which cannot be without the concurrence of another thing. And of this
priority is our present discourse. Besides, birds build nests before
they lay their eggs; and women provide cradles, swaddling-clothes,
and the like; yet who says that the nest is before the egg, or the
swaddling-clothes before the infant? For the earth (as Plato says) doth
not imitate a woman, but a woman, and so likewise all other females,
the earth. Moreover it is probable that the first production out of the
earth, which was then vigorous and perfect, was self-sufficient and
entire, nor stood in need of those secundines, membranes, and vessels,
which now Nature forms to help the weakness and supply the defects of
breeders.
_QUESTION IV._
WHETHER OR NO WRESTLING IS THE OLDEST EXERCISE.
SOSICLES, LYSIMACHUS, PLUTARCH, PHILINUS.
Sosicles of Coronea having at the Pythian games won the prize from all
the poets, we gave him an entertainment. And the time for running,
cuffing, wrestling, and the like drawing on, there was a great talk of
the wrestlers; for there were many and very famous men, who came to
try their skill. Lysimachus, one of the company, a procurator of the
Amphictyons, said he heard a grammarian lately affirm that wrestling
was the most ancient exercise of all, as even the very name witnessed;
for some modern things have the names of more ancient transferred to
them; thus tuning a pipe is called fitting it, and playing on it is
called striking; both these being transferred to it from the harp.
Thus all places of exercise they call wrestling schools, wrestling
being the oldest exercise, and therefore denominating the newer sorts.
That, said I, is no good argument, for these palaestras or wrestling
schools are called so from wrestling (πάλη), not because it is the
most ancient exercise, but because it is the only sort in which they
use clay (πηλός), dust, and oil; for in these there is neither racing
nor cuffing, but wrestling only, and that part of the pancratium in
which they struggle on the ground,—for the pancratium comprises both
wrestling and cuffing. Besides, it is unlikely that wrestling, being
more artificial and methodical than any other sort of exercise, should
likewise be the most ancient; for mere want or necessity, putting us
upon new inventions, produces simple and inartificial things first, and
such as have more of force in them than sleight and skill. This ended,
Sosicles said: You speak right, and I will confirm your discourse from
the very name; for, in my opinion, πάλη, wrestling, is derived from
παλέυειν, i. e. to throw down by sleight and artifice. And Philinus
said, it seems to me to be derived from παλαιστή, the palm of the
hand, for wrestlers use that part most, as cuffers do the πυγμή, fist;
and hence both these sorts of exercises have their proper names, the
one πάλη, the other πυγμή. Besides, since the poets use the word
παλύνειν for καταπάσσειν and συμπάσσειν, to sprinkle, and this action
is most frequent amongst wrestlers, this exercise πάλη may receive
its name from that word. But more, consider that racers strive to be
distant from one another; cuffers, by the judges of the field, are not
permitted to take hold; and none but wrestlers come up close breast
to breast, and clasp one another round the waist, and most of their
turnings, liftings, lockings, bring them very close. It is probable
therefore that this exercise is called πάλη from πλησιάζειν or πέλας
γίγνεσθαι, to come up close or to be near together.
_QUESTION V._
WHY, IN RECKONING UP DIFFERENT KINDS OF EXERCISES, HOMER PUTS
CUFFING FIRST, WRESTLING NEXT, AND RACING LAST.
LYSIMACHUS, CRATES, TIMON, PLUTARCH.
1. This discourse being ended, and Philinus hummed, Lysimachus began
again, What sort of exercise then shall we imagine to be first? Racing,
as at the Olympian games? For here in the Pythian, as every exercise
comes on, all the contenders are brought in, the boy wrestlers first,
then the men, and the same method is observed when the cuffers and
fencers are to exercise; but there the boys perform all first, and then
the men. But, says Timon interposing, pray consider whether Homer hath
not determined this matter; for in his poems cuffing is always put in
the first place, wrestling next, and racing last. At this Menecrates
the Thessalian surprised cried out, Good God, what things we skip over!
But, pray sir, if you remember any of his verses to that purpose,
do us the favor to repeat them. And Timon replied: That the funeral
solemnities of Patroclus had this order I think every one hath heard;
but the poet, all along observing the same order, brings in Achilles
speaking to Nestor thus:
With this reward I Nestor freely grace,
Unfit for cuffing, wrestling, or the race.
And in his answer he makes the old man impertinently brag:
I cuffing conquered Oinop’s famous son,
With Anceus wrestled, and the garland won,
And outran Iphiclus.[69]
And again he brings in Ulysses challenging the Phaeacians
To cuff, to wrestle, or to run the race;
and Alcinous answers:
Neither in cuffing nor in wrestling strong,
But swift of foot are we.[70]
So that he doth not carelessly confound the order, and, according to
the occasion, now place one sort first and now another; but he follows
the then custom and practice, and is constant in the same. And this was
so as long as the ancient order was observed.
2. To this discourse of my brother’s I subjoined, that I liked what
he said, but could not see the reason of this order. And some of the
company, thinking it unlikely that cuffing or wrestling should be a
more ancient exercise than racing, desired me to search farther into
the matter; and thus I spake upon the sudden. All these exercises seem
to me to be representations of feats of arms and training therein;
for after all, a man armed at all points is brought in to show that
that is the end at which all these exercises and trainings aim. And
the privilege granted to the conquerors—as they rode into the city,
to throw down some part of the wall—hath this meaning, that walls
are but a small advantage to that city which hath men able to fight
and overcome. In Sparta those that were victors in any of the crowned
games had an honorable place in the army, and were to fight near
the King’s person. Of all creatures a horse only can have a part in
these games and win the crown, for that alone is designed by nature
to be trained to war, and to prove assisting in a battle. If these
things seem probable, let us consider farther, that it is the first
work of a fighter to strike his enemy and ward the other’s blows; the
second, when they come up close and lay hold of one another, to trip
and overturn him; and in this, they say, our countrymen being better
wrestlers very much distressed the Spartans at the battle of Leuctra.
Aeschylus describes a warrior thus,
One stout, and skilled to wrestle in his arms;
and Sophocles somewhere says of the Trojans,
They rid the horse, they could the bow command,
And wrestle with a rattling shield in hand.
But it is the third and last, either when conquered to fly, or when
conquerors to pursue. And therefore it is likely that cuffing is
set first, wrestling next, and racing last; for the first bears the
resemblance of charging or warding the blows; the second, of close
fighting and repelling; and the third, of flying a victorious, or
pursuing a routed enemy.
_QUESTION VI._
WHY FIR-TREES, PINE-TREES, AND THE LIKE WILL NOT BE GRAFTED
UPON.
SOCLARUS, CRATO, PHILO.
1. Soclarus entertaining us in his gardens, round which the river
Cephissus runs, showed us several trees strangely varied by the
different grafts upon their stocks. We saw an olive upon a mastic, a
pomegranate upon a myrtle, pear grafts on an oak, apple upon a plane, a
mulberry on a fig, and a great many such like, which were grown strong
enough to bear. Some joked on Soclarus as nourishing stranger kinds
of things than the poets’ Sphinxes or Chimaeras; but Crato set us to
enquire why those stocks only that are of an oily nature will not admit
such mixtures, for we never see a pine, fir, or cypress bear a graft of
another kind.
2. And Philo subjoined: There is, Crato, a reason for this amongst the
philosophers, which the gardeners confirm and strengthen. For they say,
oil is very hurtful to all plants, and any plant dipped in it, like
a bee, will soon die. Now these trees are of a fat and oily nature,
insomuch that they weep pitch and rosin; and, if you cut them gore (as
it were) appears presently in the wound. Besides, a torch made of them
sends forth an oily smoke, and the brightness of the flame shows it to
be fat; and upon this account these trees are as great enemies to all
other kinds of grafts as oil itself. To this Crato added, that the bark
was a partial cause; for that, being rare and dry, could not afford
either convenient room or sufficient nourishment to the grafts; but
when the bark is moist, it quickly joins with those grafts that are let
into the body of the tree.
3. Then Soclarus added: This too ought to be considered, that that
which receives a graft of another kind ought to be easy to be changed,
that the graft may prevail, and make the sap in the stock fit and
natural to itself. Thus we break up the ground and soften it, that
being thus broken it may more easily be wrought upon, and applied to
what we plant in it; for things that are hard and rigid cannot be so
quickly wrought upon nor so easily changed. Now those trees, being of
very light wood, do not mix well with the grafts, because they are very
hard either to be changed or overcome. But more, it is manifest that
the stock which receives the graft should be instead of a soil to it,
and a soil should have a breeding faculty; and therefore we choose the
most fruitful stocks to graft on, as women that are full of milk, when
we would put out a child to nurse. But everybody knows that the fir,
cypress, and the like are no great bearers. For as men very fat have
few children (for, the whole nourishment being employed in the body,
there remains no overplus to make seed), so these trees, spending all
their sap in their own stock, flourish indeed and grow great; but as
for fruit, some bear none at all, some very little, and that too slowly
ripens; therefore it is no wonder that they will not nourish another’s
fruit, when they are so very sparing to their own.
_QUESTION VII._
ABOUT THE FISH CALLED REMORA OR ECHENEIS.
CHAEREMONIANUS, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
1. Chaeremonianus the Trallian, when we were at a very noble fish
dinner, pointing to a little, long, sharp-headed fish, said the
echeneis (ship-stopper) was like that, for he had often seen it as he
sailed in the Sicilian sea, and wondered at its strange force; for it
stopped the ship when under full sail, till one of the seamen perceived
it sticking to the outside of the ship, and took it off. Some laughed
at Chaeremonianus for believing such an incredible and unlikely story.
Others on this occasion talked very much of antipathies, and produced a
thousand instances of such strange effects; for example, the sight of
a ram quiets an enraged elephant; a viper lies stock-still, if touched
with a beechen leaf; a wild bull grows tame, if bound with the twigs of
a fig-tree; amber draws all light things to it, except basil and such
as are dipped in oil; and a loadstone will not draw a piece of iron
that is rubbed with garlic. Now all these, as to matter of fact, are
very evident; but it is hard, if not altogether impossible, to find the
cause.
2. Then said I: This is a mere shift and avoiding of the question,
rather than a declaration of the cause; but if we please to consider,
we shall find a great many accidents that are only consequents of the
effect to be unjustly esteemed the causes of it; as for instance, if we
should fancy that by the blossoming of the chaste-tree the fruit of the
vine is ripened; because this is a common saying,
The chaste-tree blossoms, and the grapes grow ripe;
or that the little protuberances in the candle-snuff thicken the air
and make it cloudy; or the hookedness of the nails is the cause and
not an accident consequential to an internal ulcer. Therefore as those
things mentioned are but consequents to the effect, though proceeding
from one and the same cause, so one and the same cause stops the ship,
and joins the echeneis to it; for the ship continuing dry, not yet
made heavy by the moisture soaking into the wood, it is probable that
it glides lightly, and as long as it is clean, easily cuts the waves;
but when it is thoroughly soaked, when weeds, ooze, and filth stick
upon its sides, the stroke of the ship is more obtuse and weak; and the
water, coming upon this clammy matter, doth not so easily part from
it; and this is the reason why they usually scrape the sides of their
ships. Now it is likely that the echeneis in this case, sticking upon
the clammy matter, is not thought an accidental consequent to this
cause, but the very cause itself.
_QUESTION VIII._
WHY THEY SAY THOSE HORSES CALLED λυκοσπάδες ARE VERY
METTLESOME.
PLUTARCH, HIS FATHER, AND OTHERS.
Some say the horses called λυκοσπάδες received that name from the
fashion of their bridles (called λύκοι), that had prickles like the
teeth on the wolf’s jaw; for being fiery and hard-mouthed, the riders
used such to tame them. But my father, who seldom speaks but on good
reason, and breeds excellent horses, said, those that were set upon
by wolves when colts, if they escaped, grew swift and mettlesome, and
were called λυκοσπάδες. Many agreeing to what he said, it began to be
enquired why such an accident as that should make them more mettlesome
and fierce; and many of the company thought that, from such an assault,
fear and not courage was produced; and that thence growing fearful
and apt to start at every thing, their motions became more quick and
vigorous, as they are in wild beasts when entangled in a net. But, said
I, it ought to be considered whether the contrary be not more probable;
for the colts do not become more swift by escaping the assault of a
wild beast, but they had never escaped unless they had been swift and
mettlesome before. As Ulysses was not made wise by escaping from the
Cyclops, but he escaped by being wise before.
_QUESTION IX._
WHY THE FLESH OF SHEEP BITTEN BY WOLVES IS SWEETER THAN THAT OF
OTHERS, AND THE WOOL MORE APT TO BREED LICE.
PATROCLIAS, THE SAME.
After the former discourse, mention was made of those sheep that wolves
have bitten; for it is commonly said of them, that their flesh is very
sweet, and their wool breeds lice. Our relation Patroclias seemed to
be pretty happy in his reasoning upon the first part, saying, that
the beast by biting it did mollify the flesh; for wolves’ spirits are
so hot and fiery, that they soften and digest the hardest bones; and
for the same reason things bitten by wolves rot sooner than others.
But concerning the wool we could not agree, being not fully resolved
whether it breeds those lice, or only opens a passage for them,
separating the flesh by its fretting roughness or proper warmth; and
it seemed that this power proceeded from the bite of the wolf, which
alters even the very hair of the creature that it kills. And this some
particular instances seem to confirm; for we know some huntsmen and
cooks will kill a beast with one stroke, so that it never breathes
after, whilst others repeat their blows, and scarce do it with a great
deal of trouble. But (what is more strange) some, as they kill it,
infuse such a quality that the flesh rots presently and cannot be kept
sweet above a day; yet others that despatch it as soon find no such
alteration, but the flesh will keep sweet a long while. And that by the
manner of killing a great alteration is made even in the skins, nails,
and hair of a beast, Homer seems to witness, when, speaking of a good
hide, he says,
An ox’s hide that fell by violent blows;[71]
for those that fell not by a disease or old age, but by a violent
death, leave us tough and strong hides; but when they are bitten by
wild beasts, their hoofs grow black, their hair falls, their skins
putrefy and are good for nothing.
_QUESTION X._
WHETHER THE ANCIENTS, WHO PROVIDED EVERY ONE HIS MESS, DID BETTER
THAN WE, WHO SET MANY TO THE SAME DISH.
PLUTARCH, HAGIAS.
1. When I was chief magistrate, most of the suppers consisted of
distinct messes, where every particular guest had his portion of the
sacrifice allowed him. Some were wonderfully well pleased with this
order; others blamed it as unsociable and ungenteel, and were of
the opinion that, as soon as I was out of my office, the manner of
entertainments ought to be reformed; for, says Hagias, we invite one
another not barely to eat and drink, but to eat and drink together. Now
this division into messes takes away all society, makes many suppers,
and many eaters, but no one sups with another; but every man takes
his pound of beef, as from the market, sets it before himself, and
falls on. And is it not the same thing to provide a different cup and
different table for every guest (as the Demophontidae treated Orestes),
as now to set each man his loaf of bread and mess of meat, and feed
him, as it were, out of his own proper manger? Only, it is true, we are
not (as those that treated Orestes were) obliged to be silent and not
discourse. Besides, to show that all the guests should have a share in
every thing, we may draw an argument from hence;—the same discourse is
common to us all, the same songstress sings, the same musician plays
to all. So, when the same cup is set in the midst, not appropriated to
any, it is a large spring of good-fellowship, and each man may take as
much as his appetite requires; not like this most unjust distribution
of bread and meat, which prides itself forsooth in being equal to
all, though unequal, stomachs; for the same portion to a man of a
small appetite is too much; to one of a greater, too little. And, sir,
as he that administers the very same dose of physic to all sorts of
patients must be very ridiculous; so likewise must that entertainer
who, inviting a great many guests that can neither eat nor drink alike,
sets before every one an equal mess, and measures what is just and fit
by an arithmetical not geometrical proportion. When we go to a shop to
buy, we all use, it is true, one and the same public measure; but to an
entertainment each man brings his own belly, which is satisfied with a
portion, not because it is equal to that which others have, but because
it is sufficient for itself. Those entertainments where every one
had his single mess Homer mentions amongst soldiers and in the camp,
which we ought not to bring into fashion amongst us; but we should
rather imitate the good friendship of the ancients, who, to show what
reverence they had for all kinds of societies, not only honored those
that lived with them or under the same roof, but also those that drank
out of the same cup or ate out of the same dish. Let us never mind
Homer’s entertainments; they were good for nothing but to starve a man,
and the makers of them were kings, more stingy and observant than the
Italian cooks; insomuch that in the midst of a battle, whilst they were
at handy-blows with their enemies, they could exactly reckon up how
many glasses each man drank at his table. Those that Pindar describes
are much better,
Where heroes mixed sat round the noble board,
because they maintained society and good fellowship; for the latter
truly mixed and joined friends, but this modern custom divides and
asperses them as persons who, though seemingly very good friends,
cannot so much as eat with one another out of the same dish.
2. To this polite discourse of Hagias they urged me to reply. And I
said: Hagias, it is true, hath reason to be troubled at this unusual
disappointment, because having so great a belly (for he was an
excellent trencher-man) he had no larger mess than others; for in a
fish eaten in common, Democritus says, there are no bones. But that
very thing is especially apt to bring us a share beyond our own proper
allowance. For it is equality, as the old woman in Euripides hath it,
That fastens towns to towns, and friends to friends;[72]
and entertainments chiefly stand in need of this. The necessity is from
nature as well as custom, and is not lately introduced or founded only
on opinion. For when the same dish lies in common before all, the man
that is slow and eats little must be offended at the other that is too
quick for him, as a slow ship at the swift sailer. Besides, snatching,
contention, shoving, and the like, are not, in my mind, neighborly
beginnings of mirth and jollity; but they are absurd, doggish, and
often end in anger or reproaches, not only against one another, but
also against the entertainer himself or the carvers of the feast. But
as long as Moera and Lachesis (_division_ and _distribution_)
kept an equality in feasts, nothing uncivil or disorderly appeared, and
they called the feasts δαῖτες, _distributions_, the entertained
δαιτυμόνες, and the carvers δαιτροί, _distributers_, from dividing
and distributing to every man his proper mess. The Lacedaemonians
had officers called distributers of the flesh, no mean men, but
the chief of the city; for Lysander himself by King Agesilaus was
constituted one of these in Asia. But when luxury crept into our
feasts, distributing was thrown out; for I suppose they had not
leisure to divide these numerous tarts, cheese-cakes, pies, and other
delicate varieties; but, surprised with the pleasantness of the taste
and tired with the variety, they left off cutting it into portions,
and left all in common. This is confirmed from the present practice;
for in our religious or public feasts, where the food is simple and
inartificial, each man hath his mess assigned him; so that he that
endeavors to retrieve the ancient custom will likewise recover thrift
and almost lost frugality again. But, you object, where only property
is, community is lost. True indeed, where equality is not; for not
the possession of what is proper and our own, but the taking away of
another’s and coveting that which is common, is the cause of all injury
and contention; and the laws, restraining and confining these within
the bounds of propriety, receive their name from their office, being
a power distributing equality to every[*P1: no hyphen in image|P3 not
needed see next line] one in order to the common good. Thus every
one is not to be honored by the entertainer with the garland or the
chiefest place; but if any one brings with him his sweet-heart or a
minstrel-wench, they must be common to him and his friends, that all
things may be huddled together in one mass, as Anaxagoras would have
it. Now if propriety in these things doth not in the least hinder but
that things of greater moment, and the only considerable, as discourse
and civility, may be still common, let us leave off disgracing
distributions or the lot, the son of Fortune (as Euripides hath it),
which hath no respect either to riches or honor, but which in its
inconsiderate wheel now and then raiseth up the humble and the poor,
and makes him master of himself, and, by accustoming the great and rich
to endure and not be offended at equality, pleasingly instructs.
BOOK III.
Simonides the poet, my Sossius Senecio, seeing one of the company sit
silent and discourse nobody, said: Sir, if you are a fool, it is wisely
done; if a wise man, very foolishly. It is good to conceal a man’s
folly, but (as Heraclitus says) it is very hard to do it over a glass
of wine,
Which doth the gravest men to mirth advance,
And let them loose to sing, to laugh, and dance,
And speak what had been better left unsaid.[73]
In which lines the poet in my mind shows the difference between being
a little heated and downright drunk; for to sing, laugh, and dance may
agree very well with those that have gone no farther than a merry cup;
but to prattle, and speak what had been better left unsaid, argues a
man to be quite gone. Therefore Plato thinks that wine is the most
ingenious discoverer of men’s humors; and Homer, when he says,
At feasts they had not known each other’s minds,[74]
evidently shows that he knew wine was powerful to open men’s thoughts,
and was full of new discoveries. It is true from the bare eating and
drinking, if they say nothing, we can give no guess at the tempers of
the men; but because drinking leads them on to discourse, and discourse
lays a great many things open and naked which were secret and hid
before, therefore to sport a glass of wine together lets us into one
another’s humors. And therefore a man may reasonably fall foul on
Aesop: Why, sir, would you have a window in every man’s breast, through
which we may look in upon his thoughts? Wine opens and exposes all, it
will not suffer us to be silent, but takes off all mask and visor, and
makes us regardless of the severe precepts of decency and custom. Thus
Aesop, or Plato, or any other that designs to look into a man, may have
his desires satisfied by the assistance of a bottle; but those that are
not solicitous to pump one another, but to be sociable and pleasant,
discourse of such matters and handle such questions as make no
discovery of the bad parts of the soul, but such as comfort the good,
and, by the help of neat and polite learning, lead the intelligent part
into an agreeable pasture and garden of delight. This made me collect
and dedicate to you this third dedication of table discourses, the
first of which is about chaplets made of flowers.
_QUESTION I._
WHETHER IT IS BECOMING TO WEAR CHAPLETS OF FLOWERS AT TABLE.
ERATO, AMMONIUS, TRYPHO, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
1. At Athens Erato the musician keeping a solemn feast to the Muses,
and inviting a great many to the treat, the company was full of talk,
and the subject of the discourse garlands. For after supper many of
all sorts of flowers being presented to the guests, Ammonius began to
jeer me for choosing a rose chaplet before a laurel, saying that those
made of flowers were effeminate, and fitted toyish girls and women
more than grave philosophers and men of music. And I admire that our
friend Erato, that abominates all flourishing in songs, and blames good
Agatho, who first in his tragedy of the Mysians ventured to introduce
the chromatic airs, should himself fill his entertainment with such
various and such florid colors, and that, while he shuts out all the
soft delights that through the ears can enter to the soul, he should
introduce others through the eyes and through the nose, and make these
garlands, instead of signs of piety, to be instruments of pleasure.
For it must be confessed that this ointment gives a better smell than
those trifling flowers, which wither even in the hands of those that
wreathe them. Besides, all pleasure must be banished the company of
philosophers, unless it is of some use or desired by natural appetite;
for as those that are carried to a banquet by some of their invited
friends (as, for instance, Socrates carried Aristodemus to Agatho’s
table) are as civilly entertained as the bidden guests, but he that
goes on his own account is shut out of doors; thus the pleasures of
eating and drinking, being invited by natural appetite, should have
admission; but all the others which come on no account, and have only
luxury to introduce them, ought in reason to be denied.
2. At this some young men, not thoroughly acquainted with Ammonius’s
humor, being abashed, privately tore their chaplets; but I, perceiving
that Ammonius proposed this only for discourse and disputation’s sake,
applying myself to Trypho the physician, said: Sir, you must put off
that sparkling rosy chaplet as well as we, or declare, as I have often
heard you, what excellent preservatives these flowery garlands are
against the strength of liquor. But here Erato putting in said: What,
is it decreed that no pleasure must be admitted without profit? And
must we be angry with our delight, unless hired to endure it? Perhaps
we may have reason to be ashamed of ointments and purple vests, because
so costly and expensive, and to look upon them as (in the barbarian’s
phrase) treacherous garments and deceitful odors; but these natural
smells and colors are pure and simple as fruits themselves, and without
expense or the curiosity of art. And I appeal to any one, whether it
is not absurd to receive the pleasant tastes Nature gives us, and
reject those smells and colors that the seasons afford us, because
forsooth they blossom with delight, if they have no other external
profit or advantage. Besides, we have an axiom against you, for if (as
you affirm) Nature makes nothing vain, those things that have no other
use were designed on purpose to please and to delight. Besides, observe
that to thriving trees Nature hath given leaves, for the preservation
of the fruit and of the stock itself; for those sometimes warming
sometimes cooling it, the seasons creep on by degrees, and do not
assault it with all their violence at once. But now the flower, whilst
it is on the plant, is of no profit at all, unless we use it to delight
our nose with the admirable smell, and to please our eyes when it opens
that inimitable variety of colors. And therefore, when the leaves are
plucked off, the plants as it were suffer injury and grief. There is a
kind of an ulcer raised, and an unbecoming nakedness attends them; and
we must not only (as Empedocles says)
By all means spare the leaves that grace the palm,
but likewise the leaves of all other trees, and not injuriously against
Nature robbing them of their leaves, bring deformity on them to adorn
ourselves. But to pluck the flowers doth no injury at all. It is like
gathering of grapes at the time of vintage; unless plucked when ripe,
they wither of themselves and fall. And therefore, like the barbarians
who clothe themselves with the skins more commonly than with the wool
of sheep, those that wreathe leaves rather than flowers into garlands
seem to me to use the plants according to neither the dictates of
reason nor the design of Nature. And thus much I say in defence of
those who sell chaplets of flowers; for I am not grammarian enough
to remember those poems which tell us that the old conquerors in the
sacred games were crowned with flowers. Yet, now I think of it, there
is a story of a rosy crown that belongs to the Muses; Sappho mentions
it in a copy of verses to a woman unlearned and unacquainted with the
Muses:
Dead thou shalt lie forgotten in thy tomb,
Since not for thee Pierian roses bloom.[75]
But if Trypho can produce any thing to our advantage from physic, pray
let us have it.
3. Then Trypho taking the discourse said: The ancients were very
curious and well acquainted with all these things, because plants
were the chief ingredients of their physic. And of this some signs
remain till now; for the Tyrians offer to the son of Agenor, and the
Magnesians to Chiron, the first supposed practitioners of physic, as
the first fruits, the roots of those plants which have been successful
on a patient. And Bacchus was counted a physician not only for finding
wine, the most pleasing and most potent remedy, but for bringing ivy,
the greatest opposite imaginable to wine, into reputation, and for
teaching his drunken followers to wear garlands of it, that by that
means they might be secured against the violence of a debauch, the heat
of the liquor being remitted by the coldness of the ivy. Besides, the
names of several plants sufficiently evidence the ancients’ curiosity
in this matter; for they named the walnut-tree καρύα, because it sends
forth a heavy and drowsy (καρωτικόν) spirit, which affects their heads
who sleep beneath it; and the daffodil, νάρκισσος, because it benumbs
the nerves and causes a stupid narcotic heaviness in the limbs; and
therefore Sophocles calls it the ancient garland flower of the great
(that is, the earthy) Gods. And some say rue was called πήγανον from
its astringent quality; for, by its dryness proceeding from its
heat, it fixes (πήγνυσι) or coagulates the seed, and is very hurtful
to great-bellied women. But those that imagine the herb amethyst
(ἀμέθυστος), and the precious stone of the same name, are called so
because powerful against the force of wine are much mistaken; for both
receive their names from their color; for its leaf is not of the color
of strong wine, but resembles that of weak diluted liquor. And indeed
I could mention a great many which have their names from their proper
virtues. But the care and experience of the ancients sufficiently
appears in those of which they made their garlands when they designed
to be merry and frolic over a glass of wine; for wine, especially when
it seizes on the head, and strains the body just at the very spring
and origin of the sense, disturbs the whole man. Now the effluvia of
flowers are an admirable preservative against this, they secure the
brain, as it were a citadel, against the efforts of drunkenness; for
those that are hot open the pores and give the fumes free passage to
exhale, and those that are moderately cold repel and keep down the
ascending vapors. Of this last nature are the violet and rose; for
the odors of both these are prevalent against any ache and heaviness
in the head. The flowers of privet and crocus bring those that have
drunk freely into a gentle sleep; for they send forth a smooth and
gentle effluvia, which softly takes off all asperities that arise in
the body of the drunken; and so all things being quiet and composed,
the violence of the noxious humor is abated and thrown off. The smells
of some flowers being received into the brain cleanse the organs and
instruments of sense, and gently by their heat, without any violence
or force, dissolve the humors, and warm and cherish the brain itself,
which is naturally cold. Upon this account, they called those little
posies they hung about their necks ὑποθύμιδες, and anointed their
breasts with the oils that were squeezed from them; and of this Alcaeus
is a witness, when he bids his friends,
Pour ointment o’er his laboring temples, pressed
With various cares, and o’er his aged breast.
Hence the odors by means of the heat shoot upward into the very brain,
being caught up by the nostrils. For they did not call those garlands
hung about the neck ὑποθυμίδες because they thought the heart was the
seat and citadel of the mind (θυμός), for on that account they should
rather have called them ἐπιθυμίδες; but, as I said before, from their
vapor and exhalation. Besides, it is no strange thing that these smells
of garlands should be of so considerable a virtue; for some tell us
that the shadow of the yew, especially when it blossoms, kills those
that sleep under it; and a subtile spirit ariseth from pressed poppy,
which suddenly overcomes the unwary squeezers. And there is an herb
called alyssus, which to some that take it in their hands, to others
that do but look on it, is found a present remedy against the hiccough;
and some affirm that planted near the stalls it preserves sheep and
goats from the rot and mange. And the rose is called ῥόδον, probably
because it sends forth a stream (ῥεῦμα) of odors; and for that reason
it withers presently. It is a cooler, yet fiery to look upon; and no
wonder, for upon the surface a subtile heat, being driven out by the
inward cold, looks vivid and appears.
_QUESTION II._
WHETHER IVY IS OF A HOT OR COLD NATURE.
AMMONIUS, TRYPHO, ERATO.
1. Upon this discourse, when we all hummed Trypho, Ammonius with a
smile said: It is not decent by any contradiction to pull in pieces,
like a chaplet, this various and florid discourse of Trypho’s. Yet
methinks the ivy is a little oddly interwoven, and unjustly said by its
cold powers to temper the heat of strong wine; for it is rather fiery
and hot, and its berries steeped in wine make the liquor more apt to
inebriate and inflame. And from this cause, as in sticks warped by
the fire, proceeds the crookedness of the boughs. And snow, that for
many days will lie on other trees, presently melts from the branches of
the ivy, and wastes all around, as far as the warmth reaches. But the
greatest evidence is this. Theophrastus tells us, that when Alexander
commanded Harpalus to plant some Grecian trees in the Babylonian
gardens, and—because the climate is very hot and the sun violent—such
as were leafy, thick, and fit to make a shade, the ivy only would not
grow; though all art and diligence possible was used, it withered and
died. For being hot itself, it could not agree with the fiery nature of
the soil; for excess in similar qualities is destructive, and therefore
we see every thing as it were affects its contrary; a cold plant
flourishes in a hot ground, and a hot plant is delighted with a cold.
Upon which account it is that bleak mountains, exposed to cold winds
and snow, bear firs, pines, and the like, full of pitch, fiery, and
excellent to make a torch. But besides, Trypho, trees of a cold nature,
their little feeble heat not being able to diffuse itself but retiring
to the heart, shed their leaves; but their natural oiliness and warmth
preserve the laurel, olive, and cypress always green; and the like too
in the ivy may be observed. And therefore it is not likely our dear
friend Bacchus, who called wine μέθυ (_intoxicating_) and himself
μεθυμναῖος, should bring ivy into reputation for being a preservative
against drunkenness and an enemy to wine. But in my opinion, as lovers
of wine, when they have not any juice of the grape ready, drink
ale, mead, cider, or the like; thus he that in winter would have a
vine-garland on his head, finding the vine naked and without leaves,
used the ivy that is like it; for its boughs are twisted and irregular,
its leaves moist and disorderly confused, but chiefly the berries, like
ripening clusters, make an exact representation of the vine. But grant
the ivy to be a preservative against drunkenness,—that to please you,
Trypho, we may call Bacchus a physician,—still I affirm that power to
proceed from its heat, which either opens the pores or helps to digest
the wine.
2. Upon this Trypho sat silent, studying for an answer. Erato
addressing himself to us youths, said: Trypho wants your assistance;
help him in this dispute about the garlands, or be content to sit
without any. Ammonius too bade us not be afraid, for he would not reply
to any of our discourses; and Trypho likewise urging me to propose
something, I said: To demonstrate that the ivy is cold is not so proper
a task for me as Trypho, for he often useth coolers and binders; but
that proposition, that wine in which ivy berries have been is more
inebriating, is not true; for that disturbance which it raiseth in
those that drink it is not so properly called drunkenness as alienation
of mind or madness, such as hyoscyamus and a thousand other things
that set men beside themselves usually produce. The crookedness of the
bough is no argument at all, for such violent and unnatural effects
cannot be supposed to proceed from any natural quality or power. Now
sticks are bent by the fire, because that draws the moisture, and so
the crookedness is a violent distortion; but the natural heat nourishes
and preserves the body. Consider therefore, whether it is not the
weakness and coldness of the body that makes it wind, bend, and creep
upon the ground; for those qualities check its rise, and depress it in
its ascent, and render it like a weak traveller, that often sits down
and then goes on again. Therefore the ivy requires something to twine
about, and needs a prop; for it is not able to sustain and direct its
own branches, because it wants heat, which naturally tends upward.
The snow is melted by the wetness of the leaf, for water destroys it
easily, passing through the thin contexture, it being nothing but
a congeries of small bubbles; and therefore in very cold but moist
places the snow melts as soon as in hot. That it is continually green
doth not proceed from its heat, for to shed its leaves doth not argue
the coldness of a tree. Thus the myrtle and maiden-hair, though not
hot, but confessedly cold, are green all the year. Some imagine this
comes from the equal and duly proportioned mixture of the qualities
in the leaf, to which Empedocles hath added a certain aptness of
pores, through which the nourishing juice is orderly transmitted, so
that there is still supply sufficient. But now it is otherwise in
trees whose leaves fall, by reason of the wideness of their higher
and narrowness of their lower pores; for the latter do not send juice
enough, nor do the former keep it, but pour it out as soon as a small
stock is received. This may be illustrated from the usual watering of
our gardens; for when the distribution is unequal, the plants that are
always watered have nourishment enough, seldom wither, and look always
green. But you further argue, that being planted in Babylon it would
not grow. It was well done of the plant, methinks, being a particular
friend and familiar of the Boeotian God, to scorn to live amongst the
barbarians, or imitate Alexander in following the manners of those
nations; but it was not its heat but cold that was the cause of this
aversion, for that could not agree with the contrary quality. For one
similar quality doth not destroy but cherish another. Thus dry ground
bears thyme, though it is naturally hot. Now at Babylon they say the
air is so suffocating, so intolerably hot, that many of the merchants
sleep upon skins full of water, that they may lie cool.
_QUESTION III._
WHY WOMEN ARE HARDLY, OLD MEN EASILY, FOXED.
FLORUS, SYLLA.
Florus thought it strange that Aristotle in his discourse of
Drunkenness, affirming that old men are easily, women hardly,
overtaken, did not assign the cause, since he seldom failed on such
occasions. He therefore proposed it to us (we were a great many
acquaintance met at supper) as a fit subject for our enquiry. Sylla
began: One part will conduce to the discovery of the other; and if
we rightly hit the cause in relation to the women, the difficulty,
as it concerns the old men, will be easily despatched; for their two
natures are quite contrary. Moistness, smoothness, and softness belong
to the one; and dryness, roughness, and hardness are the accidents of
the other. As for women, I think the principal cause is the moistness
of their temper; this produceth a softness in the flesh, a shining
smoothness, and their usual purgations. Now when wine is mixed with
a great deal of weak liquor, it is overpowered by that, loses its
strength, and becomes flat and waterish. Some reason likewise may be
drawn from Aristotle himself; for he affirms that those that drink
fast, and take a large draught without drawing breath, are seldom
overtaken, because the wine doth not stay long in their bodies, but
having acquired an impetus by this greedy drinking, suddenly runs
through; and women are generally observed to drink after that manner.
Besides, it is probable that their bodies, by reason of the continual
defluction of the moisture in order to their usual purgations, are very
porous, and divided as it were into many little pipes and conduits;
into which when the wine falls, it is quickly conveyed away, and
doth not lie and fret the principal parts, from whose disturbance
drunkenness proceeds. But that old men want the natural moisture,
even the name γέρουτες, in my opinion, intimates; for that name was
given them not as inclining to the earth (ῥέοντες εἰς γῆν), but as
being in the habit of their body γεώδεις and γεηροί, _earthlike_
and _earthy_. Besides, the stiffness and roughness prove the
dryness of their nature. Therefore it is probable that, when they
drink, their body, being grown spongy by the dryness of its nature,
soaks up the wine, and that lying in the vessels it affects the senses
and prevents the natural motions. For as floods of water glide over
the close grounds, nor make them slabby, but quickly sink into the
open and chapped fields; thus wine, being sucked in by the dry parts,
lies and works in the bodies of old men. But besides, it is easy to
observe, that age of itself hath all the symptoms of drunkenness. These
symptoms every body knows; shaking of the joints, faltering of the
tongue, babbling, passion, forgetfulness, and distraction of the mind;
many of which being incident to old men, even whilst they are well
and in perfect health, are heightened by any little irregularity and
accidental debauch. So that drunkenness doth not beget in old men any
new and proper symptoms, but only intend and increase the common ones.
And an evident sign of this is, that nothing is so like an old man as a
young man drunk.
_QUESTION IV._
WHETHER THE TEMPER OF WOMEN IS COLDER OR HOTTER THAN THAT OF
MEN.
APOLLONIDES, ATHRYILATUS.
1. Thus Sylla said, and Apollonides the marshal subjoined: Sir, what
you discoursed of old men I willingly admit; but in my opinion you have
omitted a considerable reason in relation to the women, the coldness of
their temper, which quencheth the heat of the strongest wine, and makes
it lose all its destructive force and fire. This reflection seeming
reasonable, Athryilatus the Thasian, a physician, kept us from a hasty
conclusion in this matter, by saying that some supposed the female sex
was not cold, but hotter than the male; and others thought wine rather
cold than hot.
2. When Florus seemed surprised at this discourse, Athryliatus
continued: Sir, what I mention about wine I shall leave to this man
to make out (pointing to me, for a few days before we had handled the
same matter). But that women are of a hot constitution, some suppose,
may be proved, first, from their smoothness, for their heat wastes all
the superfluous nourishment which breeds hair; secondly from their
abundance of blood, which seems to be the fountain and source of all
the heat that is in the body;—now this abounds so much in females,
that they would be all on fire, unless relieved by frequent and sudden
evacuations. Thirdly, from a usual practice of the sextons in burning
the bodies of the dead, it is evident that females are hotter than
males; for the beds-men are wont to put one female body with ten males
upon the same pile, for that contains some inflammable and oily parts,
and serves for fuel to the rest. Besides, if that that is soonest fit
for generation is hottest, and a maid begins to be furious sooner than
a boy, this is a strong proof of the hotness of the female sex. But a
more convincing proof follows: women endure cold better than men, they
are not so sensible of the sharpness of the weather, and are contented
with a few clothes.
3. And Florus replied: Methinks, sir, from the same topics I could
draw conclusions against your assertion. For, first, they endure cold
better, because one similar quality doth not so readily act upon
another; and then again, their seed is not active in generation, but
passive matter and nourishment to that which the male injects. But
more, women grow effete sooner than men; that they burn better than the
males proceeds from their fat, which is the coldest part of the body;
and young men, or such as use exercise, have but little fat. Their
monthly purgations do not prove the abundance, but the corruption and
badness, of their blood; for being the superfluous and undigested part,
and having no convenient vessel in the body, it flows out, and appears
languid and feculent, by reason of the weakness of its heat. And the
shivering that seizes them at the time of their purgations sufficiently
proves that which flows from them is cold and undigested. And who will
believe their smoothness to be an effect of heat rather than cold, when
every body knows that the hottest parts of a man’s body are the most
hairy? For all such excrements are thrust out by the heat, which opens
and makes passages through the skin; but smoothness is a consequent
of that closeness of the superficies which proceeds from condensing
cold. And that the flesh of women is closer than that of men, you may
be informed by those that lie with women that have anointed themselves
with oil or other perfumes; for though they do not touch the women, yet
they find themselves perfumed, their bodies by reason of their heat and
rarety drawing the odor to them. But I think we have disputed plausibly
and sufficiently of this matter....
_QUESTION V._
WHETHER WINE IS POTENTIALLY COLD.
ATHRYILATUS, PLUTARCH.
1. But now I would fain know upon what account you can imagine that
wine is cold. Then, said I, do you believe this to be my opinion? Yes,
said he, whose else? And I replied: I remember a good while ago I met
with a discourse of Aristotle’s upon this very question. And Epicurus,
in his Banquet, hath a long discourse, the sum of which is that wine
of itself is not hot, but that it contains some atoms that cause heat,
and others that cause cold; now, when it is taken into the body, it
loses one sort of particles and takes the other out of the body itself,
according to the person’s nature and constitution; so that some when
they are drunk are very hot, and others very cold.
2. This way of talking, said Florus, leads us by Protagoras directly
to Pyrrho; for it is evident that, suppose we were to discourse of
oil, milk, honey, or the like, we shall avoid all enquiry into their
particular natures, by saying that things are so and so by their mutual
mixture with one another. But how do you prove that wine is cold? And
I, being forced to speak extempore, replied: By two arguments. The
first I draw from the practice of physicians, for when their patients’
stomachs grow very weak, they prescribe no hot things, and yet give
them wine as an excellent remedy. Besides, they stop looseness and
immoderate sweating by wine; and this shows that they think it more
binding and constipating than snow itself. Now if it were potentially
hot, I should think it as wise a thing to apply fire to snow as wine to
the stomach.
Again, most teach that sleep proceeds from the coolness of the parts;
and most of the narcotic medicines, as mandrake and opium, are coolers.
Those indeed work violently, and forcibly condense, but wine cools by
degrees; it gently stops the motion, according as it hath more or less
of such narcotic qualities. Besides, heat is generative; for owing to
heat the moisture flows easily, and the vital spirit gains intensity
and a stimulating force. Now the great drinkers are very dull, inactive
fellows, no women’s men at all; they eject nothing strong, vigorous,
and fit for generation, but are weak and unperforming, by reason of the
bad digestion and coldness of their seed. And it is farther observable
that the effects of cold and drunkenness upon men’s bodies are the
same,—trembling, heaviness, paleness, shivering, faltering of tongue,
numbness, and cramps. In many, a debauch ends in a dead palsy, when
the wine stupefies and extinguisheth all the heat. And the physicians
use this method in curing the qualms and diseases gotten by debauch;
at night they cover them well and keep them warm; and at day they
anoint and bathe, and give them such food as shall not disturb, but
by degrees recover the heat which the wine hath scattered and driven
out of the body. Thus, I added, in these appearances we trace obscure
qualities and powers; but as for drunkenness, it is easily discerned
what it is. For, in my opinion, as I hinted before, those that are
drunk are very much like old men; and therefore great drinkers grow old
soonest, and they are commonly bald and gray before their time; and all
these accidents certainly proceed from want of heat. But mere vinegar
is of a vinous nature and strength, and nothing quenches fire so soon
as that; its extreme coldness overcomes and kills the flame presently.
And of all fruits physicians use the vinous as the greatest coolers, as
pomegranates and apples. Besides, do they not make wine by mixing honey
with rain-water or snow; for the cold, because those two qualities are
near akin, if it prevails, changes the luscious into a poignant taste?
And did not the ancients of all the creeping beasts consecrate the
snake to Bacchus, and of all the plants the ivy, because they were of
a cold and frozen nature? Now, lest any one should think this is an
evidence of its heat, that if a man drinks juice of hemlock, a large
dose of wine cures him, I shall on the contrary affirm that wine and
hemlock juice mixed are an incurable poison, and kill him that drinks
it presently. So that we can no more conclude it to be hot because it
resists, than to be cold because it assists, the poison. For cold is
the only quality by which hemlock juice works and kills.
_QUESTION VI._
WHICH IS THE FITTEST TIME FOR A MAN TO KNOW HIS WIFE?
YOUTHS, ZOPYRUS, OLYMPICHUS, SOCLARUS.
1. Some young students, that had not gone far in the learning of
the ancients, inveighed against Epicurus for bringing in, in his
Symposium, an impertinent and unseemly discourse, about what time was
best to lie with a woman; for (they said) for an old man at supper in
the company of youths to talk of such a subject, and dispute whether
after or before supper was the most convenient time, argued him to be
a very loose and debauched man. To this some said that Xenophon, after
his entertainment was ended, sent all his guests home on horseback,
to lie with their wives. But Zopyrus the physician, a man very well
read in Epicurus, said, that they had not duly weighed that piece;
for he did not propose that question at first, and then discourse of
that matter on purpose; but after supper he desired the young men to
take a walk, and then discourse upon it, that he might induce them
to continence, and persuade them to abate their desires and restrain
their appetites; showing them that it was very dangerous at all
times, but especially after they had been eating or making merry. But
suppose he had proposed this as the chief topic for discourse, doth
it never become a philosopher to enquire which is the convenient and
proper time? Ought we not to time it well, and direct our embrace by
reason? Or may such discourses be otherwise allowed, and must they
be thought unseemly problems to be proposed at table? Indeed I am of
another mind. It is true, I should blame a philosopher that in the
middle of the day, in the schools, before all sorts of men, should
discourse of such a subject; but over a glass of wine between friends
and acquaintance, when it is necessary to propose something beside dull
serious discourse, why should it be a fault to hear or speak any thing
that may inform our judgments or direct our practice in such matters?
And I protest I had rather that Zeno had inserted his loose topics in
some merry discourses and agreeable table-talk, than in such a grave,
serious piece as his politics.
2. The youth, startled at this free declaration, sat silent; and the
rest of the company desired Zopyrus to deliver Epicurus’s sentiment.
He said: The particulars I cannot remember; but I believe he feared
the violent agitations of such exercises, because the bodies employed
in them are so violently disturbed. For it is certain that wine is a
very great disturber, and puts the body out of its usual temper; and
therefore, when thus disquieted, if quiet and sleep do not compose it
but other agitations seize it, it is likely that those parts which knit
and join the members may be loosened, and the whole frame be as it were
unsettled from its foundation and overthrown. For then likewise the
seed cannot freely pass, but is confusedly and forcibly thrown out,
because the liquor hath filled the vessels of the body, and stopped its
way. Therefore, says Epicurus, we must use those sports when the body
is at quiet, when the meat hath been thoroughly digested, carried about
and applied to several parts of the body, but before we begin to want
a fresh supply of food. To this of Epicurus we might join an argument
taken from physic. At day time, while our digestion is performing, we
are not so lusty nor eager to embrace; and presently after supper to
endeavor it is dangerous, for the crudity of the stomach, the food
being yet undigested, may be increased by a disorderly motion upon this
crudity, and so the mischief be double.
3. Olympicus, continuing the discourse, said: I very much like what
Clinias the Pythagorean delivers. For story goes that, being asked
when a man should lie with a woman, he replied, when he hath a mind
to receive the greatest mischief that he can. For Zopyrus’s discourse
seems rational, and other times as well as those he mentions have their
peculiar inconveniences. And therefore,—as Thales the philosopher, to
free himself from the pressing solicitations of his mother who advised
him to marry, said at first, ’tis not yet time; and when, now he was
growing old, she repeated her admonition, replied, nor is it now
time,—so it is best for every man to have the same mind in relation to
those sports of Venus; when he goes to bed, let him say, ’tis not yet
time; and when he rises, ’tis not now time.
4. What you say, Olympicus, said Soclarus interposing, befits wrestlers
indeed; it smells, methinks, of their cottabus, and their meals of
flesh and casks of wine, but is not suitable to the present company,
for there are some young married men here.
Whose duty ’tis to follow Venus’ sports.
Nay, we ourselves seem to have some relation to Venus still, when in
our hymns to the Gods we pray thus to her,
Fair Venus, keep off feeble age.
But waving this, let us enquire (if you think fit) whether Epicurus
does well, when contrary to all right and equity he separates Venus
and the Night, though Menander, a man well skilled in love matters,
says that she likes her company better than that of any of the Gods.
For, in my opinion, night is a very convenient veil, spread over those
that give themselves to that kind of pleasure; for it is not fit that
day should be the time, lest modesty should be banished from our eyes,
effeminacy grow bold, and such vigorous impressions on our memories
be left, as might still possess us with the same fancies and raise
new inclinations. For the sight (according to Plato) receives a more
vigorous impression than any other bodily organ, and joining with
imagination, that lies near it, works presently upon the soul, and
ever raises a new and fresh desire by those images of pleasure which
it brings. But the night, hiding many and the most furious of the
actions, quiets and lulls nature, and doth not suffer it to be carried
to intemperance by the eye. But besides this, how absurd is it, that a
man returning from an entertainment, merry perhaps and jocund, crowned
and perfumed, should cover himself up, turn his back to his wife, and
go to sleep; and then at day-time, in the midst of his business, send
for her out of her apartment to come to him for such a matter; or in
the morning, as a cock treads his hens. No, sir, the evening is the end
of our labor, and the morning the beginning. Bacchus the Loosener and
Terpsichore and Thalia preside over the former; and the latter raiseth
us up betimes to attend on Minerva the Work-mistress, and Mercury
the merchandiser. And therefore songs, dances, and epithalamiums,
merry-meetings, with balls and feasts, and sounds of pipes and flutes,
are the entertainment of the one; but in the other, nothing but the
noise of hammers and anvils, the scratching of saws, the morning cries
of noisy tax-gatherers, citations to court or to attend this or that
prince and magistrate, are heard.
Then all the sports of pleasure disappear.
Then Venus, then gay youth removes;
No Thyrsus then which Bacchus loves;
But all is clouded and o’erspread with care.
Besides, Homer makes not one of the heroes lie with his wife or
mistress in the daytime, but only Paris, who, having shamefully fled
from the battle, sneaked into the embraces of his wife; intimating that
such lasciviousness by day did not befit the sober temper of a man,
but the mad lust of an adulterer. But, moreover, the body will not (as
Epicurus fancies) be injured more after supper than at any other time,
unless a man be drunk or overcharged,—for in those cases, no doubt, it
is very dangerous and hurtful. But if a man is only raised and cheered,
not overpowered by liquor, if his body is pliable, his mind agreeing,
if he interposes some reasonable time between, and then he sports, he
need not fear any disturbance from the load he has within him; he need
not fear catching cold, or too great a transportation of atoms, which
Epicurus makes the cause of all the ensuing harm. For if he lies quiet
he will quickly fill again, and new spirits will supply the vessels
that are emptied. But this is especially to be taken care of, that,
the body being then in a ferment and disturbed, no cares of the soul,
no business about necessary affairs, no labor, should distract and
seize it, lest they should corrupt and sour its humors, Nature not
having time enough for settling what has been disturbed. For, sir, all
men have not the command of that happy ease and tranquillity which
Epicurus’s philosophy procured him; for many great incumbrances seize
almost upon every one every day, or at least some disquiets; and it
is not safe to trust the body with any of these, when it is in such a
condition and disturbance, presently after the fury and heat of the
embrace is over. Let, according to his opinion, the happy and immortal
Deity sit at ease and never mind us; but if we regard the laws of our
country, we must not dare to enter into the temple and offer sacrifice,
if but a little before we have done any such thing. It is fit therefore
to let night and sleep intervene, and after there is a sufficient
space of time past between, to rise as it were pure and new, and (as
Democritus was wont to say) “with new thoughts upon the new day.”
_QUESTION VII._
WHY NEW WINE DOTH NOT INEBRIATE AS SOON AS OTHER.
PLUTARCH, HIS FATHER, HAGIAS, ARISTAENETUS, AND OTHER YOUTH.
1. At Athens on the eleventh day of February (thence called Πιθοίγια,
(_the barrel-opening_), they began to taste their new wine; and
in old times (as it appears), before they drank, they offered some
to the Gods, and prayed that that cordial liquor might prove good
and wholesome. By us Thebans the month is named Προστατήριος, and it
is our custom upon the sixth day to sacrifice to our good Genius and
taste our new wine, after the zephyr has done blowing; for that wind
makes wine ferment more than any other. and the liquor that can bear
this fermentation is of a strong body and will keep well. My father
offered the usual sacrifice, and when after supper the young men, my
fellow-students, commended the wine, he started this question: Why
does not new wine inebriate as soon as other? This seemed a paradox
and incredible to most of us; but Hagias said, that luscious things
were cloying and would presently satiate, and therefore few could drink
enough to make them drunk; for when once the thirst is allayed, the
appetite would be quickly palled by that unpleasant liquor; for that a
luscious is different from a sweet taste, even the poet intimates, when
he says,
With luscious wine, and with sweet milk and cheese.[76]
Wine at first is sweet; afterward, as it grows old, it ferments and
begins to be pricked a little; then it gets a sweet taste.
2. Aristaenetus the Nicaean said, that he remembered he had read
somewhere that sweet things mixed with wine make it less heady, and
that some physicians prescribe to one that hath drunk freely, before he
goes to bed, a crust of bread dipped in honey. And therefore, if sweet
mixtures weaken strong wine, it is reasonable that new wine should not
be heady till it hath lost its sweetness.
3. We admired the acuteness of the young philosophers, and were
well pleased to see them propose something out of the common road,
and give us their own sentiments on this matter. Now the common and
obvious reason is the heaviness of new wine,—which (as Aristotle
says) violently presseth the stomach,—or the abundance of airy and
watery parts that lie in it; the former of which, as soon as they are
pressed, fly out; and the watery parts are naturally fit to weaken the
spirituous liquor. Now, when it grows old, the juice is improved, and
though by the separation of the watery parts it loses in quantity, it
gets in strength.
_QUESTION VIII._
WHY THOSE THAT ARE STARK DRUNK SEEM NOT SO MUCH DEBAUCHED AS THOSE
THAT ARE BUT HALF FOXED.
PLUTARCH, HIS FATHER.
1. Well then, said my father, since we have fallen upon Aristotle, I
will endeavor to propose something of my own concerning those that are
half drunk; for, in my mind, though he was a very acute man, he is not
accurate enough in such matters. They usually say, I think, that a
sober man’s understanding apprehends things right and judges well; the
sense of one quite drunk is weak and enfeebled; but of them that are
half drunk the fancy is vigorous and the understanding weakened, and
therefore, following their own fancies, they judge, but judge ill. But
pray, sirs, what is your opinion in these matters?
2. This reason, I replied, would satisfy me upon a private
disquisition; but if you will have my own sentiments, let us first
consider, whether this difference doth not proceed from the different
temper of the body. For of those that are only half drunk, the mind
alone is disturbed, but the body not being quite overwhelmed is yet
able to obey its motions; but when it is too much oppressed and the
wine has overpowered it, it betrays and frustrates the motions of the
mind, for men in such a condition never go so far as action. But those
that are half drunk, having a body serviceable to the absurd motions of
the mind, are rather to be thought to have greater ability to comply
with those they have, than to have worse inclinations than the others.
Now if, proceeding on another principle, we consider the strength of
the wine itself, nothing hinders but that this may be different and
changeable, according to the quantity that is drunk. As fire, when
moderate, hardens a piece of clay, but if very strong, makes it brittle
and crumble into pieces; and the heat of the spring fires our blood
with fevers, but as the summer comes on, the disease usually abates;
what hinders then but that the mind, being naturally raised by the
power of the wine, when it is come to a pitch, should by pouring on
more be weakened again, and its force abated? Thus hellebore, before
it purges, disturbs the body; but if too small a dose be given, it
disturbs only and purges not at all; and some taking too little of an
opiate are more restless than before; and some taking too much sleep
well. Besides, it is probable that this disturbance into which those
that are half drunk are put, when it comes to a pitch, conduces to that
decay. For a great quantity being taken inflames the body and consumes
the frenzy of the mind; as a mournful song and melancholy music at a
funeral raises grief at first and forces tears, but as it continues, by
little and little it takes away all dismal apprehensions and consumes
our sorrows. Thus wine, after it hath heated and disturbed, calms the
mind again and quiets the frenzy; and when men are dead drunk, their
passions are at rest.
_QUESTION IX.[77]_
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE SAYING: DRINK EITHER FIVE OR THREE, BUT
NOT FOUR?
ARISTO, PLUTARCH, PLUTARCH’S FATHER.
1. When I had said this, Aristo cried out aloud, as his manner was,
and said: I see well now that there is opened a return again of
measures unto feasts and banquets; which measures, although they are
most just and democratical, have for a long time (I wot not by what
sober reason) been banished from thence, as by a tyrant. For, as
they who profess a canonical harmony in sounding of the harp do hold
and say, that the sesquialteral proportion produceth the symphony
_diapente_ (διὰ πέντε), the double proportion the _diapason_
(διὰ πασῶν), and that the accord called _diatessaron_ (διὰ
τεσσάρων), which is of all most obscure and dull, consisteth in the
epitrite proportion; even so they that make profession of skill in
the harmonies of Bacchus have observed, that three symphonies or
accords there are between wine and water, namely, _diapente_,
_diatrion_ (διὰ τριῶν), and _diatessaron_; and so they say
and sing,—Drink either five or three, but not four. For the fifth has
the sesquialteral proportion, three cups of water being mingled with
two of wine; the third has the double proportion, two cups of water
being put to one of wine; but the fourth answereth to the epitrite
proportion of three parts of water poured into one of wine. Now this
last proportion may be fit for some grave magistrates sitting in the
council-hall, or for logicians who pull up their brows when they are
busy in watching the unfolding of their arguments; for surely it is
a mixture sober and weak enough. As for the other twain; that medley
which carrieth the proportion of two for one bringeth in that turbulent
tone of those who are half-drunk,
Which stirs the heart-strings never moved before;
for it suffereth a man neither to be fully sober, nor yet to drench
himself so deep in wine as to be altogether witless and past his sense;
but the other, standing upon the proportion of three to two, is of all
the most musical accord, causing a man to sleep peaceably and forget
all cares, and, like the corn-field which Hesiod speaks of,
Which doth from man all curses drive,
And children cause to rest and thrive,
stilling and appeasing all proud and disordered passions within the
heart, and inducing instead of them a peaceable calm and tranquillity.
2. These speeches of Aristo no one there would contradict, for it was
well known that he spoke in jest. But I willed him to take a cup, and,
as if it were a harp, to set and tune it to that accord and harmony
which he so highly praised. Then came a boy close unto him, and offered
him strong wine; but he refused it, saying with laughter, that his
music consisted in theory, and not in practice of the instrument. Then
my father added to what had been said, that the ancient poets gave two
nurses to Jupiter, namely, Ite and Adrastea; one to Juno, Euboea; two,
moreover, to Apollo, Alethea and Corythalea; while they gave many more
to Bacchus. For, as it seemed to him, Bacchus was nursed and suckled
by many Nymphs, because he had need of many measures of _water_
(νύμφαι), to make him more tame, gentle, witty, and wise.
_QUESTION X._
WHY FLESH STINKS SOONER WHEN EXPOSED TO THE MOON, THAN TO THE
SUN.
EUTHYDEMUS, SATYRUS.
1. Euthydemus of Sunium gave us at an entertainment a very large boar.
The guests wondering at the bigness of the beast, he said that he
had one a great deal larger, but in the carriage the moon had made
it stink; he could not imagine how this should happen, for it was
probable that the sun, being much hotter than the moon, should make it
stink sooner. But, said Satyrus, this is not so strange as the common
practice of the hunters; for, when they send a boar or a doe to a city
some miles distant, they drive a brazen nail into it to keep it from
stinking.
2. After supper Euthydemus bringing the question into play again,
Moschio the physician said, that putrefaction was a colliquation of
the flesh, and that every thing that putrefied grew moister than
before, and that all heat, if gentle, did stir the humors, though
not force them out but if strong, dry the flesh; and that from these
considerations an answer to the question might be easily deduced.
For the moon gently warming makes the body moist; but the sun by his
violent beams dries rather, and draws all moisture from them. Thus
Archilochus spoke like a naturalist,
I hope hot Sirius’s beams will many drain.
And Homer more plainly concerning Hector, over whose body Apollo spread
a thick cloud,
Lest the hot sun should scorch his naked limbs.[78]
Now the moon’s rays are weaker; for, as Ion says,
They do not ripen well the clustered grapes.
3. When he had done, I said: The rest of the discourse I like very
well, but I cannot consent when you ascribe this effect to the strength
and degree of heat, and chiefly in the hot seasons; for in winter every
one knows that the sun warms little, yet in summer it putrefies most.
Now the contrary should happen, if the gentleness of the heat were the
cause of putrefaction. And besides, the hotter the season is, so much
the sooner meat stinks; and therefore this effect is not to be ascribed
to the want of heat in the moon, but to some particular proper quality
in her beams. For heat is not different only by degrees; but in fires
there are some proper qualities very much unlike one another, as a
thousand obvious instances will prove. Goldsmiths heat their gold in
chaff fires; physicians use fires of vine-twigs in their distillations;
and tamarisk is the best fuel for a glass-house. Olive-boughs in a
vapor-bath warm very well, but hurt other baths: they spoil the
timbers, and weaken the foundation; and therefore the most skilful of
the public officers forbid those that rent the baths to burn olive-tree
wood, or throw darnel seed into the fire, because the fumes of it dizzy
and bring the headache to those that bathe. Therefore it is no wonder
that the moon differs in her qualities from the sun; and that the sun
should shed some drying, and the moon some dissolving, influence upon
flesh. And upon this account it is that nurses are very cautious of
exposing their infants to the beams of the moon; for they being full
of moisture, as green plants, are easily wrested and distorted. And
everybody knows that those that sleep abroad under the beams of the
moon are not easily waked, but seem stupid and senseless; for the
moisture that the moon sheds upon them oppresses their faculty and
disables their bodies. Besides, it is commonly said, that women brought
to bed when the moon is a fortnight old, have easy labors; and for this
reason I believe that Diana, which was the same with the moon, was
called the goddess of childbirth. And Timotheus appositely says,
By the blue heaven that wheels the stars,
And by the moon that eases women’s pains.
Even in inanimate bodies the power of the moon is very evident. Trees
that are cut in the full of the moon carpenters refuse, as being soft,
and, by reason of their moistness, subject to corruption; and in its
wane farmers usually thresh their wheat, that being dry it may better
endure the flail; for the corn in the full of the moon is moist, and
commonly bruised in threshing. Besides, they say dough will be leavened
sooner in the full, for then, though the leaven is scarce proportioned
to the meal, yet it rarefies and leavens the whole lump. Now when
flesh putrefies, the combining spirit is only changed into a moist
consistence, and the parts of the body separate and dissolve. And this
is evident in the very air itself, for when the moon is full, most dew
falls; and this Alcman the Poet intimates, when he somewhere calls dew
the air’s and moon’s daughter, saying,
See how the daughter of the Moon and Jove
Does nourish all things.
Thus a thousand instances do prove that the light of the moon is moist,
and carries with it a softening and corrupting quality. Now the brazen
nail that is driven through the flesh, if, as they say, it keeps the
flesh from putrefying, doth it by an astringent quality proper to the
brass. The rust of brass physicians use in astringent medicines, and
they say those that dig brass ore have been cured of a rheum in their
eyes, and that the hair upon their eyelids hath grown again; for the
dust rising from the ore, being insensibly applied to the eyes, stops
the rheum and dries up the humor. Upon this account, perhaps, Homer
calls brass εὐήνωρ and νῶροψ. Aristotle says, that wounds made by a
brazen dart or a brazen sword are less painful and sooner cured than
those that are made of iron weapons, because brass hath something
medicinal in itself, which in the very instant is applied to the
wound. Now it is manifest that astringents are contrary to putrefying,
and healing to corrupting qualities. Some perhaps may say, that the
nail driven through draws all the moisture to itself, for the humor
still flows to the part that is hurt; and therefore it is said that
by the nail there always appears some speck and tumor; and therefore
it is rational that the other parts should remain sound, when all the
corruption gathers about that.
BOOK IV.
Polybius, my Sossius Senecio, advised Scipio Africanus never to return
from the Forum, where he was conversant about the affairs of the city,
before he had gained one new friend. Where I suppose the word friend
is not to be taken too nicely, to signify a lasting and unchangeable
acquaintance; but, as it vulgarly means, a well-wisher, and as
Dicearchus takes it, when he says that we should endeavor to make all
men well-wishers, but only good men friends. For friendship is to be
acquired by time and virtue; but good-will is produced by a familiar
intercourse, or by mirth and trifling amongst civil and genteel men,
especially if opportunity assists their natural inclinations to
good-nature. But consider whether this advice may not be accommodated
to an entertainment as well as the Forum; so that we should not
break up the meeting before we had gained one of the company to be a
well-wisher and a friend. Other occasions draw men into the Forum, but
men of sense come to an entertainment as well to get new friends as
to make their old ones merry; indeed to carry away any thing else is
sordid and uncivil, but to depart with one friend more than we had is
pleasing and commendable. And so, on the contrary, he that doth not
aim at this renders the meeting useless and unpleasant to himself,
and departs at last, having been a partaker of an entertainment with
his belly but not with his mind. For he that makes one at a feast
doth not come only to enjoy the meat and drink, but likewise the
discourse, mirth, and genteel humor which ends at last in friendship
and good-will. The wrestlers, that they may hold fast and lock better,
use dust; and so wine mixed with discourse is of extraordinary use to
make us hold fast of, and fasten upon, a friend. For wine tempered with
discourse carries gentle and kind affections out of the body into the
mind; otherwise, it is scattered through the limbs, and serves only to
swell and disturb. Thus as a marble, by cooling red-hot iron, takes
away its softness and makes it hard, fit to be wrought and receive
impression; thus discourse at an entertainment doth not permit the men
that are engaged to become altogether liquid by the wine, but confines
and makes their jocund and obliging tempers very fit to receive an
impression from the seal of friendship if dexterously applied.
_QUESTION I._
WHETHER DIFFERENT SORTS OF FOOD, OR ONE SINGLE DISH FED UPON AT
ONCE, IS MORE EASILY DIGESTED.
PHILO, PLUTARCH, MARCION.
1. The first question of my fourth decade of Table Discourses shall be
concerning different sorts of food eaten at one meal. When we came to
Hyampolis at the feast called Elaphebolia, Philo the physician gave
us a very sumptuous entertainment; and seeing some boys who came with
Philinus feeding upon dry bread and calling for nothing else, he cried
out, O Hercules, well I see the proverb is verified,
They fought midst stones, but could not take up one;
and presently went out to fetch them some agreeable food. He staid some
time, and at last brought them dried figs and cheese; upon which I
said: It is usually seen that those that provide costly and superfluous
dainties neglect, or are not well furnished with, useful and necessary
things. I protest, said Philo, I did not mind that Philinus designs to
breed us a young Sosastrus, who (they say) never all his lifetime drank
or ate any thing beside milk, although it is probable that it was some
change in his constitution that made him use this sort of diet; but
our Chiron here,—quite contrary to the old one that bred Achilles
from his very birth,—feeding his son with unbloody food, gives people
reason to suspect that like a grasshopper he keeps him on dew and air.
Indeed, said Philinus, I did not know that we were to meet with a
supper of a hundred beasts, such as Aristomenes made for his friends;
otherwise I had come with some poor and wholesome food about me, as
a specific against such costly and unwholesome entertainments. For I
have often heard that simple diet is not only more easily provided, but
likewise more easily digested, than such variety. At this Marcion said
to Philo: Philinus hath spoiled your whole provision by deterring the
guests from eating; but, if you desire it, I will be surety for you,
that such variety is more easily digested than simple food, so that
without fear or distrust they may feed heartily. Philo desired him to
do so.
2. When after supper we begged Philinus to discover what he had to
urge against variety of food, he thus began: I am not the author of
this opinion, but our friend Philo here is ever now and then telling
us, first, that wild beasts, feeding on one sort only and simple diet,
are much more healthy than men are; and that those which are kept in
pens are much more subject to diseases and crudities, by reason of
the prepared variety we usually give them. Secondly, no physician is
so daring, so venturous at new experiments, as to give a feverish
patient different sorts of food at once. No, simple food, and without
sauce, as more easy to be digested, is the only diet they allow. Now
food must be wrought on and altered by our natural powers; in dyeing,
cloth of the most simple color takes the tincture soonest; the most
inodorous oil is soonest by perfumes changed into an essence; and
simple diet is soonest changed, and soonest yields to the digesting
power. For many and different qualities, having some contrariety, when
they meet disagree and corrupt one another; as in a city, a mixed
rout are not easily reduced into one body, nor brought to follow the
same concerns; for each works according to its own nature, and is very
hardly brought to side with another’s quality. Now this is evident in
wine; mixed wine inebriates very soon, and drunkenness is much like a
crudity rising from undigested wine; and therefore the drinkers hate
mixed liquors, and those that do mix them do it privately, as afraid
to have their design upon the company discovered. Every change is
disturbing and injurious, and therefore musicians are very careful how
they strike many strings at once; though the mixture and variety of
the notes would be the only harm that would follow. This I dare say,
that belief and assent can be sooner procured by disagreeing arguments,
than concoction by various and different qualities. But lest I should
seem jocose, waving this, I will return to Philo’s observations again.
We have often heard him declare that it is the quality that makes meat
hard to be digested; that to mix many things together is hurtful, and
begets unnatural qualities; and that every man should take that which
by experience he finds most agreeable to his temper.
Now if nothing is by its own nature hard to be digested, but it is the
quantity that disturbs and corrupts, I think we have still greater
reason to forbear that variety with which Philo’s cook, as it were in
opposition to his master’s practice, would draw us on to surfeits and
diseases. For, by the different sorts of food and new ways of dressing,
he still keeps up the unwearied appetite, and leads it from one dish to
another, till tasting of every thing we take more than is sufficient
and enough; as Hypsipyle’s foster-child,
Who, in a garden placed, plucked up the flowers,
One after one, and spent delightful hours;
But still his greedy appetite goes on,
And still he plucked till all the flowers were gone.[79]
But more, methinks, Socrates is here to be remembered who adviseth us
to forbear those junkets which provoke those that are not hungry to
eat; as if by this he cautioned us to fly variety of meats. For it is
variety that in every thing draws us on to use more than bare necessity
requires. This is manifest in all sorts of pleasures, either of the
eye, ear, or touch; for it still proposeth new provocatives; but in
simple pleasures, and such as are confined to one sort, the temptation
never carries us beyond nature’s wants. In short, in my opinion, we
should more patiently endure to hear a musician praise a disagreeing
variety of notes, or a perfumer mixed ointments, than a physician
commend the variety of dishes; for certainly such changes and turnings
as must necessarily ensue will force us out of the right way of health.
3. Philinus having ended his discourse, Marcion said: In my opinion,
not only those that separate profit from honesty are obnoxious to
Socrates’s curse, but those also that separate pleasure from health,
as if it were its enemy and opposite, and not its great friend and
promoter. Pain we use but seldom and unwillingly, as the most violent
instrument. But from all things else, none, though he would willingly,
can remove pleasure. It still attends when we eat, sleep, bathe, or
anoint, and takes care of and nurses the diseased; dissipating all
that is hurtful and disagreeable, by applying that which is proper,
pleasing, and natural. For what pain, what want, what poison so quickly
and so easily cures a disease as seasonable bathing? A glass of wine,
when a man wants it, or a dish of palatable meat, presently frees us
from all disturbing particles, and settles nature in its proper state,
there being as it were a calm and serenity spread over the troubled
humors. But those remedies that are painful do hardly and only by
little and little promote the cure, every difficulty pushing on and
forcing Nature. And therefore let not Philinus blame us, if we do not
make all the sail we can to fly from pleasure, but more diligently
endeavor to make pleasure and health, than other philosophers do to
make pleasure and honesty, agree. Now, in my opinion, Philinus, you
seem to be out in your first argument, where you suppose the beasts
use more simple food and are more healthy than men; neither of which
is true. The first the goats in Eupolis confute, for they extol their
pasture as full of variety and all sorts of herbs, in this manner,
We feed almost on every kind of trees,
Young firs, the ilex, and the oak we crop.
Sweet trefoil, fragrant juniper, and yew,
Wild olives, thyme,—all freely yield their store.
These that I have mentioned are very different in taste, smell, and
other qualities, and he reckons more sorts which I have omitted. The
second Homer skilfully refutes, when he tells us that the plague
first began amongst the beasts. Besides, the shortness of their lives
proves that they are very subject to diseases; for there is scarce any
irrational creature long lived, besides the crow and the chough; and
those two every one knows do not confine themselves to simple food, but
eat any thing. Besides, you take no good rule to judge what is easy and
what is hard of digestion from the diet of those that are sick; for
labor and exercise, and even to chew our meat well, contribute very
much to digestion, neither of which can agree with a man in a fever.
Again, that the variety of meats, by reason of the different qualities
of the particulars, should disagree and spoil one another, you have no
reason to fear. For if Nature chooses from dissimilar bodies what is
fit and agreeable, the diverse nourishment transmits many and sundry
qualities into the mass and bulk of the body, applying to every part
that which is meet and fit; so that, as Empedocles words it,
The sweet runs to the sweet, the sour combines
With sour, the sharp with sharp, the hot with hot;
and after the mixture is spread through the mass by the heat which
is in the spirit, the proper parts are separated and applied to the
proper members. Indeed, it is very probable that such bodies as ours,
consisting of parts of different natures, should be nourished and built
up rather of various than of simple matter. But if by concoction there
is an alteration made in the food, this will be more easily performed
when there are different sorts of meat, than when there is only one,
in the stomach; for similars cannot work upon similars, and the very
contrariety in the mixture considerably promotes the alteration of the
enfeebled qualities. But if, Philinus, you are against all mixture,
do not chide Philo only for the variety of his dishes and sauces, but
also for using mixture in his sovereign antidotes, which Erasistratus
calls the Gods’ hands. Convince him of absurdity and vanity, when he
mixes things vegetable, mineral, and animal, and things from sea and
land, in one potion; and advise him to let these alone, and to confine
all physic to barley-broth, gourds, and oil mixed with water. But you
urge farther, that variety enticeth the appetite that hath no command
over itself. That is, good sir, cleanly, wholesome, sweet, palatable,
pleasing diet makes us eat and drink more than ordinary. Why then,
instead of fine flour, do not we thicken our broth with coarse bran?
And instead of asparagus, why do we not dress nettle-tops and thistles;
and leaving this fragrant and pleasant wine, drink sour harsh liquor
that gnats have been buzzing about along while? Because, perhaps you
may reply, wholesome feeding doth not consist in a perfect avoiding of
all that is pleasing, but in moderating the appetite in that respect,
and making it prefer profit before pleasure. But, sir, as a mariner
has a thousand ways to avoid a stiff gale of wind, but when it is
clear down and a perfect calm, cannot raise it again; thus to correct
and restrain our extravagant appetite is no hard matter, but when it
grows weak and faint, when it fails as to its proper objects, then
to raise it and make it vigorous and active again is, sir, a very
difficult and hard task. And therefore variety of viands is as much
better than simple food, which is apt to satisfy by being but of one
sort, as it is easier to stop Nature when she makes too much speed,
than to force her on when languishing and faint. Beside, what some say,
that fulness is more to be avoided than emptiness, is not true; but,
on the contrary, fulness then only hurts when it ends in a surfeit or
disease; but emptiness, though it doth no other mischief, is of itself
unnatural. And let this suffice as an answer to what you proposed. But
you who stick to salt and cummin have forgot, that variety is sweeter
and more desired by the appetite, unless too sweet. For, the sight
preparing the way, it is soon assimilated to the eager receiving body;
but that which is not desirable Nature either throws off again, or
keeps it in for mere want. But pray observe this, that I do not plead
for variety in tarts, cakes, or sauces;—those are vain, insignificant,
and superfluous things;—but even Plato allowed variety to those fine
citizens of his, setting before them onions, olives, leeks, cheese, and
all sorts of meat and fish, and besides these, allowed them some dried
fruits.
_QUESTION II._
WHY MUSHROOMS ARE THOUGHT TO BE PRODUCED BY THUNDER, AND WHY IT
IS BELIEVED THAT MEN ASLEEP ARE NEVER THUNDERSTRUCK.
AGEMACHUS, PLUTARCH, DOROTHEUS.
1. At a supper in Elis, Agemachus set before us very large mushrooms.
And when all admired at them, one with a smile said, These are worthy
the late thunder, as it were deriding those who imagine mushrooms are
produced by thunder. Some said that thunder did split the earth,
using the air as a wedge for that purpose, and that by those chinks
those that sought after mushrooms were directed where to find them;
and thence it grew a common opinion, that thunder engenders mushrooms,
and not only makes them a passage to appear; as if one should imagine
that a shower of rain breeds snails, and not rather makes them creep
forth and be seen abroad. Agemachus stood up stiffly for the received
opinion, and told us, we should not disbelieve it only because it
was strange, for there are a thousand other effects of thunder and
lightning and a thousand omens deduced from them, whose causes it
is very hard, if not impossible, to discover; for this laughed-at,
this proverbial mushroom doth not escape the thunder because it is so
little, but because it hath some antipathetical qualities that preserve
it from blasting; as likewise a fig-tree, the skin of a sea-calf (as
they say), and that of the hyena, with which sailors cover the ends of
their sails. And husbandmen call thunder-showers fertilizing, and think
them to be so. Indeed, it is absurd to wonder at these things, when we
see the most incredible things imaginable in thunder, as flame rising
out of moist vapors, and from soft clouds such astonishing noises.
Thus, he continued, I prattle, exhorting you to enquire after the
cause; and I shall accept this as your club for these mushrooms.
2. Then I began: Agemachus himself helps us exceedingly toward this
discovery; for nothing at the present seems more probable than that,
together with the thunder, oftentimes generative waters fall, which
receive that quality from the heat mixed with them. For the piercing
pure parts of the fire break away in lightning; but the grosser
flatulent part, being wrapped up in the cloud, changes its nature,
taking away the coldness and rendering the moisture mild and gentle,
and altering and being altered with it, warms it so that it is made
fit to enter the pores of plants, and is easily assimilated to them.
Besides, such rain gives those things which it waters a peculiar
temperature and difference of juice. Thus dew makes the grass sweeter
to the sheep, and the clouds from which a rainbow is reflected
make those trees on which they fall fragrant. And our priests,
distinguishing it by this, call the wood of those trees rainbow-struck,
imagining that Iris, or the rainbow, hath rested on them. Now it is
probable that when these thunder and lightning showers with a great
deal of warmth and spirit descend forcibly into the caverns of the
earth, the ground is moved thereby, and knobs and tumors are formed
like those produced by heat and noxious humors in our bodies, which we
call wens or kernels. For a mushroom is not like a plant, neither is
it produced without rain; it hath no root nor sprouts, it depends on
nothing, but is a being by itself, having the consistence only of the
earth, which hath been a little changed and altered. If this discourse
seems frivolous, I assure you that such are most of the effects of
thunder and lightning which we see; and upon that account men think
them to be immediately directed by Heaven, and not depending on natural
causes.
3. Dorotheus the rhetorician, one of our company, said: You speak
right, sir, for not only the vulgar and illiterate, but even some of
the philosophers, have been of that opinion. I remember here in this
town lightning broke into a house, and did a great many strange things.
It let the wine out of a vessel, though the earthen vessel remained
whole; and falling upon a man asleep, it neither hurt him nor blasted
his clothes, but melted certain pieces of money that he had in his
pocket, defaced them quite, and made them run into a lump. Upon this
he went to a philosopher, a Pythagorean, that sojourned in the town,
and asked the reason; the philosopher directed him to some expiating
rites, and advised him to consider seriously with himself, and go to
prayers. And I have been told, that lightning falling upon a sentinel
at Rome, as he stood to guard the temple, burned the latchet of his
shoe, and did no other harm; and several silver candlesticks lying in
wooden boxes, the silver was melted while the boxes lay untouched.
These stories you may believe or not as you please. But that which is
most wonderful, and which everybody knows, is this,—the bodies of
those that are killed by lightning never putrefy. For many neither burn
nor bury such bodies, but let them lie above ground with a fence about
them, so that every one may see they remain uncorrupted, confuting by
this Euripides’s Clymene, who says thus of Phaëton,
My best beloved, but now he lies
And putrefies in some dark vale.
And I believe brimstone is called θεῖον (_divine_), because its
smell is like that fiery offensive scent which rises from bodies that
are thunderstruck. And I suppose that, because of this scent, dogs and
birds will not prey on such carcasses. Thus far have I gone; let him
proceed, since he hath been applauded for his discourse of mushrooms,
lest the same jest might be put upon us that was upon Androcydes the
painter. For when in his landscape of Scylla he painted fish the best
and most to the life of any thing in the whole draught, he was said to
use his appetite more than his art, for he naturally loved fish. So
some may say that we philosophize about mushrooms, the cause of whose
production is confessedly doubtful, for the pleasure we take in eating
them....
4. And when I put in my advice, saying that it was as seasonable to
discourse of thunder and lightning amidst our cups as it would be in a
comedy to bring in engines to throw out lightning, the company agreed
to set aside all other questions relating to the subject, and desired
me only to proceed on this head, Why are men asleep never blasted
with lightning? And I, though I knew I should get no great credit by
proposing a cause whose reason was common to other things, said thus:
Lightning is wonderfully piercing and subtile, partly because it rises
from a very pure substance, and partly because by the swiftness of its
motion it purges itself and throws off all gross earthy particles that
are mixed with it. Nothing, says Democritus, is blasted with lightning,
that cannot resist and stop the motion of the pure flame. Thus the
close bodies, as brass, silver, and the like, which stop it, feel its
force and are melted, because they resist; whilst rare, thin bodies,
and such as are full of pores, are passed through and not hurted, as
clothes or dry wood. It blasts green wood or grass, the moisture within
them being seized and kindled by the flame. Now, if it is true that men
asleep are never killed by lightning, from what we have proposed, and
not from any thing else, we must endeavor to draw the cause. Now the
bodies of those that are awake are stiffer and more apt to resist, all
the parts being full of spirits; which as it were in a harp, distending
and screwing up the organs of sense, makes the body of the animal
firm, close, and compacted. But when men are asleep, the organs are
let down, and the body becomes rare, lax, and loose; and the spirits
failing, it hath abundance of pores, through which small sounds and
smells do flow insensibly. For in that case, there is nothing that can
resist, and by this resistance receive any sensible impression from
any objects that are presented, much less from such as are so subtile
and move so swiftly as lightning. Things that are weak Nature shields
from harm, fencing them about with some hard thick covering; but those
things that cannot be resisted do less harm to the bodies that yield
than to those that oppose their force. Besides, those that are asleep
are not startled at the thunder; they have no consternation upon them,
which kills a great many that are no otherwise hurt, and we know that
thousands die with the very fear of being killed. Even shepherds teach
their sheep to run together into a flock when it thunders, for whilst
they lie scattered they die with fear; and we see thousands fall, which
have no marks of any stroke or fire about them, their souls (as it
seems), like birds, flying out of their bodies at the fright. For many,
as Euripides says,
A clap hath killed, yet ne’er drew drop of blood.
For certainly the hearing is a sense that is soonest and most
vigorously wrought upon, and the fear that is caused by any astonishing
noise raiseth the greatest commotion and disturbance in the body; from
all which men asleep, because insensible, are secure. But those that
are awake are oftentimes killed with fear before they are touched;
and fear contracts and condenses the body, so that the stroke must be
strong, because there is so considerable a resistance.
_QUESTION III._
WHY MEN USUALLY INVITE MANY GUESTS TO A WEDDING SUPPER.
SOSSIUS SENECIO, PLUTARCH, THEO.
1. At my son Autobulus’s marriage, Sossius Senecio from Chaeronea
and a great many other noble persons were present at the same feast;
which gave occasion to this question (Senecio proposed it), why to
a marriage feast more guests are usually invited than to any other.
Nay even those law-givers that chiefly opposed luxury and profuseness
have particularly confined marriage feasts to a set number. Indeed,
in my opinion, he continued, Hecataeus the Abderite, one of the old
philosophers, hath said nothing to the purpose in this matter, when
he tells us that those that marry wives invite a great many to the
entertainment, that many may see and be witnesses that they being
free born take to themselves wives of the same condition. For, on the
contrary, the comedians reflect on those who revel at their marriages,
who make a great ado and are pompous in their feasts, as such who are
marrying with no great confidence and courage. Thus, in Menander, one
replies to a bridegroom that bade him beset the house with dishes,...
Your words are great, but what’s this to your bride?
2. But lest I should seem to find fault with those reasons others give,
only because I have none of my own to produce, continued he, I begin by
declaring that there is no such evident or public notice given of any
feast as there is of one at a marriage. For when we sacrifice to the
Gods, when we take leave of or receive a friend, a great many of our
acquaintance need not know it. But a marriage dinner is proclaimed by
the loud sound of the wedding song, by the torches and the music, which
as Homer expresseth it,
The women stand before the doors to see and hear.[80]
And therefore when everybody knows it, the persons are ashamed to omit
the formality of an invitation, and therefore entertain their friends
and kindred, and every one that they are any way acquainted with.
3. This being generally approved, Well, said Theo, speaking next,
let it be so, for it looks like truth; but let this be added, if you
please, that such entertainments are not only friendly, but also
kindredly, the persons beginning to have a new relation to another
family. But there is something more considerable, and that is this;
since by this marriage two families join in one, the man thinks it his
duty to be civil and obliging to the woman’s friends, and the woman’s
friends think themselves obliged to return the same to him and his; and
upon this account the company is doubled. And besides, since most of
the little ceremonies belonging to the wedding are performed by women,
it is necessary that, where they are entertained, their husbands should
be likewise invited.
_QUESTION IV._
WHETHER THE SEA OR LAND AFFORDS BETTER FOOD.
CALLISTRATUS, SYMMACHUS, POLYCRATES.
1. Aedepsus in Euboea, where the baths are, is a place by nature every
way fitted for free and gentle pleasures, and withal so beautified
with stately edifices and dining rooms, that one would take it for no
other than the common place of repast for all Greece. Here, though the
earth and air yield plenty of creatures for the service of men, the
sea no less furnisheth the table with variety of dishes, nourishing a
store of delicious fish in its deep and clear waters. This place is
especially frequented in the spring; for hither at this time of year
abundance of people resort, solacing themselves in the mutual enjoyment
of all those pleasures the place affords, and at spare hours pass away
the time in many useful and edifying discourses. When Callistratus the
sophist lived here, it was a hard matter to dine at any place besides
his house; for he was so extremely courteous and obliging, that no
man whom he invited to dinner could have the face to say him nay. One
of his best humors was to pick up all the pleasant fellows he could
meet with, and put them in the same room. Sometimes he did, as Cimon
one of the ancients used to do, and satisfactorily treated men of
all sorts and fashions. But he always (so to speak) followed Celeus,
who was the first man, it is said, that daily assembled a number of
honorable persons of good mark, and called the place where they met the
Prytaneum.
2. Several times at these public meetings divers agreeable discourses
were raised; and it fell out that once a very splendid treat, adorned
with variety of dainties, gave occasion for enquiries concerning food,
whether the land or sea yielded better. Here when a great part of the
company were highly commending the land, as abounding with many choice,
nay, an infinite variety of all sorts of creatures, Polycrates calling
to Symmachus, said to him: But you, sir, being an animal bred between
two seas, and brought up among so many which surround your sacred
Nicopolis, will not you stand up for Neptune? Yes, I will, replied
Symmachus, and therefore command you to stand by me, who enjoy the
most pleasant part of all the Achaean Sea. Well, says Polycrates, the
beginning of my discourse shall be grounded upon custom; for as of a
great number of poets we usually give one, who far excels the rest, the
famous name of poet; so though there be many sorts of dainties, yet
custom has so prevailed, that the fish alone, or above all the rest, is
called ὄψον, because it is more excellent than all others. For we do
not call those gluttonous and great eaters who love beef, as Hercules,
who after flesh used to eat green figs; nor those that love figs, as
Plato; nor lastly, those that are for grapes, as Arcesilaus; but those
who frequent the fish-market, and soonest hear the market-bell. Thus
when Demosthenes told Philocrates that the gold he got by treachery
was spent upon whores and fish, he upbraids him as a gluttonous and
lascivious fellow. And Ctesiphon said pat enough, when a certain
glutton cried aloud in the Senate that he should burst asunder: No, by
no means let us be baits for your fish! And what was his meaning, do
you think, who made this verse,
You capers gnaw, when you may sturgeon eat?
And what, for God’s sake, do those men mean who, inviting one another
to sumptuous collations, usually say: To-day we will dine upon the
shore? Is it not that they suppose what is certainly true, that a
dinner upon the shore is of all others most delicious? Not by reason of
the waves and stones in that place,—for who upon the sea-coast would
be content to feed upon a pulse or a caper?—but because their table
is furnished with plenty of fresh fish. Add to this, that sea-food is
dearer than any other. Wherefore Cato, inveighing against the luxury of
the city, did not exceed the bounds of truth, when he said that at Rome
a fish was sold for more than an ox. For they sell a small pot of fish
for a price which a hecatomb of sheep with an ox would hardly bring.
Besides, as the physician is the best judge of physic, and the musician
of songs; so he is able to give the best account of the goodness of
meat who is the greatest lover of it. For I will not make Pythagoras
and Xenocrates arbitrators in this case; but Antagoras the poet, and
Philoxenus the son of Eryxis, and Androcydes the painter, of whom it
was reported that, when he drew a landscape of Scylla, he drew fish
in a lively manner swimming round her, because he was a great lover
of them. So Antigonus the king, surprising Antagoras the poet in the
habit of a cook, broiling congers in his tent, said to him: Dost thou
think that Homer was dressing congers when he writ Agamemnon’s famous
exploits? And he as smartly replied: Do you think that Agamemnon did
so many famous exploits when he was enquiring who dressed congers in
the camp? These arguments, says Polycrates, I have urged in behalf of
fishmongers, drawing them from testimony and custom.
3. But, says Symmachus, I will go more seriously to work, and more
like a logician. For if that may truly be said to be a dainty which
gives meat the best relish, it will evidently follow, that that is the
best sort of dainty which gets men the best stomach to their meat.
Therefore, as those philosophers who were called Elpistics (from the
Greek word signifying hope, which above all others they cried up)
averred that there was nothing in the world which concurred more to
the preservation of life than hope, without whose gracious influence
life would be a burden and altogether intolerable; in the like manner
that of all things may be said to get us a stomach to our meat, without
which all meat would be unpalatable and nauseous. And among all those
things the earth yields, we find no such things as salt, which we can
have only from the sea. First of all, there would be nothing eatable
without salt, which mixed with flour seasons bread also. Hence it was
that Neptune and Ceres had both the same temple. Besides, salt is the
most pleasant of all relishes. For those heroes who, like champions,
used themselves to a spare diet, banishing from their tables all vain
and superfluous delicacies, to such a degree that when they encamped
by the Hellespont they abstained from fish, yet for all this could
not eat flesh without salt; which is a sufficient evidence that salt
is the most desirable of all relishes. For as colors need light, so
tastes need salt, that they may affect the sense, unless you would have
them very nauseous and unpleasant. For, as Heraclitus used to say, a
carcass is more abominable than dung. Now all flesh is dead, and part
of a lifeless carcass; but the virtue of salt, being added to it, like
a soul, gives it a pleasing relish and poignancy. Hence it comes to
pass that before meat men use to take sharp things, and such as have
much salt in them; for these beguile us into an appetite. And whoever
has his stomach sharpened with these sets cheerfully and freshly upon
all other sorts of meat. But if he begin with any other kind of food,
all on a sudden his stomach grows dull and languid. And therefore
salt doth not only make meat but drink palatable. For Homer’s onion,
which, he tells us, they were used to eat before they drank, was fitter
for seamen and boatmen than kings. Things moderately salt, by being
agreeable to the mouth, make all sorts of wine mild and palatable,
and water itself of a pleasing taste. Besides, salt creates none of
those troubles which an onion does, but digests all other kinds of
meat, making them tender and fitter for concoction; so that at the
same time it is sauce to the palate and physic to the body. But all
other sea-food, besides this pleasantness, is also very innocent; for
though it be fleshly, yet it does not load the stomach as all other
flesh does, but is easily concocted and digested. This Zeno will avouch
for me, and Crato too, who confine sick persons to a fish diet, as of
all others the lightest sort of meat. And it stands with reason, that
the sea should produce the most nourishing and wholesome food, seeing
it yields us the most refined, the purest, and therefore the most
agreeable air.
4. You say right, says Lamprias, but let us think of something else to
confirm what you have spoken. I remember my old grandfather was used
to say in derision of the Jews, that they abstained from most lawful
flesh; but we will say that that is most lawful meat which comes from
the sea. For we can claim no great right over land creatures, which
are nourished with the same food, draw the same air, wash in and drink
the same water, that we do ourselves; and when they are slaughtered,
they make us ashamed of what we are doing, with their hideous cries;
and then again, by living amongst us, they arrive at some degree of
familiarity and intimacy with us. But sea creatures are altogether
strangers to us, and are born and brought up as it were in another
world; neither does their voice, look, or any service they have done us
plead for their life. For this kind of creatures are of no use at all
to us, nor is there any necessity that we should love them. But that
place which we inhabit is hell to them, and as soon as ever they enter
upon it they die.
_QUESTION V._
WHETHER THE JEWS ABSTAINED FROM SWINE’S FLESH BECAUSE THEY
WORSHIPPED THAT CREATURE, OR BECAUSE THEY HAD AN ANTIPATHY AGAINST
IT.
CALLISTRATUS, POLYCRATES, LAMPRIAS.
1. After these things were spoken, and some in the company were minded
to say something in defence of the contrary opinion, Callistratus
interrupted their discourse and said: Sirs, what do you think of that
which was spoken against the Jews, that they abstain from the most
lawful flesh? Very well said, quoth Polycrates, for that is a thing
I very much question, whether it was that the Jews abstained from
swine’s flesh because they conferred divine honor upon that creature,
or because they had a natural aversion to it. For whatever we find in
their own writings seems to be altogether fabulous, except they have
some more solid reasons which they have no mind to discover.
2. Hence it is, says Callistratus, that I am of an opinion that this
nation has that creature in some veneration; and though it be granted
that the hog is an ugly and filthy creature, yet it is not quite so
vile nor naturally stupid as a beetle, griffin, crocodile, or cat,
most of which are worshipped as the most sacred things by some priests
amongst the Egyptians. But the reason why the hog is had in so much
honor and veneration amongst them is, because, as the report goes,
that creature breaking up the earth with its snout showed the way to
tillage, and taught them how to use the ploughshare, which instrument
for that very reason, as some say, was called _hynis_ from ὑς,
_a swine_. Now the Egyptians inhabiting a country situated low,
and whose soil is naturally soft, have no need of the plough; but
after the river Nile hath retired from the grounds it overflowed, they
presently let all their hogs into the fields. and they with their feet
and snouts break up the ground, and cover the sown seed. Nor ought
this to seem strange to any one, that there are in the world those who
abstain from swine’s flesh upon such an account as this; when it is
evident that among barbarous nations there are other animals had in
greater honor and veneration for lesser, if not altogether ridiculous,
reasons. For the field-mouse only for its blindness was worshipped as a
God among the Egyptians, because they were of an opinion that darkness
was before light, and that the latter had its birth from mice about the
fifth generation at the new moon; and moreover that the liver of this
creature diminishes in the wane of the moon. But they consecrate the
lion to the sun, because the lioness alone, of all clawed quadrupeds,
brings forth her young with their eyesight; for they sleep a moment,
and when they are asleep their eyes sparkle. Besides, they place gaping
lions’ heads for the spouts of their fountains, because Nilus overflows
the Egyptian fields when the sign is Leo: they give it out that their
bird ibis, as soon as hatched, weighs two drachms, which are of the
same weight with the heart of a new-born infant; and that its legs
being spread with the bill make an exact equilateral triangle. And yet
who can find fault with the Egyptians for these trifles, when it is
left upon record that the Pythagoreans worshipped a white cock, and
of sea creatures abstained especially from the mullet and urtic. The
Magi that descended from Zoroaster adored the land hedgehog above other
creatures, but had a deadly spite against water-rats, and thought that
man was dear in the eyes of the Gods who destroyed most of them. But I
should think that if the Jews had such an antipathy against a hog, they
would kill it as the magicians do mice; when, on the contrary, they are
by their religion as much prohibited to kill as to eat it. And perhaps
there may be some reason given for this; for as the ass is worshipped
by them as the first discoverer of fountains, so perhaps the hog may
be had in like veneration, which first taught them to sow and plough.
Nay, some say that the Jews also abstain from hares, as abominable and
unclean.
3. They have reason for that, said Lamprias, because a hare is so like
an ass which they detest;[81] for in its color, ears, and the sparkling
of its eyes, it is so like an ass, that I do not know any little
creature that represents a great one so much as a hare doth an ass;
unless in this likewise they imitate the Egyptians, and suppose that
there is something of divinity in the swiftness of this creature, as
also in its quickness of sense; for the eyes of hares are so unwearied
that they sleep with them open. Besides they seem to excel all other
creatures in quickness of hearing; whence it was that the Egyptians
painted the ear of a hare amongst their other hieroglyphics, as an
emblem of hearing. But the Jews do hate swine’s flesh, because all the
barbarians are naturally fearful of a scab and leprosy, which they
presume comes by eating such kind of flesh. For we may observe that all
pigs under the belly are overspread with a leprosy and scab; which may
be supposed to proceed from an ill disposition of body and corruption
within, which breaks out through the skin. Besides, swine’s feeding
is commonly so nasty and filthy, that it must of necessity cause
corruptions and vicious humors; for, setting aside those creatures
that are bred from and live upon dung, there is no other creature that
takes so much delight to wallow in the mire, and in other unclean and
stinking places. Hogs’ eyes are said to be so flattened and fixed upon
the ground, that they see nothing above them, nor ever look up to the
sky, except when forced upon their back they turn their eyes to the sun
against nature. Therefore this creature, at other times most clamorous,
when laid upon his back, is still, as astonished at the unusual sight
of the heavens; while the greatness of the fear he is in (as it is
supposed) is the cause of his silence. And if it be lawful to intermix
our discourse with fables, it is said that Adonis was slain by a boar.
Now Adonis is supposed to be the same with Bacchus; and there are a
great many rites in both their sacrifices which confirm this opinion.
Others will have Adonis to be Bacchus’s paramour; and Phanocles an
amorous love-poet writes thus,
Bacchus on hills the fair Adonis saw,
And ravished him, and reaped a wondrous joy.
_QUESTION VI._
WHAT GOD IS WORSHIPPED BY THE JEWS.
SYMMACHUS, LAMPRIAS, MOERAGENES.
1. Here Symmachus, greatly wondering at what was spoken, says: What,
Lamprias, will you permit our tutelar God, called Evius, the inciter
of women, famous for the honors he has conferred upon him by madmen,
to be inscribed and enrolled in the mysteries of the Jews? Or is there
any solid reason that can be given to prove Adonis to be the same with
Bacchus? Here Moeragenes interposing, said: Do not be so fierce upon
him, for I who am an Athenian answer you, and tell you, in short,
that these two are the very same. And no man is able or fit to hear
the chief confirmation of this truth, but those amongst us who are
initiated and skilled in the triennial παντέλεια, or great mysteries
of the God. But what no religion forbids to speak of among friends,
especially over wine, the gift of Bacchus, I am ready at the command of
these gentlemen to disclose.
2. When all the company requested and earnestly begged it of him;
first of all (says he), the time and manner of the greatest and most
holy solemnity of the Jews is exactly agreeable to the holy rites of
Bacchus; for that which they call the Fast they celebrate in the midst
of the vintage, furnishing their tables with all sorts of fruits,
while they sit under tabernacles made of vines and ivy; and the day
which immediately goes before this they call the day of Tabernacles.
Within a few days after they celebrate another feast, not darkly but
openly, dedicated to Bacchus, for they have a feast amongst them
called Kradephoria, from carrying palm-trees, and Thyrsophoria, when
they enter into the temple carrying thyrsi. What they do within I know
not; but it is very probable that they perform the rites of Bacchus.
First they have little trumpets, such as the Grecians used to have at
their Bacchanalia to call upon their Gods withal. Others go before
them playing upon harps, which they call Levites, whether so named
from Lusius or Evius,—either word agrees with Bacchus. And I suppose
that their Sabbaths have some relation to Bacchus; for even at this
day many call the Bacchi by the name of Sabbi, and they make use of
that word at the celebration of Bacchus’s orgies. And this may be made
appear out of Demosthenes and Menander. Nor would it be absurd, were
any one to say that the name Sabbath was imposed upon this feast from
the agitation and excitement (σόβησις) which the priests of Bacchus
indulged in. The Jews themselves testify no less; for when they keep
the Sabbath, they invite one another to drink till they are drunk; or
if they chance to be hindered by some more weighty business, it is the
fashion at least to taste the wine. Some perhaps may surmise that these
are mere conjectures. But there are other arguments which will clearly
evince the truth of what I assert. The first may be drawn from their
High-priest, who on holidays enters their temple with his mitre on,
arrayed in a skin of a hind embroidered with gold, wearing buskins,
and a coat hanging down to his ankles; besides, he has a great many
little bells hanging at his garment which make a noise as he walks
the streets. So in the nightly ceremonies of Bacchus (as the fashion
is amongst us), they make use of musical instruments, and call the
God’s nurses χαλκοδρυσταί. High up on the wall of their temple is a
representation of the thyrsus and timbrels, which surely can belong
to no other God than Bacchus. Moreover they are forbidden the use of
honey in their sacrifices, because they suppose that a mixture of
honey corrupts and deads the wine. And honey was used for sacrificing
in former days, and with it the ancients were wont to make themselves
drunk, before the vine was known. And at this day barbarous people
who want wine drink metheglin, allaying the sweetness of the honey by
bitter roots, much of the taste of our wine. The Greeks offered to
their Gods these sober offerings or honey-offerings, as they called
them, because that honey was of a nature quite contrary to wine. But
this is no inconsiderable argument that Bacchus was worshipped by
the Jews, in that, amongst other kinds of punishment, that was most
remarkably odious by which malefactors were forbid the use of wine
for so long a time as the judge was pleased to prescribe. Those thus
punished....
(_The remainder of the Fourth Book is wanting._)
_QUESTION VII._
WHY THE DAYS WHICH BEAR THE NAMES OF THE PLANETS ARE NOT DISPOSED
ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF THE PLANETS, BUT THE CONTRARY. THERE IS
ADDED A DISCOURSE TOUCHING THE POSITION OF THE SUN.
_QUESTION VIII._
WHY SIGNET-RINGS ARE WORN ESPECIALLY ON THE FOURTH FINGER.
_QUESTION IX._
WHETHER WE OUGHT TO CARRY IN OUR SEAL-RINGS THE IMAGES OF GODS, OR
RATHER THOSE OF WISE PERSONAGES.
_QUESTION X._
WHY WOMEN NEVER EAT THE MIDDLE PART OF A LETTUCE.
BOOK V.
What is your opinion at present, Sossius Senecio, of the pleasures of
mind and body, is not evident to me;
Because us two a thousand things divide,
Vast shady hills, and the rough ocean’s tide.[82]
But formerly, I am sure, you did not lean to nor like their opinion,
who will not allow the soul to have any proper agreeable pleasure,
which without respect to the body she desires for herself; but define
that she lives as a form assistant to the body, is directed by the
passions of it, and, as that is affected, is either pleased or grieved,
or, like a looking-glass, only receives the images of those sensible
impressions made upon the body. This sordid and debasing opinion is
especially in this way confuted; for at a feast, the genteel well-bred
men after supper fall upon some topic or another as second course, and
cheer one another by their pleasant talk. Now the body hath very little
or no share in this; which evidently proves that this is a particular
banquet for the soul, and that those pleasures are peculiar to her,
and different from those which pass to her through the body and are
vitiated thereby. Now, as nurses, when they feed children, taste a
little of their pap, and have but small pleasure therefrom, but when
the infants are satisfied, leave crying, and go to sleep, then being
at their own disposal, they take such meat and drink as is agreeable
to their own bodies; thus the soul partakes of the pleasures that
arise from eating and drinking, like a nurse, being subservient to the
appetites of the body, kindly yielding to its necessities and wants,
and calming its desires; but when that is satisfied and at rest, then
being free from her business and servile employment, she seeks her
own proper pleasures, revels on discourse, problems, stories, curious
questions, or subtle resolutions. Nay, what shall a man say, when he
sees the dull unlearned fellows after supper minding such pleasures
as have not the least relation to the body? They tell tales, propose
riddles, or set one another a guessing at names, comprised and hid
under such and such numbers. Thus mimics, drolls, Menander and his
actors were admitted into banquets, not because they can free the eye
from any pain, or raise any tickling motion in the flesh; but because
the soul, being naturally philosophical and a lover of instruction,
covets its own proper pleasure and satisfaction, when it is free from
the trouble of looking after the body.
_QUESTION I._
WHY TAKE WE DELIGHT IN HEARING THOSE THAT REPRESENT THE PASSIONS OF MEN
ANGRY OR SORROWFUL, AND YET CANNOT WITHOUT CONCERN BEHOLD THOSE WHO ARE
REALLY SO AFFECTED?
PLUTARCH, BOETHUS.
1. Of this we discoursed in your company at Athens, when Strato the
comedian (for he was a man of great credit) flourished. For being
entertained at supper by Boethus the Epicurean, with a great many
more of the sect, as it usually happens when learned and inquisitive
men meet together, the remembrance of the comedy led us to this
enquiry,—Why we are disturbed at the real voices of men, either angry,
pensive, or afraid, and yet are delighted to hear others represent
them, and imitate their gestures, speeches, and exclamations. Every one
in the company gave almost the same reason. For they said, he that only
represents excels him that really feels, inasmuch as he doth not suffer
the misfortunes; which we knowing are pleased and delighted on that
account.
2. But I, though it was not properly my talent, said that we, being by
nature rational and lovers of ingenuity, are delighted with and admire
every thing that is artificially and ingeniously contrived. For as a
bee, naturally loving sweet things, seeks after and flies to any thing
that has any mixture of honey in it; so man, naturally loving ingenuity
and elegancy, is very much inclined to embrace and highly approve every
word or action that is seasoned with wit and judgment. Thus, if any one
offers a child a piece of bread, and at the same time a little dog or
ox made in paste, we shall see the boy run eagerly to the latter; so
likewise if any one offers him silver in the lump, and another a beast
or a cup of the same metal, he will rather choose that in which he sees
a mixture of art and reason. Upon the same account it is that children
are much in love with riddles, and such fooleries as are difficult and
intricate; for whatever is curious and subtle doth attract and allure
human nature, as antecedently to all instruction agreeable and proper
to it. And therefore, because he that is really affected with grief or
anger presents us with nothing but the common bare passion, but in the
imitation some dexterity and persuasiveness appears, we are naturally
inclined to be disturbed at the former, whilst the latter delights
us. It is unpleasant to see a sick man, or one that is at his last
gasp; yet with content we can look upon the picture of Philoctetes,
or the statue of Jocasta, in whose face it is commonly said that the
workmen mixed silver, so that the brass might represent the face and
color of one ready to faint and yield up the ghost. And this, said I,
the Cyrenaics may use as a strong argument against you Epicureans,
that all the sense of pleasure which arises from the working of any
object on the ear or eye is not in those organs, but in the intellect
itself. Thus the continual cackling of a hen or cawing of a crow is
very ungrateful and disturbing; yet he that imitates those noises well
pleases the hearers. Thus to behold a consumptive man is no delightful
spectacle; yet with pleasure we can view the pictures and statues of
such persons, because the very imitating hath something in it very
agreeable to the mind, which allures and captivates its faculties. For
upon what account, for God’s sake, from what external impression upon
our organ, should men be moved to admire Parmeno’s sow so much as to
pass it into a proverb? Yet it is reported, that Parmeno being very
famous for imitating the grunting of a pig, some endeavored to rival
and outdo him. And when the hearers, being prejudiced, cried out, Very
well indeed, but nothing comparable to Parmeno’s sow; one took a pig
under his arm and came upon the stage. And when, though they heard the
very pig, they still continued, This is nothing comparable to Parmeno’s
sow; he threw his pig amongst them, to show that they judged according
to opinion and not truth. And hence it is very evident, that like
motions of the sense do not always raise like affections in the mind,
when there is not an opinion that the thing done was not neatly and
ingeniously performed.
_QUESTION II._
THAT THE PRIZE FOR POETS AT THE GAMES WAS ANCIENT.
At the solemnity of the Pythian Games, there was a consult about taking
away all such sports as had lately crept in and were not of ancient
institution. For after they had taken in the tragedian in addition
to the three ancient, which were as old as the solemnity itself, the
Pythian piper, the harper, and the singer to the harp, as if a large
gate were opened, they could not keep out an infinite crowd of plays
and musical entertainments of all sorts that rushed in after him.
Which indeed made no unpleasant variety, and increased the company,
but yet impaired the gravity and neatness of the solemnity. Besides it
must create a great deal of trouble to the umpires, and considerable
dissatisfaction to very many, since but few could obtain the prize. It
was chiefly agreed upon, that the orators and poets should be removed;
and this determination did not proceed from any hatred to learning, but
forasmuch as such contenders are the most noted and worthiest men of
all, therefore they reverenced them, and were troubled that, when they
must judge every one deserving, they could not bestow the prize equally
upon all. I, being present at this consult, dissuaded those who were
for removing things from their present settled order, and who thought
this variety as unsuitable to the solemnity as many strings and many
notes to an instrument. And when at supper, Petraeus the president and
director of the sports entertaining us, the same subject was discoursed
on, I defended music, and maintained that poetry was no upstart
intruder, but that it was time out of mind admitted into the sacred
games, and crowns were given to the best performer. Some straight
imagined that I intended to produce some old musty stories, like the
funeral solemnities of Oeolycus the Thessalian or of Amphidamas the
Chalcidean, in which they say Homer and Hesiod contended for the prize.
But passing by these instances as the common theme of every grammarian,
as likewise their criticisms who, in the description of Patroclus’s
obsequies in Homer, read ῥήμονες, _orators_, and not ῥ’[**unclear]
ἥμονες, _darters_,[83] as if Achilles had proposed a prize for the
best speaker,—omitting all these, I said that Acastus at his father
Pelias’s funeral set a prize for contending poets, and Sibylla won it.
At this, a great many demanding some authority for this unlikely and
incredible relation, I happily recollecting myself produced Acesander,
who in his description of Africa hath this relation; but I must confess
this is no common book. But Polemo the Athenian’s Commentary of the
Treasures of the City Delphi I suppose most of you have diligently
perused, he being a very learned man, and diligent in the Greek
antiquities. In him you shall find that in the Sicyonian treasure
there was a golden book dedicated to the God, with this inscription:
Aristomache, the poetess of Erythraea, dedicated this after she had got
the prize at the Isthmian games. Nor is there any reason, I continued,
why we should so admire and reverence the Olympic games, as if, like
Fate, they were unalterable, and never admitted any change since the
first institution. For the Pythian, it is true, hath had three or four
musical prizes added; but all the exercises of the body were for the
most part the same from the beginning. But in the Olympian all beside
racing are late additions. They instituted some, and abolished them
again; such were the races of mules, either rode or in a chariot, as
likewise the crown appointed for boys that were victorious in the five
contests. And, in short, a thousand things in those games are mere
novelties. And I fear to tell you how at Pisa they had a single combat,
where he that yielded or was overcome was killed upon the place,
lest again you may require an author for my story, and I may appear
ridiculous if amidst my cups I should forget the name.
_QUESTION III._
WHY WAS THE PINE COUNTED SACRED TO NEPTUNE AND BACCHUS? AND
WHY AT FIRST WAS THE CONQUEROR IN THE ISTHMIAN GAMES CROWNED WITH
A GARLAND OF PINE, AFTERWARDS WITH PARSLEY, AND NOW AGAIN WITH
PINE?
LUCANIUS, PRAXITELES.
1. This question was started, why the Isthmian garland was made of
pine. We were then at supper in Corinth, in the time of the Isthmian
games, with Lucanius the chief priest. Praxiteles the commentator
brought this fable for a reason; it is said that the body of Melicertes
was found fixed to a pine-tree by the sea; and not far from Megara,
there is a place called the Race of a Fair Lady, through which the
Megarians say that Ino, with her son Melicertes in her arms, ran to
the sea. And when many advanced the common opinion, that the pine-tree
garland peculiarly belongs to Neptune, and Lucanius added that it
is sacred to Bacchus too, but yet, for all that, it might also be
appropriated to the honor of Melicertes, this began the question, why
the ancients dedicated the pine to Neptune and Bacchus. As for my
part, it did not seem incongruous to me, for both the Gods seem to
preside over the moist and generative principle; and almost all the
Greeks sacrifice to Neptune the nourisher of plants, and to Bacchus the
preserver of trees. Beside, it may be said that the pine peculiarly
agrees to Neptune, not, as Apollodorus thinks, because it grows by
the sea-side, or because it loves a bleak place (for some give this
reason), but because it is used in building ships; for the pine
together with the like trees, as fir and cypress, affords the best and
the lightest timber, and likewise pitch and rosin, without which the
compacted planks would be altogether unserviceable at sea. To Bacchus
they dedicate the pine, because it gives a pleasant seasoning to wine,
for amongst pines they say the sweetest and most delicious grapes grow.
The cause of this Theophrastus thinks to be the heat of the soil; for
pines grow most in chalky grounds. Now chalk is hot, and therefore must
very much conduce to the concoction of the wine; as a chalky spring
affords the lightest and sweetest water; and if chalk is mixed with
corn, by its heat it makes the grains swell, and considerably increases
the heap. Besides, it is probable that the vine itself is bettered by
the pine, for that contains several things which are good to preserve
wine. All cover the insides of wine-casks with pitch, and many mix
rosin with wine, as the Euboeans in Greece, and in Italy those that
live about the river Po. From the parts of Gaul about Vienna there is
a sort of pitched wine brought, which the Romans value very much; for
such things mixed with it do not only give it a good flavor, but make
the wine generous, taking away by their gentle heat all the crude,
watery, and undigested particles.
2. When I had said thus much, a rhetorician in the company, a man well
read in all sorts of polite learning, cried out: Good Gods! was it not
but the other day that the Isthmian garland began to be made of pine?
And was not the crown anciently of twined parsley? I am sure in a
certain comedy a covetous man is brought in speaking thus.
The Isthmian garland I will sell as cheap
As common wreaths of parsley may be sold.
And Timaeus the historian says that, when the Corinthians were
marching to fight the Carthaginians in the defence of Sicily, some
persons carrying parsley met them, and when several looked upon this
as a bad omen,—because parsley is accounted unlucky, and those that
are dangerously sick we usually say have need of parsley,—Timoleon
encouraged them by putting them in mind of the Isthmian parsley garland
with which the Corinthians used to crown the conquerors. And besides,
the admiral-ship of Antigonus’s navy, having by chance some parsley
growing on its poop, was called Isthmia. Besides, a certain obscure
epigram upon an earthen vessel stopped with parsley intimates the same
thing. It runs thus:
The Grecian earth, now hardened by the flame,
Holds in its hollow belly Bacchus’ blood;
And hath its mouth with Isthmian branches stopped.
Sure, he continued, they never read these authors, who cry up the pine
as anciently wreathed in the Isthmian garlands, and would not have it
some upstart intruder. The young men yielded presently to him, as being
a man of various reading and very learned.
3. But Lucanius, with a smile looking upon me, cried out: Good God!
here’s a deal of learning. But others have taken advantage of our
ignorance and unacquaintedness with such matters, and, on the contrary,
persuaded us that the pine was the first garland, and that afterwards
in honor of Hercules the parsley was received from the Nemean games,
which in a little time prevailing, thrust out the pine, as if it
were its right to be the wreath; but a little while after the pine
recovered its ancient honor, and now flourishes in its glory. I was
satisfied, and upon consideration found that I had met with a great
many authorities for it. Thus Euphorion writes of Melicertes,
They mourned the youth, and him on pine boughs laid
Of which the Isthmian victors’ crowns are made.
Fate had not yet seized beauteous Mene’s son
By smooth Asopus; since whose fall the crown
Of parsley wreathed did grace the victor’s brow.
And Callimachus is plainer and more express, when he makes Hercules
speak thus of parsley,
This at Isthmian games
To Neptune’s glory now shall be the crown;
The pine shall be disused, which heretofore
In Corinth’s plains successful victors wore.
And beside, if I am not mistaken, in Procles’s history of the Isthmian
games I met with this passage; at first a pine garland crowned the
conqueror, but when this game began to be reckoned amongst the sacred,
then from the Nemean solemnity the parsley was received. And this
Procles was one of Xenocrates’s fellow-students at the Academy.
_QUESTION IV._
CONCERNING THAT EXPRESSION IN HOMER, ζωρότερον δὲ κέραιε.[84]
NICERATUS, SOSICLES, ANTIPATER, PLUTARCH.
1. Some at the table were of opinion that Achilles talked nonsense when
he bade Patroclus “mix the wine stronger,” subjoining this reason,
For now I entertain my dearest friends.
But Niceratus a Macedonian, my particular acquaintance, maintained
that ζωρόν did not signify pure but hot wine; as if it were derived
from ζωτικός and ζέσις (_life-giving_ and _boiling_), and
it were requisite at the coming of his friends to temper a fresh
bowl, as every one of us in his offering at the altar pours out fresh
wine. But Socicles the poet, remembering a saying of Empedocles,
that in the great universal change those things which before were
ἄκρατα, _unmixed_, should then be ζωρά, affirmed that ζωρόν there
signified εὔκρατον, _well tempered_, and that Achilles might with
a great deal of reason bid Patroclus provide well-tempered wine for the
entertainment of his friends; and it was not absurd (he said) to use
ζωρότερον for ζωρόν, any more than δεξιτερόν for δεξιόν, or θηλύτερον
for θῆλυ, for the comparatives are very properly put for the positives.
My friend Antipater said that years were anciently called ὧροι, and
that the particle ζα in composition signified greatness; and therefore
old wine, that had been kept for many years, was called by Achilles
ζωρόν.
2. I put them in mind that some imagine that θερμόν, _hot_, is
signified by ζωρότερον, and that hotter means simply faster, as when we
command servants to bestir themselves more hotly or in hotter haste.
But I must confess, your dispute is frivolous, since it is raised upon
this supposition, that if ζωρότερον signifies _more pure wine_,
Achilles’s command would be absurd, as Zoilus of Amphipolis imagined.
For first he did not consider that Achilles saw Phoenix and Ulysses
to be old men, who are not pleased with diluted wine, and upon that
account forbade any mixture. Besides, having been Chiron’s scholar, and
from him having learned the rules of diet, he considered that weaker
and more diluted liquors were fittest for those bodies that lay at
ease, and were not employed in their customary exercise or labor. Thus
with the other provender he gave his horses smallage, and this upon
very good reason; for horses that lie still grow sore in their feet,
and smallage is the best remedy in the world against that. And you will
not find smallage or any thing of the same nature given to any other
horses in the whole Iliad. Thus Achilles, being skilled in physic,
provided suitable provender for his horses, and used the lightest diet
himself, as the fittest whilst he lay at ease. But those that had been
wearied all day in fight he did not think convenient to treat like
those that had lain at ease, but commanded more pure and stronger wine
to be prepared. Besides, Achilles doth not appear to be naturally
addicted to drinking, but he was of a haughty inexorable temper.
No pleasant humor, no soft mind he bore,
But was all fire and rage.[85]
And in another place very plainly Homer says, that
Many a sleepless night he knew.[86]
Now little sleep cannot content those that drink strong liquors; and in
his railing at Agamemnon, the first ill name he gives him is drunkard,
proposing his great drinking as the chiefest of his faults. And for
these reasons it is likely that, when they came, he thought his usual
mixture too weak and not convenient for them.
_QUESTION V._
CONCERNING THOSE THAT INVITE MANY TO A SUPPER.
PLUTARCH, ONESICRATES, LAMPRIAS THE ELDER.
1. At my return from Alexandria all my friends by turns treated me,
inviting all such too as were any way acquainted, so that our meetings
were usually tumultuous and suddenly dissolved; which disorders gave
occasion to discourses concerning the inconveniences that attend
such crowded entertainments. But when Onesicrates the physician in
his turn invited only the most familiar acquaintance, and men of the
most agreeable temper, I thought that what Plato says concerning the
increase of cities might be applied to entertainments. For there is
a certain number which an entertainment may receive, and still be an
entertainment; but if it exceeds that, so that by reason of the number
there cannot be a mutual conversation amongst all, if they cannot know
one another nor partake of the same jollity, it ceaseth to be such.
For we should not need messengers there, as in a camp, or boatswains,
as in a galley; but we ourselves should immediately converse with one
another. As in a dance, so in an entertainment, the last man should be
placed within hearing of the first.
2. As I was speaking, my grandfather Lamprias cried out: Then it seems
there is need of temperance not only in our feasts, but also in our
invitations. For methinks there is even an excess in kindness, when
we pass by none of our friends, but draw them all in, as to see a
sight or hear a play. And I think, it is not so great a disgrace for
the entertainer not to have bread or wine enough for his guests, as
not to have room enough, with which he ought always to be provided,
not only for invited guests, but strangers and chance visitants. For
suppose he hath not wine and bread enough, it may be imputed either to
the carelessness or dishonesty of his servants; but the want of room
must be imputed to the imprudence of the inviter. Hesiod is very much
admired for beginning thus,
A vast chaos first was made.[87]
For it was necessary that there should be first a place and room
provided for the beings that were afterward to be produced; and not
what was seen yesterday at my son’s entertainment, when, as Anaxagoras
said,
All lay jumbled together.
But suppose a man hath room and provision enough, yet a multitude
itself is to be avoided for its own sake, as hindering all familiarity
and conversation; and it is more tolerable to let the company have
no wine, than to exclude all converse from a feast. And therefore
Theophrastus jocularly called the barbers’ shops feasts without wine;
because those that sit there usually prattle and discourse. But those
that invite a crowd at once deprive all of free communication of
discourse, or rather make them divide into cabals, so that two or three
privately talk together, and neither know nor look on those that sit,
as it were, half a mile distant.
Some took this way to valiant Ajax’ tent,
And some the other to Achilles’ went.[88]
And therefore some rich men are foolishly profuse, who build rooms
big enough for thirty tables or more at once; for such a preparation
certainly is for unsociable and unfriendly entertainments, and such as
are fit for a panegyriarch rather than a symposiarch to preside over.
But this may be pardoned in those; for wealth would not be wealth,
it would be really blind and imprisoned, unless it had witnesses, as
tragedies would be without spectators. Let us entertain few and often,
and make that a remedy against having a crowd at once. For those that
invite but seldom are forced to have all their friends, and all that
upon any account they are acquainted with together; but those that
invite frequently, and but three or four, render their entertainments
like little barks, light and nimble. Besides, the very reason why
we invite teaches us to select some out of the number of our many
friends. For as when we are in want we do not call all together, but
only those that can best afford help in that particular case,—when
we would be advised, the wiser part; and when we are to have a trial
the best pleaders; and when we are to go a journey, those that can
live pleasantly and are at leisure,—thus to our entertainments we
should call only those that are at the present agreeable. Agreeable,
for instance, to a prince’s entertainment will be the magistrates, if
they are his friends, or chiefest of the city; to marriage or birth-day
feasts, all their kindred, and such as are under the protection of the
same Jupiter the guardian of consanguinity; and to such feasts and
merry-makings as this those are to be invited whose tempers are most
suitable to the occasion. When we offer sacrifice to one God, we do not
worship all the others that belong to the same temple and altar at the
same time; but suppose we have three bowls, out of the first we pour
oblations to some, out of the second to others, and out of the third to
the rest, and none of the Gods take distaste. And in this a company of
friends may be likened to the company of Gods; none takes distaste at
the order of the invitation, if it be prudently managed and every one
allowed a turn.
_QUESTION VI._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT THE SAME ROOM WHICH AT THE BEGINNING OF A
SUPPER SEEMS TOO NARROW FOR THE GUESTS APPEARS WIDE ENOUGH AFTERWARDS?
After this it was presently asked, why the room which at the beginning
of supper seems too narrow for the guests is afterwards wide enough;
when the contrary is most likely, after they are filled with the
supper. Some said, the posture of our sitting was the cause; for they
sit, when they eat, with their full breadth to the table, that they
may command it with their right hand; but after they have supped, they
sit more sideways, and make an acute figure with their bodies, and do
not touch the place according to the superficies, if I may so say,
but the line. Now as cockal bones do not take up as much room when
they fall upon one end as when they fall flat, so every one of us at
the beginning sitting broadwise, and with a full face to the table,
afterwards changes the figure, and turns his depth, not his breadth,
to the board. Some attribute it to the beds whereon we sat, for those
when pressed stretch; as strait shoes after a little wearing have their
pores widened, and grow fit for—sometimes too big for—the foot. An
old man in the company merrily said, that the same feast had two very
different presidents and directors; in the beginning, Hunger, that is
not the least skilled in ordering and disposing, but afterward Bacchus,
whom all acknowledge to be the best orderer of an army in the world.
As therefore Epaminondas, when the unskilful captains had led their
forces into narrow disadvantageous straits, relieved the phalanx that
was fallen foul on itself and all in disorder, and brought it into good
rank and file again; thus we in the beginning being like greedy hounds
confused and disordered by hunger, the God (hence named the looser and
the dance-arranger) settles us in a friendly and agreeable order.
_QUESTION VII._
CONCERNING THOSE THAT ARE SAID TO BEWITCH.
METRIUS FLORUS, PLUTARCH, SOCLARUS, PATROCLES, CAIUS.
1. A discourse happening at supper concerning those that are said to
bewitch or have a bewitching eye, most of the company looked upon
it as a whim, and laughed at it. But Metrius Florus, who then gave
us a supper, said that the strange events wonderfully confirmed the
report; and because we cannot give a reason for the thing, therefore
to disbelieve the relation was absurd, since there are a thousand
things which evidently are, the reasons of which we cannot readily
assign. And, in short, he that requires every thing should be probable
destroys all wonder and admiration; and where the cause is not
obvious, there we begin to doubt, that is, to philosophize. So that
they who disbelieve all wonderful relations do in some measure take
away philosophy. The cause why any thing is so, reason must find out;
but that a thing is so, testimony is a sufficient evidence; and we have
a thousand instances of this sort attested. We know that some men by
looking upon young children hurt them very much, their weak and soft
temperature being wrought upon and perverted, whilst those that are
strong and firm are not so liable to be wrought upon. And Phylarchus
tells us that the Thibians, the old inhabitants about Pontus, were
destructive not only to little children, but to some also of riper
years; for those upon whom they looked or breathed, or to whom they
spake, would languish and grow sick. And this, likely, those of other
countries perceived who bought slaves there. But perhaps this is not
so much to be wondered at, for in touching and handling there is some
apparent principle and cause of the effect. And as when you mix other
birds’ wings with the eagles’, the plumes waste and suddenly consume;
so there is no reason to the contrary, but that one man’s touch may be
good and advantageous, and another’s hurtful and destructive. But that
some, by being barely looked upon, are extremely prejudiced is certain;
though the stories are disbelieved, because the reason is hard to be
given.
2. True, said I, but methinks there is some small track to the cause
of this effect, if you come to the effluvia of bodies. For smell,
voice, breath, and the like, are effluvia from animal bodies, and
material parts that move the senses, which are wrought upon by their
impulse. Now it is very likely that such effluvia must continually
part from animals, by reason of their heat and motion; for by that
the spirits are agitated, and the body, being struck by those, must
continually send forth effluvia. And it is probable that these pass
chiefly through the eye. For the sight, being very vigorous and
active, together with the spirit upon which it depends, sends forth
a strange fiery power; so that by it men act and suffer very much,
and are always proportionably pleased or displeased, according as the
visible objects are agreeable or not. Love, that greatest and most
violent passion of the soul, takes its beginning from the eye; so that
a lover, when he looks upon the fair, flows out, as it were, and seems
to mix with them. And therefore why should any one, that believes men
can be affected and prejudiced by the sight, imagine that they cannot
act and hurt as well? For the mutual looks of mature beauties, and
that which comes from the eye, whether light or a stream of spirits,
melt and dissolve the lovers with a pleasing pain, which they call the
bitter-sweet of love. For neither by touching or hearing the voice of
their beloved are they so much wounded and wrought upon, as by looking
and being looked upon again. There is such a communication, such a
flame raised by one glance, that those must be altogether unacquainted
with love that wonder at the Median naphtha, that takes fire at a
distance from the flame. For the glances of a fair one, though at a
great distance, quickly kindle a fire in the lover’s breast. Besides
everybody knows the remedy for the jaundice; if they look upon the
bird called charadrios, they are cured. For that animal seems to be of
that temperature and nature as to receive and draw away the disease,
that like a stream flows out through the eyes; so that the charadrios
will not look on one that hath the jaundice; he cannot endure it, but
turns away his head and shuts his eyes, not envying (as some imagine)
the cure he performs, but being really hurted by the effluvia of
the patient. And of all diseases, soreness of the eyes is the most
infectious; so strong and vigorous is the sight, and so easily does it
cause infirmities in another.
3. Very right, said Patrocles, and you reason well as to changes
wrought upon the body; but as to the soul, which in some measure exerts
the power of witchcraft, how can this give any disturbance by the eye?
Sir, I replied, do not you consider, that the soul, when affected,
works upon the body? Thoughts of love excite lust, and rage often
blinds dogs as they fight with wild beasts. Sorrow, covetousness, or
jealousy makes us change color, and destroys the habit of the body;
and envy more than any passion, when fixed in the soul, fills the body
full of ill humors, and makes it pale and ugly; which deformities good
painters in their pictures of envy endeavor to represent. Now, when men
thus perverted by envy fix their eyes upon another, and these, being
nearest to the soul, easily draw the venom from it, and send out as it
were poisoned darts, it is no wonder, in my mind, if he that is looked
upon is hurt. Thus the biting of a dog when mad is most dangerous; and
then the seed of a man is most prolific, when he embraces one that
he loves; and in general the affections of the mind strengthen and
invigorate the powers of the body. And therefore people imagine that
those amulets that are preservative against witchcraft are likewise
good and efficacious against envy; the sight by the strangeness of
the spectacle being diverted, so that it cannot make so strong an
impression upon the patient. This, Florus, is what I can say; and pray,
sir, accept it as my club for this entertainment.
4. Well, said Soclarus, but let us try whether the money be all good
or no; for, in my mind, some of it seems brass. For if we admit the
general report about these matters to be true, you know very well that
it is commonly supposed that some have friends, acquaintance, and
even fathers, that have such evil eyes; so that the mothers will not
show their children to them, nor for a long time suffer them to be
looked upon by such; and how can the effects wrought by these proceed
from envy? But what, for God’s sake, wilt thou say to those that are
reported to bewitch themselves?—-for I am sure you have heard of such,
or at least read these lines:
Curls once on Eutel’s head in order stood;
But when he viewed his figure in a flood,
He overlooked himself, and now disease....
For they say that this Eutelidas, appearing very delicate and beauteous
to himself, was affected with that sight and grew sick upon it, and
lost his beauty and his health. Now, pray sir, what reason can you find
for these wonderful effects?
5. At any other time, I replied, I question not but I shall give you
full satisfaction. But now, sir, after such a large pot as you have
seen me take, I boldly affirm, that all passions which have been
fixed in the soul a long time raise ill humors in the body, which by
continuance growing strong enough to be, as it were, a new nature,
being excited by any intervening accident, force men, though unwilling,
to their accustomed passions. Consider the timorous, they are afraid
even of those things that preserve them. Consider the pettish, they are
angry with their best and dearest friends. Consider the amorous and
lascivious, in the height of their fury they dare violate a Vestal.
For custom is very powerful to draw the temper of the body to any
thing that is suitable to it; and he that is apt to fall will stumble
at every thing that lies in his way. So that we need not wonder at
those that have raised in themselves an envious and bewitching habit,
if according to the peculiarity of their passion they are carried on
to suitable effects; for when they are once moved, they do that which
the nature of the thing, not which their will, leads them to. For as a
sphere must necessarily move spherically, and a cylinder cylindrically
according to the difference of their figures; thus his disposition
makes an envious man move enviously to all things; and it is likely
they should chiefly hurt their most familiar acquaintance and best
beloved. And that fine fellow Eutelidas you mentioned, and the rest
that are said to overlook themselves, may be easily and upon good
rational grounds accounted for; for, according to Hippocrates, a good
habit of body, when at height, is easily perverted, and bodies come to
their full maturity do not stand at a stay there, but fall and waste
down to the contrary extreme. And therefore when they are in very good
plight, and see themselves look much better than they expected, they
gaze and wonder; but then their body being nigh to change, and their
habit declining into a worse condition, they overlook themselves. And
this is done when the effluvia are stopped and reflected by the water
rather than by any other specular body; for this breathes upon them
whilst they look upon it, so that the very same particles which would
hurt others must hurt themselves. And this perchance often happens to
young children, and the cause of their diseases is falsely attributed
to those that look upon them.
6. When I had done, Gaius, Florus’s son-in-law, said: Then it seems
you make no more reckoning or account of Democritus’s images, than of
those of Aegium or Megara; for he delivers that the envious send out
images which are not altogether void of sense or force, but full of the
disturbing and poisonous qualities of those from whom they come. Now
these being mixed with such qualities, and remaining with and abiding
in those persons that are overlooked, disturb and injure them both in
mind and body; for this, I think, is the meaning of that philosopher,
a man in his opinions and expressions admirable and divine. Very true,
said I, and I wonder that you did not observe that I took nothing from
those effluvia and images but life and will; lest you should imagine
that, now it is almost midnight, I brought in spectres and wise and
understanding images to terrify and fright you; but in the morning, if
you please, we will talk of those things.
_QUESTION VIII._
WHY HOMER CALLS THE APPLE-TREE ἀγλαόκαρπον, AND EMPEDOCLES
CALLS APPLES ὑπέρφλοια.
PLUTARCH, TRYPHO, CERTAIN GRAMMARIANS, LAMPRIAS THE ELDER.
1. As we were at supper in Chaeronea, and had all sorts of fruit at the
table, one of the company chanced to speak these verses,
The fig-trees sweet, the apple-trees that bear
Fair fruit, and olives green through all the year.[89]
Upon this there arose a question, why the poet calls apple-trees
particularly ἀγλαόκαρποι, _bearing fair fruit_. Trypho the
physician said, that this epithet was given comparatively in respect
of the tree, because, being small and no goodly tree to look upon, it
bears fair and large fruit. Somebody else said, that the particular
excellencies that are scattered amongst all other fruits are united in
this alone. As to the touch, it is smooth and clean, so that it makes
the hand that toucheth it odorous without defiling it; it is sweet to
the taste, and to the smell and sight very pleasing; and therefore
there is reason that it should be duly praised, as being that which
congregates and allures all the senses together.
2. This discourse we liked indifferently well. But whereas Empedocles
has thus written,
Why pomegranates so late do grow.
And apples bear a lovely show (ὑπέρφλοια);
I understand well (said I) the epithet given to pomegranates, because
that at the end of autumn, and when the heats begin to decrease,
they ripen the fruit; for the sun will not suffer the weak and thin
moisture to thicken into a consistence until the air begins to wax
colder; therefore, says Theophrastus, this only tree ripens its fruit
best and soonest in the shade. But in what sense the philosopher
gives the epithet ὑπέρφλοια to apples, I much question, since it
is not his custom to strive to adorn his verses with varieties of
epithets, as with gay and florid colors. But in every verse he
gives some dilucidation of the substance and virtue of the subject
upon which he treats; as when he calls the body encircling the
soul the mortal-encompassing earth; as also when he calls the air
cloud-gathering, and the liver full of blood.
3. When now I had said these things myself, certain grammarians
affirmed, that those apples were called ὑπέρφλοια by reason of their
vigor and florid manner of growing; for to blossom and flourish after
an extraordinary manner is by the poets expressed by the word ψλοίειν.
In this sense, Antimachus calls the city of Cadmeans flourishing with
fruit; and Aratus, speaking of the dog-star Sirius, says that he
To some gave strength, but others did consume,
Their bloom and verdure parching;
calling the greenness of the trees and the blossoming of the fruit
by the name of φλόος. Nay, there are some of the Greeks also who
sacrifice to Bacchus surnamed Φλοῖος. And therefore, seeing the
verdure and floridness chiefly recommend this fruit, philosophers call
it ὑπέρφλοιον. But Lamprias our grandfather said that the word ὑπέρ
did not only denote excess and vehemency, but external and supernal;
thus we call the lintel of a door ὑπέρθυρον, and the upper part of
the house ὑπέρῷον; and the poet calls the outward parts of the victim
the upper-flesh, as he calls the entrails the inner-flesh. Let us
see therefore, says he, whether Empedocles did not make use of this
epithet in this sense, seeing that other fruits are encompassed with
an outward rind and with certain skins and membranes, but the only husk
that the apple has is a glutinous and smooth tunic (or core) containing
the seed, so that the part which is fit to be eaten, and lies without,
was properly called ὑπέρφλοιον, that is _over_ or _outside of
the husk_.
_QUESTION IX._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT THE FIG-TREE, BEING ITSELF OF A VERY SHARP
AND BITTER TASTE, BEARS SO SWEET FRUIT?
LAMPRIAS THE ELDER, AND OTHERS.
This discourse ended, the next question was about fig-trees, how so
luscious and sweet fruit should come from so bitter a tree. For the
leaf from its roughness is called θρίον. The wood of it is full of sap,
and as it burns sends forth a very biting smoke; and the ashes of it
thoroughly burnt are so acrimonious, that they make a lye extremely
detersive. And, which is very strange, all other trees that bud and
bear fruit put forth blossoms too; but the fig-tree never blossoms.
And if (as some say) it is never thunderstruck, that likewise may be
attributed to the sharp juices and bad temper of the stock; for such
things are as secure from thunder as the skin of a sea calf or hyena.
Then said the old man: It is no wonder that when all the sweetness is
separated and employed in making the fruit, that which is left should
be bitter and unsavory. For as the liver, all the gall being gathered
in its proper place, is itself very sweet; so the fig-tree having
parted with its oil and sweet particles to the fruit, reserves no
portions for itself. For that this tree hath some good juice, I gather
from what they say of rue, which growing under a fig-tree is sweeter
than usual, and hath a sweeter and more palatable juice, as if it drew
some sweet particles from the tree which mollified its offensive and
corroding qualities; unless perhaps, on the contrary, the fig-tree
robbing it of its nourishment draws likewise some of its sharpness and
bitterness away.
_QUESTION X._
WHAT ARE THOSE THAT ARE SAID TO BE περὶ ἅλα καὶ κύμινον,
AND WHY DOES HOMER CALL SALT DIVINE?
FLORUS, APOLLOPHANES, PLUTARCH, PHILINUS.
1. Florus, when we were entertained at his house, put this question,
What are those in the proverb who are said to be about the salt and
cummin? Apollophanes the grammarian presently satisfied him, saying, by
that proverb were meant intimate acquaintance, who could sup together
on salt and cummin. Thence we proceeded to enquire how salt should come
to be so much honored as it is; for Homer plainly says,
And after that he strewed his salt divine,[90]
and Plato delivers that by man’s laws salt is to be accounted most
sacred. And this difficulty was increased by the customs of the
Egyptian priests, who professing chastity eat no salt, no, not so much
as in their bread. For if it be divine and holy, why should they avoid
it?
2. Florus bade us not mind the Egyptians, but speak according to the
Grecian custom on the present subject. But I replied: The Egyptians
are not contrary to the Greeks in this matter; for the profession of
purity and chastity forbids getting children, laughter, wine, and many
other very commendable and lawful things; and perhaps such votaries
avoid salt, as being, according to some men’s opinions, by its heat
provocative and apt to raise lust. Or they refuse it as the most
pleasant of all sauces, for indeed salt may be called the sauce of all
sauces; and therefore some call salt χάριτας; because it makes food,
which is necessary for life, to be relishing and pleasant.
3. What then, said Florus, shall we say that salt is termed divine
for that reason? Indeed that is very considerable, for men for the
most part deify those common things that are exceeding useful to their
necessities and wants, as water, light, the seasons of the year; and
the earth they do not only think to be divine, but a very God. Now salt
is as useful as either of these, being a sort of protector to the food
as it comes into the body, and making it palatable and agreeable to the
appetite. But consider farther, whether its power of preserving dead
bodies from rotting a long time be not a divine property, and opposite
to death; since it preserves part, and will not suffer that which is
mortal wholly to be destroyed. But as the soul, which is our diviner
part, connects the limbs of animals, and keeps the composure from
dissolution; thus salt applied to dead bodies, and imitating the work
of the soul, stops those parts that were falling to corruption, binds
and confines them, and so makes them keep their union and agreement
with one another. And therefore some of the Stoics say, that swine’s
flesh then deserves the name of a body, when the soul like salt spreads
through it and keeps the parts from dissolution. Besides, you know that
we account lightning to be sacred and divine, because the bodies that
are thunder-struck do not rot for a long time; what wonder is it then,
that the ancients called salt as well as lightning divine, since it
hath the same property and power?
4. I making no reply, Philinus subjoined: Do you not think that that
which is generative is to be esteemed divine, seeing God is the
principle of all things? And I assenting, he continued: Salt, in the
opinion of some men, for instance the Egyptians you mentioned, is very
operative that way; and those that breed dogs, when they find their
bitches not apt to be hot, give them salt and seasoned flesh, to stir
up and awaken their sleeping lechery and vigor. Besides, the ships
that carry salt breed abundance of mice; the females, as some imagine,
conceiving without the help of the males, only by licking the salt.
But it is most probable that the salt raiseth an itching in animals,
and so makes them salacious and eager to couple. And perhaps for the
same reason they call a surprising and bewitching beauty, such as is
apt to move and entice, ἁλμυρὸν καὶ δριμύ, _saltish_. And I think
the poets had a respect to this generative power of salt in their fable
of Venus springing from the sea. And it may be farther observed, that
they make all the sea Gods very fruitful, and give them large families.
And beside, there are no land animals so fruitful as the sea animals;
agreeable to which observation is that verse of Empedocles,
Leading the foolish race of fruitful fish.
BOOK VI.
Timotheus the son of Conon, Sossius Senecio, after a full enjoyment of
luxurious campaign diet, being entertained by Plato in his Academy,
at a neat, homely, and (as Ion says) no surfeiting feast (such an one
as is constantly followed by sound sleep, and, by reason of the calm
and pleasant state the body enjoys, rarely interrupted with dreams and
apparitions), the next day, being sensible of the difference, said that
those that supped with Plato were well treated, even the day after the
feast. For such a temper of a body not over-charged, but expedite and
fitted for the ready execution of all its enterprises, is without all
doubt a great help for the more comfortable passing away of the day.
But there is another benefit not inferior to the former, which does
usually accrue to those that sup with Plato, namely, the recollection
of those points that were debated at the table. For the remembrance
of those pleasures which arise from meat and drink is ungenteel, and
short-lived withal, and nothing but the remains of yesterday’s smell.
But the subjects of philosophical queries and discourses, being always
fresh after they are imparted, are equally relished by all, as well
by those that were absent as by those that were present at them;
insomuch that learned men even now are as much partakers of Socrates’s
feasts as those who really supped with him. But if things pertaining
to the body had afforded any pleasure, Xenophon and Plato should have
left us an account not of the discourse, but of the great variety of
dishes, sauces, and other costly compositions that were prepared in
the houses of Callias and Agatho. Yet there is not the least mention
made of any such things, though questionless they were as sumptuous as
possible; but whatever things were treated of and learnedly discussed
by their guests were left upon record and transmitted to posterity as
precedents, not only for discoursing at table, but also for remembering
the things that were handled at such meetings.
_QUESTION I._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT THOSE THAT ARE FASTING ARE MORE THIRSTY
THAN HUNGRY?
PLUTARCH AND OTHERS.
I present you with this Sixth Book of Table Discourses, wherein the
first thing that cometh to be discussed is an enquiry into the reason
why those that are fasting are more inclinable to drink than to eat.
For the assertion carries in it a repugnancy to the standing rules
of reason; forasmuch as the decayed stock of dry nourishment seems
more naturally to call for its proper supplies. Whereupon I told the
company, that of those things whereof our bodies are composed, heat
only—or, however, above all the rest—stands in continual need of such
accessions; for the truth of which this may be urged as a convincing
argument: neither air, water, nor earth requires any matter to feed
upon, or devours whatsoever lies next it; but fire alone doth. Hence
it comes to pass that young men, by reason of their greater share of
natural heat, have commonly greater stomachs than old men; whereas on
the contrary, old men can endure fasting much better, for this only
reason, because their natural heat is grown weaker and decayed. Just so
we see it fares with bloodless animals, which by reason of the want of
heat require very little nourishment. Besides, every one of us finds by
experience, that bodily exercises, clamors, and whatever other actions
by violent motion occasion heat, commonly sharpen our stomachs and get
us a better appetite. Now, as I take it, the most natural and principal
nourishment of heat is moisture, as it evidently appears from flames,
which increase by the pouring in of oil, and from ashes, which are of
the driest things in nature; for after the humidity is consumed by the
fire, the terrene and grosser parts remain without any moisture at all.
Add to these, that fire separates and dissolves bodies by extracting
that moisture which should keep them close and compact. Therefore, when
we are fasting, the heat first of all forces the moisture out of the
relics of the nourishment that remain in the body, and then, pursuing
the other humid parts, preys upon the natural moisture of the flesh
itself. Hence the body like clay grows dry, wants drink more than meat;
till the heat, receiving strength and vigor by our drinking, excites an
appetite for more substantial food.
_QUESTION II._
WHETHER WANT OF NOURISHMENT CAUSETH HUNGER AND THIRST, OR THE
CHANGE IN THE FIGURE OF THE PORES OR PASSAGES OF THE BODY.
PHILO, PLUTARCH.
1. After these things were spoke, Philo the physician started the
first question, asserting that thirst did not arise from the want
of nourishment, but from the different transfiguration of certain
passages. For, says he, this may be made evident, partly from what we
see happens to those that thirst in the night, who, if sleep chance to
steal upon them, though they did not drink before, are yet rid of their
thirst; partly from persons in a fever, who, as soon as the disease
abates or is removed, thirst no more. Nay, a great many men, after they
have bathed or vomited, perceive presently that their thirst is gone;
yet none of these add any thing to their former moisture, but only the
transfiguration of the pores causeth a new order and disposition. And
this is more evident in hunger; for many sick persons, at the same time
when they have the greatest need of meat, have no stomach. Others,
after they have filled their bellies, have the same stomachs, and their
appetites are rather increased than abated. There are a great many
besides who loathe all sorts of diet, yet by taking of a pickled olive
or caper recover and confirm their lost appetites. This doth clearly
evince, that hunger proceeds from some change in the pores, and not
from any want of sustenance, forasmuch as such kind of food lessens
the defect by adding food, but increases the hunger; and the pleasing
relish and poignancy of such pickles, by binding and straitening the
mouth of the ventricle, and again by opening and loosening of it, beget
in it a convenient disposition to receive meat, which we call by the
name of appetite.
2. I must confess this discourse seemed to carry in it some shadow
of reason and probability; but in the main it is directly repugnant
to the chief end of nature, to which appetite directs every animal.
For that makes it desire a supply of what they stand in need of, and
avoid a defect of their proper food. Now to deny that this very thing,
which principally distinguishes an animate creature from an inanimate,
conduces to the preservation and duration of such a creature, being
that which craves and receives those things which the body needs
to supply its wants, and, on the contrary, to suppose that such an
appetite arises from the transfiguration or the greater or lesser size
of the pores, is an absurdity worthy only of such as have no regard at
all for Nature. Besides, it is absurd to think that a body through the
want of natural heat should be chilled, and should not in like manner
hunger and thirst through the want of natural moisture and nourishment.
And yet this is more absurd, that Nature when overcharged should desire
to disburden herself, and yet should not require to be filled on
account of emptiness, but on account of some affection or other, I know
not what. Moreover, these needs and supplies in relation to animals
have some resemblance to those we see in husbandry. There are a great
many like qualities and like provisions on both sides. For in a drought
we water our grounds, and in case of excessive heat, we frequently make
use of moderate coolers; and when our fruits are too cold, we endeavor
to preserve and cherish them, by covering and making fences about
them. And for such things as are out of the reach of human power, we
implore the assistance of the Gods, that is, to send us softening dews,
sunshines qualified with moderate winds; that so Nature, being always
desirous of a due mixture, may have her wants supplied. And for this
reason I presume it was that nourishment is called τροφή (from τηροῦν),
because it watches and preserves Nature. Now Nature is preserved in
plants, which are destitute of sense, by the favorable influence of
the circumambient air (as Empedocles says), moistening them in such a
measure as is most agreeable to their nature. But as for us men, our
appetites prompt us on to the chase and pursuance of whatsoever is
wanting to our natural temperament.
Now let us pass to the examination of the truth of the arguments that
seem to favor the contrary opinion. And for the first, I suppose
that those meats that are palatable and of a quick and sharp taste
do not beget in us an appetite, but rather bite and fret those parts
that receive the nourishment, as we find that scratching the skin
causes itching. And supposing we should grant that this affection
or disposition is the very thing which we call the appetite, it is
probable that, by the operation of such kind of food as this, the
nourishment may be made small, and so much of it as is convenient
for Nature severed from the rest, so that the indigency proceeds not
from the transmutation, but from the evacuation and purgation of the
passages. For sharp, tart, and salt things grate the inward matter,
and by dispersing of it cause digestion, so that by the concoctions of
the old there may arise an appetite for new. Nor does the cessation of
thirst after a bath spring from the different position of the passages,
but from a new supply of moisture received into the flesh, and conveyed
from thence to them also. And vomiting, by throwing off whatever is
disagreeable to Nature, puts her in a capacity of enjoying what is
most suitable for her. For thirst does not call for a superfluity of
moisture, but only for so much as sufficeth Nature; and therefore,
though a man had plenty of disagreeable and unnatural moisture, yet he
wants still, for that stops the course of the natural, which Nature
is desirous of, and hinders a due mixture and temperament, till it be
cast out and the passages receive what is most proper and convenient
for them. Moreover, a fever forces all the moisture downward; and the
middle parts being in a flame, it all retires thither, and there is
shut up and forcibly detained. And therefore it is usual with a great
many to vomit, by reason of the density of the inward parts squeezing
out the moisture, and likewise to thirst, by reason of the poor and
dry state the rest of the body is in. But after the violence of the
distemper is once abated, and the raging heat hath left the middle
parts, the moisture begins to disperse itself again; and according
to its natural motion, by a speedy conveyance into all the parts, it
refreshes the entrails, softens and makes tender the dry and parched
flesh. Very often also it causes sweat, and then the defect which
occasioned thirst ceases; for the moisture leaving that part of the
body wherein it was forcibly detained, and out of which it hardly made
an escape, retires to the place where it is wanted. For as it fares
with a garden wherein there is a large well,—if nobody draw thereof
and water it, the herbs must needs wither and die,—so it fares with a
body; if all the moisture be contracted into one part, it is no wonder
if the rest be in want and dry, till it is diffused again over the
other limbs. Just so it happens to persons in a fever, after the heat
of the disease is over, and likewise to those who go to sleep thirsty.
For in these, sleep draws the moisture out of the middle parts, and
equally distributes it amongst the rest, satisfying them all. But, I
pray, what kind of transfiguration of the passages is this which causes
hunger and thirst? For my part, I know no other distinction of the
passages but in respect of their number, or that some of them are shut,
others open. As for those that are shut, they can neither receive meat
nor drink; and as for those that are open, they make an empty space,
which is nothing but a want of that which Nature requires. Thus, sir,
when men dye cloth, the liquor in which they dip it hath very sharp and
abstersive particles; which, consuming and scouring off all the matter
that filled the pores, make the cloth more apt to receive the dye,
because its pores are empty and want something to fill them up.
_QUESTION III._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT HUNGER IS ALLAYED BY DRINKING, BUT THIRST
INCREASED BY EATING?
THE HOST, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
1. After we had gone thus far, the master of the feast told the company
that the former points were reasonably well discussed; and waiving at
present the discourse concerning the evacuation and repletion of the
pores, he requested us to fall upon another question, that is, how it
comes to pass that hunger is staid by drinking, when, on the contrary,
thirst is more violent after eating. Those who assign the reason to be
in the pores seem with a great deal of ease and probability, though not
with so much truth, to explain the thing. For seeing the pores in all
bodies are of different sorts and sizes, the more capacious receive
both dry and humid nourishment, the lesser take in drink, not meat; but
the vacuity of the former causes hunger, of the latter thirst. Hence
it is that men that thirst are never the better after they have eaten,
the pores by reason of their straitness denying admittance to grosser
nourishment, and the want of suitable supply still remaining. But after
hungry men have drunk, the moisture enters the greater pores, fills the
empty spaces, and in part assuages the violence of the hunger.
2. Of this effect, said I, I do not in the least doubt, but I do not
approve of the reason they give for it. For if any one should admit
these pores (which some are so unreasonably fond of) to be in the
flesh, he must needs make it a very soft, loose, flabby substance; and
that the same parts do not receive the meat and drink, but that they
run through different canals and strainers in them, seems to me to be
a very strange and unaccountable opinion.
For the moisture mixes with the dry food, and by the assistance of the
natural heat and spirits cuts the nourishment far smaller than any
cleaver or chopping-knife, to the end that every part of it may be
exactly fitted to each part of the body, not applied, as they would
have it, to little vessels and pores, but united and incorporated with
the whole substance. And unless the thing were explained after this
manner, the hardest knot in the question would still remain unsolved.
For a man that has a thirst upon him, supposing he eats and doth not
drink, is so far from quenching, that he does highly increase it. This
point is yet untouched. But mark, said I, whether the positions on my
side be clear and evident or not. In the first place, we take it for
granted that moisture is wasted and destroyed by dryness, that the
drier parts of the nourishment, qualified and softened by moisture, are
diffused and fly away in vapors. Secondly, we must by no means suppose
that all hunger is a total privation of dry, and thirst of humid
nutriment, but only a moderate one, and such as is sufficient to cause
the one or the other; for whoever are wholly deprived of either of
these, they neither hunger nor thirst, but die instantly. These things
being laid down as a foundation, it will be no hard matter to find
out the cause. Thirst is increased by eating for this reason, because
that meat by its natural siccity contracts and destroys all that small
quantity of moisture which remained scattered here and there through
the body; just as it happens in things obvious to our senses; we see
the earth, dust, and the like presently suck in the moisture that is
mixed with them. Now, on the contrary, drink must of necessity assuage
hunger; for the moisture watering and diffusing itself through the dry
and parched relics of the meat we ate last, by turning them into thin
juices, conveys them through the whole body, and succors the indigent
parts. And therefore with very good reason Erasistratus called moisture
the vehicle of the meat; for as soon as this is mixed with things which
by reason of their dryness, or some other quality, are slow and heavy,
it raises them up and carries them aloft. Moreover, several men, when
they have drunk nothing at all, but only washed themselves, all on a
sudden are freed from a violent hunger, because the extrinsic moisture
entering the pores makes the meat within more succulent and of a more
nourishing nature, so that the heat and fury of the hunger declines and
abates; and therefore a great many of those who have a mind to starve
themselves to death live a long time only by drinking water; that is,
as long as the siccity does not quite consume whatever may be united to
and nourish the body.
_QUESTION IV._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT A BUCKET OF WATER DRAWN OUT OF A WELL, IF IT
STANDS ALL NIGHT IN THE AIR THAT IS IN THE WELL, IS MORE COLD IN THE
MORNING THAN THE REST OF THE WATER?
A GUEST, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
1. One of the strangers at the table, who took wonderful great delight
in drinking of cold water, had some brought to him by the servants,
cooled after this manner; they had hung in the well a bucket full of
the same water, so that it could not touch the sides of the well,
and there let it remain all night: the next day, when it was brought
to table, it was colder than the water that was new-drawn. Now this
gentleman was an indifferent good scholar, and therefore told the
company he had learned this from Aristotle, who gives the reason of
it. The reason which he assigned was this. All water, when it hath
been once hot, is afterwards more cold; as that which is prepared for
kings, when it hath boiled a good while upon the fire, is afterwards
put into a vessel set round with snow, and so made cooler; just as
we find our bodies more cool after we have bathed, because the body,
after a short relaxation from heat, is rarefied and more porous, and
therefore so much the more fitted to receive a larger quantity of air,
which causes the alteration. Therefore the water, when it is drawn out
of the well, being first warmed in the air, grows presently cold.
2. Whereupon we began to commend the man very highly for his happy
memory; but we called in question the pretended reason. For if the
air wherein the vessel hangs be cold, how, I pray, does it heat the
water? If hot, how does it afterwards make it cold? For it is absurd to
say, that the same thing is affected by the same thing with contrary
qualities, no difference at all intervening. While the gentleman held
his peace, as not knowing what to say; there is no cause, said I, that
we should raise any scruple concerning the nature of the air, forasmuch
as we are ascertained by sense that it is cold, especially in the
bottom of a well; and therefore we can never imagine that it should
make the water hot. But I should rather judge this to be the reason:
the cold air, though it cannot cool the great quantity of water which
is in the well, yet can easily cool each part of it, separate from the
whole.
_QUESTION V._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT PEBBLE STONES AND LEADEN BULLETS THROWN
INTO THE WATER MAKE IT MORE COLD?
A GUEST, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
I suppose you may remember what Aristotle says in his problems, of
little stones and pieces of iron, how it hath been observed by some
that being thrown into the water they temper and cool it. This is no
more than barely asserted by him; but we will go farther and enquire
into the reason of it, the discovery of which will be a matter of
difficulty. Yes, says I, it will so, and it is much if we hit upon it;
for do but consider, first of all, do not you suppose that the air
which comes in from without cools the water? But now air has a great
deal more power and force, when it beats against stones and pieces
of iron. For they do not, like brazen and earthen vessels, suffer it
to pass through; but, by reason of their solid bulk, beat it back
and reflect it into the water, so that upon all parts the cold works
very strongly. And hence it comes to pass that rivers in the winter
are colder than the sea, because the cold air has a power over them,
which by reason of its depth it has not over the sea, where it is
scattered without any reflection. But it is probable that for another
reason thinner waters may be made colder by the air than thicker,
because they are not so strong to resist its force. Now whetstones
and pebbles make the water thinner by drawing to them all the mud and
other grosser substances that be mixed with it, that so by taking the
strength from it it may the more easily be wrought upon by the cold.
But besides, lead is naturally cold, as that which, being dissolved
in vinegar, makes the coldest of all poisons, called white-lead; and
stones, by reason of their density, raise cold in the bottom of the
water. For every stone is nothing else but a congealed lump of frozen
earth, though some more or less than others; and therefore it is no
absurdity to say that stones and lead, by reflecting the air, increase
the coldness of the water.
_QUESTION VI._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT MEN PRESERVE SNOW BY COVERING IT WITH CHAFF
AND CLOTHS?
A GUEST, PLUTARCH.
1. Then the stranger, after he had made a little pause, said: Men
in love are ambitious to be in company with their sweethearts; when
that is denied them, they desire at least to talk of them. This is my
case in relation to snow; and, because I cannot have it at present, I
am desirous to learn the reason why it is commonly preserved by the
hottest things. For, when covered with chaff and cloth that has never
been at the fuller’s, it is preserved a long time. Now it is strange
that the coldest things should be preserved by the hottest.
2. Yes, said I, it is a very strange thing, if true. But it is not so;
and we cozen ourselves by presently concluding a thing to be hot if it
have a faculty of causing heat, when yet we see that the same garment
causes heat in winter, and cold in summer. Thus the nurse in the
tragedy,
In garments thin doth Niobe’s children fold,
And sometimes heats and sometimes cools the babes.
The Germans indeed make use of clothes only against the cold, the
Ethiopians only against the heat; but they are useful to us upon both
accounts. Why therefore should we rather say the clothes are hot,
because they cause heat, than cold, because they cause cold? Nay, if we
must be tried by sense, it will be found that they are more cold than
hot. For at the first putting on of a coat it is cold, and so is our
bed when we lie down; but afterwards they grow hot with the heat of
our bodies, because they both keep in the heat and keep out the cold.
Indeed, feverish persons and others that have a violent heat upon them
often change their clothes, because they perceive that fresh ones at
the first putting on are much colder; but within a very little time
their bodies make them as hot as the others. In like manner, as a
garment heated makes us hot, so a covering cooled keeps snow cold. Now
that which causes this cold is the continual emanations of a subtile
spirit the snow has in it, which spirit, as long as it remains in the
snow, keeps it compact and close; but, after once it is gone, the snow
melts and dissolves into water, and instantly loses its whiteness,
occasioned by a mixture of this spirit with a frothy moisture.
Therefore at the same time, by the help of these clothes, the cold is
kept in, and the external air is shut out, lest it should thaw the
concrete body of the snow. The reason why they make use of cloth that
has not yet been at the fuller’s is this, because that in such cloth
the hair and coarse flocks keep it off from pressing too hard upon the
snow, and bruising it. So chaff lying lightly upon it does not dissolve
the body of the snow, besides the chaff lies close and shuts out the
warm air, and keeps in the natural cold of the snow. Now that snow
melts by the evaporating of this spirit, we are ascertained by sense;
for when snow melts it raises a vapor.
_QUESTION VII._
WHETHER WINE OUGHT TO BE STRAINED OR NOT.
NIGER, ARISTIO.
1. Niger, a citizen of ours, was lately come from school, after he
had spent some time under the discipline of a renowned philosopher,
but had learned nothing but those faults by which his master was
offensive and odious to others, especially his habit of reproving
and of carping at whatever upon any occasion chanced to be spoke in
company. And therefore, when we were at supper one time at Aristio’s,
not content to assume to himself a liberty to rail at all the rest of
the preparations as too profuse and extravagant, he had a pique at the
wine too, and said that it ought not to be brought to table strained,
but that, observing Hesiod’s rule, we ought to drink it new out of the
vessel, while it has its natural strength and force. Moreover, he added
that this way of purging wine takes the strength from it, and robs
it of its natural heat, which, when wine is poured out of one vessel
into another, evaporates and dies. Besides he would needs persuade us
that it showed too much of a vain curiosity, effeminacy, and luxury,
to convert what is wholesome into that which is palatable. For as the
riotous, not the temperate, use to cut cocks and geld pigs, to make
their flesh tender and delicious, even against Nature; just so (if we
may use a metaphor, says he) those that strain wine geld and emasculate
it, whilst their squeamish stomachs will neither suffer them to drink
pure wine, nor their intemperance to drink moderately. Therefore they
make use of this expedient, to the end that it may render the desire
they have of drinking plentifully more excusable. So they take all the
strength from the wine, leaving the palatableness still; as we use to
deal with those with whose constitution cold water does not agree, to
boil it for them. For they certainly take off all the strength from the
wine, by straining of it. And this is a great argument, that the wine
deads, grows flat, and loses its virtue, when it is separated from the
lees, as from its root and stock; for the ancients for very good reason
called wine lees, as we use to signify a man by his head or soul,
as the principal part of him. So in Greek, grape-gatherers are said
τρυγᾶν, the word being derived from τρύξ, which signifies _lees_;
and Homer in one place calls the fruit of the wine διατρύγιον, and the
wine itself high-colored and red,—not pale and yellow, such as Aristio
gives us to supper, after all goodness is purged out of it.
2. Then Aristio smiling presently replied: Sir, the wine I bring to
table does not look so pale and lifeless as you would have it; but it
appears at first sight to be mild and well qualified. But for your
part, you would glut yourself with night wine, which raises melancholy
vapors; and upon this account you cry out against purgation, which, by
carrying off whatever might cause melancholy or load men’s stomachs,
and make them drunk or sick, makes it mild and pleasant to those that
drink it, such as heroes (as Homer tells us) were formerly wont to
drink. And it was not dark-colored wine which he called αἶθοψ, but
clear and transparent; for otherwise he would never have called brass
αἶθοψ, after he had given it the epithets man-exalting and resplendent.
Therefore as the wise Anacharsis, discommending some things that the
Grecians enjoined, commended their coals, because they leave the smoke
without doors, and bring the fire into the house; so you judicious
men might blame me for some other reason than this. But what hurt,
I pray, have I done to the wine, by taking from it a turbulent and
noisome quality, and giving it a better taste, though a paler color?
Nor have I brought you wine to the table which, like a sword, hath lost
its edge and vigorous relish, but such as is only purged of its dregs
and filth. But you will say that wine not strained hath a great deal
more strength. Why so, my friend? One that is frantic and distracted
has more strength than a man in his wits; but when, by the help of
hellebore or some other fit diet, he is come to himself, that rage
and frenzy leave him and quite vanish, and the true use of his reason
and health of body presently comes into its place. In like manner,
purging of wine takes from it all the strength that inflames and
enrages the mind, and gives it instead thereof a mild and wholesome
temper; and I think there is a great deal of difference between
gaudiness and cleanliness. For women, while they paint, perfume, and
adorn themselves with jewels and purple robes, are accounted gaudy
and profuse; yet nobody will find fault with them for washing their
faces, anointing themselves, or platting their hair. Homer very neatly
expresses the difference of these two habits, where he brings in Juno
dressing herself:—
With sweet ambrosia first she washed her skin,
And after did anoint herself with oil.[91]
So much was allowable, being no more than a careful cleanliness.
But when she comes to call for her golden buttons, her curiously
wrought ear-rings, and last of all puts on her bewitching girdle,
this appears to be an extravagant and idle curiosity, and betrays too
much of wantonness, which by no means becomes a married woman. Just
so they that sophisticate wine by mixing it with aloes, cinnamon, or
saffron bring it to the table like a gorgeous-apparelled woman, and
there prostitute it. But those that only take from it what is nasty
and no way profitable do only purge it and improve it by their labor.
Otherwise you may find fault with all things whatsoever as vain and
extravagant, beginning at the house you live in. As first, you may
say, why is it plastered? Why does it open especially on that side
where it may have the best convenience for receiving the purest air,
and the benefit of the evening sun? What is the reason that our cups
are washed and made so clean that they shine and look bright? Now if
a cup ought to have nothing that is nasty or loathsome in it, ought
that which is drunk out of the cup to be full of dregs and filth? What
need is there for mentioning any thing else? The making corn into bread
is a continual cleansing; and yet what a great ado there is before
it is effected! There is not only threshing, winnowing, sifting, and
separating the bran, but there must be kneading the dough to soften all
parts alike, and a continual cleansing and working of the mass till all
the parts become edible alike. What absurdity is it then by straining
to separate the lees, as it were the filth of the wine, especially
since the cleansing is no chargeable or painful operation?
_QUESTION VIII._
WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF BULIMY, OR THE GREEDY DISEASE?
PLUTARCH, SOCLARUS, CLEOMENES, AND OTHERS.
1. There is a certain sacrifice of very ancient institution, which
the chief magistrate or archon performs always in the common-hall,
and every private person in his own house. ’Tis called the driving
out of bulimy; for they whip out of doors some one of their servants
with a bunch of willow rods, repeating these words, Get out of doors,
bulimy; and enter riches and health. Therefore in my year there was a
great concourse of people present at the sacrifice; and, after all the
rights and ceremonies of the sacrifice were over, when we had seated
ourselves again at the table, there was an enquiry made first of all
into the signification of the word bulimy, then into the meaning of
the words which are repeated when the servant is turned out of doors.
But the principal dispute was concerning the nature of it, and all
its circumstances. First, as for the word bulimy, it was agreed upon
by all to denote a great and public famine, especially among us who
use the Aeolic dialect, putting π for β. For it was not called by
the ancients βούλιμος but πούλιμος, that is, πολὺς λιμός, _much
hunger_. We concluded that it was not the same with the disease
called Bubrostis, by an argument fetched out of Metrodorus’s Ionics.
For the said Metrodorus informs us that the Smyrnaeans, who were once
Aeolians, sacrificed to Bubrostis a black bull cut into pieces with the
skin on, and so burnt it. Now, forasmuch as every species of hunger
resembles a disease, but more particularly bulimy, which is occasioned
by an unnatural disposition of the body, these two differ as riches and
poverty, health and sickness. But as the word _nauseate_ (ναυτιᾶν)
first took its name from men who were stomach-sick in a ship, and
afterwards custom prevailed so far that the word was applied to all
persons that were any way in like sort affected; so the word bulimy,
rising at first from hence, was at last extended to a more large and
comprehensive signification. What has been hitherto said was a general
club of the opinions of all those who were at table.
2. But after we began to enquire after the cause of this disease, the
first thing that puzzled us was to find out the reason why bulimy
seizes upon those that travel in the snow. As Brutus, one time marching
from Dyrrachium to Apollonia in a deep snow, was endangered of his life
by bulimy, whilst none of those that carried the provisions for the
army followed him; just when the man was ready to faint and die, some
of his soldiers were forced to run to the walls of the enemies’ city,
and beg a piece of bread of the sentinels, by the eating of which he
was presently refreshed; for which cause, after Brutus had made himself
master of the city, he treated all the inhabitants very mercifully.
Asses and horses are frequently troubled with bulimy, especially when
they are loaden with dry figs and apples; and, which is yet more
strange, of all things that are eaten, bread chiefly refreshes not only
men but beasts; so that, by taking a little quantity of bread, they
regain their strength and go forward on their journey.
3. After all were silent, I (who had observed that dull fellows and
those of a less piercing judgment were satisfied with and did acquiesce
in the reasons the ancients gave for bulimy, but to men of ingenuity
and industry they only pointed out the way to a more clear discovery
of the truth of the business) mentioned Aristotle’s opinion, who says,
that extreme cold without causes extreme heat and consumption within;
which, if it fall into the legs, makes them lazy and heavy, but if it
come to the fountain of motion and respiration, occasions faintings and
weakness. When I had said that, some of the company opposed it, others
held with me, as was natural.
4. At length says Soclarus: I like the beginning of this reason very
well, for the bodies of travellers in a great snow must of necessity
be surrounded and condensed with cold; but that from the heat within
there should arise such a consumption as invades the principle of
respiration, I can no way imagine. I rather think, says he, that
abundance of heat penned up in the body consumes the nourishment, and
that failing, the fire as it were goes out. Here it comes to pass,
that men troubled with this bulimy, when they are ready to starve with
hunger, if they eat never so little meat, are presently refreshed. The
reason is, because meat digested is like fuel for the heat to feed upon.
5. But Cleomenes the physician would have the word λιμός (which
signifies _hunger_) to be added to the making up of the word
βούλιμος without any reason at all; as πίνειν, _to drink_,
has crept into καταπίνειν, _to swallow_; and κύπτειν, _to
incline_, into ἀνακύπτειν _to raise the head_. Nor is bulimy,
as it seems, a kind of hunger, but a fault in the stomach, which
concurring with heat causes a faintness. Therefore as things that
have a good smell recall the spirits of those that are faint, so
bread affects those that are almost overcome with a bulimy; not that
they have any need of food (for the least piece of it restores them
their strength), but the bread calls back their vigor and languishing
spirits. Now that bulimy is not hunger but a faintness, is manifest
from all laboring beasts, which are seized with it very often through
the smell of dry figs and apples; for a smell does not cause any want
of food, but rather a pain and agitation in the stomach.
6. These things seemed to be reasonably well urged; and yet we thought
that much might be said in the defence of the contrary opinion, and
that it was possible enough to maintain that bulimy ariseth not from
condensation but rarefication of the stomach. For the spirit which
flows from the snow is nothing but the sharp point and finest scale of
the congealed substance, endued with a virtue of cutting and dividing
not only the flesh, but also silver and brazen vessels; for we see
that these are not able to keep in the snow, for it dissolves and
evaporates, and glazes over the outmost superficies of the vessels
with a thin dew, not unlike to ice, which this spirit leaves as it
secretly passes through the pores. Therefore this piercing spirit, like
a flame, seizing upon those that travel in the snow, seems to burn
their outsides, and like fire to enter and penetrate the flesh. Hence
it is that the flesh is more rarefied, and the heat is extinguished by
the cold spirit that lies upon the superficies of the body; therefore
the body evaporates a dewy thin sweat, which melts away and decays the
strength. Now if a man should sit still at such a time, there would
not much heat fly out of his body. But when the motion of the body
doth quickly heat the nourishment, and that heat bursts through the
thin skin, there must necessarily be a great loss of strength. Now we
know by experience, that cold hath a virtue not only to condense but
also to loosen bodies; for in extreme cold winters pieces of lead are
found to sweat. And when we see that bulimy happens where there is no
hunger, we may conclude that at that time the body is rather in a fluid
than condensed state. The reason that bodies are rarefied in winter is
because of the subtility of the spirit; especially when the moving and
tiring of the body excites the heat, which, as soon as it is subtilized
and agitated, flies apace and spreads itself through the whole body.
Lastly, it is very possible that apples and dry figs exhale some such
thing as this, which rarefies and attenuates the heat of the beasts;
for different things have a natural tendency as well to weaken as to
refresh different creatures.
_QUESTION IX._
WHY DOES HOMER APPROPRIATE A CERTAIN PECULIAR EPITHET TO EACH
PARTICULAR LIQUID, AND CALL OIL ALONE LIQUID?[92]
PLUTARCH AND OTHERS.
1. It was the subject once of a discourse, why, when there are several
sorts of liquids, the poet should give every one of them a peculiar
epithet, calling milk white, honey yellow, wine red, and yet for all
this bestow no other upon oil but what it hath in common with all other
liquids. To this it was answered that, as that is said to be most sweet
which is perfectly sweet, and to be most white which is perfectly white
(I mean here by _perfectly_ that which hath nothing of a contrary
quality mixed with it), so that ought to be called perfectly humid
whereof never a part is dry; and this is proper to oil.
2. First of all, its smoothness shows the evenness of its parts; for
touch it where you please, it is all alike. Besides, you may see your
face in it as perfectly as in a mirror; for there is nothing rough in
it to hinder the reflection, but by reason of its humidity it reflects
to the eyes the least particle of light from every part of it. As,
on the contrary, milk, of all other liquids, does not return our
images, because it hath too many terrene and gross parts mixed with
it; again, oil of all liquids makes the least noise when moved, for it
is perfectly humid. When other liquids are moved or poured out, their
hard and grosser parts fall and dash one against another, and so make
a noise by reason of their roughness. Moreover, oil only is pure and
unmixed; for it is of all other liquids most compact, nor has it any
empty spaces and pores between the dry and earthy parts, to receive
what chances to fall upon it. Besides, because of the similitude of
parts, it is closely joined together, and unfit to be joined to any
thing else. When oil froths, it does not let any wind in, by reason of
the contiguity and subtility of its parts; and this is also the cause
why fire is nourished by it. For fire feeds upon nothing but what is
moist, for nothing is combustible but what is so; for when the fire
is kindled, the air turns to smoke, and the terrene and grosser parts
remain in the ashes. Fire preys only upon the moisture, which is its
natural nourishment. Indeed water, wine, and other liquors, having
abundance of earthy and heavy parts in them, by falling into fire part
it, and by their roughness and weight smother and extinguish it. But
oil, because purely liquid, by reason of its subtility, is overcome by
the fire, and so changed into flame.
3. It is the greatest argument that can be of its humidity, that the
least quantity of it spreads itself a great way; for so small a drop
of honey, water, or any other liquid does not extend itself so far,
but very often, by reason of the dry mixed parts, is presently wasted.
Because oil is ductile and soft, men are wont to make use of it for
anointing their bodies; for it runs along and spreads itself through
all the parts, and sticks so firmly to them that it is not easily
washed off. We find by experience, that a garment wet with water is
presently dried again; but it is no easy matter to wash out the spots
and stains of oil, for it enters deep, because of its most subtile and
humid nature. Hence it is that Aristotle says, the drops of diluted
wine are the hardest to be got out of clothes, because they are most
subtile, and run farther into the pores of the cloth.
_QUESTION X._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT FLESH OF SACRIFICED BEASTS, AFTER IT HAS
HUNG A WHILE UPON A FIG-TREE, IS MORE TENDER THAN BEFORE?
ARISTIO, PLUTARCH, OTHERS.
At supper we were commending Aristio’s cook, who, amongst other dishes
that he had dressed very curiously, brought a cock to table just
killed as a sacrifice to Hercules, as tender as though it had been
killed a day or two before. When Aristio told us that this was no
wonder,—seeing such a thing might be very easily done, if the cock, as
soon as he was killed, was hung upon a fig-tree,—we began to enquire
into the reason of what he asserted. Indeed, I must confess, our eye
assures us that a fig-tree sends out a fierce and strong spirit; which
is yet more evident, from what we have heard said of bulls. That is, a
bull, after he is tied to a fig-tree, though never so mad before, grows
presently tame, and will suffer you to touch him, and on a sudden all
his rage and fury cool and die. But the chiefest cause that works this
change is the sharp acrimonious quality of the tree. For of all trees
this is the fullest of sap, and so are its figs, wood, and bark; and
hence it comes to pass, that the smoke of fig-wood is most offensive to
the eyes; and when it is burned, its ashes make the best lye to scour
withal. But all these effects proceed from heat. Now there are some
that say, when the sap of this tree thrown into milk curds it, that
this effect does not arise from the irregular figures of the parts of
the milk, which the sap unites and (as it were) glues into one body,
the smooth and globose parts being squeezed out, but that by its heat
it loosens the unstable and watery parts of the liquid body. And we may
use as an argument the unprofitableness of the sap of this tree, which,
though it is very sweet, yet makes the worst liquor in the world. For
it is not the inequality in the parts that affects the smooth part,
but what is cold and raw is contracted by heat. And salt helps to
produce the same effect; for it is hot, and works in opposition to the
uniting of the parts just mentioned, causing rather a dissolution; for
to it, above all other things, Nature has given a dissolving faculty.
Therefore the fig-tree sends forth a hot and sharp spirit, which cuts
and boils the flesh of the bird. The very same thing may be effected
by placing the flesh upon a heap of corn, or near nitre; the heat will
produce the same that the fig-tree did. Now it may be made manifest
that wheat is naturally hot, in that wine, put into a hogshead and
placed among wheat, is presently consumed.
BOOK VII.
The Romans, Sossius Senecio, remember a pretty saying of a pleasant
man and good companion, who supping alone said that he had eaten
to-day, but not supped; as if a supper always wanted company and
agreement to make it palatable and pleasing. Evenus said that fire was
the sweetest of all sauces in the world. And Homer calls salt θεῖον,
_divine_; and most call it χάριτας, _graces_, because, mixed
with most part of our food, it makes it palatable and agreeable to
the taste. Now indeed the best and most divine sauce that can be at
an entertainment or a supper is a familiar and pleasant friend; not
because he eats and drinks with a man, but because he participates
of and communicates discourse, especially if the talk be profitable,
pertinent, and instructive. For commonly loose talk over a glass of
wine raiseth passions and spoils company, and therefore it is fit that
we should be as critical in examining what discourses as what friends
are fit to be admitted to a supper; not following either the saying or
opinion of the Spartans, who, when they entertained any young man or a
stranger in their public halls, showed him the door, with these words,
“No discourse goes out this way.” What we use to talk of may be freely
disclosed to everybody, because we have nothing in our discourses that
tends to looseness, debauchery, debasing of ourselves, or back-biting
others. Judge by the examples, of which this seventh book contains ten.
_QUESTION I._
AGAINST THOSE WHO FIND FAULT WITH PLATO FOR SAYING THAT DRINK PASSETH
THROUGH THE LUNGS.
NICIAS, PLUTARCH, PROTOGENES, FLORUS.
1. At a summer entertainment, one of the company pronounced that common
verse,
Now drench thy lungs with wine, the Dog appears.
And Nicias of Nicopolis, a physician, presently subjoined: It is no
wonder that Alcaeus, a poet, should be ignorant of that of which Plato
the philosopher was. Though Alcaeus may be defended; for it is probable
that the lungs, lying near the stomach, may participate of the steam
of the liquor, and be drenched with it. But the philosopher, expressly
delivering that most part of our drink passeth through the lungs, hath
precluded all ways of excuse to those that would be willing to defend
him. For it is a very great and complicated ignorance; for first, it
being necessary that our liquid and dry food should be mixed, it is
very probable that the stomach is the vessel for them both, which
throws out the dry food after it is grown soft and moist into the
guts. Besides, the lungs being a dense and compacted body, how is it
possible that, when we sup gruel or the like, the thicker parts should
pass through them? And this was the objection which Erasistratus
rationally made against Plato. Besides, when he considered for what end
every part of the body was made, and what use Nature designed in their
contrivance, it was easy to perceive that the epiglottis was framed on
purpose that when we drink the wind-pipe should be shut, and nothing
be suffered to fall upon the lungs. For if any thing by chance gets
down that way, we are troubled with retching and coughing till it is
thrown up again. And this epiglottis being framed so that it may fall
on either side, whilst we speak it shuts the weasand, but when we eat
or drink it falls upon the wind-pipe, and so secures the passage for
our breath. Besides, we know that those who drink by little and little
are looser than those who drink greedily and large draughts; for in
the latter the very force drives it into their bladders, but in the
former it stays, and by its stay is mixed with and moistens the meat
thoroughly. Now this could not be, if in the very drinking the liquid
was separated from the food; but the effect follows, because we mix
and convey them both together, using (as Erasistratus phraseth it) the
liquid as a vehicle for the dry.
2. Nicias having done, Protogenes the grammarian subjoined, that
Homer was the first that observed the stomach was the vessel of the
food, and the windpipe (which the ancients called ἀσφάραγον) of the
breath, and upon the same account they called those who had loud voices
ἐρισφαράγους. And when he describes how Achilles killed Hector, he says,
He pierced his weasand, where death enters soon,
and adds,
But not his windpipe, so that he could speak,[93]
taking the windpipe for the proper passage of the voice and breath....
3. Upon this, all being silent, Florus began thus: What, shall we
tamely suffer Plato to be run down? By no means, said I, for if we
desert him, Homer must be in the same condition, for he is so far from
denying the windpipe to be the passage for our drink, that the dry
food, in his opinion, goes the same way. For these are his words:
From his gullet (φάρυγος) flowed
The clotted wine and undigested flesh.[94]
Unless perchance you will say that the Cyclops, as he had but one eye,
so had but one passage for his food and voice; or would have φάρυγξ to
signify weasand, not windpipe, as both all the ancients and moderns use
it. I produce this because it is really his meaning, not because I want
other testimonies, for Plato hath store of learned and sufficient men
to join with him. For not to mention Eupolis, who in his play called
the Flatterers says,
Protagoras bids us drink a lusty bowl,
That when the Dog appears our lungs may still be moist;
or elegant Eratosthenes, who says,
And having drenched his lungs with purest wine;
even Euripides, somewhere expressly saying,
The wine passed through the hollows of the lungs,
shows that he saw better and clearer than Erasistratus. For he saw that
the lungs have cavities and pores, through which the liquids pass. For
the breath in expiration hath no need of pores, but that the liquids
and those things which pass with them might go through, it is made
like a strainer and full of pores. Besides, sir, as to the influence
of gruel which you proposed, the lungs can discharge themselves of
the thicker parts together with the thin, as well as the stomach. For
our stomach is not, as some fancy, smooth and slippery, but full of
asperities, in which it is probable that the thin and small particles
are lodged, and so not taken quite down. But neither this nor the other
can we positively affirm; for the curious contrivance of Nature in her
operations is too hard to be explained; nor can we be particularly
exact upon those instruments (I mean the spirit and the heat) which
she makes use of in her works. But besides those we have mentioned
to confirm Plato’s opinion, let us produce Philistion of Locri, a
very ancient and famous physician, and Hippocrates too, with his
pupil Dioxippus; for they thought of no other passage but that which
Plato mentions. Dioxippus knew very well that precious talk of the
epiglottis, but says, that when we feed, the moist parts are about that
separated from the dry, and the first are carried down the windpipe,
the other down the weasand; and that the windpipe receives no parts
of the food, but the stomach, together with the dry parts, receives
some portion of the liquids. And this is probable, for the epiglottis
lies over the windpipe, as a fence and strainer, that the drink may
get in by little and little, lest descending in a large full stream,
it stop the breath and endanger the life. And therefore birds have no
epiglottis, because they do not sup or lap when they drink, but take up
a little in their beak, and let it run gently down their windpipe.
These testimonies I think are enough; and reason confirms Plato’s
opinion by arguments drawn first from sense. For when the windpipe
is wounded, no drink will go down; but as if the pipe were broken it
runs out, though the weasand be whole and unhurt. And all know that
in the inflammation of the lungs the patient is troubled with extreme
thirst; the heat or dryness or some other cause, together with the
inflammation, making the appetite intense. But a stronger evidence
than all these follows. Those creatures that have very small lungs,
or none at all, neither want nor desire drink, because to some parts
there belongs a natural appetite to drink, and those that want those
parts have no need to drink, nor any appetite to be supplied by it. But
more, the bladder would seem unnecessary; for, if the weasand receives
both meat and drink and conveys it to the belly, the superfluous parts
of the liquids would not want a proper passage, one common one would
suffice as a canal for both that were conveyed to the same vessel
by the same passage. But now the bladder is distinct from the guts,
because the drink goes from the lungs, and the meat from the stomach;
they being separated as we take them down. And this is the reason
that in our water nothing can be found that either in smell or color
resembles dry food. But if the drink were mixed with the dry meat in
the belly, it must be impregnant with its qualities, and not come forth
so simple and untinged. Besides, a stone is never found in the stomach,
though it is likely that the moisture should be coagulated there as
well as in the bladder, if all the liquor were conveyed through the
weasand into the belly. But it is probable that the weasand robs the
windpipe of a sufficient quantity of liquor as it is going down, and
useth it to soften and concoct the meat. And therefore its excrement
is never purely liquid; and the lungs, disposing of the moisture, as
of the breath, to all the parts that want it, deposit the superfluous
portion in the bladder. And I am sure that this is a much more probable
opinion than the other. But which is the truth cannot perhaps be
discovered, and therefore it is not fit so peremptorily to find fault
with the most acute and most famed philosopher, especially when the
matter is so obscure, and the Platonists can produce such considerable
reasons for their opinion.
_QUESTION II._
WHAT HUMORED MAN IS HE THAT PLATO CALLS ΚΕΡΑΣΒΌΛΟΣ? AND WHY DO THOSE
SEEDS THAT FALL ON THE OXEN’S HORNS BECOME ἈΤΕΡΆΜΟΝΑ?
PLUTARCH, PATROCLES, EUTHYDEMUS, FLORUS.
1. We had always some difficulty started about κερασβόλος and ἀτεράμων,
not what humor those words signified (for it is certain that some,
thinking that those seeds which fall on the oxen’s horns bear fruit
which is very hard, did by a metaphor call a stiff untractable fellow
by these names), but what was the cause that seeds falling on the
oxen’s horns should bear hard fruit. I had often desired my friends to
search no farther, most of all fearing the discourse of Theophrastus,
in which he has collected many of those particulars whose causes we
cannot discover. Such are the hen’s purifying herself with straw after
she has laid, the seal’s swallowing her rennet when she is caught, the
deer’s burying his cast horns, and the goat’s stopping the whole herd
by holding a branch of sea-holly in his mouth; and among the rest he
reckoned this is a thing of which we are certain, but whose cause it
is very difficult to find. But once at supper at Delphi, some of my
companions—as if we were not only better counsellors when our bellies
are full (as one hath it), but wine would make us brisker in our
enquiries and bolder in our resolutions—desired me to speak somewhat
to that problem.
2. I refused, though I had some excellent men on my side, namely,
Euthydemus my fellow-priest, and Patrocles my relation, who brought
several the like instances, which they had gathered both from husbandry
and hunting; for instance, that those officers that are appointed to
watch the coming of the hail avert the storm by offering a mole’s
blood or a woman’s rags; that a wild fig being bound to a garden
fig-tree will keep the fruit from falling, and promote their ripening;
that deer when they are taken shed salt tears, and boars sweet. But if
you have a mind to such questions, Euthydemus will presently desire you
to give an account of smallage and cummin; one of the which, if trodden
down as it springs, will grow the better, and the other men curse and
blaspheme whilst they sow it.
3. This last Florus thought to be an idle foolery; but he said, that
we should not forbear to search into the causes of the other things as
if they were incomprehensible. I have found, said I, your design to
draw me on to this discourse, that you yourself may afterward give us a
solution of the other proposed difficulties.
In my opinion it is cold that causes this hardness in corn and pulse,
by contracting and constipating their parts till the substance becomes
close and extremely rigid; while heat is a dissolving and softening
quality. Therefore those that cite this verse against Homer,
The season, not the field, bears fruit,
do not justly reprehend him. For fields that are warm by nature, the
air being likewise temperate, bear more mellow fruit than others.
And therefore those seeds that fall immediately on the earth out of
the sower’s hand, and are covered presently, and cherished by being
covered, partake more of the moisture and heat that is in the earth.
But those that strike against the oxen’s horns do not enjoy what Hesiod
calls the best position, but seem to be scattered rather than sown; and
therefore the cold either destroys them quite, or else, lighting upon
them as they lie naked, condenseth their moisture, and makes them hard
and woody. Thus stones that lie under ground and plant-animals have
softer parts than those that lie above; and therefore stone-cutters
bury the stones they would work, as if they designed to have them
prepared and softened by the heat; but those that lie above ground are
by the cold made hard, rigid, and very hurtful to the tools. And if
corn lies long upon the floor, the grains become much harder than that
which is presently carried away. And sometimes too a cold wind blowing
whilst they winnow spoils the corn, as it hath happened at Philippi in
Macedonia; and the chaff secures the grains whilst on the floor. For
is it any wonder that husbandmen affirm, one ridge will bear soft and
fruitful, and the very next to it hard and unfruitful corn? Or—which
is stranger—that in the same bean-cod some beans are of this sort,
some of the other, as more or less wind and moisture falls upon this or
that?
_QUESTION III._
WHY THE MIDDLE OF WINE, THE TOP OF OIL, AND THE BOTTOM OF HONEY IS
BEST.
ALEXION, PLUTARCH, OTHERS.
1. My father-in-law Alexion laughed at Hesiod, for advising us to drink
freely when the barrel is newly broached or almost out, but moderately
when it is about the middle, since there is the best wine. For who,
said he, doth not know, that the middle of wine, the top of oil, and
the bottom of honey is the best? Yet he bids us spare the middle, and
stay till worse wine runs, when the barrel is almost out. This said,
the company minded Hesiod no more, but began to enquire into the cause
of this difference.
2. We were not at all puzzled about the honey, everybody almost knowing
that that which is lightest is so because it is rare, and that the
heaviest parts are dense and compact, and by reason of their weight
settle below the others. So, if you turn over the vessel, each in
a little time will recover its proper place, the heavier subsiding,
and the lighter rising above the rest. And as for the wine, probable
solutions presently appeared; for its strength consisting in heat, it
is reasonable that it should be contained chiefly in the middle, and
there best preserved; for the lower parts the lees spoil, and the upper
are impaired by the neighboring air. For that the air will impair wine
no man doubts, and therefore we usually bury or cover our barrels, that
as little air as can be might come near them. Besides (which is an
evident sign) a barrel when full is not spoiled so soon as when it is
half empty; because a great deal of air getting into the empty space
troubles and disturbs the liquor, whereas the wine that is in the full
cask is preserved and defended by itself, not admitting much of the
external air, which is apt to injure and corrupt it.
3. But the oil puzzled us most. One of the company thought that the
bottom of the oil was worst, because it was foul and troubled with
the lees; and that the top was not really better than the rest, but
only seemed so, because it was farthest removed from those corrupting
particles. Others thought the thickness of the liquor to be the reason,
which thickness keeps it from mixing with other humids, unless blended
together and shaken violently; and therefore it will not mix with air,
but keeps it off by its smoothness and close contexture, so that it
hath no power to corrupt it. But Aristotle seems to be against this
opinion, who hath observed that oil grows sweeter by being kept in
vessels not exactly filled, and afterwards ascribes this melioration
to the air; for more air, and therefore more powerful to produce the
effect, flows into a vessel not well filled.
4. Well then! said I, the same quality in the air may spoil wine, and
better oil. For long keeping improves wine, but spoils oil. Now the
air keeps oil from growing old; for that which is cooled continues
fresh and new, but that which is kept close up, having no way to exhale
its corrupting parts, presently decays, and grows old. Therefore it is
probable that the air coming upon the superficies of the oil keepeth it
fresh and new. And this is the reason that the top of wine is worst,
and of oil best; because age betters the one, and spoils the other.
_QUESTION IV._
WHAT WAS THE REASON OF THAT CUSTOM OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS TO REMOVE THE
TABLE BEFORE ALL THE MEAT WAS EATEN, AND NOT TO PUT OUT THE LAMP?
FLORUS, EUSTROPHUS, CAESERNIUS, LUCIUS.
1. Florus, who loved the ancient customs, would not let the table be
removed quite empty, but always left some meat upon it; declaring
likewise that his father and grandfather were not only curious in this
matter, but would never suffer the lamp after supper to be put out,—a
thing about which the ancient Romans were very precise,—while those
of the present day extinguish it immediately after supper, that they
may lose no oil. Eustrophus the Athenian being present said: What
could they get by that, unless they knew the cunning trick of our
Polycharmus, who, after long deliberation how to find out a way to
prevent the servants’ stealing of the oil, at last with a great deal of
difficulty happened upon this: As soon as you have put out the lamp,
fill it up, and the next morning look carefully whether it remains
full. Then Florus with a smile replied: Well, since we are agreed about
that, let us enquire for what reason the ancients were so careful about
their tables and their lamps.
2. First, about the lamps. And his son-in-law Caesernius was of opinion
that the ancients abominated all extinction of fire, because of the
relation it had to the sacred and eternal flame. Fire, like man, may
be destroyed two ways, either when it is violently quenched, or when
it naturally decays. The sacred fire was secured against both ways,
being always watched and continually supplied; but the common fire they
permitted to go out of itself, not forcing or violently extinguishing
it, but not supplying it with nourishment, like a useless beast, that
they might not feed it to no purpose.
3. Lucius, Florus’s son, subjoined, that all the rest of the discourse
was very good, but that they did not reverence and take care of this
holy fire because they thought it better or more venerable than other
fire; but, as amongst the Egyptians some worship the whole species of
dogs, wolves, or crocodiles, yet keep but one wolf, dog, or crocodile
(for all could not be kept), so the particular care which the ancients
took of the sacred fire was only a sign of the respect they had for
all fires. For nothing bears such a resemblance to an animal as fire.
It is moved and nourished by itself, and by its brightness, like the
soul, discovers and makes every thing apparent; but in its quenching
it principally shows some power that seems to proceed from our vital
principle, for it makes a noise and resists, like an animal dying or
violently slaughtered. And can you (looking upon me) offer any better
reason?
4. I can find fault, replied I, with no part of the discourse, yet
I would subjoin, that this custom is an instruction for kindness
and good-will. For it is not lawful for any one that hath eaten
sufficiently to destroy the remainder of the food; nor for him that
hath supplied his necessities from the fountain to stop it up; nor
for him that hath made use of any marks, either by sea or land, to
ruin or deface them; but every one ought to leave those things that
may be useful to those persons that afterwards may have need of them.
Therefore it is not fit, out of a saving covetous humor, to put out
a lamp as soon as we need it not; but we ought to preserve and let
it burn for the use of those that perhaps want its light. Thus, it
would be very generous to lend our ears and eyes, nay, if possible,
our reason and fortitude, to others, whilst we are idle or asleep.
Besides, consider whether to stir up men to gratitude these minute
observances were practised. The ancients did not act absurdly when they
highly reverenced an oak. The Athenians called one fig-tree sacred,
and forbade any one to cut down an olive. For such observances do not
(as some fancy) make men prone to superstition, but persuade us to be
communicative and grateful to one another, by being accustomed to pay
this respect to these senseless and inanimate creatures. Upon the same
reason Hesiod, methinks, adviseth well, who would not have any meat or
broth set on the table out of those pots out of which there had been no
portion offered, but ordered the first-fruits to be given to the fire,
as a reward for the service it did in preparing it. And the Romans,
dealing well with the lamps, did not take away the nourishment they had
once given, but permitted them to live and shine by it.
5. When I had said thus, Eustrophus subjoined: This gives us some light
into that query about the table; for they thought that they ought to
leave some portion of the supper for the servants and waiters, for
those are not so well pleased with a supper provided for them apart, as
with the relics of their master’s table. And upon this account, they
say, the Persian king did not only send portions from his own table to
his friends, captains, and gentlemen of his bed-chamber, but had always
what was provided for his servants and his dogs served up to his own
table; that as far as possible all those creatures whose service was
useful might seem to be his guests and companions. For, by such feeding
in common and participation, the wildest of beasts might be made tame
and gentle.
6. Then I with a smile said: But, sir, that fish there, that according
to the proverb is laid up, why do not we bring out into play together
with Pythagoras’s choenix, which he forbids any man to sit upon,
thereby teaching us that we ought to leave something of what we have
before us for another time, and on the present day be mindful of the
morrow? We Boeotians use to have that saying frequently in our mouths,
“Leave something for the Medes,” ever since the Medes overran and
spoiled Phocis and the marches of Boeotia; but still, and upon all
occasions, we ought to have that ready, “Leave something for the guests
that may come.” And therefore I must needs find fault with that always
empty and starving table of Achilles; for, when Ajax and Ulysses came
ambassadors to him, he had nothing ready, but was forced out of hand
to dress a fresh supper. And when he would entertain Priam, he again
bestirs himself, kills a white ewe, joints and dresses it, and in that
work spent a great part of the night. But Eumaeus (a wise scholar of
a wise master) had no trouble upon him when Telemachus came home, but
presently desired him to sit down, and feasted him, setting before him
dishes of boiled meat,
The cleanly reliques of the last night’s feast.
But if this seems trifling, and a small matter, I am sure it is no
small matter to command and restrain appetite while there are dainties
before you to satisfy and please it. For those that are used to abstain
from what is present are not so eager for absent things as others are.
7. Lucius subjoining said, that he had heard his grandmother say, that
the table was sacred, and nothing that is sacred ought to be empty.
Besides, continued he, in my opinion, the table hath some resemblance
of the earth; for, besides nourishing us, it is round and stable,
and is fitly called by some Vesta (Ἑστία, from ἵστημι). Therefore as
we desire that the earth should always have and bear something that
is useful for us, so we think that we should not let the table be
altogether empty and void of all provision.
_QUESTION V._
THAT WE OUGHT CAREFULLY TO PRESERVE OURSELVES FROM PLEASURE ARISING
FROM BAD MUSIC. AND HOW IT MAY BE DONE.
CALLISTRATUS, LAMPRIAS.
1. At the Pythian games Callistratus, procurator of the Amphictyons,
forbade a piper, his citizen and friend, who did not give in his name
in due time, to appear in the solemnity, which he did according to the
law. But afterwards entertaining us, he brought him into the room with
the chorus, finely dressed in his robes and with chaplets on his head,
as if he was to contend for the prize. And at first indeed he played a
very fine tune; but afterwards, having tickled and sounded the humor
of the whole company, and found that most were inclined to pleasure
and would suffer him to play what effeminate and lascivious tunes he
pleased, throwing aside all modesty, he showed that music was more
intoxicating than wine to those that wantonly and unskilfully use it.
For they were not content to sit still and applaud and clap, but many
at last leaped from their seats, danced lasciviously, and made such
gentle steps as became such effeminate and mollifying tunes. But after
they had done, and the company, as it were recovered of its madness,
began to come to itself again, Lamprias would have spoken to and
severely chide the young men; but as he feared he should be too harsh
and give offence, Callistratus gave him a hint, and drew him on by this
discourse:—
2. For my part, I absolve all lovers of shows and music from
intemperance; yet I cannot altogether agree with Aristoxenus, who says
that those pleasures alone deserve the approbation “fine.” For we call
viands and ointments fine; and we say we have finely dined, when we
have been splendidly entertained. Nor, in my opinion, doth Aristotle
upon good reason free those complacencies we take in shows and songs
from the charge of intemperance, saying, that those belong peculiarly
to man, and of other pleasures beasts have a share. For I am certain
that a great many irrational creatures are delighted with music, as
deer with pipes; and to mares, whilst they are horsing, they play a
tune called ἱππόθορος. And Pindar says, that his songs make him move,
As brisk as Dolphins, whom a charming tune
Hath raised from th’ bottom of the quiet flood.
And certain fish are caught by means of dancing; for during the dance
they lift up their heads above water, being much pleased and delighted
with the sight, and twisting their backs this way and that way, in
imitation of the dancers. Therefore I see nothing peculiar in those
pleasures, that they should be accounted proper to the mind, and all
others to belong to the body, so far as to end there. But music,
rhythm, dancing, song, passing through the sense, fix a pleasure and
titilation in the sportive part of the soul; and therefore none of
these pleasures is enjoyed in secret, nor wants darkness nor walls
about it, according to the women’s phrase; but circuses and theatres
are built for them. And to frequent shows and music-meetings with
company is both more delightful and more genteel; because we take a
great many witnesses, not of a loose and intemperate, but of a pleasant
and genteel, manner of passing away our time.
3. Upon this discourse of Callistratus, my father Lamprias, seeing the
musicians grow bolder, said: That is not the reason, sir, and, in my
opinion, the ancients were much out when they named Bacchus the son of
Forgetfulness. They ought to have called him his father; for it seems
he hath made you forget that some of those faults which are committed
about pleasures proceed from a loose intemperate inclination, and
others from heedlessness or ignorance. Where the ill effect is very
plain, there intemperate inclination captivates reason, and forces men
to sin; but where the just reward of intemperance is not directly and
presently inflicted, there ignorance of the danger and heedlessness
make men easily wrought on and secure. Therefore those that are
vicious, either in eating, drinking, or venery, which diseases, wasting
of estates, and evil reports usually attend, we call intemperate. For
instance, Theodectes, who having sore eyes, when his mistress came to
see him, said,
All hail, delightful light;
or Anaxarchus the Abderite,
A wretch who knew what mischiefs wait on sin,
Yet love of pleasure forced him back again;
Once almost free, he sank again to vice,
That terror and disturber of the wise.
Now those that take all care possible to secure themselves from all
those pleasures that assault them either at the smelling, touch,
or taste, are often surprised by those that make their treacherous
approaches either at the eye or ear. But such, though as much led away
as the others, we do not in like manner call loose and intemperate,
since they are debauched through ignorance and want of experience.
For they imagine they are far from being slaves to pleasures, if they
can stay all day in the theatre without meat or drink; as if a pot
forsooth should be mighty proud that a man cannot take it up by the
bottom or the belly and carry it away, though he can easily do it by
the ears. Therefore Agesilaus said, it was all one whether a man were a
_cinaedus_ before or behind. We ought principally to dread those
softening delights that please and tickle through the eyes and ears,
and not think that city not taken which hath all its other gates
secured by bars, portcullises, and chains, if the enemies are already
entered through one and have taken possession; or fancy ourselves
invincible against the assaults of pleasure, because stews will not
provoke us, when the music-meeting or theatre prevails. For in one
case as much as the other we resign up our souls to the impetuousness
of pleasures, which pouring in those potions of songs, cadences, and
tunes, more powerful and bewitching than the best mixtures of the
skilful cook or perfumer, conquer and corrupt us; and in the mean time,
by our own confession, as it were, the fault is chiefly ours. Now, as
Pindar saith, nothing that the earth and sea hath provided for our
tables can be justly blamed, nor doth it change; but neither our meat
nor broth, nor this excellent wine which we drink, hath raised such a
noisy tumultuous pleasure as those songs and tunes did, which not only
filled the house with clapping and shouting, but perhaps the whole
town. Therefore we ought principally to secure ourselves against such
delights, because they are more powerful than others; as not being
terminated in the body, like those which allure the touch, taste, or
smelling, but affecting the very intellectual and judging faculties.
Besides, from most other delights, though reason doth not free us, yet
other passions very commonly divert us. Sparing niggardliness will keep
a glutton from dainty fish, and covetousness will confine a lecher
from a costly whore. As in one of Menander’s plays, where every one of
the company was to be enticed by the bawd who brought out a surprising
whore, each of them, though all boon companions,
Sat sullenly, and fed upon his cates.
For to pay interest for money is a severe punishment that follows
intemperance, and to open our purses is no easy matter. But these
pleasures that are called genteel, and solicit the ears or eyes of
those that are frantic after shows and music, may be had without any
charge at all, in every place almost, and upon every occasion; they
may be enjoyed at the prizes, in the theatre, or at entertainments, at
others’ cost. And therefore those that have not their reason to assist
and guide them may be easily spoiled.
4. Silence following upon this, What application, said I, shall reason
make, or how shall it assist? For I do not think it will apply those
ear-covers of Xenocrates, or force us to rise from the table as soon as
we hear a harp struck or a pipe blown. No indeed, replied Lamprias, but
as soon as we meet with the foresaid intoxications, we ought to make
our application to the Muses, and fly to the Helicon of the ancients.
To him that loves a costly strumpet, we cannot bring a Panthea or
Penelope for cure; but one that delights in mimics and buffoons, loose
odes, or debauched songs, we can bring to Euripides, Pindar, and
Menander, that he might wash (as Plato phraseth it) his salt hearing
with fresh reason. As the exorcists command the possessed to read over
and pronounce Ephesian letters, so we in those possessions, amid all
the madness of music and dancing, when
We toss our hands with noise, and madly shout,
remembering those venerable and sacred writings, and comparing with
them those odes, poems, and vain empty compositions, shall not be
altogether cheated by them, or permit ourselves to be carried away
sidelong, as by a smooth and undisturbed stream.
_QUESTION VI._
CONCERNING THOSE GUESTS THAT ARE CALLED SHADOWS, AND WHETHER BEING
INVITED BY SOME TO GO TO ANOTHER’S HOUSE, THEY OUGHT TO GO; AND WHEN,
AND TO WHOM.
PLUTARCH, FLORUS, CAESERNIUS.
1. Homer makes Menelaus come uninvited to his brother Agamemnon’s
treat, when he feasted the commanders;
For well he knew great cares his brother vexed.[95]
He did not take notice of the plain and evident omission of his
brother, or show his resentments by not coming, as some surly testy
persons usually do upon such oversights of their best friends;
although they had rather be overlooked than particularly invited,
that they may have some color for their pettish anger. But about the
introduced guests (which we call shadows) who are not invited by
the entertainer, but by some others of the guests, a question was
started, from whom that custom began. Some thought from Socrates,
who persuaded Aristodemus, who was not invited, to go along with him
to Agatho’s, where there happened a pretty jest. For Socrates by
accident staying somewhat behind, Aristodemus went in first; and this
seemed very fitting, for, the sun shining on their backs, the shadow
ought to go before the body. Afterwards it was thought necessary at
all entertainments, especially of great men, when the inviter did
not know their favorites and acquaintance, to desire the invited to
bring his company, appointing such a set number, lest they should be
put to the same shifts which he was put to who invited King Philip
to his country-house. The king came with a numerous attendance, but
the provision was not equal to the company. Therefore, seeing his
entertainer much cast down, he sent some about to tell his friends
privately, that they should keep one corner of their bellies for a
great cake that was to come. And they, expecting this, fed sparingly
on the meat that was set before them, so that the provision seemed
sufficient for them all.
2. When I had talked thus waggishly to the company, Florus had a mind
to talk gravely concerning these shadows, and have it discussed whether
it was fit for those that were so invited to go, or no. His son-in-law
Caesernius was positively against it. We should, says he, following
Hesiod’s advice,
Invite a friend to feast,[96]
or at least we should have our acquaintance and familiars to
participate of our entertainments, mirth, and discourse over a glass of
wine; but now, as ferry-men permit their passengers to bring in what
fardel they please, so we permit others to fill our entertainments
with any persons, let them be good companions or not. And I should
wonder that any man of breeding being so (that is, not at all) invited,
should go; since, for the most part, he must be unacquainted with
the entertainer, or if he was acquainted, was not thought worthy to
be bidden. Nay, he should be more ashamed to go to such a one, if he
considers that it will look like an upbraiding of his unkindness, and
yet a rude intruding into his company against his will. Besides, to
go before or after the guest that invites him must look unhandsomely,
nor is it creditable to go and stand in need of witnesses to assure
the guests that he doth not come as a principally invited person, but
such a one’s shadow. Beside, to attend others bathing or anointing,
to observe his hour, whether he goes early or late, is servile and
gnathonical (for there never was such an excellent fellow as Gnatho to
feed at another man’s table). Besides, if there is no more proper time
and place to say,
Speak, tongue, if thou wilt utter jovial things,
than at a feast, and freedom and raillery is mixed with every thing
that is either done or said over a glass of wine, how should he behave
himself, who is not a true principally invited guest, but as it were a
bastard and supposititious intruder? For whether he is free or not, he
lies open to the exception of the company. Besides, the very meanness
and vileness of the name is no small evil to those who do not resent
but can quietly endure to be called and answer to the name of shadows.
For, by enduring such base names, men are insensibly customed and drawn
on to base actions. Therefore, when I make an invitation, since it is
hard to break the custom of a place, I give my guests leave to bring
shadows; but when I myself am invited as a shadow, I assure you I
refuse to go.
3. A short silence followed this discourse; then Florus began thus:
This last thing you mentioned, sir, is a greater difficulty than the
other. For it is necessary when we invite our friends to give them
liberty to choose their own shadows, as was before hinted; for to
entertain them without their friends is not very obliging, nor is it
very easy to know whom the person we invite would be most pleased
with. Then said I to him: Consider therefore whether those that give
their friends this license to invite do not at the same time give the
invited license to accept the invitation and come to the entertainment.
For it is not fit either to permit or to desire another to do that
which is not decent to be done, or to urge and persuade to that which
no man ought to be persuaded or to consent to do. When we entertain a
great man or stranger, there we cannot invite or choose his company,
but must receive those that come along with him. But when we treat
a friend, it will be more acceptable if we ourselves invite all, as
knowing his acquaintance and familiars; for it tickles him extremely
to see that others take notice that he hath chiefly a respect for
such and such, loves their company most, and is well pleased when they
are honored and invited as well as he. Yet sometimes we must deal
with our friend as petitioners do when they make addresses to a God;
they offer vows to all that belong to the same altar and the same
shrine, though they make no particular mention of their names. For no
dainties, wine, or ointment can incline a man to merriment, as much
as a pleasant agreeable companion. For as it is rude and ungenteel to
enquire and ask what sort of meat, wine, or ointment the person whom
we are to entertain loves best; so it is never disobliging or absurd
to desire him who hath a great many acquaintance to bring those along
with him whose company he likes most, and in whose conversation he
can take the greatest pleasure. For it is not so irksome and tedious
to sail in the same ship, to dwell in the same house, or be a judge
upon the same bench, with a person whom we do not like, as to be at
the same table with him; and the contrary is equally pleasant. An
entertainment is a communion of serious or merry discourse or actions;
and therefore, to make a merry company, we should not pick up any
person at a venture, but take only such as are known to one another
and sociable. Cooks, it is true, mix sour and sweet juices, rough and
oily, to make their sauces; but there never was an agreeable table or
pleasant entertainment where the guests were not all of a piece, and
all of the same humor. Now, as the Peripatetics say, the first mover
in nature moves only and is not moved, and the last moved is moved
only but does not move, and between these there is that which moves
and is moved by others; so there is the same analogy between those
three sorts of persons that make up a company,—there is the simple
inviter, the simple invited, the invited that invites another. We have
spoken already concerning the inviter, and it will not be improper, in
my opinion, to deliver my sentiments about the other two. He that is
invited and invites others, should, in my opinion, be sparing in the
number that he brings. He should not, as if he were to forage in an
enemy’s country, carry all he can with him; or, like those who go to
possess a new-found land, by the excessive number of his own friends,
incommode or exclude the friends of the inviter, so that the inviter
must be in the same case with those that set forth suppers to Hecate
and the Gods who avert evil, of which neither they nor any of their
family partake, except of the smoke and trouble. It is true they only
speak in waggery that say,
He that at Delphi offers sacrifice
Must after meat for his own dinner buy.
But the same thing really happens to him who entertains ill-bred guests
or friends, who with a great many shadows, as it were harpies, tear
and devour his provision. Besides, he should not take anybody that
he may meet along with him to another’s entertainment, but chiefly
the entertainer’s acquaintance, as it were contending with him and
preventing him in the invitation. But if that cannot be effected,
let him carry such of his own friends as the entertainer would
choose himself; to a civil modest man, some of complaisant humor; to
a learned man, ingenious persons; to a man that hath borne office,
some of the same rank; and, in short, such whose acquaintance he hath
formerly sought and would be now glad of. For it will be extremely
pleasing and obliging to bring such into company together; but one
who brings to a feast men who have no conformity at all with the
feast-maker, but who are perfect aliens and strangers to him,—as
hard drinkers to a sober man,—gluttons and sumptuous persons to a
temperate thrifty entertainer,—or to a young, merry, boon companion,
grave old philosophers solemnly talking through their beards,—will be
very disobliging, and turn all the intended mirth into an unpleasant
sourness. The entertained should be as obliging to the entertainer as
the entertainer to the entertained; and then he will be most obliging,
when not only he himself, but all those that come by his means, are
pleasant and agreeable.
The last of the three which remains to be spoken of is he that is
invited by one man to another’s feast. Now he that disdains and is much
offended at the name of a shadow will appear to be afraid of a mere
shadow. But in this matter there is need of a great deal of caution,
for it is not creditable readily to go along with every one and to
everybody. But first you must consider who it is that invites; for if
he is not a very familiar friend, but a rich or great man, such who,
as if upon a stage, wants a large or splendid retinue, or such who
thinks that he puts a great obligation upon you and does you a great
deal of honor by this invitation, you must presently deny. But if he
is your friend and particular acquaintance, you must not yield upon
the first motion: but if there seems a necessity for some conversation
which cannot be put off till another time, or if he is lately come
from a journey or designs to go on one, and out of mere good-will and
affection seems desirous of your company, and doth not desire to carry
a great many strangers but only some few friends along with him; or,
besides all this, if he designs to bring you thus invited acquainted
with the principal inviter, who is very worthy of your acquaintance,
then consent and go. For as to ill-humored persons, the more they seize
and take hold of us like thorns, we should endeavor to free ourselves
from them or leap over them the more. If he that invites is a civil and
well-bred person, yet doth not design to carry you to one of the same
temper, you must refuse, lest you should take poison in honey, that is,
get the acquaintance of a bad man by an honest friend. It is absurd to
go to one you do not know, and with whom you never had any familiarity,
unless, as I said before, the person be an extraordinary man, and, by
a civil waiting upon him at another man’s invitation, you design to
begin an acquaintance with him. And those friends you should chiefly
go to as shadows, who would come to you again in the same quality. To
Philip the jester, indeed, he seemed more ridiculous that came to a
feast of his own accord than he that was invited; but to well-bred and
civil friends it is more obliging for men of the same temper to come
at the nick of time with other friends, when uninvited and unexpected;
at once pleasing both to those that invite and those that entertain.
But chiefly you must avoid going to rulers, rich or great men, lest
you incur the deserved censure of being impudent, saucy, rude, and
unseasonably ambitious.
_QUESTION VII._
WHETHER FLUTE-GIRLS ARE TO BE ADMITTED TO A FEAST?
DIOGENIANUS, A SOPHIST, PHILIP.
At Chaeronea, Diogenianus the Pergamenian being present, we had a long
discourse at an entertainment about music; and we had a great deal of
trouble to hold out against a great bearded sophister of the Stoic
sect, who quoted Plato as blaming a company that admitted flute-girls
and were not able to entertain one another with discourse. And Philip
the Prusian, of the same sect, said: Those guests of Agatho, whose
discourse was more sweet than the sound of any pipe in the world,
were no good authority in this case; for it was no wonder that in
their company the flute-girl was not regarded; but it is strange
that, in the midst of the entertainment, the extreme pleasantness
of the discourse had not made them forget their meat and drink. Yet
Xenophon thought it not indecent to bring in to Socrates, Antisthenes,
and the like the jester Philip; as Homer doth an onion to make the
wine relish. And Plato brought in Aristophanes’s discourse of love,
as a comedy, into his entertainment; and at the last, as it were
drawing all the curtains, he shows a scene of the greatest variety
imaginable,—Alcibiades drunk, frolicking, and crowned. Then follows
that pleasant raillery between him and Socrates concerning Agatho, and
the encomium of Socrates; and when such discourse was going on, good
Gods! had it not been allowable, if Apollo himself had come in with his
harp ready, to desire the God to forbear till the argument was out?
These men, having such a pleasant way of discoursing, used these arts
and insinuating methods, and graced their entertainments by facetious
raillery. But shall we, being mixed with tradesmen and merchants, and
some (as it now and then happens) ignorants and rustics, banish out of
our entertainments this ravishing delight, or fly the musicians, as
if they were Sirens, as soon as we see them coming? Clitomachus the
wrestler, rising and getting away when any one talked of love, was much
wondered at; and should not a philosopher that banisheth music from a
feast, and is afraid of a musician, and bids his link-boy presently
light his link and be gone, be laughed at, since he seems to abominate
the most innocent pleasures, as beetles do ointment? For, if at any
time, certainly over a glass of wine, music should be allowed, and then
chiefly the harmonious God should have the direction of our souls; so
that Euripides, though I like him very well in other things, shall
never persuade me that music, as he would have it, should be applied
to melancholy and grief. For there sober and serious reason, like a
physician, should take care of the diseased men; but those pleasures
should be mixed with Bacchus, and serve to increase our mirth and
frolic. Therefore it was a pleasant saying of that Spartan at Athens,
who, when some new tragedians were to contend for the prize, seeing the
preparations of the masters of the dances, the hurry and busy diligence
of the instructors, said, the city was certainly mad which sported
with so much pains. He that designs to sport should sport, and not buy
his ease and pleasure with great expense, or the loss of that time
which might be useful to other things; but whilst he is feasting and
free from business, those should be enjoyed. And it is advisable to try
amidst our mirth, whether any profit is to be gotten from our delights.
_QUESTION VIII._
WHAT SORT OF MUSIC IS FITTEST FOR AN ENTERTAINMENT?
DIOGENIANUS, A SOPHIST, PHILIP.
1. When Philip had ended, I hindered the sophister from returning an
answer to the discourse, and said: Let us rather enquire, Diogenianus,
since there are a great many sorts of music, which is fittest for an
entertainment. And let us beg this learned man’s judgment in this
case; for since he is not prejudiced or apt to be biassed by any sort,
there is no danger that he should prefer that which is pleasantest
before that which is best. Diogenianus joining with me in this request,
he presently began. All other sorts I banish to the theatre and
play-house, and can only allow that which hath been lately admitted
into the entertainments at Rome, and with which everybody is not yet
acquainted. You know, continued he, that some of Plato’s dialogues are
purely narrative, and some dramatic. The easiest of this latter sort
they teach their children to speak by heart; causing them to imitate
the actions of those persons they represent, and to form their voice
and affections to be agreeable to the words. This all the grave and
well-bred men exceedingly approve; but soft and effeminate fellows,
whose ears ignorance and ill-breeding hath corrupted, and who, as
Aristoxenus phraseth it, are ready to vomit when they hear excellent
harmony, reject it; and no wonder, when effeminacy prevails.
2. Philip, perceiving some of the company uneasy at this discourse,
said: Pray spare us, sir, and be not so severe upon us; for we were
the first that found fault with that custom when it first began to
be countenanced in Rome, and reprehended those who thought Plato fit
to entertain us whilst we were making merry, and who would hear his
dialogues whilst they were eating cates and scattering perfumes. When
Sappho’s songs or Anacreon’s verses are pronounced, I protest I then
think it decent to set aside my cup. But should I proceed, perhaps
you would think me much in earnest, and designing to oppose you, and
therefore, together with this cup which I present my friend, I leave it
to him to wash your salt ear with fresh discourse.
3. Then Diogenianus, taking the cup, said: Methinks this is very sober
discourse, which makes me believe that the wine doth not please you,
since I see no effect of it; so that I fear I ought to be corrected.
Indeed many sorts of music are to be rejected; first, tragedy, as
having nothing familiar enough for an entertainment, and being a
representation of actions attended with grief and extremity of passion.
I reject the sort of dancing which is called Pyladean from Pylades,
because it is full of pomp, very pathetical, and requires a great many
persons; but if we would admit any of those sorts that deserve those
encomiums which Socrates mentions in his discourse about dancing,
I like that sort called Bathyllean, which requires not so high a
motion, but hath something of the nature of the Cordax, and resembles
the motion of an Echo, a Pan, or a Satyr frolicking with love. Old
comedy is not fit for men that are making merry, by reason of the
irregularities that appear in it; for that vehemency which they use
in the parabasis is loud and indecent, and the liberty they take to
scoff and abuse is very surfeiting, too open, and full of filthy words
and lewd expressions. Besides, as at great men’s tables every man hath
a servant waiting at his elbow, so each of his guests would need a
grammarian to sit by him, and explain who is Laespodias in Eupolis,
Cinesias in Plato, and Lampo in Cratinus, and who is each person that
is jeered in the play. Concerning new comedy there is no need of any
long discourse. It is so fitted, so interwoven with entertainments,
that it is easier to have a regular feast without wine, than without
Menander. Its phrase is sweet and familiar, the humor innocent and
easy, so that there is nothing for men whilst sober to despise, or when
merry to be troubled at. The sentiments are so natural and unstudied,
that midst wine, as it were in fire, they soften and bend the rigidest
temper to be pliable and easy. And the mixture of gravity and jests
seems to be contrived for nothing so aptly as for the pleasure and
profit of those that are frolicking and making merry. The love-scenes
in Menander are convenient for those who have already taken their
cups, and who in a short time must retire home to their wives; for
in all his plays there is no love of boys mentioned, and all rapes
committed on virgins end decently in marriages at last. As for misses,
if they are impudent and jilting, they are bobbed, the young gallants
turning sober, and repenting of their lewd courses. But if they are
kind and constant, either their true parents are discovered, or a time
is determined for the intrigue, which brings them at last to obliging
modesty and civil kindness. These things to men busied about other
matters may seem scarce worth taking notice of; but whilst they are
making merry, it is no wonder that the pleasantness and smoothness of
the parts should work a neat conformity and elegance in the hearers,
and make their manners like the pattern they have from those genteel
characters.
4. Diogenianus, either designedly or for want of breath, ended thus.
And when the sophister came upon him again, and contended that some
of Aristophanes’s verses should be recited, Philip speaking to me
said: Diogenianus hath had his wish in praising his beloved Menander,
and seems not to care for any of the rest. There are a great many
sorts which we have not at all considered, concerning which I should
be very glad to have your opinion; and the prize for carvers we will
set up to-morrow, when we are sober, if Diogenianus and this stranger
think fit. Of representations, said I, some are mythical, and some
are farces; neither of these are fit for an entertainment; the first
by reason of their length and cost, and the latter being so full of
filthy discourse and lewd actions, that they are not fit to be seen
by the foot-boys that wait on civil masters. Yet the rabble, even
with their wives and young sons, sit quietly to be spectators of such
representations as are apt to disturb the soul more than the greatest
debauch in drink. The harp ever since Homer’s time was well acquainted
with feasts and entertainments, and therefore it is not fitting to
dissolve such an ancient friendship and acquaintance; but we should
only desire the harpers to forbear their sad notes and melancholy
tunes, and play only those that are delighting, and fit for such as are
making merry. The pipe, if we would, we cannot reject, for the libation
in the beginning of the entertainment requires that as well as the
garland. Then it insinuates and passeth through the ears, spreading
even to the very soul a pleasant sound, which produceth serenity and
calmness; so that, if the wine hath not quite dissolved or driven away
all vexing solicitous anxiety, this, by the softness and delightful
agreeableness of its sound, smooths and calms the spirits, if so be
that it keeps within due bounds, and doth not elevate too much, and, by
its numerous surprising divisions, raise an ecstasy in the soul which
wine hath weakened and made easy to be perverted. For as brutes do not
understand a rational discourse, yet lie down or rise up at the sound
of a shell or whistle, or of a chirp or clap; so the brutish part of
the soul, which is incapable either of understanding or obeying reason,
men conquer by songs and tunes, and by music reduce it to tolerable
order. But to speak freely what I think, no pipe nor harp simply played
upon, and without a song with it, can be very fit for an entertainment.
For we should still accustom ourselves to take our chiefest pleasure
from discourse, and spend our leisure time in profitable talk, and
use tunes and airs as a sauce for the discourse, and not singly by
themselves, to please the unreasonable delicacy of our palate. For as
nobody is against pleasure that ariseth from sauce or wine going in
with our necessary food, but Socrates flouts and refuseth to admit that
superfluous and vain pleasure which we take in perfumes and odors at
a feast; thus the sound of a pipe or harp, when singly applied to our
ears, we utterly reject, but if it accompanies words, and together with
an ode feasts and delights our reason, we gladly introduce it. And we
believe the famed Marsyas was punished by Apollo for pretending, when
he had nothing but his single pipe, and his muzzle to secure his lips,
to contend with the harp and song of the God. Let us only take care
that, when we have such guests as are able to cheer one another with
philosophy and good discourse, we do not introduce any thing that may
rather prove an uneasy hindrance to the conversation than promote it.
For not only are those fools, who, as Euripides says, having safety
at home and in their own power, yet would hire some from abroad; but
those too who, having pleasantness enough within, are eager after some
external pastimes to comfort and delight them. That extraordinary piece
of honor which the Persian king showed Antalcidas the Spartan seemed
rude and uncivil, when he dipped a garland composed of crocus and roses
in ointment, and sent it him to wear, by that dipping putting a slight
upon and spoiling the natural sweetness and beauty of the flowers.
He doth as bad, who having a Muse in his own breast, and all the
pleasantness that would fit an entertainment, will have pipes and harps
play, and by that external adventitious noise destroy all the sweetness
that was proper and his own. But in short, all ear-delights are fittest
then, when the company begins to be disturbed, fall out, and quarrel,
for then they may prevent raillery and reproach, and stop the dispute
that is running on to sophistical and unpleasant wrangling, and bridle
all babbling declamatory altercations, so that the company may be freed
of noise and quietly composed.
_QUESTION IX._
THAT IT WAS THE CUSTOM OF THE GREEKS AS WELL AS PERSIANS TO DEBATE OF
STATE AFFAIRS AT THEIR ENTERTAINMENTS.
NICOSTRATUS, GLAUCIAS.
At Nicostratus’s table we discoursed of those matters which the
Athenians were to debate of in their next assembly. And one of the
company saying, It is the Persian fashion, sir, to debate midst your
cups; And why, said Glaucias rejoining, not the Grecian fashion? For it
was a Greek that said,
After your belly’s full, your counsel’s best.
And they were Greeks who with Agamemnon besieged Troy, to whom, whilst
they were eating and drinking,
Old Nestor first began a grave debate;[97]
and he himself advised the king before to call the commanders together
for the same purpose:
For the commanders, sir, a feast prepare,
And see who counsels best, and follow him.[98]
Therefore Greece, having a great many excellent institutions, and
zealously following the customs of the ancients, hath laid the
foundations of her polities in wine. For the assemblies in Crete called
Andria, those in Sparta called Phiditia, were secret consultations
and aristocratical assemblies; such, I suppose, as the Prytaneum and
Thesmothesium here at Athens. And not different from these is that
night-meeting, which Plato mentions, of the best and most politic men,
to which the greatest, the most considerable and puzzling matters are
assigned. And those
Who, when they do design to seek their rest,
To Mercury their just libations pour,[99]
do they not join reason and wine together, since, when they are
about to retire, they make their vows to the wisest God, as if he
was present and particularly president over their actions? But the
ancients indeed call Bacchus the good counsellor, as if he had no need
of Mercury; and for his sake they named the night εὐφρόνη, as it were,
_well-minded_.
_QUESTION X._
WHETHER THEY DID WELL WHO DELIBERATED MIDST THEIR CUPS.
GLAUCIAS, NICOSTRATUS.
1. Whilst Glaucias was discoursing thus, the former tumultuous talk
seemed to be pretty well lulled; and that it might be quite forgotten,
Nicostratus started another question, saying, he never valued the
matter before, whilst he thought it a Persian custom, but since it
was discovered to be the Greek fashion too, it wanted (he thought)
some reason to excuse or defend its seeming absurdity. For our reason
(said he), like our eye, whilst it floats in too much moisture, is
hard to be moved, and unable to perform its operations. And all sorts
of troubles and discontents creeping forth, like insects to the sun,
and being agitated by a glass of wine, make the mind irresolute and
inconstant. Therefore as a bed is more convenient for a man whilst
making merry than a chair, because it contains the whole body and keeps
it from all disturbing motion, so it is best to have the soul perfectly
at quiet; or, if that cannot be, we must give it, as to children that
will be doing, not a sword or spear, but a rattle or ball,—in this
following the example of the God himself, who puts into the hands of
those that are making merry a ferula, the lightest and softest of all
weapons, that, when they are most apt to strike, they may hurt least.
Over a glass of wine men should make only ridiculous slips, and not
such as may prove tragical, lamentable, or of any considerable concern.
Besides, in serious debates, it is chiefly to be considered, that
persons of mean understanding and unacquainted with business should
be guided by the wise and experienced; but wine destroys this order.
Insomuch that Plato says, wine is called οἶνος, because it makes those
that drink it think that they have wit (οἴεσθαι νοῦν ἔχειν); for none
over a glass of wine thinks himself so noble, beauteous, or rich
(though he fancies himself all these), as wise; and therefore wine
is babbling, full of talk, and of a dictating humor; so that we are
rather for being heard than hearing, for leading than being led. But a
thousand such objections may be raised, for they are very obvious. But
let us hear which of the company, either old or young, can allege any
thing for the contrary opinion.
2. Then said my brother cunningly: And do you imagine that any, upon
a sudden, can produce any probable reasons? And Nicostratus replying,
Yes, no doubt, there being so many learned men and good drinkers in
company; he with a smile continued: Do you think, sir, you are fit
to treat of these matters, when wine hath disabled you to discourse
politics and state affairs? Or is not this all the same as to think
that a man in his liquor doth not see very well nor understand those
that talk and discourse with him, yet hears the music and the pipers
very well? For as it is likely that useful and profitable things draw
and affect the sense more than fine and gaudy; so likewise they do the
mind. And I shall not wonder that the nice philosophical speculation
should escape a man who hath drunk freely; but yet, I think, if he
were called to political debates, his wisdom would become more strong
and vigorous. Thus Philip at Chaeronea, being well heated, talked very
foolishly, and was the sport of the whole company; but as soon as they
began to discourse of a truce and peace, he composed his countenance,
contracted his brows, and dismissing all vain, empty, and dissolute
thoughts, gave an excellent, wise, and sober answer to the Athenians.
To drink freely is different from being drunk, and those that drink
till they grow foolish ought to retire to bed. But as for those that
drink freely and are otherwise men of sense, why should we fear that
they will fail in their understanding or lose their skill, when we
see that musicians play as well at a feast as in a theatre? For when
skill and art are in the soul, they make the body correct and proper
in its operations, and obedient to the motions of the mind. Besides,
wine inspirits some men, and raises a confidence and assurance in them,
but not such as is haughty and odious, but pleasing and agreeable.
Thus they say that Aeschylus wrote his tragedies over a bottle; and
that all his plays (though Gorgias thought that one of them, the Seven
against Thebes, was full of Mars) were Bacchus’s. For wine (according
to Plato), heating the soul together with the body, makes the body
pliable, quick, and active, and opens the passages; while the fancies
draw in discourse with boldness and daring.
For some have a good natural invention, yet whilst they are sober are
too diffident and too close, but midst their wine, like frankincense,
exhale and open at the heat. Besides, wine expels all fear, which
is the greatest hindrance to all consultations, and quencheth many
other degenerate and lazy passions; it opens the rancor and malice,
as it were, the two-leaved doors of the soul, and displays the whole
disposition and qualities of any person in his discourse. Freedom of
speech, and, through that, truth it principally produceth; which once
wanting, neither quickness of wit nor experience availeth any thing;
and many proposing that which comes next rather hit the matter, than if
they warily and designedly conceal their present sentiments. Therefore
there is no reason to fear that wine will stir up our affections; for
it never stirs up the bad, unless in the worst men, whose judgment
is never sober. But as Theophrastus used to call the barbers’ shops
wine-less entertainments; so there is a kind of an uncouth wine-less
drunkenness always excited either by anger, malice, emulation, or
clownishness in the souls of the unlearned. Now wine, blunting rather
than sharpening many of these passions, doth not make them sots and
foolish, but simple and guileless; not negligent of what is profitable,
but desirous of what is good and honest. Now those that think craft to
be cunning, and vanity or closeness to be wisdom, have reason to think
those that over a glass of wine plainly and ingenuously deliver their
opinions to be fools. But on the contrary, the ancients called the God
the Freer and Loosener, and thought him considerable in divination;
not, as Euripides says, because he makes men raging mad, but because
he looseth and frees the soul from all base distrustful fear, and puts
them in a condition to speak truth fully and freely to one another.
BOOK VIII.
Those, my Sossius Senecio, who throw philosophy out of entertainments
do worse than those who take away a light. For the candle being
removed, the temperate and sober guests will not become worse than they
were before, being more concerned to reverence than to see one another.
But if dulness and disregard to good learning wait upon the wine,
Minerva’s golden lamp itself could not make the entertainment pleasing
and agreeable. For a company to sit silent and only cram themselves
is, in good truth, swinish and almost impossible. But he that permits
men to talk, yet doth not allow set and profitable discourses, is much
more ridiculous than he who thinks that his guests should eat and
drink, yet gives them foul wine, unsavory and nastily prepared meat.
For no meat nor drink which is not prepared as it ought to be is so
hurtful and unpleasant as discourse which is carried round in company
insignificantly and out of season. The philosophers, when they would
give drunkenness a vile name, call it doting by wine. Now doting is to
use vain and trifling discourse; and when such babbling is accompanied
by wine, it usually ends in most disagreeable and rude contumely and
reproach. It is a good custom therefore of our women, who in their
feasts called Agrionia seek after Bacchus as if he were run away, but
in a little time give over the search, and cry that he is fled to
the Muses and lurks with them; and some time after, when supper is
done, put riddles and hard questions to one another. For this mystery
teaches us, that midst our entertainments we should use learned and
philosophical discourse, and such as hath a Muse in it; and that such
discourse being applied to drunkenness, every thing that is brutish
and outrageous in it is concealed, being pleasingly restrained by the
Muses.
This book, being the eighth of my Symposiacs, begins that discourse in
which about a year ago, on Plato’s birthday, I was concerned.
_QUESTION I._
CONCERNING THOSE DAYS IN WHICH SOME FAMOUS MEN WERE BORN; AND ALSO
CONCERNING THE GENERATION OF THE GODS.
DIOGENIANUS, PLUTARCH, FLORUS, TYNDARES.
1. On the sixth day of May we celebrated Socrates’s birthday, and on
the seventh Plato’s; and that first prompted us to such discourse as
was suitable to the meeting, which Diogenianus the Pergamenian began
thus: Ion, said he, was happy in his expression, when he said that
Fortune, though much unlike Wisdom, yet did many things very much like
her; and that she seemed to have some order and design, not only in
placing the nativities of these two philosophers so near together,
but in setting first the birthday of the most famous of the two, who
was also the teacher of the other. I had a great deal to say to the
company concerning some notable things that fell out on the same day,
as concerning the time of Euripides’s birth and death; for he was
born the same day that the Greeks beat Xerxes by sea at Salamis, and
died the same day that Dionysius the elder, the Sicilian tyrant, was
born,—Fortune (as Timaeus hath it) at the same time taking out of the
world a representer, and bringing into it a real actor, of tragedies.
Besides, we remembered that Alexander the king and Diogenes the Cynic
died upon the same day. And all agreed that Attalus the king died on
his own birthday. And some said, that Pompey the great was killed in
Egypt on his birthday, or, as others will have it, a day before. We
remember Pindar also, who, being born at the time of the Pythian games,
made afterwards a great many excellent hymns in honor of Apollo.
2. To this Florus subjoined: Now we are celebrating Plato’s nativity,
why should we not mention Carneades, the most famous of the whole
Academy, since both of them were born on Apollo’s feast; Plato, whilst
they were celebrating the Thargelia at Athens, Carneades, whilst
the Cyrenians kept their Carnea; and both these feasts are upon the
same day. Nay, the God himself (he continued) you, his priests and
prophets, call Hebdomagenes, as if he were born on the seventh day.
And therefore those who make Apollo Plato’s father[100] do not, in my
opinion, dishonor the God; since by Socrates’s as by another Chiron’s
instructions he is become a physician for the greater diseases of the
mind. And together with this, he mentioned that vision and voice which
forbade Aristo, Plato’s father, to come near or lie with his wife for
ten months.
3. To this Tyndares the Spartan subjoined: It is very fit we should
apply that to Plato,
He seemed not sprung from mortal man, but God.[101]
But, for my part, I am afraid to beget, as well as to be begotten, is
repugnant to the incorruptibility of the Deity. For that implies a
change and passion; as Alexander imagined, when he said that he knew
himself to be mortal as often as he lay with a woman or slept. For
sleep is a relaxation of the body, occasioned by the weakness of our
nature; and all generation is a corruptive parting with some of our
own substance. But yet I take heart again, when I hear Plato call the
eternal and unbegotten Deity the father and maker of the world and
all other begotten things; not as if he parted with any seed, but as
if by his power he implanted a generative principle in matter, which
acts upon, forms, and fashions it. Winds passing through a hen will
sometimes impregnate her; and it seems no incredible thing, that the
Deity, though not after the fashion of a man, but by some other certain
communication, fills a mortal creature with some divine conception.
Nor is this my sense; but the Egyptians say Apis was conceived by
the influence of the moon, and make no question but that an immortal
God may have communication with a mortal woman. But on the contrary,
they think that no mortal can beget any thing on a goddess, because
they believe the goddesses are made of thin air, and subtle heat and
moisture.
_QUESTION II._
WHAT IS PLATO’S MEANING, WHEN HE SAYS THAT GOD ALWAYS PLAYS THE
GEOMETER?
DIOGENIANUS, TYNDARES, FLORUS, AUTOBULUS.
1. Silence following this discourse, Diogenianus began and said: Since
our discourse is about the Gods, shall we, especially on his own
birthday, admit Plato to the conference, and enquire upon what account
he says (supposing it to be his sentence) that God always plays the
geometer? I said that this sentence was not plainly set down in any of
his books; yet there are good arguments that it is his, and it is very
much like his expression. Tyndares presently subjoining said: Perhaps,
Diogenianus, you imagine that this sentence intimates some curious and
difficult speculation, and not that which he hath so often mentioned,
when he praiseth geometry as a science that takes off men from sensible
objects, and makes them apply themselves to the intelligible and
eternal Nature, the contemplation of which is the end of philosophy,
as a view of the mysteries of initiation into holy rites. For the nail
of pain and pleasure, that fastens the soul to the body, seems to do
us the greatest mischief, by making sensible things more powerful over
us than intelligible, and by forcing the understanding to determine
rather according to passion than reason. For the understanding, being
accustomed by the vehemency of pain or pleasure to be intent on the
mutable and uncertain body, as if it really and truly were, grows blind
as to that which really is, and loses that instrument and light of the
soul, which is worth a thousand bodies, and by which alone the Deity
can be discovered. Now in all sciences, as in plain and smooth mirrors,
some marks and images of the truth of intelligible objects appear,
but in geometry chiefly; which, according to Philo, is the chief and
principal of all, and doth bring back and turn the understanding, as
it were, purged and gently loosened from sense. And therefore Plato
himself dislikes Eudoxus, Archytas, and Menaechmus for endeavoring
to bring down the doubling the cube to mechanical operations; for by
this means all that was good in geometry would be lost and corrupted,
it falling back again to sensible things, and not rising upward and
considering immaterial and immortal images, in which God being versed
is always God.
2. After Tyndares, Florus, a companion of his, who always jocosely
pretended to be his admirer, said thus: Sir, we are obliged to you for
making your discourse not proper to yourself, but common to us all; for
you have made it possible to refute it by demonstrating that geometry
is not necessary to the Gods, but to us. Now the Deity doth not stand
in need of science, as an instrument to withdraw his intellect from
things engendered and to turn it to the real things; for these are
all in him, with him, and about him. But pray consider whether Plato,
though you do not apprehend it, doth not intimate something that is
proper and peculiar to you, mixing Lycurgus with Socrates, as much as
Dicaearchus thought he did Pythagoras. For Lycurgus, I suppose you
know, banished out of Sparta all arithmetical proportion, as being
democratical and favoring the crowd; but introduced the geometrical,
as agreeable to an oligarchy and kingly government that rules by
law; for the former gives an equal share to every one according to
number, but the other gives according to the proportion of the deserts.
It doth not huddle all things together, but in it there is a fair
discretion of good and bad, every one having what is fit for him, not
by lot or weight, but according as he is virtuous or vicious. The same
proportion, my dear Tyndares, God introduceth, which is called δίκη and
νέμεσις, and which teacheth us to account that which is just equal,
and not that which is equal just. For that equality which many affect,
being often the greatest injustice, God, as much as possible, takes
away; and useth that proportion which respects every man’s deserts,
geometrically defining it according to law and reason.
3. This exposition we applauded; and Tyndares, saying he envied him,
desired Autobulus to engage Florus and confute his discourse. That
he refused to do, but produced another opinion of his own. Geometry,
said he, considers nothing else but the accidents and properties
of the extremities or limits of bodies; neither did God make the
world any other way than by terminating matter, which was infinite
before. Not that matter was really infinite as to either magnitude
or multitude; but the ancients used to call that infinite which by
reason of its confusion and disorder is undetermined and unconfined.
Now the terms of every thing that is formed or figured are the form
and figure of that thing, without which the thing would be formless
and unfigured. Now numbers and proportions being applied to matter, it
is circumscribed and as it were bound up by lines, and through lines
by surfaces and profundities; and so were settled the first species
and differences of bodies, as foundations from which to raise the four
elements, fire, air, water, and earth. For it was impossible that,
out of an unsteady and confused matter, the equality of the sides,
the likeness of the angles, and the exact proportion of octahedrons,
icosahedrons, pyramids, and cubes should be deduced, unless by some
power that terminated and shaped every particle of matter. Therefore,
terms being fixed to that which was undetermined or infinite before,
the whole became and still continues agreeable in all parts, and
excellently terminated and mixed; the matter indeed always affecting
an indeterminate state, and flying all geometrical confinement, but
proportion terminating and circumscribing it, and dividing it into
several differences and forms, out of which all things that arise are
generated and subsist.
4. When he had said this, he desired me to contribute something to
the discourse; and I applauded their conceits as their own devices,
and very probable. But lest you despise yourselves (I continued) and
altogether look for some external explication, attend to an exposition
upon this sentence, which your masters very much approve. Amongst
the most geometrical theorems, or rather problems, this is one: Two
figures being given, to construct a third, which shall be equal to one
and similar to the other. And it is reported that Pythagoras, upon
the discovery of this problem, offered a sacrifice to the Gods; for
this is a much more exquisite theorem than that which lays down, that
the square of the hypothenuse in a right-angled triangle is equal to
the squares of the two sides. Right, said Diogenianus, but what is
this to the present question? You will easily understand, I replied,
if you call to mind how Timaeus divides that which gave the world its
beginning into three parts. One of which is justly called God, the
other matter, and the third form. That which is called matter is the
most confused subject, the form the most beautiful pattern, and God the
best of causes. Now this cause, as far as possible, would leave nothing
infinite and indeterminate, but adorn Nature with number, measure and
proportion, making one thing of all the subjects together, equal to
the matter, and similar to the form. Therefore proposing to himself
this problem, he made and still makes a third, and always preserves
it equal to the matter, and like the form; and that is the world. And
this world, being in continual changes and alterations because of
the natural necessity of body, is helped and preserved by the father
and maker of all things, who by proportion terminates the substance
according to the pattern. Wherefore in its measure and circuit this
universal world is more beautiful than that which is merely similar to
it....
_QUESTION III._
WHY NOISES ARE BETTER HEARD IN THE NIGHT THAN THE DAY.
AMMONIUS, BOETHUS, PLUTARCH, THRASYLLUS, ARISTODEMUS.
1. When we supped with Ammonius at Athens, who was then the third time
captain of the city-bands, there was a great noise about the house,
some without doors calling, Captain! Captain! After he had sent his
officers to quiet the tumult, and had dispersed the crowd, we began to
enquire what was the reason that those that are within doors hear those
that are without, but those that are without cannot hear those that are
within as well. And Ammonius said, that Aristotle had given a reason
for that already; for the sound of those within, being carried without
into a large tract of air, grows weaker presently and is lost; but that
which comes in from without is not subject to the like casualty, but is
kept close, and is therefore more easy to be heard. But that seemed a
more difficult question, Why sounds seem greater in the night than in
the day, and yet altogether as clear. For my own part (continued he)
I think Providence hath very wisely contrived that our hearing should
be quickest when our sight can do us very little or no service; for
the air of the “blind and solitary Night,” as Empedocles calls it,
being dark, supplies in the ears that defect of sense which it makes in
the eyes. But since of natural effects we should endeavor to find the
causes, and to discover what are the material and mechanical principles
of things is the proper task of a natural philosopher, who shall first
assist us with a rational account hereof?
2. Boethus began, and said: When I was a novice in letters, I then
made use of geometrical postulates, and assumed as undoubted truths
some undemonstrated suppositions; and now I shall make use of some
propositions which Epicurus hath demonstrated already. Bodies move in
a vacuum, and there are a great many spaces interspersed among the
atoms of the air. Now when the air being rarefied is more extended,
so as to fill the empty space, there are but few vacuities scattered
and interspersed among the particles of matter; but when the atoms of
air are condensed and laid close together, they leave a vast empty
space, convenient and sufficient for other bodies to pass through.
Now the coldness of the night makes such a constipation. Heat opens
and separates the parts of condensed bodies. Therefore bodies that
boil, grow soft, or melt, require a greater space than before; but on
the contrary, the parts of the body that are condensed or freeze are
contracted closer to one another, and leave those vessels and places
from which they retired partly empty. Now the voice, meeting and
striking against a great many bodies in its way, is either altogether
lost or scattered, and very much and very frequently hindered in its
passage; but when it hath a plain and smooth way through an empty
space, and comes to the ear uninterrupted, the passage is so sudden,
that it preserves its articulate distinctness, as well as the words
it carries. You may observe that empty vessels, when knocked, answer
presently, send out a noise to a great distance, and oftentimes the
sound whirled round in the hollow breaks out with a considerable
force; whilst a vessel that is filled either with a liquid or a solid
body will not answer to a stroke, because the sound hath no room or
passage to come through. And among solid bodies themselves, gold and
stone, because they want pores, can hardly be made to sound; and when
a noise is made by a stroke upon them, it is very flat, and presently
lost. But brass is sounding, it being a porous, rare, and light metal,
not consisting of parts closely compacted, but being mixed with a
yielding and uncompacted substance, which gives free passage to other
motions, and kindly receiving the sound sends it forward; till some
touching the instrument do, as it were, seize on it in the way, and
stop the hollow; for then, by reason of the hindering force, it stops
and goes no farther. And this, in my opinion, is the reason why the
night is more sonorous, and the day less; since in the day, the heat
rarefying the air makes the empty spaces between the particles to be
very little. But, pray, let none argue against the suppositions I first
assumed.
3. And I (Ammonius bidding me oppose him) said: Sir, your suppositions
which require a vacuum to be granted I shall admit; but you err in
supposing that a vacuum is conducive either to the preservation or
conveyance of sound. For that which cannot be touched, acted upon,
or struck is peculiarly favorable to silence. But sound is a stroke
of a sounding body; and a sounding body is that which is homogeneous
and uniform, easy to be moved, light, smooth, and, by reason of its
tenseness and continuity, obedient to the stroke; and such is the air.
Water, earth, and fire, are of themselves soundless; but each of them
makes a noise when air falls upon or gets into it. And brass hath in it
no vacuum; but being mixed with a smooth and gentle air it answers to a
stroke, and is sounding. If the eye may be judge, iron must be reckoned
to have a great many vacuities, and to be porous like a honey-comb,
yet it is the dullest, and sounds worse than any other metal.
Therefore there is no need to trouble the night to contract and
condense its air, that in other parts we may leave vacuities and wide
spaces; as if the air would hinder and corrupt the substance of the
sounds, whose very substance, form, and power itself is. Besides, if
your reason held, misty and extreme cold nights would be more sonorous
than those which are temperate and clear, because then the atoms in
our atmosphere are constipated, and the spaces which they left remain
empty; and, what is more obvious, a cold day should be more sonorous
than a warm summer’s night; neither of which is true. Therefore, laying
aside that explication, I produce Anaxagoras, who teacheth that the sun
makes a tremulous motion in the air, as is evident from those little
motes which are seen tossed up and down and flying in the sunbeams.
These (says he), being in the day-time whisked about by the heat, and
making a humming noise, lessen or drown other sounds; but at night
their motion, and consequently their noise, ceaseth.
4. When I had thus said, Ammonius began: Perhaps it will look like a
ridiculous attempt in us, to endeavor to confute Democritus and correct
Anaxagoras. Yet we must not allow that humming noise to Anaxagoras’s
little motes, for it is neither probable nor necessary. But their
tremulous and whirling motion in the sunbeams is oftentimes sufficient
to disturb and break a sound. For the air (as hath been already
said), being itself the body and substance of sound, if it be quiet
and undisturbed, gives a straight, easy, and continuous way to the
particles or the motions which make the sound. Thus sounds are best
heard in calm still weather; and the contrary is seen in tempestuous
weather, as Simonides hath it:—
No tearing tempests rattled through the skies,
Which hinder sweet discourse from mortal ears.
For often the disturbed air hinders the articulateness of a discourse
from coming to the ears, though it may convey something of the loudness
and length of it. Now the night, simply considered in itself, hath
nothing that may disturb the air; though the day hath,—namely the sun,
according to the opinion of Anaxagoras.
5. To this Thrasyllus, Ammonius’s son, subjoining said: What is the
matter, for God’s sake, that we endeavor to solve this difficulty by
the unintelligible fancied motion of the air, and never consider the
tossing and divulsion thereof, which are sensible and evident? For
Jupiter, the great ruler above, doth not covertly and silently move the
little particles of air; but as soon as he appears, he stirs up and
moves every thing.
He sends forth lucky signs,
And stirs up nations to their proper work
and they obey; and (as Democritus saith) with new thoughts for each
new day, as if newly born again, they fall to their worldly concerns
with noisy and effectual contrivances. And upon this account, Ibycus
appositely calls the dawning κλυτόν (from κλύειν, _to hear_),
because then men first begin to hear and speak. Now at night, all
things being at rest, the air being quiet and undisturbed must
therefore probably transmit the voice better, and convey it whole and
unbroken to our ears.
6. Aristodemus the Cyprian, being then in company, said: But consider,
sir, whether battles or the marches of great armies by night do
not confute your reason; for the noise they make seems as loud as
otherwise, though then the air is broken and very much disturbed. But
the reason is partly in ourselves; for our voice at night is usually
vehement, we either commanding others to do something or asking short
questions with heat and concern. For that, at the same time when Nature
requires rest, we should stir to do or speak any thing, there must be
some great and urgent necessity for it; and thence our voices become
more vehement and loud.
_QUESTION IV._
Why, when in the Sacred Games one sort of Garland was given in one, and
another in another, the Palm was common to all. And why they call the
great Dates Νικόλαοι.
SOSPIS, HERODES, PROTOGENES, PRAXITELES, CAPHISUS.
1. The Isthmian games being celebrated, when Sospis was the
second time director of the solemnity, we avoided other
entertainments,—he treating a great many strangers, and often all his
fellow-citizens,—but once, when he entertained his nearest and most
learned friends at his own house, I was one of the company. After the
first course, one coming to Herodes the rhetorician brought a palm
and a wreathed crown, which one of his acquaintance, who had won the
prize for an encomiastic exercise, sent him. This Herodes received very
kindly, and sent it back again, but added that he could not tell the
reason why, since each of the games gave a particular garland, yet all
of them bestowed the palm. For those do not satisfy me (said he) who
say that the equality of the leaves is the reason, which growing out
one against another seem to resemble some striving for the prize, and
that victory is called νίκη, from μὴ εἴκειν, _not to yield_. For a
great many other trees, which almost by measure and weight divide the
nourishment to their leaves growing opposite to one another, show a
decent order and wonderful equality. They seem to speak more probably
who say the ancients were pleased with the beauty and figure of the
tree. Thus Homer compares Nausicaa to a palm-branch. For you all know
very well, that some threw roses at the victors, and some pomegranates
and apples, to honor and reward them. But now the palm hath nothing
evidently more taking than many other things, since here in Greece it
bears no fruit that is good to eat, it not ripening and growing mature
enough. But if, as in Syria and Egypt, it bore a fruit that is the
most pleasant to the eyes of any thing in the world, and the sweetest
to the taste, then I must confess nothing could compare with it. And
the Persian monarch (as the story goes), being extremely taken with
Nicolaus the Peripatetic philosopher, who was a very sweet-humored man,
tall and slender, and of a ruddy complexion, called the greatest and
fairest dates Nicolai.
2. This discourse of Herodes seemed to give occasion for a query about
Nicolaus, which would be as pleasant as the former. Therefore, said
Sospis, let every one carefully give his sentiments of the matter in
hand. I begin, and think that, as far as possible, the honor of the
victor should remain fresh and immortal. Now a palm-tree is the longest
lived of any, as this line of Orpheus testifies:
They lived like branches of a leafy palm.
And this almost alone enjoys the privilege (though it is said to belong
to many beside) of having always fresh and the same leaves. For neither
the laurel nor the olive nor the myrtle, nor any other of those trees
called evergreen, is always seen with the very same leaves; but as the
old fall, new ones grow. So cities continue the same, where new parts
succeed those that decay. But the palm, never shedding a leaf, is
continually adorned with the same green. And this power of the tree, I
believe, men think agreeable to, and fit to represent, the strength of
victory.
3. When Sospis had done, Protogenes the grammarian, calling Praxiteles
the commentator by his name, said: What then, shall we suffer those
rhetoricians to be thought to have hit the mark, when they bring
arguments only from probabilities and conjectures? And can we produce
nothing from history to club to this discourse? Lately, I remember,
reading in the Attic annals, I found that Theseus first instituted
games in Delos, and tore off a branch from the sacred palm-tree, which
was called spadix (from σπάω, _to tear_.)
4. And Praxiteles said: This is uncertain; but perhaps some will
demand of Theseus himself, upon what account, when he instituted
the game, he broke off a branch of palm rather than of laurel or of
olive. But consider whether this be not a prize proper to the Pythian
games, as belonging to Amphictyon. For there they first, in honor of
the God, crowned the victors with laurel and palm, as consecrating to
the God, not the laurel or olive, but the palm. So Nicias did, who
defrayed the charges of the solemnity in the name of the Athenians at
Delos; the Athenians themselves at Delphi; and before these, Cypselus
the Corinthian. For this God is a lover of games, and delights in
contending for the prize at harping, singing, and throwing the bar,
and, as some say, at cuffing; and assists men when contending, as Homer
witnesseth, by making Achilles speak thus,
Let two come forth in cuffing stout, and try
To which Apollo gives the victory.[102]
And amongst the archers, he that made his address to Apollo made the
best shot, and he that forgot to pray to him missed the mark. And
beside, it is not likely that the Athenians would rashly, and upon
no grounds, dedicate their place of exercise to Apollo. But they
thought that the God which bestows health gives likewise a vigorous
constitution, and strength for the encounter. And since some of the
encounters are light and easy, others laborious and difficult, the
Delphians offered sacrifices to Apollo the cuffer; the Cretans and
Spartans to Apollo the racer; and the dedication of spoils taken in the
wars and trophies to Apollo Pythias show that he is of great power to
give victory in war.
5. Whilst he was speaking, Caphisus, Theon’s son, interrupted him,
and said: This discourse smells neither of history nor comment, but
is taken out of the common topics of the Peripatetics, and endeavors
to persuade; besides, you should, like the tragedians, raise your
machine, and fright all that contradict you with the God. But the God,
as indeed it is requisite he should be, is equally benevolent to all.
Now let us, following Sospis (for he fairly leads the way), keep close
to our subject, the palm-tree, which affords us sufficient scope for
our discourse. The Babylonians celebrate this tree, as being useful to
them three hundred and sixty several ways. But to us Greeks it is of
very little use, but its want of fruit makes it proper for contenders
in the games. For being the fairest, greatest, and best proportioned
of all sorts of trees, it bears no fruit amongst us; but by reason of
its strong constitution it spends all its nourishment (like an athlete)
upon its body, and so has very little, and that very bad, remaining
for seed. Beside all this, it hath something peculiar, which cannot be
attributed to any other tree. The branch of a palm, if you put a weight
upon it, doth not yield and bend downwards, but turns the contrary way,
as if it resisted the pressing force. The like is to be observed in
these exercises. For those who, through weakness or cowardice, yield
to them, their adversaries oppress; but those who stoutly endure the
encounter have not only their bodies, but their minds too, strengthened
and increased.
_QUESTION V._
WHY THOSE THAT SAIL UPON THE NILE TAKE UP THE WATER THEY ARE TO USE
BEFORE DAY.
One demanded a reason why the sailors take up the water for their
occasions out of the river Nile by night, and not by day. Some thought
they feared the sun, which heating the water would make it more liable
to putrefaction. For every thing that is heated or warmed becomes more
easy to be changed, having already suffered when its proper quality
was remitted. And cold constipating the parts seems to preserve every
thing in its natural state, and water especially. For that the cold
of water is naturally constringent is evident from snow, which keeps
flesh from corrupting a long time. And heat, as it destroys the proper
quality of other things, so of honey, for it being boiled is itself
corrupted, though when raw it preserves other bodies from corruption.
And that this is the cause, I have a very considerable evidence from
standing pools; for in winter they are as wholesome as other water, but
in summer they grow bad and noxious. Therefore the night seeming in
some measure to resemble the winter, and the day the summer, they think
the water that is taken up at night is less subject to be vitiated and
changed.
To these seemingly probable reasons another was added, which confirmed
the ingenuity of the sailors by a very natural proof. For some said
that they took up their water by night because then it was clear and
undisturbed; but at daytime, when a great many fetched water together,
and many boats were sailing and many beasts swimming upon the Nile,
it grew thick and muddy, and in that condition it was more subject to
corruption. For mixed bodies are more easily corrupted than simple
and unmixed; for from mixture proceeds disagreement of the parts,
from that disagreement a change, and corruption is nothing else but
a certain change; and therefore painters call the mixing of their
colors φθοράς, _corrupting_; and Homer expresseth dyeing by μιῆναι
(_to stain_ or _contaminate_). Commonly we call any thing
that is simple and unmixed incorruptible and immortal. Now earth being
mixed with water soonest corrupts its proper qualities, and makes it
unfit for drinking; and therefore standing water stinks soonest, being
continually filled with particles of earth, whilst running waters
preserve themselves by either leaving behind or throwing off the earth
that falls into them. And Hesiod justly commends
The water of a pure and constant spring.[103]
For that water is wholesome which is not corrupted, and that is not
corrupted which is pure and unmixed. And this opinion is very much
confirmed from the difference of earths; for those springs that run
through a mountainous, rocky ground are stronger than those which
are cut through plains or marshes, because they do not take off much
earth. Now the Nile running through a soft country, like the blood
mingled with the flesh, is filled with sweet juices that are strong
and very nourishing; yet it is thick and muddy, and becomes more so if
disturbed. For motion mixeth the earthly particles with the liquid,
which, because they are heavier, fall to the bottom as soon as the
water is still and undisturbed. Therefore the sailors take up the water
they are to use at night, by that means likewise preventing the sun,
which always exhales and consumes the subtler and lighter particles of
the liquid.
_QUESTION VI._
Concerning those who come Late to an Entertainment; and from whence
these Words, ἀκράτισμα, ἄριστον, and δεῖπνον, are Derived.
PLUTARCH’S SONS, THEON’S SONS, THEON, PLUTARCH, SOCLARUS.
1. My younger sons staying too long at the plays, and coming in too
late to supper, Theon’s sons waggishly and jocosely called them
supper-hinderers, night-suppers, and the like; and they in reply
called them runners-to-supper. And one of the old men in the company
said τρεχέδειπνος signified one that was too late for supper; because,
when he found himself tardy, he mended his pace, and made more than
common haste. And he told us a jest of Battus, Caesar’s jester, who
called those that came late supper-lovers, because out of their love to
entertainments, though they had business, they would not desire to be
excused.
2. And I said, that Polycharmus, a leading orator at Athens, in his
apology for his way of living before the assembly, said: Besides a
great many things which I could mention, fellow-citizens, when I
was invited to supper, I never came the last man. For this is more
democratical; and on the contrary, those that are forced to stay
for others that come late are offended at them as uncivil and of an
oligarchical temper.
3. But Soclarus, in defence of my sons, said: Alcaeus (as the story
goes) did not call Pittacus a night-supper for supping late, but for
delighting in base and scandalous company. Heretofore to eat early
was accounted scandalous, and such a meal was called ἀκράτισμα, from
ἀκρασία, _intemperance_.
4. Then Theon interrupting him said: By no means, if we must trust
those who have delivered down to us the ancients’ way of living.
For they say that those being used to work, and very temperate in a
morning, ate a bit of bread dipped in wine, and nothing else, and
that they called that meal ἀκράτισμα, from the ἄκρατον (_wine_).
Their supper they called ὄψον, because returning from their business
they took it ὀψέ (_late_). Upon this we began to enquire whence
those meals δεῖπνον and ἄριστον took their names. In Homer ἄριστον and
ἀκράτισμα seem to be the same meal. For he says that Eumaeus provided
ἄριστον by the break of day; and it is probable that ἄριστον was so
called from αὔριον, because provided in the morning; and δεῖπνον was so
named from διαναπαύειν τῶν πόνων, _easing men from their labor_.
For men used to take their δεῖπνον after they had finished their
business, or whilst they were about it. And this may be gathered from
Homer, when he says,
Then when the woodman doth his supper dress.[104]
But some perhaps will derive ἄριστον from ῥᾷστον, _easiest
provided_, because that meal is usually made upon what is ready and
at hand; and δεῖπνον from διαπεπονημένον, _labored_, because of
the pains used in dressing it.
5. My brother Lamprias, being of a scoffing, jeering nature, said:
Since we are in a trifling humor, I can show that the Latin names of
these meals are a thousand times more proper than the Greek; δεῖπνον,
_supper_, they call coena (κοῖνα διὰ τὴν κοινωνίαν), from
community; because they took their ἄριστον by themselves, but their
coena with their friends. Ἄριστον, _dinner_, they call prandium,
from the time of the day; for ἔνδιον signifies _noon-tide_, and to
rest after dinner is expressed by ἐνδιάζειν; or else by prandium they
denote a bit taken in the morning, πρὶν ἐνδεεῖς γενέσθαι, _before
they have need of any_. And not to mention stragula from στρώματα,
vinum from οἶνος, oleum from ἔλαιον, mel from μέλι, gustare from
γεύσασθαι, propinare from προπίνειν, and a great many more words which
they have plainly borrowed from the Greeks,—who can deny but that they
have taken their comessatio, _banqueting_, from our κῶμος, and
miscere, _to mingle_, from the Greeks too? Thus in Homer,
She in a bowl herself mixt (ἔμισγε) generous wine.[105]
They call a table mensam, from τῆς ἐν μέσω θέσεως, _placing it in
the middle_; bread, panem, from satisfying πεῖναν, _hunger_; a
garland, coronam, from κάρηνον, _the head_;—and Homer somewhat
likens κράνος, _a head-piece_, to a garland;—caedere _to
beat_, from δέρειν; and dentes, _teeth_, from ὀδόντας; lips
they call labra, from λαμβάνειν τῆν βόραν δι’ αὐτῶν, _taking our
victuals with them_. Therefore we must either hear such fooleries as
these without laughing, or not give them so ready access by means of
words....
_QUESTION VII._
CONCERNING PYTHAGORAS’S SYMBOLS, IN WHICH HE FORBIDS US TO RECEIVE A
SWALLOW INTO OUR HOUSE, AND BIDS US AS SOON AS WE ARE RISEN TO RUFFLE
THE BEDCLOTHES.
SYLLA, LUCIUS, PLUTARCH, PHILINUS.
1. Sylla the Carthaginian, upon my return to Rome after a long absence,
gave me a welcoming supper, as the Romans call it, and invited some
few other friends, and among the rest, one Lucius an Etrurian, the
scholar of Moderatus the Pythagorean. He seeing my friend Philinus ate
no flesh, began (as the opportunity was fair) to talk of Pythagoras;
and affirmed that he was a Tuscan, not because his father, as others
have said, was one, but because he himself was born, bred, and taught
in Tuscany. To confirm this, he brought considerable arguments
from such symbols as these:—As soon as you are risen, ruffle the
bedclothes; leave not the print of the pot in the ashes; receive not
a swallow into your house; never step over a besom; nor keep in your
house creatures that have hooked claws. For these precepts of the
Pythagoreans the Tuscans only, as he said, carefully observe.
2. Lucius having thus said, that precept about the swallow seemed to be
most unaccountable, it being a harmless and kind animal; and therefore
it seemed strange that that should be forbid the house, as well as
the hooked-clawed animals, which are ravenous, wild, and bloody. Nor
did Lucius himself approve that only interpretation of the ancients,
who say, this symbol aims directly at backbiters and tale-bearing
whisperers. For the swallow whispers not at all; it chatters indeed,
and is noisy, but not more than a pie, a partridge, or a hen. What
then, said Sylla, is it upon the old fabulous account of killing her
son, that they deny the swallow entertainment, by that means showing
their dislike to those passions which (as the story goes) made Tereus
and Procne and Philomel act and suffer such wicked and abominable
things? And even to this day they call the birds Daulides. And Gorgias
the sophister, when a swallow muted upon him, looked upon her and said,
Philomel, this was not well done. Or perhaps this is all groundless;
for the nightingale, though concerned in the same tragedy, we willingly
receive.
3. Perhaps, sir, said I, what you have alleged may be some reason; but
pray consider whether first they do not hate the swallow upon the same
account that they abhor hook-clawed animals. For the swallow feeds on
flesh; and grasshoppers, which are sacred and musical, they chiefly
devour and prey upon. And, as Aristotle observes, they fly near the
surface of the earth to pick up the little animals. Besides, that alone
of all house-animals makes no return for her entertainment. The stork,
though she is neither covered, fed, nor defended by us, yet pays for
the place where she builds, going about and killing the efts, snakes,
and other venomous creatures. But the swallow though she receives
all those several kindnesses from us, yet, as soon as her young are
fledged, flies away faithless and ungrateful; and (which is the worst
of all) of all house-animals, the fly and the swallow only never grow
tame, suffer a man to touch them, keep company with or learn of him.
And the fly is so shy because often hurted and driven away; but the
swallow naturally hates man, suspects, and dares not trust any that
would tame her. And therefore,—if we must not look on the outside
of these things, but opening them view the representations of some
things in others,—Pythagoras, setting the swallow for an example of a
wandering, unthankful man, adviseth us not to take those who come to us
for their own need and upon occasion into our familiarity, and let them
partake of the most sacred things, our house and fire.
4. This discourse of mine gave the company encouragement to proceed, so
they attempted other symbols, and gave moral interpretations of them.
Philinus said, that the precept of blotting out the print of the pot
instructed us not to leave any plain mark of anger, but, as soon as
ever the passion hath done boiling, to lay aside all thoughts of malice
and revenge. That symbol which adviseth us to ruffle the bedclothes
seemed to some to have no secret meaning, but to be in itself very
evident; for it is not decent that the impression and (as it were)
stamped image should be left to be seen by others, in the place where
a man hath lain with his wife. But Sylla thought the symbol was rather
intended to prevent men’s sleeping in the daytime, all the conveniences
for sleeping being taken away in the morning as soon as we are up.
For night is the time for sleep, and in the day we should rise and
follow our affairs, and not suffer so much as the print of our body
in the bed, since a man asleep is of no more use than one dead. And
this interpretation seems to be confirmed by that other precept, in
which the Pythagoreans advise their followers not to take off any man’s
burthen from him, but to lay on more, as not countenancing sloth and
laziness in any.
_QUESTION VIII._
WHY THE PYTHAGOREANS COMMAND FISH NOT TO BE EATEN, MORE STRICTLY
THAN OTHER ANIMALS.
EMPEDOCLES, SYLLA, LUCIUS, TYNDARES, NESTOR.
1. Our former discourse Lucius neither reprehended nor approved,
but, sitting silent and musing, gave us the hearing. Then Empedocles
addressing his discourse to Sylla, said: If our friend Lucius is
displeased with the discourse, it is time for us to leave off; but if
these are some of their mysteries which ought to be concealed, yet I
think this may be lawfully divulged, that they more cautiously abstain
from fish than from other animals. For this is said of the ancient
Pythagoreans; and even now I have met with Alexicrates’s scholars, who
will eat and kill and even sacrifice some of the other animals, but
will never taste fish. Tyndares the Spartan said, they spared fish
because they had so great a regard for silence, and they called fish
ἔλλοπας, because they had their voice _shut up_ (ἰλλομένην); and
my namesake Empedocles advised one who left the school of Pythagoras
to shut up his mind, ... and they thought silence to be divine, since
the Gods without any voice discover their meaning to the wise by their
works.
2. Then Lucius gravely and composedly saying, that perhaps the true
reason was obscure and not to be divulged, yet they had liberty to
venture upon probable conjectures, Theon the grammarian began thus: To
demonstrate that Pythagoras was a Tuscan is a great and no easy task.
But it is confessed that he conversed a long time with the wise men
of Egypt, and imitated a great many of the rites and institutions of
the priests, for instance, that about beans. For Herodotus delivers,
that the Egyptians neither set nor eat beans, nay, cannot endure to
see them; and we all know, that even now the priests eat no fish; and
the stricter sort eat no salt, and refuse all meat that is seasoned
with it. Various reasons are given for this; but the only true reason
is hatred to the sea, as being a disagreeable, or rather naturally a
destructive element to man. For they do not imagine that the Gods,
as the Stoics did that the stars, were nourished by it. But, on the
contrary, they think that the father and preserver of their country,
whom they call the deflux of Osiris, is lost in it; and when they
bewail him as born on the left hand, and destroyed in the right-hand
parts, they intimate to us the ending and corruption of their Nile by
the sea. Therefore they do not believe that its water is wholesome, or
that any creature produced or nourished in it can be clean or wholesome
food for man, since it breathes not the common air, and feeds not on
the same food with him. And the air that nourisheth and preserves all
other things is destructive to them, as if their production and life
were unnecessary and against Nature; nor should we wonder that they
think animals bred in the sea to be disagreeable to their bodies, and
not fit to mix with their blood and spirits, since when they meet a
pilot they will not speak to him, because he gets his living by the sea.
3. Sylla commended this discourse, and added concerning the
Pythagoreans, that they then chiefly tasted flesh when they sacrificed
to the Gods. Now no fish is ever offered in sacrifice. I, after they
had done, said that many, both philosophers and unlearned, considering
with how many good things it furnisheth and makes our life more
comfortable, take the sea’s part against the Egyptians. But that the
Pythagoreans should abstain from fish because they are not of the same
kind, is ridiculous and absurd; nay, to butcher and feed on other
animals, because they bear a nearer relation to us, would be a most
inhuman and Cyclopean return. And they say that Pythagoras bought a
draught of fishes, and presently commanded the fishers to let them all
out of the net; and this shows that he did not hate or not mind fishes,
as things of another kind and destructive to man, but that they were
his dearly beloved creatures, since he paid a ransom for their freedom.
Therefore the tenderness and humanity of those philosophers suggest a
quite contrary reason, and I am apt to believe that they spare fishes
to instruct men, or to accustom themselves to acts of justice; for
other creatures generally give men cause to afflict them, but fishes
neither do nor are capable of doing us harm. And it is easy to show,
both from the writings and religion of the ancients, that they thought
it a great sin not only to eat but to kill an animal that did them no
harm. But afterwards, being necessitated by the spreading multitude
of men, and commanded (as they say) by the Delphic oracle to prevent
the total decay of corn and fruit, they began to sacrifice, yet they
were so disturbed and concerned at the action, that they called it
ἔρδειν and ῥέζειν (_to do_), as if they did some strange thing
in killing an animal; and they are very careful not to kill the beast
before the wine has been thrown upon his head and he nods in token of
consent. So very cautious are they of injustice. And not to mention
other considerations, were no chickens (for instance) or hares killed,
in a short time they would so increase that there could be no living.
And now it would be a very hard matter to put down the eating of flesh,
which necessity first introduced, since pleasure and luxury hath
espoused it. But the water-animals neither consuming any part of our
air or water, or devouring the fruit, but as it were encompassed by
another world, and having their own proper bounds, which it is death
for them to pass, they afford our belly no pretence at all for their
destruction; and therefore to catch or be greedy after fish is plain
deliciousness and luxury, which upon no just reason disturb the sea and
dive into the deep. For we cannot call the mullet corn-destroying, the
trout grape-eating, nor the barbel or sea-pike seed-gathering, as we do
some land-animals, signifying their hurtfulness by these epithets. Nay,
those little mischiefs which we complain of in these house-creatures,
a weasel or fly, none can justly lay upon the greatest fish. Therefore
the Pythagoreans, confining themselves not only by the law which
forbids them to injure men, but also by Nature, which commands them to
do violence to nothing, fed on fish very little, or rather not at all.
But suppose there were no injustice in this case, yet to delight in
fish would argue daintiness and luxury; because they are such costly
and unnecessary diet. Therefore Homer doth not only make the Greeks eat
no fish whilst encamped near the Hellespont, but he mentions not any
sea-provision that the dissolute Phaeacians or luxurious wooers had,
though both islanders. And Ulysses’s mates, though they sailed over so
much sea, as long as they had any provision left, never let down a hook
or net.
But when the victuals of their ship was spent,[106]
a little before they fell upon the oxen of the Sun, they caught fish,
not to please their wanton appetite, but to satisfy their hunger,—
With crooked hooks, for cruel hunger gnawed.
The same necessity therefore made them catch fish and devour the oxen
of the Sun. Therefore not only among the Egyptians and Syrians, but
Greeks too, to abstain from fish was a piece of sanctity, they avoiding
(as I think) a superfluous curiosity in diet, as well as being just.
4. To this Nestor subjoining said: But, sir, of my citizens, as of the
Megarians in the proverb, you make no account; although you have often
heard me say that our priests of Neptune (whom we call Hieromnemons)
never eat fish. For Neptune himself is called the Generator. And the
race of Hellen sacrificed to Neptune as the first father, imagining, as
likewise the Syrians did, that man rose from a liquid substance. And
therefore they worship a fish as of the same production and breeding
with themselves, in this matter being more happy in their philosophy
than Anaximander; for he says that fish and men were not produced in
the same substances, but that men were first produced in fishes, and,
when they were grown up and able to help themselves, were thrown out,
and so lived upon the land. Therefore, as the fire devours its parents,
that is, the matter out of which it was first kindled, so Anaximander,
asserting that fish were our common parents, condemneth our feeding on
them.
_QUESTION IX._
WHETHER THERE CAN BE NEW DISEASES, AND HOW CAUSED.
PHILO, DIOGENIANUS, PLUTARCH.
1. Philo the physician stoutly affirmed that the elephantiasis was
a disease but lately known; since none of the ancient physicians
speak one word of it, though they oftentimes enlarge upon little,
frivolous, and obscure trifles. And I, to confirm it, cited Athenodorus
the philosopher, who in his first book of Epidemical Diseases says,
that not only that disease, but also the hydrophobia or water-dread
(occasioned by the biting of a mad dog), were first discovered in the
time of Asclepiades. At this the whole company were amazed, thinking it
very strange that such diseases should begin then, and yet as strange
that they should not be taken notice of in so long a time; yet most of
them leaned to this last opinion, as being most agreeable to man, not
in the least daring to imagine that Nature affected novelties, or would
in the body of man, as in a city, create new disturbances and tumults.
2. And Diogenianus added, that even the passions and diseases of the
mind go on in the same old road that formerly they did; and yet the
viciousness of our inclination is exceedingly prone to variety, and our
mind is mistress of itself, and can, if it please, easily change and
alter. Yet all her inordinate motions have some sort of order, and the
soul hath bounds to her passions, as the sea to her overflowings. And
there is no sort of vice now among us which was not practised by the
ancients. There are a thousand differences of appetites and various
motions of fear; the schemes of grief and pleasure are innumerable;
Yet are not they of late or now produced,
And none can tell from whence they first arose.[107]
How then should the body be subject to new diseases, since it hath not,
like the soul, the principle of its own alteration in itself, but by
common causes is joined to Nature, and receives a temperature whose
infinite variety of alterations is confined to certain bounds, like
a ship rolling and tossing in a circle about its anchor. Now there
can be no disease without some cause, it being against the laws of
Nature that any thing should be without a cause. Now it will be very
hard to find a new cause, unless we fancy some strange air, water, or
food never tasted by the ancients, should descend to us out of other
worlds or intermundane spaces. For we contract diseases from those very
things which preserve our life; since there are no peculiar seeds of
diseases, but the disagreement of their juices to our bodies, or our
excess in using them, disturbs nature. These disturbances have still
the very same differences, though now and then called by new names.
For names depend on custom, but the passions on Nature; and these being
constant and those variable, this mistake has arisen. As, in the parts
of a speech and the syntax of the words, it is possible for some new
sort of barbarism or solecism suddenly to arise; so the temperature
of the body hath certain deviations and corruptions into which it may
fall, those things which are against and hurtful to Nature being in
some sort contained in Nature herself. The mythographers are in this
particular very ingenious, for they say that monstrous uncouth animals
were produced in the time of the Giants’ war, the moon being out of its
course, and not rising where it used to do. And those who think Nature
produces new diseases like monsters, and yet give neither likely nor
unlikely reasons of the change, err, as I imagine, my dear Philo, in
taking a less or a greater degree of the same disease to be a different
disease. The intension or increase of a thing makes it more or greater,
but does not make the subject of another kind. Thus the elephantiasis,
being an intense scabbiness, is not a new kind; nor is the water-dread
distinguished from other melancholic and stomachical affections but by
the degree. And I wonder we did not observe that Homer was acquainted
with this disease, for it is evident that he calls a dog rabid from the
very same rage with which when men are possessed they are said to be
mad.
3. Against this discourse of Diogenianus Philo himself made some
objections, and desired me to be the old physicians’ patron; who
must be branded with inadvertency and ignorance, unless it appears
that those diseases began since their time. First then Diogenianus,
methinks, very precariously desires us to think that the intenseness or
remissness of degrees is not a real difference, and does not alter the
kind. For, were this true, then we should hold that downright vinegar
is not different from pricked wine, nor a bitter from a rough taste,
darnel from wheat, nor garden-mint from wild mint. For it is evident
that these differences are only the degrees of the same qualities,
in some being more intense, in some more remiss. So we should not
venture to affirm that flame is different from a white spirit, daylight
from flame, hoar-frost from dew, or hail from rain; but that the
former have only more intense qualities than the latter. Besides, we
should say that blindness is of the same kind with short-sightedness,
violent vomiting (or cholera) with weakness of the stomach, and that
they differ only in degree. Though what they say is nothing to the
purpose; for if they admit the increase in intensity and vehemency, but
declare that this came but now of late,—the novelty appearing in the
quantity rather than the quality,—the same difficulties which they
urged against the other opinion oppress them. Sophocles says very well
concerning those things which are not believed to be now, because they
were not heretofore,—
Once at the first all things their being had.
And it is probable that not all diseases, as in a race, the barrier
being let down, started together; but that one rising after another, at
some certain time, had its beginning and showed itself. It is rational
to conclude (continued I) that all diseases that rise from want, heat,
or cold bear the same date with our bodies; but afterwards over-eating,
luxury, and surfeiting, encouraged by ease and plenty, raised bad and
superfluous juices, and those brought various new diseases, and their
perpetual complications and mixtures still create more new. Whatever is
natural is determined and in order; for Nature is order, or the work
of order. Disorder, like Pindar’s sand, cannot be comprised by number,
and that which is beside Nature is straight called indeterminate and
infinite. Thus truth is simple, and but one; but falsities innumerable.
The exactness of motions and harmony are definite, but the errors
either in playing upon the harp, singing, or dancing, who can
comprehend? Indeed Phrynichus the tragedian says of himself,
As many figures dancing doth propose
As waves roll on the sea when tempests toss.
And Chrysippus says that the various complications of ten single axioms
amount to 1,000,000. But Hipparchus hath confuted that account, showing
that the affirmative contains 101,049 complicated propositions, and
the negative 310,952. And Xenocrates says, the number of syllables
which the letters will make is 100,200,000. How then is it strange
that the body, having so many different powers in itself, and getting
new qualities every day from its meat and drink, and using those
motions and alterations which are not always in the same time nor in
the same order, should upon the various complications of all these be
affected with new diseases? Such was the plague at Athens described
by Thucydides, who conjectures that it was new because that birds and
beasts of prey would not touch the dead carcasses. Those that fell sick
about the Red Sea, if we believe Agatharcides, besides other strange
and unheard diseases, had little serpents in their legs and arms, which
did eat their way out, but when touched shrunk in again, and raised
intolerable inflammations in the muscles; and yet this kind of plague,
as likewise many others, never afflicted any beside, either before or
since. One, after a long stoppage of urine, voided a knotty barley
straw. And we know that Ephebus, with whom we lodged at Athens, threw
out, together with a great deal of seed, a little hairy, many-footed,
nimble animal. And Aristotle tells us, that Timon’s nurse in Cilicia
every year for two months lay in a cave, without any vital operation
besides breathing. And in the Menonian books it is delivered as a
symptom of a diseased liver carefully to observe and hunt after mice
and rats, which we see now nowhere practised.
Therefore let us not wonder if something happens which never was
before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the
ancients were acquainted; for the cause of those accidents is the
nature of our body, whose temperature is subject to be changed.
Therefore, if Diogenianus will not introduce a new kind of water or
air, we, having no need of it, are very well content. Yet we know some
of Democritus’s scholars affirm that, other worlds being dissolved,
some strange effluvia fall into ours, and are the principle of new
plagues and uncommon diseases. But let us not now take notice of the
corruption of some parts of this world by earthquake, droughts, and
floods, by which both the vapors and fountains rising out of the
earth must be necessarily corrupted. Yet we must not pass by that
change which must be wrought in the body by our meat, drink, and other
exercises in our course of life. For many things which the ancients
did not feed on are now accounted dainties; for instance mead and
swine’s paunch. Heretofore too, as I have heard, they hated the brain
of animals so much, that they abominated the very name of it; as when
Homer says, “I value him at a brain’s[108] worth.” And even now we
know some old men, that will not taste cucumber, melon, orange, or
pepper. Now by these meats and drinks it is probable that the juices
of our bodies are much altered, and their temperature changed, new
qualities arising from this new sort of diet. And the change of order
in our feeding having a great influence on the alteration of our
bodies, the cold courses, as they were called formerly, consisting of
oysters, sea-urchins, salads, and the like, being (in Plato’s phrase)
transferred “from tail to mouth,” now make the first course, whereas
they were formerly the last. Besides, the glass which we usually take
before supper is very considerable in this case; for the ancients never
drank so much as water before they ate, but now we drink freely before
we sit down, and fall to our meat with a full and heated body, using
sharp sauces and pickles to provoke appetite, and then we fall greedily
on the other meat. But nothing conduceth more to alterations and new
diseases in the body than our various baths; for here the flesh, like
iron in the fire, grows soft and loose, and is presently constipated
and hardened by the cold. For, in my opinion, if any of the last age
had looked into our baths, he might have justly said,
There burning Phlegethon meets Acheron.
For they used such mild gentle baths, that Alexander the Great being
feverish slept in one. And the Gauls’ wives carry their pots of pulse
to eat with their children whilst they are in the bath. But our baths
now inflame, vellicate, and distress; and the air which we draw is a
mixture of air and water, disturbs the whole body, tosses and displaces
every atom, till we quench the fiery particles and allay their heat.
Therefore, Diogenianus, you see that this account requires no new
strange causes, no intermundane spaces; but the single alteration of
our diet is enough to raise new diseases and abolish old.
_QUESTION X._
WHY WE GIVE LEAST CREDIT TO DREAMS IN AUTUMN.
FLORUS, PLUTARCH, PLUTARCH’S SONS, FAVORINUS.
1. Florus reading Aristotle’s physical problems, which were brought
to him to Thermopylae, was himself (as philosophical wits used to be)
filled with a great many doubts, and communicated them to others;
thereby confirming Aristotle’s saying, that much learning raises
many doubts. Other topics made our walks every day very pleasant,
but the common saying concerning dreams,—that those in autumn are
the vainest,—I know not how, whilst Favorinus was engaged in other
matters, was started after supper. Your friends and my sons thought
Aristotle had given sufficient satisfaction in this point, and that
no other cause was to be sought after or allowed but that which he
mentions, the fruit. For the fruit, being new and flatulent, raises
many disturbing vapors in the body; for it is not likely that only wine
ferments, or new oil only makes a noise in the lamp, the heat agitating
its vapor; but new corn and all sorts of fruit are plump and distended,
till the unconcocted flatulent vapor is broke away. And that some sorts
of food disturb dreams, they said, was evident from beans and the
polypus’s head, from which those who would divine by their dreams are
commanded to abstain.
2. But Favorinus himself, though in all other things he admires
Aristotle exceedingly and thinks the Peripatetic philosophy to be most
probable, yet in this case resolved to scour up an old musty opinion
of Democritus. He first laid down that known principle of his, that
images pass through the pores into the inmost parts of the body, and
being carried upward cause dreams; and that these images fly from
every thing, vessels, garments, plants, but especially from animals,
because of their heat and the motion of their spirits; and that these
images not only carry the outward shape and likeness of the bodies
(as Epicurus thinks, following Democritus so far and no farther), but
the very designs, motions, and passions of the soul; and with those
entering into the bodies, as if they were living things, discover to
those that receive them the thoughts and inclinations of the persons
from whom they come, if so be that they preserve their frame and
order entire. And that is especially preserved when the air is calm
and clear, their passage then being quick and undisturbed. Now the
autumnal air, when trees shed their leaves, being very uneven and
disturbed, ruffles and disorders the images, and, hindering them in
their passage, makes them weak and ineffectual; when, on the contrary,
if they rise from warm and vigorous subjects, and are presently
applied, the notices which they give and the impressions they make are
clear and evident.
3. Then with a smile looking upon Autobulus, he continued: But, sir,
I perceive you design to have an airy skirmish with these images,
and try the goodness of this old opinion, as you would a picture,
by your touch. And Autobulus replied: Pray, sir, do not endeavor to
cheat us any longer; for we know very well that you, designing to make
Aristotle’s opinion appear the better, have used this of Democritus
only as its shade. Therefore I shall pass by that, and impugn
Aristotle’s opinion, which unjustly lays the blame on the new fruit.
For both the summer and the early autumn bear testimony in its favor,
when, as Antimachus says, the fruit is most fresh and juicy; for then,
though we eat the new fruit, yet our dreams are less vain than at other
times. And the months when the leaves fall, being next to winter, so
concoct the corn and remaining fruit, that they grow shrivelled and
less, and lose all their brisk agitating spirit. As for new wine, those
that drink it soonest forbear till February, which is after winter; and
the day on which we begin we call the day of the Good Genius, and the
Athenians the day of cask-opening. For whilst wine is working, we see
that even common laborers will not venture on it. Therefore no more
accusing the gifts of the Gods, let us seek after another cause of
vain dreams, to which the name of the season will direct us. For it is
called _leaf-shedding_, because the leaves then fall on account of
their dryness and coldness; except the leaves of hot and oily trees,
as of the olive, the laurel, or the palm; or of the moist, as of
the myrtle and the ivy. But the temperature of these preserves them,
though not others; because in others the vicious humor that holds the
leaves is constipated by the cold, or being weak and little is dried
up. Now moisture and heat are necessary for the growth and preservation
of plants, but especially of animals; and on the contrary, coldness
and dryness are very noxious to both. And therefore Homer elegantly
calls men moist and juicy; to rejoice he calls to be warmed; and any
thing that is grievous and frightful he calls cold and icy. Besides,
the words ἀλίβας and σκελετός are applied to the dead, those names
intimating their extreme dryness. But more, our blood, the principal
thing in our whole body, is moist and hot. And old age hath neither
of those two qualities. Now the autumn seems to be as it were the old
age of the decaying year; for the moisture doth not yet fall, and the
heat decays. And its inclining the body to diseases is an evident sign
of its cold and dryness. Now it is necessary that the souls should
be indisposed with the bodies and that, the subtile spirit being
condensed, the divining faculty of the soul, like a mirror that is
breathed upon, should be sullied; and therefore it cannot represent any
thing plain, distinct, and clear, as long as it remains thick, dark,
and condensed.
BOOK IX.
This ninth book, Sossius Senecio, contains the discourses we held at
Athens at the Muses’ feast, for this number nine is agreeable to the
number of the Muses. Nor must you wonder when you find more than ten
questions (which number I have observed in my other books) in it; for
we ought to give the Muses all that belongs to them, and be as careful
of robbing them as of a temple, since we owe them much more and much
better things than these.
_QUESTION I._
CONCERNING VERSES SEASONABLY AND UNSEASONABLY APPLIED.
AMMONIUS, PLUTARCH, ERATO, CERTAIN SCHOOLMASTERS, AND FRIENDS OF
AMMONIUS.
1. Ammonius, captain of the militia at Athens, would show Diogenianus
the proficiency of those youths that learned grammar, geometry,
rhetoric, and music; and invited the chief masters of the town to
supper. There were a great many scholars at the feast, and almost
all his acquaintance. Achilles invited only the single combatants
to his feast, intending (as the story goes) that, if in the heat of
the encounter they had conceived any anger or ill-will against one
another, they might then lay it aside, being made partakers of one
common entertainment. But the contrary happened to Ammonius, for the
contentions of the masters increased and grew more sharp midst their
cups and merriment; and all was disorder and confused babbling.
2. Therefore Ammonius commanded Erato to sing to his harp, and he sang
some part of Hesiod’s Works beginning thus,
Contention to one sort is not confined;[109]
and I commended him for choosing so apposite a song. Then he began
to discourse about the seasonable use of verse, that it was not only
pleasant but profitable. And straight every one’s mouth was full of
that poet who began Ptolemy’s epithalamium (when he married his
sister, a wicked and abominable match) thus,
Jove Juno called his sister and his wife;[110]
and another, who was unwilling to sing after supper to Demetrius the
king, but when he sent him his young son Philip to be educated sang
thus,
Breed thou the boy as doth become
Both Hercules’s race and us;
and Anaxarchus who, being pelted with apples by Alexander at supper,
rose up and said,
Some God shall wounded be by mortal hand.[111]
But that Corinthian captive boy excelled all, who, when the city was
destroyed, and Mummius, taking a survey of all the free-born children
that understood letters, commanded each to write a verse, wrote thus:
Thrice, four times blest, the happy Greeks that fell.[112]
For they say that Mummius was affected with it, wept, and gave all the
free-born children that were allied to the boy their liberty. And some
mentioned the wife of Theodorus the tragedian, who refused his embraces
a little before he contended for the prize; but, when he was conqueror
and came in unto her, clasped him and said,
Now, Agamemnon’s son, you freely may.[113]
3. After this a great many sayings were mentioned as unseasonably
spoken, it being fit that we should know such and avoid them;—as that
to Pompey the Great, to whom, upon his return from a dangerous war,
the schoolmaster brought his little daughter, and, to show him what a
proficient she was, called for a book, and bade her begin at this line,
Returned from war; but hadst thou there been slain,
My wish had been complete;[114]
and that to Cassius Longinus, to whom a flying report of his son’s
dying abroad being brought, and he no ways appearing either to know
the certain truth or to clear the doubt, an old senator came and said:
Longinus, will you not despise the flying uncertain rumor, as if you
neither knew nor had read this line,
For no report is wholly false?[115]
And he that at Rhodes, to a grammarian demanding a line upon which he
might show his skill in the theatre, proposed this,
Fly from the island, worst of all mankind,[116]
either slyly put a trick upon him, or unwittingly blundered. And this
discourse quieted the tumult.
_QUESTIONS II. & III._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT ALPHA IS PLACED FIRST IN THE ALPHABET, AND WHAT
IS THE PROPORTION BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF VOWELS AND SEMI-VOWELS?
AMMONIUS, HERMEAS, PROTOGENES, PLUTARCH, ZOPYRION.
1. It being the custom of the Muses’ feast to draw lots, and those that
were matched to propose curious questions to one another, Ammonius,
fearing that two of the same profession might be matched together,
ordered, without drawing lots, a geometrician to propose questions to a
grammarian, and a master of music to a rhetorician.
2. First therefore, Hermeas the geometrician demanded of Protogenes the
grammarian a reason why Alpha was the first letter of the alphabet.
And he returned the common answer of the schools, that it was fit the
vowels should be set before the mutes and semi-vowels. And of the
vowels, some being long, some short, some both long and short, it is
just that the latter should be most esteemed. And of these that are
long and short, that is to be set first which is usually placed before
the other two, but never after either; and that is Alpha. For that put
either after Iota or Upsilon will not be pronounced, will not make one
syllable with them, but as it were resenting the affront and angry at
the position, seeks the first as its proper place. But if you place
Alpha before either of those, they are obedient, and quietly join in
one syllable, as in these words, αὔριον, αὐλεῖν, Αἴαντος, αἰδεῖσθαι,
and a thousand others. In these three respects therefore, as the
conquerors in all the five exercises, it claims the precedence,—that
of most other letters by being a vowel, that of other vowels by being
double-timed, and lastly, that of these double-timed vowels themselves
because it is its natural place to be set before and never after them.
3. Protogenes making a pause, Ammonius, speaking to me, said: What!
have you, being a Boeotian, nothing to say for Cadmus, who (as the
story goes) placed Alpha the first in order, because a cow is called
Alpha by the Phoenicians, and they account it not the second or third
(as Hesiod doth) but the first of their necessary things? Nothing
at all, I replied, for it is just that, to the best of my power, I
should rather assist my own than Bacchus’s grandfather. For Lamprias
my grandfather said, that the first articulate sound that is made is
Alpha; for the air in the mouth is formed and fashioned by the motion
of the lips; now as soon as those are opened, that sound breaks forth,
being very plain and simple, not requiring or depending upon the motion
of the tongue, but gently breathed forth whilst that lies still.
Therefore that is the first sound that children make. Thus ἀίειν, _to
hear_, ᾄδειν, _to sing_, αὐλεῖν, _to pipe_, ἀλαλάζειν,
_to hollow_, begin with the letter Alpha; and I think that αἴρειν,
_to lift up_, and ἀνοίγειν, _to open_, were fitly taken from
that opening and lifting up of the lips when his voice is uttered.
Thus all the names of the mutes besides one have an Alpha, as it were a
light to assist their blindness; for Pi alone wants it, and Phi and Chi
are only Pi and Kappa with an aspirate.
* * * * *
1. Hermeas saying that he approved both reasons, why then (continued I)
do not you explain the proportion, if there be any, of the number of
the letters; for, in my opinion, there is; and I think so, because the
number of mutes and semi-vowels, compared between themselves or with
the vowels, doth not seem casual and undesigned, but to be according
to the first proportion which you call arithmetical. For their number
being nine, eight, and seven, the middle exceeds the last as much as
it wants of the first. And the first number being compared with the
last, hath the same proportion that the Muses have to Apollo; for
nine is appropriated to them, and seven to him. And these two numbers
tied together double the middle; and not without reason, since the
semi-vowels partake the power of both.
2. And Hermeas replied: It is said that Mercury was the first God that
discovered letters in Egypt; and therefore the Egyptians make the
figure of an Ibis, a bird dedicated to Mercury, for the first letter.
But it is not fit, in my opinion, to place an animal that makes no
noise at the head of the letters. Amongst all the numbers, the fourth
is peculiarly dedicated to Mercury, because, as some say, the God
was born on the fourth day of the month. The first letters called
Phoenician from Cadmus are four times four, or sixteen; and of those
that were afterward added, Palamedes found four, and Simonides four
more. Now amongst numbers, three is the first perfect, as consisting of
a first, a middle, and a last; and after that six, as being equal the
sum of its own divisors (1 + 2 + 3). Of these, six multiplied by four
makes twenty-four; and also the first perfect number, three, multiplied
by the first cube, eight.
3. Whilst he was discoursing thus, Zopyrion the grammarian sneered and
muttered something between his teeth; and, as soon as he had done,
cried out that he most egregiously trifled; for it was mere chance, and
not design, that gave such a number and order to the letters, as it was
mere chance that the first and last verses of Homer’s Iliads have just
as many syllables as the first and last of his Odysseys.
_QUESTION IV._
WHICH OF VENUS’S HANDS DIOMEDES WOUNDED.
HERMEAS, ZOPYRION, MAXIMUS.
1. Hermeas would have replied to Zopyrion, but we desired him to
hold; and Maximus the rhetorician proposed to him this far-fetched
question out of Homer, Which of Venus’s hands Diomedes wounded.
And Zopyrion presently asking him again, Of which leg was Philip
lame?—Maximus replied, It is a different case, for Demosthenes hath
left us no foundation upon which we may build our conjecture. But if
you confess your ignorance in this matter, others will show how the
poet sufficiently intimates to an understanding man which hand it was.
Zopyrion being at a stand, we all, since he made no reply, desired
Maximus to tell us.
2. And he began: The verses running thus,
Then Diomedes raised his mighty spear,
And leaping towards her just did graze her hand;[117]
it is evident that, if he designed to wound her left hand there had
been no need of leaping, since her left hand was opposite to his right.
Besides, it is probable that he would endeavor to wound the strongest
hand, and that with which she drew away Aeneas; which being wounded,
it was likely she would let him go. But more, after she returned to
Heaven, Minerva jeeringly said,
No doubt fair Venus won a Grecian dame,
To follow her beloved Trojan youths,
And as she gently stroked her with her hand,
Her golden buckler scratched this petty wound.[118]
And I suppose, sir, when you stroke any of your scholars, you use your
right hand, and not your left; and it is likely that Venus, the most
dexterous of all the goddesses, soothed the heroines after the same
manner.
_QUESTION V._
WHY PLATO SAYS THAT AJAX’S SOUL CAME TO DRAW HER LOT IN THE
TWENTIETH PLACE IN HELL.
HYLAS, SOSPIS, AMMONIUS, LAMPRIAS.
1. These discourses made all the other company merry; but Sospis the
rhetorician, seeing Hylas the grammarian sit silent and discomposed
(for he had not been very happy in his exercises), cried out,
But Ajax’s soul stood far apart;
and raising his voice repeated the rest to him,
But sit, draw near, and patiently attend,
Hear what I say, and tame your violent rage.
To this Hylas, unable to contain, returned a scurvy answer, saying that
Ajax’s soul, taking her lot in the twentieth place in hell, changed her
nature, according to Plato, for a lion’s; but, for his part, he could
not but often think upon the saying of the old comedian,
’Tis better far to be an ass, than see
Unworthie men in greater honor shine.
At this Sospis, laughing heartily, said: But in the mean time, before
we have the pack-saddles on, if you have any regard for Plato, tell us
why he makes Ajax’s soul, after the lots drawn, to have the twentieth
choice. Hylas, with great indignation, refused, thinking that this was
a jeering reflection on his former miscarriage. Therefore my brother
began thus: What, was not Ajax counted the second for beauty, strength,
and courage, and the next to Achilles in the Grecian army? And twenty
is the second ten, and ten is the chiefest of numbers, as Achilles of
the Greeks. We laughing at this, Ammonius said: Well, Lamprias, let
this suffice for a joke upon Hylas; but since you have voluntarily
taken upon you to give an account of this matter, leave off jesting,
and seriously proceed.
2. This startled Lamprias a little, but, after a short pause, he
continued thus: Plato often tells merry stories under borrowed names,
but when he puts any fable into a discourse concerning the soul, he
hath some considerable meaning in it. The intelligent nature of the
heavens he calls a flying chariot, intimating the harmonious whirl
of the world. And here he introduceth one Er, the son of Harmonius,
a Pamphylian, to tell what he had seen in hell; intimating that our
souls are begotten according to harmony, and are agreeably united
to our bodies, and that, when they are separated, they are from
all parts carried together into the air, and from thence return to
second generations. And what hinders but that twentieth (εἰχοστόν)
should intimate that this was not a true story, but only probable and
fictitious (εἰχός), and that the lot fell casually (εἰχῆ). For Plato
always toucheth upon three causes, he being the first and chiefest
philosopher that knew how fate agrees with fortune, and how our
free-will is mixed and complicated with both. And now he hath admirably
discovered what influence each hath upon our affairs. The choice of
our life he hath left to our free-will, for virtue and vice are free.
But that those who have made a good choice should live religiously,
and those who have made an ill choice should lead a contrary life, he
leaves to the necessity of fate. But the chances of lots thrown at a
venture introduce fortune into the several conditions of life in which
we are brought up, which pre-occupates and perverts our own choice. Now
consider whether it is not irrational to enquire after a cause of those
things that are done by chance. For if the lot seems to be disposed of
by design, it ceaseth to be chance and fortune, and becomes fate and
providence.
3. Whilst Lamprias was speaking, Marcus the grammarian seemed to be
counting to himself, and when he had done, he began thus: Amongst
the souls which Homer mentions in his Νεχυία, Elpenor’s is not to be
reckoned as mixed with those in hell, but, his body being not buried,
as wandering about the banks of the river Styx. Nor is it fit that we
should reckon Tiresias’s soul amongst the rest,—
On whom alone, when deep in hell beneath,
Wisdom Proserpina conferred,
to discourse and converse with the living even before he drank the
sacrifice’s blood. Therefore, Lamprias, if you subtract these two,
you will find that Ajax was the twentieth that Ulysses saw, and Plato
merrily alludes to that place in Homer’s Νεχυία.[119]
_QUESTION VI._
WHAT IS MEANT BY THE FABLE ABOUT THE DEFEAT OF NEPTUNE? AND ALSO, WHY
DO THE ATHENIANS TAKE OUT THE SECOND DAY OF THE MONTH BOEDROMION?
MENEPHYLUS, HYLAS, LAMPRIAS.
Now when the whole company were grown to a certain uproar, Menephylus,
a Peripatetic philosopher, called to Hylas by name and said: You see
that this question was not propounded by way of mockery and flouting;
but leave now that obstinate Ajax, whose very name (according to
Sophocles) is ill-omened, and betake yourself to Neptune. For you are
wont to recount unto us how he has been oftentimes overcome,—here by
Minerva, in Delphi by Apollo, in Argos by Juno, in Aegina by Jupiter,
in Naxos by Bacchus,—and yet has borne himself always mild and gentle
in all his repulses. In proof whereof, there is even in this city a
temple common to him and Minerva, in which there is also an altar
dedicated to Oblivion. Then Hylas, who seemed by this time to be more
pleasantly disposed, replied: You have forgotten, Menephylus, that we
have abolished the second day of September, not in regard of the moon,
but because it was thought to be the day on which Neptune and Minerva
contended for the seigniory of Attica. By all means, quoth Lamprias, by
as much as Neptune was every way more civil than Thrasybulus, since not
being like him a winner, but the loser,...
(_The rest of this book to Question XIII is lost; with the
exception of the titles that follow, and the fragment of Question
XII._)
_QUESTION VII._
WHY THE ACCORDS IN MUSIC ARE DIVIDED INTO THREE.
_QUESTION VIII._
WHEREIN THE INTERVALS OR SPACES MELODIOUS DIFFER FROM THOSE THAT
ARE ACCORDANT.
_QUESTION IX._
WHAT CAUSE PRODUCETH ACCORD? AND ALSO, WHY, WHEN TWO ACCORDANT
STRING ARE TOUCHED TOGETHER, IS THE MELODY ASCRIBED TO THE BASE?
_QUESTION X._
WHY, WHEN THE ECLIPTIC PERIODS OF THE SUN AND THE MOON ARE EQUAL IN
NUMBER, THERE ARE MORE ECLIPSES OF THE MOON THAN OF THE SUN.
_QUESTION XI._
THAT WE CONTINUE NOT ALWAYS ONE AND THE SAME, IN REGARD OF THE
DAILY DEFLUX OF OUR SUBSTANCE.
_QUESTION XII._
WHETHER OF THE TWAIN IS MORE PROBABLE, THAT THE NUMBER OF THE STARS
IS EVEN OR ODD?
... but men are to be deceived with oaths. And Glaucias said: I have
heard that this speech was used against Polycrates the tyrant, and it
may be that it was spoken also to others. But why do you demand this
of me? Because verily, quoth Sospis, I see that children play at odd
and even with cockal bones, but Academics with words. For it seems to
me that such stomachs differ in nothing from them who hold out their
clutched fists and ask whether they hold odd or even. Then Protogenes
arose and called me by name, saying: What ail we, that we suffer these
rhetoricians thus to brave it out and to mock others, being demanded
nothing in the mean time, nor put to it to contribute their scot to the
conference?—unless peradventure they will come in with the plea that
they have no part of this table-talk over the wine, being followers
of Demosthenes, who in all his life never drank wine. That is not the
reason, said I; but we have put them no questions. And now, unless
you have any thing better to ask, methinks I can be even with these
fellows, and put them a puzzling question out of Homer, as to a case of
repugnance in contrary laws.
_QUESTION XIII._
A MOOT-POINT OUT OF THE THIRD BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS.
PLUTARCH, PROTOGENES, GLAUCIAS, SOSPIS.
1. What question will you put them, said Protogenes? I will tell you,
continued I, and let them carefully attend. Paris makes his challenge
in these express words:
Let me and valiant Menelaus fight
For Helen, and for all the goods she brought;
And he that shall o’ercome, let him enjoy
The goods and woman; let them be his own.
And Hector afterwards publicly proclaiming this challenge in these
express words:
He bids the Trojans and the valiant Greeks
To fix their arms upon the fruitful ground;
Let Menelaus and stout Paris fight
For all the goods; and he that beats have all.
Menelaus accepted the challenge, and the conditions were sworn to,
Agamemnon dictating thus:
If Paris valiant Menelaus kills,
Let him have Helen, and the goods possess;
If youthful Menelaus Paris kills,
The woman and the goods shall all be his.[120]
Now since Menelaus only overcame but did not kill Paris, each party
hath somewhat to say for itself, and against the other. The one may
demand restitution, because Paris was overcome; the other deny it,
because he was not killed. Now how to determine this case and clear the
seeming repugnances doth not belong to philosophers or grammarians, but
to rhetoricians, that are well skilled both in grammar and philosophy.
2. Then Sospis said: The challenger’s word is decisive; for the
challenger proposed the conditions, and when they were accepted, the
other party had no power to make additions. Now the condition proposed
in this challenge was not killing, but overcoming; and there was reason
that it should be so, for Helen ought to be the wife of the bravest.
Now the bravest is he that overcomes; for it often happens that an
excellent soldier might be killed by a coward, as is evident in what
happened afterward, when Achilles was shot by Paris. For I do not
believe that you will affirm, that Achilles was not so brave a man as
Paris because he was killed by him, and that it should be called the
victory, and not rather the unjust good fortune, of him that shot him.
But Hector was overcome before he was killed by Achilles, because he
would not stand, but trembled and fled at his approach. For he that
refuseth the combat or flies cannot palliate his defeat, and plainly
grants that his adversary is the better man. And therefore Iris tells
Helen beforehand,
In single combat they shall fight for you,
And you shall be the glorious victor’s wife.[121]
And Jupiter afterwards adjudges the victory to Menelaus in these words:
The conquest leans to Menelaus’s side.[122]
For it would be ridiculous to call Menelaus a conqueror when he shot
Podes, a man at a great distance, before he thought of or could provide
against his danger, and yet not allow him the reward of victory over
him whom he made fly and sneak into the embraces of his wife, and whom
he spoiled of his arms whilst he was yet alive, and who had himself
given the challenge, by the terms of which Menelaus now appeared to be
the conqueror.
3. Glaucias subjoined: In all laws, decrees, contracts, and promises,
those latest made are always accounted more valid than the former. Now
the later contract was Agamemnon’s, the condition of which was killing,
and not only overcoming. Besides the former was mere words, the latter
confirmed by oath; and, by the consent of all, those were cursed that
broke them; so that this latter was properly the contract, and the
other a bare challenge. And this Priam at his going away, after he had
sworn to the conditions, confirms by these words:
But Jove and other Gods alone do know,
Which is designed to see the shades below;[123]
for he understood that to be the condition of the contract. And
therefore a little after Hector says,
But Jove hath undetermined left our oaths,[124]
for the combat had not its designed and indisputable determination,
since neither of them fell. Therefore this question doth not seem to
me to contain any contrariety of law, since the former contract is
comprised and overruled by the latter; for he that kills certainly
overcomes, but he that overcomes doth not always kill. But, in short,
Agamemnon did not annul, but only explain the challenge proposed by
Hector. He did not change any thing, but only added the most principal
part, placing victory in killing; for that is a complete conquest, but
all others may be evaded or disputed, as this of Menelaus, who neither
wounded nor pursued his adversary. Now as, where there are laws really
contrary, the judges take that side which is plain and indisputable,
and mind not that which is obscure; so in this case, let us admit that
contract to be most valid which contained killing, as a known and
undeniable evidence of victory. But (which is the greatest argument) he
that seems to have had the victory, not being quiet, but running up and
down the army, and searching all about,
To find neat Paris in the busy throng,[125]
sufficiently testifies that he himself did not imagine that the
conquest was perfect and complete when Paris had escaped. For he did
not forget his own words:
And which of us black fate and death design,
Let him be lost; the others cease from war.[126]
Therefore it was necessary for him to seek after Paris, that he might
kill him and complete the combat; but since he neither killed nor took
him, he had no right to the prize. For he did not conquer him, if we
may guess by what he said when he expostulated with Jove and bewailed
his unsuccessful attempt:
Jove, Heaven holds no more spiteful God than thou.
Now would I punish Paris for his crimes;
But oh! my sword is broke, my mighty spear,
Stretched out in vain, flies idly from my hand![127]
For in these words he confessed that it was to no purpose to pierce
the shield or take the head-piece of his adversary, unless he likewise
wounded or killed him.
_QUESTION XIV._
SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE NUMBER OF THE MUSES, NOT COMMONLY
KNOWN.
HERODES, AMMONIUS, LAMPRIAS, TRYPHON, DIONYSIUS, MENEPHYLUS, PLUTARCH.
1. This discourse ended, we poured out our offerings to the Muses, and
together with a hymn in honor of Apollo, the patron of the Muses, we
sung with Erato, who played upon the harp, the generation of the Muses
out of Hesiod. After the song was done, Herod the rhetorician said:
Pray, sirs, hearken. Those that will not admit Calliope to be ours say
that she keeps company with kings, not such, I suppose, as are busied
in resolving syllogisms or disputing, but such who do those things
that belong to rhetoricians and statesmen. But of the rest of the
Muses, Clio abets encomiums, for praises are called κλέα; and Polymnia
history, for her name signifies the remembrance of many things; and
it is said that all the Muses were somewhere called Remembrances. And
for my part, I think Euterpe hath some relation to us too, if (as
Chrysippus says) her lot be agreeableness in discourse and pleasantness
in conversation. For it belongs to an orator to converse, as well as
plead or give advice; since it is his part to gain the favor of his
auditors, and to defend or excuse his client. To praise or dispraise is
the commonest theme; and if we manage this artfully, it will turn to
considerable account; if unskilfully, we are lost. For that saying,
Gods! how he is honored and beloved by all,[128]
chiefly, in my opinion, belongs to those men who have a pleasing and
persuasive faculty in discourse.
2. Then said Ammonius to Herod: We have no reason to be angry with
you for grasping all the Muses, since the goods that friends have are
common, and Jove hath begotten a great many Muses, that every man may
be plentifully supplied; for we do not all need skill in hunting,
military arts, navigation, or any mechanical trades; but learning and
instruction is necessary for every one that
Eats the fruits of the spacious earth.[129]
And therefore Jove made but one Minerva, one Diana, one Vulcan, but
many Muses. But why there should be nine, and no more nor less, pray
acquaint us; for you, so great a lover of, and so well acquainted with,
the Muses, must certainly have considered this matter. What difficulty
is there in that? replied Herod. The number nine is in every body’s
mouth, as being the first square of the first odd number; and as doubly
odd, since it may be divided into three equal odd numbers. Ammonius
with a smile subjoined: Boldly said; and pray add, that this number
is composed of the first two cubes, one and eight, and according to
another composition of two triangles, three and six, each of which
is itself perfect. But why should this belong to the Muses more than
any other of the Gods? For we have nine Muses, but not nine Cereses,
nine Minervas or Dianas. For I do not believe you take it for a good
argument, that the Muses must be so many, because their mother’s name
(Mnemosyne) consists of just so many letters. Herod smiling, and every
body being silent, Ammonius desired our opinions.
3. My brother said, that the ancients celebrated but three Muses, and
that to bring proofs for this assertion would be pedantic and uncivil
in such a company. The reason of this number was (not as some say)
the three different sorts of music, the diatonic, the chromatic, and
harmonic, nor those stops that make the intervals nete, mese, and
hypate; though the Delphians gave the Muses this name erroneously,
in my opinion, appropriating it to one science, or rather to a part
of one single science, the harmoniac part of music. But, as I think,
the ancients, reducing all arts and sciences which are practised and
performed by reason or discourse to three heads, philosophy, rhetoric,
and mathematics, accounted them the gifts of three Gods, and named
them the Muses. Afterwards, about Hesiod’s time, the sciences being
better and more thoroughly looked into, men subdividing them found
that each science contained three different parts. In mathematics
are comprehended music, arithmetic, and geometry; in philosophy are
logic, ethics, and physics. In rhetoric, they say the first part was
demonstrative or encomiastic, the second deliberative, the third
judicial. None of all which they believed to be without a God or a Muse
or some superior power for its patron, and did not, it is probable,
make the Muses equal in number to these divisions, but found them to
be so. Now, as you may divide nine into threes, and each three into as
many units; so there is but one rectitude of reason, which is employed
about the supreme truth, and which belongs to the whole in common,
while each of the three kinds of science has three Muses assigned to
it, and each of these has her separate faculty assigned to her, which
she disposes and orders. And I do not think the poets and astrologers
will find fault with us for passing over their professions in silence,
since they know, as well as we, that astrology is comprehended in
geometry, and poetry in music.
4. As soon as he had said this, Trypho the physician subjoined: How
hath our art offended you, that you have shut the Museum against us?
And Dionysius of Melite added: Sir, you have a great many that will
side with you in the accusation; for we farmers think Thalia to be
ours, assigning her the care of springing and budding seeds and plants.
But I interposing said: Your accusation is not just; for you have
bountiful Ceres, and Bacchus who (as Pindar phraseth it) increaseth the
trees, the chaste beauty of the fruits; and we know that Aesculapius
is the patron of the physicians, and they make their address to Apollo
as Paean, but never as the Muses’ chief. All men (as Homer says) stand
in need of the Gods, but all stand not in need of all. But I wonder
Lamprias did not mind what the Delphians say in this matter; for they
affirm that the Muses amongst them were not named so either from the
strings or sounds in music; but the universe being divided into three
parts, the first portion was of the fixed stars, the second of the
planets, the third of those things that are under the concave of the
moon; and all these are ordered according to harmonical proportions,
and of each portion a Muse takes care; Hypate of the first, Nete of
the last, and Mese in the middle, combining as much as possible, and
turning about mortal things with the Gods, and earthly with heavenly.
And Plato intimates the same thing under the names of the Fates,
calling one Atropos, the other Lachesis, and the other Clotho. For he
committed the revolutions of the eight spheres to so many Sirens, and
not Muses.
5. Then Menephylus the Peripatetic subjoined: The Delphians’ opinion
hath indeed somewhat of probability in it; but Plato is absurd in
committing the eternal and divine revolutions not to the Muses but to
the Sirens, Daemons that neither love nor are benevolent to mankind,
wholly passing by the Muses, or calling them by the names of the Fates,
the daughters of Necessity. For Necessity is averse to the Muses; but
Persuasion being more agreeable and better acquainted with them, in my
opinion, than the grace of Empedocles,
Intolerable Necessity abhors
6. No doubt, said Ammonius, as it is in us a violent and involuntary
cause; but in the Gods Necessity is not intolerable, uncontrollable, or
violent, unless it be to the wicked; as the law in a commonwealth to
the best men is its best good, not to be violated or transgressed, not
because they have no power, but because they have no will, to change
it. And Homer’s Sirens give us no just reason to be afraid; for he in
that fable rightly intimates the power of their music not to be hurtful
to man, but delightfully charming, and detaining the souls which pass
from hence thither and wander after death; working in them a love for
divine and heavenly things, and a forgetfulness of every thing on
earth; and they extremely pleased follow and attend them. And from
thence some imperfect sound, and as it were echo of that music, coming
to us by the means of reason and good precepts, rouseth our souls, and
restores the notice of those things to our minds, the greatest part of
which lie encumbered with and entangled in disturbances of the flesh
and distracting passions. But the generous soul hears and remembers,
and her affection for those pleasures riseth up to the most ardent
passion, whilst she eagerly desires but is not able to free herself
from the body.
It is true, I do not approve what he says; but Plato seems to me, as he
hath strangely and unaccountably called the axes spindles and distaffs,
and the stars whirls, so to have named the Muses Sirens, as delivering
divine things to the ghosts below, as Ulysses in Sophocles says of the
Sirens,
I next to Phorcus’s daughters came,
Who fix the sullen laws below
Eight of the Muses take care of the spheres, and one of all about
the earth. The eight who govern the motions of the spheres maintain
the harmony of the planets with the fixed stars and one another. But
that one who looks after the place betwixt the earth and moon and
takes care of mortal things, by means of speech and song introduceth
persuasion, assisting our natural consent to community and agreement,
and giveth men as much harmony, grace, and order as is possible for
them to receive; introducing this persuasion to smooth and quiet our
disturbances, and as it were to recall our wandering desires out of the
wrong way, and to set us in the right path. But, as Pindar says,
Whom Jove abhors, he starts to hear
The Muses sounding in his ear.[130]
7. To this discourse Ammonius, as he used to do, subjoined that verse
of Xenophanes,
This fine discourse seems near allied to truth,
and desired every one to deliver his opinion. And I, after a short
silence, said: As Plato thinks by the name, as it were by tracks, to
discover the powers of the Gods, so let us place in heaven and over
heavenly things one of the Muses, Urania. And it is likely that those
require no distracting variety of cares to govern them, since they
have the same single nature for the cause of all their motions. But
where are a great many irregularities and disorders, there we must
place the eight Muses, that we may have one to correct each particular
irregularity and miscarriage. There are two parts in a man’s life, the
serious and the merry; and each must be regulated and methodized. The
serious part, which instructs us in the knowledge and contemplation
of the Gods, Calliope, Clio, and Thalia seem chiefly to look after and
direct. The other Muses govern our weak part, which changes presently
into wantonness and folly; they do not neglect our brutish and violent
passions and let them run their own course, but by apposite dancing,
music, song, and orderly motion mixed with reason, bring them down to
a moderate temper and condition. For my part, since Plato admits two
principles of every action, the natural desire after pleasure, and
acquired opinion which covets and wishes for the best, and calls one
reason and the other passion, and since each of these is manifold, I
think that each requires a considerable and, to speak the truth, a
divine direction. For instance, one faculty of our reason is said to
be political or imperial, over which Hesiod says Calliope presides;
Clio’s province is the noble and aspiring; and Polymnia’s that faculty
of the soul which inclines to attain and keep knowledge (and therefore
the Sicyonians call one of their three Muses Polymathia); to Euterpe
everybody allows the searches into nature and physical speculations,
there being no greater, no sincerer pleasure belonging to any other
sort of speculation in the world. The natural desire to meat and drink
Thalia reduceth from brutish and uncivil to be sociable and friendly;
and therefore we say θαλιάζειν of those that are friendly, merry,
and sociable over their cups, and not of those that are quarrelsome
and mad. Erato, together with Persuasion, that brings along with it
reason and opportunity, presides over marriages; she takes away and
extinguisheth all the violent fury of pleasure, and makes it tend to
friendship, mutual confidence, and endearment, and not to effeminacy,
lust, or discontent. The delight which the eye or ear receives is a
sort of pleasure, either appropriate to reason or to passion, or common
to them both. This the two other Muses, Terpsichore and Melpomene, so
moderate, that the one may only cheer and not charm, the other only
please and not bewitch.
_QUESTION XV._
THAT THERE ARE THREE PARTS IN DANCING: φορά, MOTION, σχῆμα, GESTURE,
AND δεῖξις, REPRESENTATION. WHAT EACH OF THOSE IS, AND WHAT IS COMMON
POETRY AND DANCING.
AMMONIUS AND THRASYBULUS.
1. After this, a match of dancing was proposed, and a cake was the
prize. The judges were Meniscus the dancing-master, and my brother
Lamprias; for he danced the Pyrrhic very well, and in the Palaestra
none could match him for the graceful motion of his hands and arms
in dancing. Now a great many dancing with more heat than art, some
desired two of the company who seemed to be best skilled and took most
care to observe their steps, to dance in the style called φορὰν παρὰ
φοράν. Upon this Thrasybulus, the son of Ammonius, demanded what φορά
signified, and gave Ammonius occasion to run over most of the parts of
dancing.
2. He said they were three,—φορά, σχῆμα, and δεῖξις. For dancing
is made up of motion and manner (σχέσις), as a song of sounds and
stops; stops are the ends of motion. Now the motions they call φοραί,
and the gestures and likeness to which the motions tend, and in
which they end, they call σχήματα: as, for instance, when by their
own motions they represent the figure of Apollo, Pan, or any of the
raging Bacchae. The third, δεῖξις, is not an imitation, but a plain
downright indication of the things represented. For the poets, when
they would speak of Achilles, Ulysses, the earth, or heaven, use their
proper names, and such as the vulgar usually understand. But for the
more lively representation, they use words which by their very sound
express some eminent quality in the thing, or metaphors; as when they
say that streams do “babble and flash;” that arrows fly “desirous the
flesh to wound;” or when they describe an equal battle by saying “the
fight had equal heads.” They have likewise a great many significative
compositions in their verses. Thus Euripides of Perseus,
He that Medusa slew, and flies in air;
and Pindar of a horse,
When by the smooth Alpheus’ banks
He ran the race, and never felt the spur;
and Homer of a race,
The chariots, overlaid with tin and brass,
By fiery horses drawn ran swiftly on.[131]
So in dancing, the σχῆμα represents the shape and figure, the φορά
shows some action, passion, or power; but by the δεῖξις are properly
and significatively shown the things themselves, for instance, the
heaven, earth, or the company. Which, being done in a certain order and
method, resembles the proper names used in poetry, decently clothed and
attended with suitable epithets. As in these lines,
Themis the venerable and admired,
And Venus beauteous with her bending brows,
Dione fair, and Juno crowned with gold.[132]
And in these,
From Hellen kings renowned for giving laws,
Great Dorus and the mighty Xuthus, sprang,
And Aeolus, whose chief delight was horse.[133]
For if poets did not take this liberty, how mean, how grovelling and
flat, would be their verse! As suppose they wrote thus,
From this came Hercules, from the other Iphitus.
Her father, husband, and her son were kings,
Her brother and forefathers were the same;
And she in Greece was called Olympias.
The same faults may be committed in that sort of dancing called
δεῖξις, unless the representation be lifelike and graceful, decent and
unaffected. And, in short, we may aptly transfer what Simonides said of
painting to dancing, and call dancing mute poetry, and poetry speaking
dancing; for poesy doth not properly belong to painting, nor painting
to poesy, neither do they any way make use of one another. But poesy
and dancing have much in common, especially in that sort of song called
Hyporchema, in which is the most lively representation imaginable,
dancing doing it by gesture, and poesy by words. So that poesy may
bear some resemblance to the colors in painting, while dancing is like
the lines which mark out the features of the face. And therefore he
who was the most famous writer of Hyporchemes, who here even outdid
himself,[134] sufficiently evidenceth that these two arts stand in need
of one another. For, whilst he sings these songs,
* * * * *
he shows what tendency poetry hath to dancing; whilst the sound excites
the hands and feet, or rather as it were by some cords distends and
raiseth every member of the whole body; so that, whilst such songs are
pronounced or sung, they cannot be quiet. But now-a-days no sort of
exercise hath such bad depraved music applied to it as dancing; and so
it suffers that which Ibycus as to his own concerns was fearful of, as
appears by these lines,
I fear lest, losing fame amongst the Gods,
I shall receive respect from men alone.
For having associated to itself a mean paltry sort of music, and
falling from that divine sort of poetry with which it was formerly
acquainted, it rules now and domineers amongst foolish and
inconsiderate spectators, like a tyrant; it hath subjected nearly the
whole of music, but hath lost all its honor with excellent and wise men.
These, my Sossius Senecio, were almost the last discourses which we had
at Ammonius’s house during the festival of the Muses.
OF MORAL VIRTUE.
1. My design in this essay is to treat of that virtue which is
called and accounted moral, and is chiefly distinguished from the
contemplative, in its having for the matter thereof the passions of the
mind, and for its form, right reason; and herein to consider the nature
of it and how it subsists, and whether that part of the soul wherein
it resides be endowed with reason of its own, inherent in itself, or
whether it participates of that which is foreign; and if the latter,
whether it does this after the manner of those things which are mingled
with what is better than themselves, or whether, as being distinct
itself but yet under the dominion and superintendency of another,
it may be said to partake of the power of the predominant faculty.
For that it is possible for virtue to exist and continue altogether
independent of matter, and free from all mixture, I take to be most
manifest. But in the first place I conceive it may be very useful
briefly to run over the opinions of other philosophers, not so much for
the vanity of giving an historical account thereof, as that, they being
premised, ours may thence receive the greater light and be more firmly
established.
2. To begin then with Menedemus of Eretria, he took away both the
number and the differences of virtue, by asserting it to be but one,
although distinguished by several names; holding that, in the same
manner as a mortal and a man are all one, so what we call temperance,
fortitude, and justice are but one and the same thing. As for Ariston
of Chios, he likewise made virtue to be but one in substance, and
called it sanity, which, as it had respect to this or that, was to be
variously multiplied and distinguished; just after the same manner as
if any one should call our sight, when applied to any white object,
by the name of white-look; when to one that is black, by the name of
black-look; and so in other matters. For according to him, virtue, when
it considers such things as we ought to do or not to do, is called
prudence; when it moderates our desires, and prescribes the measure and
season for our pleasures, temperance; and when it governs the commerce
and mutual contracts of mankind, justice;—in the same manner, for
instance, as a knife is one and the same knife still, notwithstanding
sometimes it cuts one thing, sometimes another, and just as fire does
operate upon different matter, and yet retain the very same nature.
Unto which opinion it seems also as if Zeno the Citian did in some
measure incline; he defining prudence, while it distributes to every
man his own, to be justice; when it teaches what we are to choose and
what to reject or avoid, temperance; and with respect to what is to
be borne or suffered, fortitude. But it is to be observed, that they
who take upon them the defence of Zeno’s notions do suppose him to
mean science by what he calls prudence. But then Chrysippus, whilst
he imagined from every distinct quality a several and peculiar virtue
to be formed, before he was aware, raised (as Plato hath it) a whole
swarm of virtues never before known or used among the philosophers. For
as from brave he derived bravery; from mild, mildness; and from just,
justice; so from pleasant he fetched pleasantness; from good, goodness;
from grand, grandeur; and from honest, honesty; placing these and all
kind of dexterous application of discourse, all kind of facetiousness
of conversation, and all witty turns of expression in the number of
virtues, thereby over-running philosophy, which requires nothing less,
with a multitude of uncouth, absurd, and barbarous terms.
3. However, all these do commonly agree in this one thing, in supposing
virtue to be a certain disposition and faculty of the governing and
directive part of the soul, of which reason is the cause; or rather
to be reason itself, when it consents to what it ought, and is firm
and immutable. And they do likewise think, that that part of the soul
which is the seat of the passions, and is called brutal or irrational,
is not at all distinct by any physical difference from that which is
rational; but that this part of the soul (which they call rational and
directive), being wholly turned about and changed by its affections
and by those several alterations which are wrought in it with respect
either to habit or disposition, becometh either vice or virtue, without
having any thing in itself that is really brutal or irrational, but
is then called brutal or irrational, when by the over-ruling and
prevailing violence of our appetites it is hurried on to something
absurd and vicious, against the judgment of reason. For passion,
according to them, is nothing else but depraved and intemperate reason,
that through a perverse and vicious judgment is grown over-vehement and
headstrong.
Now, it seems to me, all these philosophers were perfect strangers to
the clearness and truth of this point, that we every one of us are in
reality twofold and compound. For, discerning only that composition in
us which of the two is most evident, namely that of the soul and body,
of the other they knew nothing at all. And yet that in the soul itself
also there is a certain composition of two dissimilar and distinct
natures, the brutal part whereof, as another body, is necessarily and
physically compounded with and conjoined to reason, was, it should
seem, no secret to Pythagoras himself,—as some have guessed from his
having introduced the study of music amongst his scholars, for the more
easy calming and assuaging the mind, as well knowing that it is not
in every part of it obedient and subject to precepts and discipline,
nor indeed by reason only to be recovered and retrieved from vice,
but requires some other kind of persuasives to co-operate with it,
to dispose it to such a temper and gentleness as that it may not be
utterly intractable and obstinate to the precepts of philosophy.
And Plato very strongly and plainly, without the least hesitation,
maintained that the soul of the universe is neither simple, uniform,
nor uncompounded; but that being mixed, as it were, and made up of that
which is always the same and of that which is otherwise, in some places
it is continually governed and carried about after a uniform manner in
one and the same powerful and predominant order, and in other places is
divided into motions and circles, one contrary to the other, unsettled
and fortuitous,—whence are derived the beginnings and generation of
differences in things. And so, in like manner, the soul of man, being
a part or portion of that of the universe, and framed upon reasons
and proportions answerable to it, cannot be simple and all of the
same nature; but must have one part that is intelligent and rational,
which naturally ought to have dominion over a man, and another which,
being subject to passion, irrational, extravagant, and unbounded,
stands in need of direction and restraint. And this last is again
subdivided into two other parts; one whereof, being called corporeal,
is called concupiscible, and the other, which sometimes takes part with
this and sometimes with reason, and gives respectively to either of
them strength and vigor, is called irascible. And that which chiefly
discovers the difference between the one and the other is the frequent
conflict of the intellect and reason with concupiscence and anger, it
being the nature of things that are different amongst themselves to be
oftentimes repugnant and disobedient to what is best of all.
These principles at first Aristotle seems most to have relied upon, as
plainly enough appears from what he has written. Though afterwards he
confounded the irascible and concupiscible together, by joining the
one to the other, as if anger were nothing but a thirst and desire
of revenge. However, to the last he constantly maintained that the
sensual and irrational was wholly distinct from the intellectual and
rational part of the soul. Not that it is so absolutely devoid of
reason as those faculties of the soul which are sensitive, nutritive,
and vegetative, and are common to us with brute beasts and plants;
for these are always deaf to the voice of reason and incapable of
it, and may in some sort be said to derive themselves from flesh and
blood, and to be inseparably attached to the body and devoted to the
service thereof; but the other sensual part, subject to the sudden
efforts of the passions and destitute of any reason of its own, is
yet nevertheless naturally adapted to hear and obey the intellect and
judgment, to have regard to it, and to submit itself to be regulated
and ordered according the rules and precepts thereof, unless it happen
to be utterly corrupted and vitiated by pleasure, which is deaf to all
instruction, and by a luxurious way of living.
4. As for those who wonder how it should come to pass, that that which
is irrational in itself should yet become obsequious to the dictates of
right reason, they seem to me not to have duly considered the force and
power of reason, how great and extensive it is, and how far it is able
to carry and extend its authority and command, not so much by harsh and
arbitrary methods, as by soft and gentle means, which persuade more
and gain obedience sooner than all the severities and violences in the
world. For even the spirits, the nerves, bones, and other parts of
the body are destitute of reason; but yet no sooner do they feel the
least motion of the will, reason shaking (as it were), though never so
gently, the reins, but all of them observe their proper order, agree
together, and pay a ready obedience. As, for instance, the feet, if the
impulse of the mind be to run, immediately betake themselves to their
office; or if the motion of the will be for the throwing or lifting up
of any thing, the hands in a moment fall to their business. And this
sympathy or consent of the brutal faculties to right reason, and the
ready conformity of them thereto, Homer has most admirably expressed in
these verses:
In tears dissolved she mourns her consort’s fate,
So great her sorrows, scarce her charms more great.
Her tears compassion in Ulysses move,
And fill his breast with pity and with love;
Yet artful he his passion secret keeps,
It rages in his heart; and there he inward weeps.
Like steel or ivory, his fixed eyeballs stand,
Placed by some statuary’s skilful hand;
And when a gentle tear would force its way,
He hides it falling, or commands its stay.[135]
Under such perfect subjection to his reason and judgment had he even
his spirits, his blood, and his tears. A most evident proof of this
matter we have also from hence, that our natural desires and motions
are as soon repressed and quieted as we know we are either by reason
or law forbidden to approach the fair ones we at the first view had so
great a passion for; a thing which most commonly happens to those who
are apt to fall in love at sight with beautiful women, without knowing
or examining who they are; for no sooner do they afterwards find their
error, by discovering the person with whose charms they were before
captivated to be a sister or a daughter, but their flame is presently
extinguished by the interposition of reason. And flesh and blood are
immediately brought into order, and become obedient to the judgment.
It often falls out likewise that, after we have eaten some kinds of
meat or fish finely dressed, and by that means artificially disguised,
with great pleasure and a very good stomach, at the first moment we
understand they were either unclean, or unlawful and forbidden, our
judgment being thereby shocked, we feel not only remorse and trouble
in our mind, but the conceit reaches farther, and our whole frame is
disordered by the nauseous qualms and vomitings thereby occasioned.
I fear I should be thought on purpose to hunt after too far-fetched
and youthful instances to insert in this discourse, if I should take
notice of the lute, the harp, the pipe and flute, and such like musical
instruments invented by art, and adapted to the raising or allaying of
human passions; which, though they are void of life and sense, do yet
most readily accommodate themselves to the judgment, to our passions
and our manners, either indulging our melancholy, increasing our mirth,
or feeding our wantonness, as we happen at that time to be disposed.
And therefore it is reported of Zeno himself, that, going one day
to the theatre to hear Amoebeus sing to the lute, he called to his
scholars, Come, says he, let us go and learn what harmony and music the
guts and sinews of beasts, nay even wood and bones are capable of, by
the help of numbers, proportion, and order.
But to let these things pass, I would gladly know of them, whether,
when they see domestic animals (as dogs, horses, or birds) by use,
feeding, and teaching brought to so high a degree of perfection as
that they shall utter articulately some senseful words, and by their
motions, gestures, and all their actions, shall approve themselves
governable, and become useful to us; and when also they find Achilles
in Homer encouraging horses, as well as men, to battle;—whether, I
say, after all this, they can yet make any wonder or doubt, whether
those faculties of the mind to which we owe our anger, our desires,
our joys, and our sorrows, be of such a nature that they are capable
of being obedient to reason, and so affected by it as to consent and
become entirely subject to it; considering especially that these
faculties are not seated without us, or separated from us, or formed by
any thing which is not in us, or hammered out by force and violence,
but, as they have by nature their entire dependence upon the soul, so
they are ever conversant and bred up with it, and also receive their
final complement and perfection from use, custom, and practice. For
this reason the Greeks very properly call manners ἦθος, _custom_;
for they are nothing else, in short, but certain qualities of the
irrational and brutal part of the mind, and hence by them are so named,
in that this brutal and irrational part of the mind being formed and
moulded by right reason, by long custom and use (which they call
ἔθος), has these qualities or differences stamped upon it. Not that
reason so much as attempts to eradicate our passions and affections,
which is neither possible nor expedient, but only to keep them within
due bounds, reduce them into good order, and so direct them to a good
end; and thus to generate moral virtue, consisting not in a kind of
insensibility, or total freedom from passions, but in the well-ordering
our passions and keeping them within measure, which she effects by
wisdom and prudence, bringing the faculties of that part of the soul
where our affections and appetite are seated to a good habit. For these
three things are commonly held to be in the soul, namely, a faculty
or aptitude, passion, and habit. This aptitude or faculty then is
the principle or very matter of passions; as for example, the power
or aptitude to be angry, to be ashamed, to be confident and bold, or
the like; passion is the actual exercise of that aptitude or faculty,
as anger, shame, confidence, or boldness; and habit is the strength,
firmness, and establishment of the disposition or faculty in the
irrational part of the soul, gotten by continual use and custom, and
which, according as the passions are well or ill governed by reason,
becomes either virtue or vice.
5. But, forasmuch as philosophers do not make all virtue to consist in
a mediocrity nor call it moral, to show the difference more clearly,
it will be necessary to take our rise a little farther off. For of all
things then in the universe, some do exist absolutely, simply, and for
themselves only; others again relatively, for and with regard to us.
Among those things which have an absolute and simple existence are the
earth, the heavens, the stars, and the sea; and of such things as have
their being relatively, with respect to us, are good and evil, things
desirable and to be avoided, and things pleasant and hurtful. And
seeing that both are the proper objects of reason,—while it considers
the former, which are absolutely and for themselves, it is scientifical
and contemplative; and when the other, which have reference to us, it
is deliberative and practical. And as the proper virtue in the latter
case is prudence, in the former it is science. And between the one
and the other, namely, between prudence and science, there is this
difference. Prudence consists in a certain application and relation of
the contemplative faculties of the soul to those which are practical,
for the government of the sensual and irrational part, according to
reason. To which purpose prudence has often need of Fortune; whereas
neither of that nor of deliberation has science any occasion or want
to attain its ends, forasmuch as it has nothing to consider but
such things as remain always the same. For as a geometrician never
deliberates about a triangle, whether all its three angles be equal
to two right angles, because of that he has a clear and distinct
knowledge (and men use to deliberate about such things only as are
sometimes in one state or condition and sometimes in another, and
not of those which are always firm and immutable), so the mind, when
merely contemplative, exercising itself about first principles and
things permanent, such as retaining the same nature are incapable of
mutation, has no room or occasion for deliberation. Whereas prudence,
descending to actions full of error and confusion, is very often under
the necessity of encountering with fortuitous accidents, and, in
doubtful cases, of making use of deliberation, and, to reduce those
deliberations into practice, of calling also to its assistance even
the irrational faculties, which are (as it were) forcibly dragged to
go along with it, and by that means to give a certain vigor or impetus
to its determinations. For its determinations do indeed want something
which may enliven and give them such an impetus. And moral virtue it is
which gives an impetus or vigor to the passions; but at the same time
reason, which accompanies that impetus, and of which it stands in great
need, does so set bounds thereunto, that nothing but what is moderate
appears, and that it neither outruns the proper seasons of action, nor
yet falls short of them.
For the sensual faculties, where passions are seated, are subject to
motions, some over-vehement, sudden, and quick, and others again too
remiss, and more slow and heavy than is convenient. So that, though
every thing we do can be good but in one manner, yet it may be evil
in several; as there is but one single way of hitting the mark, but
to miss it a great many, either by shooting over, or under, or on one
side. The business therefore of practical reason, governing our actions
according to the order of Nature, is to correct the excesses as well
as the defects of the passions, by reducing them to a true mediocrity.
For as, when through infirmity of the mind, effeminacy, fear, or
laziness, the vehemence and keenness of the appetites are so abated
that they are ready to sink and fall short of the good at which they
are aimed and directed, there is then this practical reason at hand,
exciting and rousing and pushing them onward; so, on the other hand,
when it lashes out too far and is hurried beyond all measure, there
also is the same reason ready to bring it again within compass and put
a stop to its career. And thus, prescribing bounds and giving law to
the motions of the passions, it produces in the irrational part of the
soul these moral virtues (of which we now treat), which are nothing
else but the mean between excess and defect. For it cannot be said
that all virtue consists in mediocrity; since wisdom or prudence (one
of the intellectual virtues), standing in no need of the irrational
faculties,—as being seated in that part of the soul which is pure and
unmixed and free from all passions,—is of itself absolutely perfect,
the utmost extremity and power of reason, whereby we attain to that
perfection of knowledge which is itself most divine and renders us
most happy. Whereas moral virtue, which because of the body is so
necessary to us, and, to put things in practice, stands in need of the
instrumental ministry of the passions (as being so far from promoting
the destruction and abolition of irrational powers, as to be altogether
employed in the due regulation thereof), is, with respect to its power
or quality, the very top and extremity of perfection; but, in respect
of the proportion and quantity which it determines, it is mediocrity,
in that it takes away all excess on the one hand, and cures all defects
on the other.
6. Now mean and mediocrity may be differently understood. For there is
one mean which is compounded and made up of the two simple extremes,
as in colors, gray, of white and black; and another, where that which
contains and is contained is the medium between the containing and
the contained, as, for instance, the number eight, between twelve and
four. And a third sort there is also, which participates of neither
extreme, as for example, all those things which, as being neither good
nor evil in themselves, we call adiaphorous, or indifferent. But in
none of these ways can virtue be said to be a mean, or mediocrity. For
neither is it a mixture of vices, nor, comprehending that which is
defective and short, is it comprehended by that which runs out into
excess; nor yet is it exempt from the impetuosity and sudden efforts
of the passions, in which excess and defect do properly take place.
But moral virtue properly doth consist in a mean or mediocrity (and
so it is commonly taken), most like to that which there is in our
Greek music and harmony. For, whereas there are the highest and lowest
musical notes in the extremities of the scale called nete and hypate;
so likewise is there in the middle thereof, between these two, another
musical note, and that the sweetest of all, called mese (or mean),
which does as perfectly avoid the extreme sharpness of the one as it
doth the over-flatness of the other. And so also virtue, being a motion
and power which is exercised about the brutal and irrational part
of the soul, takes away the remission and intention—in a word, the
excess and defect—of the appetites, reducing thereby every one of the
passions to a due mediocrity and perfect state of rectitude.
For example, fortitude is said to be the mean between cowardice and
rashness, whereof the one is a defect, as the other is an excess of
the irascible faculty; liberality, between sordid parsimony on the
one hand, and extravagant prodigality on the other; clemency between
insensibility of injuries and its opposite, revengeful cruelty; and so
of justice and temperance; the former being the mean between giving and
distributing more or less than is due in all contracts, affairs, and
business between man and man, and the latter a just mediocrity between
a stupid apathy, touched with no sense or relish of pleasure, and
dissolute softness, abandoned to all manner of sensualities.
And from this instance of temperance it is, that we are most clearly
given to understand the difference between the irrational and the
rational faculties of the soul, and that it so plainly appears to us
that the passions and affections of the mind are quite a distinct thing
from reason. For otherwise never should we be able to distinguish
continence from temperance, nor incontinence from intemperance, in
lust and pleasures, if it were one and the same faculty of the soul
wherewith we reason and judge, and whereby we desire and covet. Now
temperance is that whereby reason governs and manages that part of the
soul which is subject to the passions (as it were some wild creature
brought up by hand, and made quite tame and gentle), having gained an
absolute victory over all its appetites, and brought them entirely
under the dominion of it. Whereas we call it continence, when reason
has indeed gained the mastery over the appetites and prevailed against
them, though not without great pains and trouble, they being perverse
and continuing to struggle, as not having wholly submitted themselves;
so that it is not without great difficulty able to preserve its
government over them, being forced to retain and hold them in, and keep
them within compass, as it were, with stripes, with the bit and bridle,
while the mind all the time is full of nothing but agony, contentions,
and confusion. All which Plato endeavors to illustrate by a similitude
of the chariot-horses of the soul, the one whereof, being more unruly,
not only kicks and flings at him that is more gentle and tractable, but
also thereby so troubles and disorders the driver himself, that he is
forced sometimes to hold him hard in, and sometimes again to give him
his head,
Lest from his hands the purple reins should slip,
as Simonides speaks.
And from hence we may see why continence is not thought worthy to be
placed in the number of perfect virtues, but is taken to be a degree
under virtue. For there is not therein produced a mediocrity arising
from a symphony of the worst with the better, nor are the excesses of
the passions retrenched; nor yet doth the appetite become obedient and
subservient to the reasonable faculties, but it both makes and feels
disorder and disturbance, being repressed by violence and constraint,
and (as it were) by necessity; as in a sedition or faction in a city
or state, the contending parties, breathing nothing but war and
destruction and ruin to one another, do yet cohabit together (it may
be) within the compass of the same walls; insomuch that the soul of the
incontinent person, with respect to the conflicts and incongruities
therein, may very properly be compared to the city,
Where all the streets are filled with incense smoke,
And songs of triumph mixed with groans resound.[136]
And upon the same grounds it is, that incontinence is held to be
something less than vice also, but intemperance to be a complete and
perfect vice, for therein not the appetite only but reason likewise is
debauched and corrupted; and as the former incites and pushes forward
the desires and affections to that which is evil, so this, by making an
ill judgment, is easily led to consent and agree to the soft whispers
and tempting allurements of corrupt lusts and passions, and soon loseth
all sense of sin and evil. Whereas incontinence preserves the judgment,
by the help of reason, right and sound; but yet, by irresistible
force and violence of the passions, is even against judgment drawn
away. Moreover, in these respects following it differeth also from
intemperance:—inasmuch as reason in that is overpowered by passion,
but in this it never so much as struggleth; the incontinent person,
after a noble resistance, is at last forced to submit to the tyranny of
his lusts, and follow their guidance, while the intemperate approves
them, and gladly goes along with and submits to them; one feels remorse
for the evil he commits, while the other prides in lewdness and vice.
Again, the one wilfully and of his own accord runs into sin; while the
other, even against his will, is forced to abandon that which is good.
And this difference between them is not to be collected only from their
actions, but may as plainly also be discovered by their words. For at
this rate do intemperate persons use to talk:
What mirth in life, what pleasure, what delight,
Without content in sports of Venus bright?
Were those joys past, and I for them unmeet,
Ring out my knell, bring forth my winding-sheet.[137]
And thus says another:
To eat, to drink, to wench are principal,
All pleasures else I accessories call;
as if from his very soul he were wholly abandoned and given up to
pleasures and voluptuousness, and even overwhelmed therein. And much of
the same mind was he, and his judgment was as totally depraved by his
passions, who said,
Let me, ye dull and formal fops, alone,
I am resolved, ’tis best to be undone.
But quite another spirit do we find running through the sayings of the
incontinent:
Blame Nature only for it, blame not me,
Would she permit, I then should virtuous be,[138]
says one of them. And again,
Ah! ’tis decreed by Fate. We know, ’tis true,
We know those virtues, which we ne’er pursue.{B}
And another,
What will my swelling passions’ force assuage?
No more can I sustain this tempest’s rage,
Than anchor’s fluke, dropt on loose ground, a storm,
where not improperly he compares the fluke of an anchor dropped in
loose ground to that ill-grounded, feeble, and irresolute reason, which
by the vanity, weakness, and luxury of the mind is easily brought to
forsake the judgment. And the like metaphor has the poet made use of
happily enough in these verses.
To us, in ships moored near the shore who lie,
Though strong the cables, when the winds rise high
Cables will prove but small security;
where by the cables the poet means the judgment opposing itself against
all that is evil or dishonest, which is, however, oftentimes disturbed
and broken by violent and sudden gusts of the passions. For, indeed,
the intemperate are borne away directly and with full sail to their
pleasures; to them they deliver up themselves entirely, and thither
it is they bend their whole course. While the incontinent, indirectly
only, as endeavoring to sustain and repel the assaults of the passions
and withstand their temptations, either is allured and as it were
slides into evil, or else is plunged violently into it whether he will
or no. As Timon, in his bitter way of raillery, reproaches Anaxarchus,
When first the dogged Anaxarchus strove
The power of virtue o’er his mind to prove,
Firm though he seemed, and obstinately good,
In vain th’ impulse of temper he withstood.
Nature recoiled, whatever he could do;
He saw those ills, which yet he did pursue;
In this not single, other sophists too
Felt the same force, which they could ne’er subdue.
And neither is a wise man continent, but temperate; nor a fool
incontinent, but intemperate; the one taking true pleasure and delight
in good, the other having no displeasure against evil. And therefore
incontinence is said to be found only in a mind which is sophistical
(or which barely makes a show of being governed and directed by
prudence), and which has indeed the use of reason, but in so weak and
faint a manner, that it is not able to persevere in that which it knows
to be right.
7. Thus we have seen the diversity between incontinence and
intemperance. And as for continence and temperance, their differences
are analogous, and bear proportion to those of the other, but in
contrary respects. For remorse, grief, and indignation do always
accompany continence; whereas in the mind of a temperate person there
is all over such an evenness, calmness, and firmness, that, seeing with
what wonderful easiness and tranquillity the irrational faculties go
along with reason and submit to its directions, one cannot but call to
mind that of the poet:
Swift the command ran through the raging deep;
Th’ obedient waves compose themselves to sleep;[139]
reason having quite deadened and repressed the vehement raging and
furious motions of the passions and affections. But those whose
assistance Nature necessarily requires are by reason rendered so
agreeable and consenting, so submissive, friendly, and co-operative
in the execution of all good designs and purposes, that they neither
outrun it, nor recede from it, nor behave themselves disorderly, nor
ever show the least disobedience; but every appetite willingly and
cheerfully pursues its dictates,
As sucking foal runs by his mother mare.
Which very much confirms what was said by Xenocrates of those who are
true philosophers, namely, that they alone do that voluntarily which
all others do against their wills for fear of the laws; being diverted
and restrained from the pursuit of their pleasures, as a dog is
frightened by a whipping or a cat scared by a noise, having regard to
nothing else in the matter but their own danger.
It is manifest then from what has been discoursed, that the soul
does perceive within itself something that is firm and immovable,
totally distinct from its passions and appetites, these being what it
does always oppose and is ever contending with. But some there are,
nevertheless, who affirm that reason and passion do not materially
differ from one another, and that there is not in the soul any faction,
sedition, or dissension of two several and contending faculties, but
only a shifting, conversion, or alteration of the same reason or
rational faculty from one side to the other, backward and forward,
which, by reason of the suddenness and swiftness of the change, is not
perceptible by us; and therefore, that we do not consider that the same
faculty of the soul is by nature so adapted as to be capable of both
concupiscence and repentance, of anger and of fear, of being drawn to
the commission of any lewdness or evil by the allurements of pleasure,
and afterwards of being again retrieved from it. And as for lust,
anger, fear, and such like passions, they will have them to be nothing
but perverse opinions and false judgments, not arising or formed in any
inferior part of the soul, peculiarly belonging to them, but being the
advances and returns, or the motions forward and backward, the good
likenings and more vehement efforts, and (in a word) such operations
and energies of the whole rational and directive faculty as are ready
to be turned this way or that with the greatest ease imaginable;
like the sudden motions and irruptions in children, the violence and
impetuosity whereof, by reason of their imbecility and weakness, are
very fleeting and inconstant.
But these opinions are against common sense and experience; for no
man ever felt such a sudden change in himself, as that whenever he
chose any thing he immediately judged it fit to be chosen, or that,
on the other hand, whenever he judged any thing fit to be chosen he
immediately made choice of it. Neither does the lover who is convinced
by reason that his amour is fit to be broken off, and that he ought to
strive against his passion, therefore immediately cease to love; nor
on the other side doth he desist reasoning, and cease from being able
to give a right judgment of things, even then, when, being softened
and overcome by luxury, he delivers himself up a captive to his lusts.
But as, while by the assistance of reason he makes opposition to the
efforts of his passions, they yet continue to solicit, and at last
overcome him; so likewise, when he is overcome and forced to submit to
them, by the light of reason does he plainly discern and know that he
has done amiss; so that neither by the passions is reason effaced and
destroyed, nor yet by reason is he rescued and delivered from them;
but, being tossed to and fro between the one and the other, he is a
kind of neuter, and participates in common of them both. And those,
methinks, who imagine that one while the directive and rational part
of the soul is changed into concupiscence and lust, and that by and by
reason opposes itself against them, and they are changed into that, are
not much unlike them who make the sportsman and his game not to be two,
but one body, which, by a nimble and dexterous mutation of itself, one
while appears in the shape of the huntsman, and at another turn puts
on the form of a wild beast. For as these in a plain evident matter
seem to be stark blind, so they in the other case belie even their own
senses, seeing they must needs feel in themselves not merely a change
or mutation of one and the same thing, but a downright struggle and
quarrel between two several and distinct faculties.
But is not, say they, the deliberative power or faculty of a man often
divided in itself, and distracted among several opinions contrary to
one another, about that which is expedient; and yet is but one, simple,
uniform thing? All this we grant to be true; but it does not reach the
case we are speaking of. For that part of the soul where reason and
judgment are seated is not at variance with itself, but by one and
the same faculty is conversant about different reasonings; or rather,
there is but one simple power of reasoning, which employs itself on
several arguments, as so many different subject-matters. And therefore
it is, that no disturbance or uneasiness accompanies those reasonings
or deliberations, where the passions do not at all interpose. Nor
are we at any time forced, as it were, to choose any thing contrary
to the dictates of our own reason, but when, as in a balance, some
lurking hidden passions lay something in the scale against reason to
weigh it down. And this often falls out to be the case, where it is
not reasoning that is opposed to reasoning, but either ambition, or
emulation, or favor, or jealousy, or fear, making a show as if there
were a variance or contest between two differing reasons, according to
that of Homer,
Shame in denial, in acceptance fear;[140]
and of another poet,
Hard fate to fall, but yet a glorious fate;
’Tis cowardly to live, but yet ’tis sweet.
And in determining of controversies about contracts between man and
man, it is by the interposition of the passions that so many disputes
and delays are created. So likewise in the consultations and counsels
of kings, they who design to make their court incline not to one side
of the question or debate rather than the other, but only accommodate
themselves to their own passions, without any regard to the interest of
the public. Which is the reason that in aristocratical governments the
magistrates will not suffer orators in their pleadings, by declaiming
and haranguing, to raise the passions and move the affections. For
reason, not being disturbed or diverted by passion, tends directly
to that which is honorable and just; but if the passions are once
raised, there immediately follows a mighty controversy and struggle
between pleasure and grief on the one hand, and reason and judgment on
the other. For otherwise how comes it to pass, that in philosophical
disputes and disquisitions we so often and with so little trouble are
by others drawn off from our own opinions and wrought upon to change
them?—and that Aristotle himself, Democritus, and Chrysippus have
without any concern or regret of mind, nay even with great satisfaction
to themselves, retracted some of those points which they formerly
so much approved of, and were wont so stiffly to maintain? For no
passions residing in the contemplative and scientifical part of the
soul make any tumult or disturbance therein, and the irrational and
brutal faculties remain quiet and calm, without busying themselves
to intermeddle in matters of that kind. By which means it falls out,
that reason no sooner comes within view of truth, but rejecting that
which is false it readily embraces it; forasmuch as there is in the
former what is not to be found in the other, namely, a willingness to
assent and disagree as there is occasion; whereas in all deliberations
had, judgments made, and resolutions taken about such things as are
to be reduced into practice, and are mixed and interwoven with the
passions and affections, reason meets with much opposition, and is
put under great difficulties, by being stopped and interrupted in
its course by the brutal faculties of the mind, throwing in its way
either pleasure or fear or grief or lust, or some such like temptation
or discouragement. And then the decision of these disputes belongs
to sense, which is equally affected with both the one and the other;
and whichsoever of them gets the mastery, the other is not thereby
destroyed, but (though struggling and resisting all the while) is
forced only to comply and go along with the conqueror. As an amorous
person, for example, finding himself engaged in an amour he cannot
approve of, has immediately recourse to his reason, to oppose the force
of that against his passion, as having them both together actually
subsisting in his soul, plainly discerning them to be several and
distinct, and feeling a sensible conflict between the two, while he
endeavors (as it were) with his hand to repress and keep down the
part which is inflamed and rages so violently within him. But, on the
contrary, in those deliberations and disquisitions where the passions
have nothing to do, such I mean as belong properly to the contemplative
part of the soul, if the reasons are equally balanced, not inclining
more to one side than another, then is there no determinate judgment
formed, but there remains a doubting, as if there were a rest or
suspense of the understanding between two contrary opinions. But if
there happen to be any inclination or determination towards one side,
that prevailing must needs get the better of the other, but without any
regret or obstinate opposition from it against the opinion which is
received. In short, whenever the contest seems to be of reason against
reason, in that case we have no manner of sense of two distinct powers,
but of one simple, uniform faculty only, under different apprehensions
or imaginations; but when the dispute is between the irrational part
and reason, where nature has so ordered it that neither the victory nor
the defeat can be had without anxiety and regret, there immediately
the two contending powers divide the soul in the quarrel, and thereby
make the difference and distinction between them to be most plain and
evident.
8. And not only from their contests, but no less also from the
consequences that follow thereupon, may one clearly enough discern
the source and original of the passions to be different from that of
reason. For since a man may set his affection upon an ingenuous and
virtuously disposed child, and no less also upon one that is naughty
and dissolute, and since also one may have unreasonable and indecent
transports of anger against his children or his parents, and on the
contrary, may justly and unblamably be angry in their defence against
their enemies and tyrants; as in the one case there is perceived a
struggle and dispute of the passions against reason, so in the other
may be seen a ready submission and agreement of them, running to its
assistance, and lending as it were their helping hand. To illustrate
this with a familiar example,—after a good man has in obedience to the
laws married a convenient wife, he then in the first place comes to a
resolution of conversing and cohabiting with her wisely and honestly,
and of making at least a civil husband; but in process of time, custom
and constant familiarity having bred within him a true passion for her,
he sensibly finds that upon principles of reason his affection and love
for her are every day more and more improved and grow upon him. So in
like manner, young men having met with kind and gentle masters, to
guide and inform their minds in the study of philosophy and sciences,
make use of them at first for instruction only and information, but
afterwards come to have such an affection for them, that from familiar
companions and scholars they become their lovers and admirers, and are
so accounted. And the same happens also to most men, with respect to
good magistrates in the commonwealth, to their neighbors, and to their
kindred; for, beginning an acquaintance upon necessity and interest,
for the exchange of the common offices of intercourse and commerce with
one another, they do afterwards by degrees, ere they are aware, grow to
have a love and friendship for them; reason in such and the like cases
having over-persuaded and even compelled the passions to take delight
in and pursue what it before had approved of and consented to. As for
the poet who said,
Of modesty two kinds there be;
The one we cannot blame,
The other troubleth many a house,
And doth decay the same;[141]
doth he not plainly hereby intimate, that he had oftentimes found by
experience that this affection of the mind, by a sheepish, shamefaced
backwardness, and by foolishly bashful delays against all reason, had
lost him the opportunities and seasons of making his fortune, and
hindered and disappointed many brave actions and noble enterprises?
9. But these men, though by the force of these arguments sufficiently
convinced, do yet seek for evasions, by calling shame by the name of
modesty, pleasures by that of joy, and fear by that of caution. No man
would go about to blame them for giving things the softest names they
can invent, if they would be so just as to bestow these good words upon
those passions and affections only which have put themselves under
the conduct and direction of reason, and leave those which oppose
reason and offer violence to it to be called by their own proper and
odious names. But, when fully convinced by the tears they shed, by
the trembling of their joints, and by their sudden changing of color
back and forward, if instead of plainly calling the passions whereof
these are the effects grief and fear, they make use of the fantastic
terms of compunctions and conturbations, and to varnish over and
disguise the lusts and affections, give them the name only of so many
forwardnesses of mind, and I know not what else, they seem not to act
like philosophers, but, relying upon little shifts and sophistical
artifices, under an amusement of strange words, they vainly hope to
cover and conceal the nature of things.
And yet even these men themselves sometimes make use of very proper
terms to express these matters; as, for instance, when they call. those
joys, volitions, and cautions of theirs, not by the name of apathies,
as if they were devoid of all manner of passions, but of eupathies.
For then is there said to be an eupathy, or good disposition of the
affections, when reason hath not utterly destroyed, but composed and
adjusted them in the minds of discreet and temperate persons. But what
then becomes of vicious and dissolute persons? Why, if they should
judge it reasonable to love their parents, instead of a mistress or
a gallant, are they unable to perform this; but should they judge it
fitting to set their hearts upon a strumpet or a parasite, the judgment
is no sooner made, but they are most desperately in love? Now were the
passions and judgment one, it could not be but that the passions of
love and hatred would immediately follow upon judgments made what to
love and hate. But we see the contrary often happen; for the passions,
as they submit to some resolutions and judgments, so others again
they oppose themselves to, and refuse to comply with. Whence it is
that, compelled thereto by truth and the evidence of things, they do
not affirm every judgment and determination of reason to be passion,
but that only which excites too violent and inordinate an appetite;
acknowledging thereby that the faculty we have in us of judging is
quite another thing than that which is susceptible of the passions,
as is that also which moveth from that which is moved. Nay, even
Chrysippus himself, in many places defining patience and continence to
be habits of submitting to and pursuing the choice and direction of
right reason, doth thereby make it apparent that by the force of truth
he was driven to confess that it is one thing in us which is obedient
and submissive, but another and quite a different thing which it obeys
when it submits, but resists when it does not submit.
10. Now, as for those who make all sins and faults to be equal, to
examine whether in other matters they have not also departed from the
truth is not at this time and in this place seasonable; since they
seem not herein only, but in most things else, to advance unreasonable
paradoxes against common sense and experience. For according to them,
all our passions and affections are so many faults, and whosoever
grieves, fears, or desires, commits sin. But, with their leave, nothing
is more visible and apparent than the mighty difference in those and
all other passions, according as we are more or less affected with
them. For will any man say that the fear of Dolon was no more than that
of Ajax, who, being forced to give way before the enemy,
Sometimes retreated back, then faced about,
And step by step retired at once, and fought?[142]
Or compare the grief of Plato for the death of Socrates to the sorrow
and anguish of mind which Alexander felt, when, for having murdered
Clitus, he attempted to lay violent hands upon himself. For our
grief is commonly increased and augmented above measure by sudden
and unexpected accidents. And that which surprises us on the sudden,
contrary to our hope and expectation, is much more uneasy and grievous
than that which is either foreseen, or not very unlikely to happen; as
must needs fall out in the case of those who, expecting nothing more
than to see the happiness, advancement, and glory of a friend or a
kinsman, should hear of his being put to the most exquisite tortures,
as Parmenio did of his son Philotas. And who will ever say that the
anger of Magas against Philemon can bear any proportion to the rage
of Nicocreon against Anaxarchus? The occasion given was in both cases
the same, each of them having severally been bitterly reproached and
reviled by the other. For whereas Nicocreon caused Anaxarchus to be
broken to pieces and brayed in a mortar with iron pestles, Magas only
commanded the executioner to lay the edge of the naked sword upon the
neck of Philemon, and so dismissed him. And therefore Plato called
anger the nerves of the mind; because, as it may swell and be made
more intense by sourness and ill-nature, so may it be slackened and
remitted by gentleness and good-nature.
But to elude these and such like objections, they will not allow
these intense and vehement efforts of the passions to be according to
judgment, or so to proceed from it as if that were therein faulty; but
they call them cessations, contractions, and extensions or diffusions,
which by the irrational part are capable of being increased or
diminished. But that there are also differences of judgment is most
plain and evident; for some there are who take poverty to be no evil
at all, others who look upon it as a great evil, and others again
who esteem it to be the greatest evil and worst thing in the world,
insomuch that rather than endure it they would dash themselves in
pieces against the rocks, or cast themselves headlong into the sea.
And among those who reckon death to be an evil, some are of that
opinion, in regard only that it deprives us of the enjoyment of the
good things of the world, as others are with respect to the eternal
torments and horrible punishments under ground in hell. As for bodily
health, some love it no otherwise than as it is agreeable to Nature,
and very convenient and useful; while others value it as the most
sovereign good, in comparison whereof they make no reckoning of riches
or children, no, nor of sceptres and crowns,
Which make men equal to the Gods above.
Nor will they, in fine, allow even virtue itself to signify any thing
or be of any use, without good health. So that hence it sufficiently
appears that, in the judgments men make of things, they may be mistaken
and very faulty with respect to both the extremes of too much and too
little; but I shall pursue this argument no farther in this place.
Thus much may, however, fairly be assumed from what has already
been said on this head, that even they themselves do allow a plain
difference between the judgment and the irrational faculties, by means
whereof, they say, the passions become greater and more violent; and
so, while they cavil and contend about names and words, they give up
the very cause to those who maintain the irrational part of the soul,
which is the seat of the passions, to be several and distinct from that
faculty by which we reason and make a judgment of things. And indeed
Chrysippus, in those books which he wrote of Anomology,—after he has
told us that anger is blind, not discerning oftentimes those things
which are plain and conspicuous, and as frequently casting a mist
upon such things as were before clear and evident,—proceeds a little
farther in this manner: For, says he, the passions, being once raised,
not only reject and drive away reason and those things which appear
otherwise than they would have them, but violently push men forward
to actions that are contrary to reason. And then he makes use of the
testimony of Menander, saying,
What have I done? Where has my soul been strayed?
Would she not stay to see herself obeyed,
But let me act what I abhorred but now?
And again the same Chrysippus a little after says: Every rational
creature is by Nature so disposed as to use reason in all things,
and to be governed by it; but yet oftentimes it falls out that we
dispose and reject it, being carried away by another more violent and
over-ruling motion. In these words he plainly enough acknowledges what
uses in such a case to happen on account of the difference and contest
between the passions and reason. And upon any other ground it would be
ridiculous (as Plato says) to suppose a man to be sometimes better than
himself, and sometimes again worse; one while to be his own master, and
another while his own slave.
11. For how could it possibly be, that a man should be better and
worse than himself, and at once both his own master and slave, if
every one were not in some sort naturally double or twofold, having in
himself at the same time a better part and a worse? For so may he be
reckoned to have a power over himself and to be better than himself,
who has his worse and inferior faculties in obedience and subjection
to the superior and more excellent; whereas he who suffers his nobler
powers to fall under the government and direction of the intemperate
and irrational part of the soul is less and worse than himself, and
has wholly lost the command over himself, and is in a state which
is contrary to Nature. For by the order of Nature, reason, which is
divine, ought to have the sovereignty and dominion over the irrational
and brutal faculties, which, deriving their original from the body, and
being incorporated, as it were, and thoroughly mixed therewith, bear a
very near resemblance to it, are replenished with, and do participate
in common of the qualities, properties, and passions thereof; as is
plain from our more vehement motions and efforts towards corporeal
objects, which always increase or diminish in vigor according to the
several changes and alterations which happen in the body. From whence
it is that young men are in their lusts and appetites, because of
the abundance and warmth of their blood, so quick, forward, hot, and
furious; whereas in old men all natural fire being almost extinguished,
and the first principles and source of the affections and passions,
seated about the liver, being much lessened and debilitated, reason
becomes more vigorous and predominant, while the appetites languish
and decay together with the body. And after this manner it is that the
nature of beasts is framed and disposed to divers passions. For it is
not from any strength or weakness of thought, or from any opinions
right or wrong which they form to themselves, that some of them are
so bold and venturous, and dare encounter any thing, and others of
them are fearful and cowardly, shrinking at every danger; but from
the force and power of the blood, the spirits, and the body does this
diversity of passions in them arise; for that part where the passions
are seated, being derived from the body, as from its root, retains all
the qualities and propensions of that from whence it is extracted.
Now that in man there is a sympathy and an agreeable and correspondent
motion of the body with the passions and appetites, is proved by the
paleness and blushings of the face, by the tremblings of the joints,
and by the palpitation of the heart; and, on the contrary, by the
diffusion or dilatation which we feel upon the hope and expectation of
pleasures. But when the mind or intellect doth move of itself alone,
without any passion to disorder and ruffle it, then is the body at
repose and rests quiet, having nothing at all to do with those acts
and operations of the mind; as, when it takes into consideration a
proposition in mathematics or some such scientifical thing, it calls
not for the aid or assistance of the irrational or brutal faculties.
From whence also it is very apparent that there are in us two distinct
parts, differing in their powers and faculties from one another.
12. In fine, throughout the whole world, all things (as they themselves
are forced to confess, and is evident in itself) are governed and
directed, some by a certain habit, some by Nature, others by a
brutal or irrational soul, and some again by that which has reason
and understanding. Of all which things man does in some measure
participate, and is concerned in all the above-mentioned differences.
For he is contained by habit, and nourished by Nature; he makes use
of reason and understanding; he wants not his share of the irrational
soul; he has also in him a native source and inbred principle of the
passions, not as adventitious, but necessary to him, which ought not
therefore to be utterly rooted out, but only pruned and cultivated.
For it is not the method and custom of reason—in imitation either
of the manner of the Thracians or of what Lycurgus ordered to be
done to the vines—to destroy and tear up all the passions and
affections indifferently, good and bad, useful and hurtful together;
but rather—like some kind and careful Deity who has a tender regard
to the growth and improvement of fruit-trees and plants—to cut away
and clip off that which grows wild and rank, and to dress and manage
the rest that it may serve for use and profit. For as they who are
afraid of being drunk pour not their wine upon the ground, but dilute
it with water; so neither do they who fear any violent commotion of
their passions go about utterly to destroy and eradicate, but rather
wisely to temper and moderate them. And as they who use to break horses
and oxen do not go about to take away their goings, or to render them
unfit for labor and service, but only strive to cure them of their
unluckiness and flinging up their heels, and to bring them to be
patient of the bit and yoke, so as to become useful; after the same
manner reason makes very good use of the passions, after they are well
subdued and made gentle, without either tearing in pieces or over-much
weakening that part of the soul which was made to be obedient to her.
In Pindar we find it said:
As ’tis the horse’s pride to win the race,
And to plough up the fruitful soil
Is the laborious ox’s toil,
So the fierce dog we take the foaming boar to chase.
But much more useful than these in their several kinds are the whole
brood of passions, when they become attendants to reason, and when,
being assistant and obedient to virtue, they give life and vigor to it.
Thus, moderate anger is of admirable use to courage or fortitude;
hatred and aversion for ill men promotes the execution of justice; and
a just indignation against those who are prosperous beyond what they
deserve is then both convenient and even necessary, when with pride
and insolence their minds are so swollen and elated, that they need to
be repressed and taken down. Neither by any means can a man, though he
never so much desire it, be able to separate from friendship a natural
propension to affection; from humanity and good nature, tenderness and
commiseration; nor from true benevolence, a mutual participation of
joy and grief. And if they run into an error who would take away all
love that they may destroy mad and wanton passions, neither can those
be in the right who, for the sake of covetousness, condemn all other
appetites and desires. Which is full as ridiculous as if one should
always refuse to run, because one time or other he may chance to catch
a fall; or to shoot, because he may sometimes happen to miss the mark;
or should forbear all singing, because a discord or a jar is offensive
to the ear. For, as in sounds the music and harmony thereof takes away
neither the sharpest nor the deepest notes, and in our bodies physic
procureth health, not by the destruction of heat and cold, but by a due
and proportionable temperature and mixture of them both together; so in
the same manner it happeneth in the soul of man, when reason becomes
victorious and triumphant by reducing the faculties of the mind which
belong to the passions, and all their motions, to a due moderation and
mediocrity. And excessive and unmeasurable joy or grief or fear in the
soul (not, however, either joy, grief, or fear, simply in itself) may
very properly be resembled to a great swelling or inflammation in the
body. And therefore Homer, where he says,
A valiant man doth never color change;
Excessive fear to him is very strange,[143]
does not take away all fear (but that only which is extreme and
unmanly), that bravery and courage may not be thought to be
fool-hardiness, nor boldness and resolution pass for temerity and
rashness. And therefore he that in pleasures and delights can prescribe
bounds to his lusts and desires, and in punishing offences can moderate
his rage and hatred to the offenders, shall in one case get the
reputation not of an insensible, but temperate person, and in the other
be accounted a man of justice without cruelty or bitterness. Whereas,
if all the passions, if that were possible, were clean rooted out,
reason in most men would grow sensibly more dull and inactive than the
pilot of a ship in a calm.
And to these things (as it should seem) prudent lawgivers having regard
have wisely taken care to excite and encourage in commonwealths and
cities the ambition and emulation of their people amongst one another,
and with trumpets, drums, and flutes to whet their anger and courage
against their enemies. For not only in poetry (as Plato very well
observes), he that is inspired by the Muses, and as it were possessed
by a poetical fury, will make him that is otherwise a master of his
trade and an exact critic in poetry appear ridiculous; but also in
fighting, those who are elevated and inspired with a noble rage, and a
resolution and courage about the common pitch, become invincible, and
are not to be withstood. And this is that warlike fury which the Gods,
as Homer will have it, infuse into men of honor:
He spoke, and every word new strength inspired;
and again:
This more than human rage is from the Gods;[144]
as if to reason the Gods had joined some or other of passions, as an
incitement or, if I may so say, a vehicle to push and carry it forward.
Nay we often see these very men against whom I now dispute exciting
and encouraging young persons with praises, and as often checking
and rebuking them with severe reprimands; whereupon in the one case
there must follow pleasure and satisfaction as necessarily as grief
and trouble are produced in the other. For reprehension and admonition
certainly strike us with repentance and shame, whereof this is
comprehended under fear, as the other is under grief. And these are
the things they chiefly make use of for correction and amendment.
Which seems to be the reason why Diogenes, to some who had magnified
Plato, made this reply: What can there be in him, said he, so much to
be valued, who, having been so long a philosopher, has never yet been
known so much as to excite the single passion of grief in the mind of
any one? And certainly the mathematics cannot so properly be called
(to use the words of Xenocrates) the handles of philosophy, as these
passions are of young men, namely, bashfulness, desire, repentance,
pleasure, pain, ambition; whereon right reason and the law discreetly
laying their salutary hands do thereby effectually and speedily reduce
a young man into the right way. Agreeably hereunto the Lacedaemonian
instructor of youth was in the right, when he professed that he would
bring it to pass that youths under his care should take a pleasure and
satisfaction in good and have an abhorrence for evil, than which there
cannot be a greater or nobler end of the liberal education of youth
proposed or assigned.
PLUTARCH’S NATURAL QUESTIONS.
I.
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT SEA-WATER NOURISHES NOT TREES?
Is it not for the same reason that it nourishes not earthly animals?
For Plato, Anaxagoras, and Democritus think plants are earthly animals.
Nor, though sea-water be aliment to marine plants, as it is to fishes,
will it therefore nourish earthly plants, since it can neither
penetrate the roots, because of its grossness, nor ascend, by reason of
its weight; for this, among many other things, shows sea-water to be
heavy and terrene, because it more easily bears up ships and swimmers.
Or is it because drought is a great enemy to trees? For sea-water is of
a drying faculty; upon which account salt resists putrefaction, and the
bodies of such as wash in the sea are presently dry and rough. Or is it
because oil is destructive to earthly plants, and kills things anointed
with it? But sea-water participates of much fatness; for it burns
together with it. Wherefore, when men would quench fire, we forbid
them to throw on sea-water. Or is it because sea-water is not fit to
drink and bitter (as Aristotle says) through a mixture of burnt earth?
For a lye is made by the falling of ashes into sweet water, and the
dissolution ejects and corrupts what was good and potable, as in us men
fevers convert the humors into bile. As for what woods and plants men
talk of growing in the Red Sea, they bear no fruit, but are nourished
by rivers casting up much mud; therefore they grow not at any great
distance from land, but very near to it.
II.
WHY DO TREES AND SEEDS THRIVE BETTER WITH RAIN THAN WITH WATERING?
Whether is it because (as Laitus thinks) showers, parting the earth
by the violence of their fall, make passages, whereby the water may
more easily penetrate to the root? Or cannot this be true; and did
Laitus never consider that marsh-plants (as cat’s-tail, pond-weeds,
and rushes) neither thrive nor sprout when the rains fall not in their
season; but it is true, as Aristotle said, rain-water is new and fresh,
that of lakes old and stale? And what if this be rather probable than
true? For the waters of fountains and rivers are ever fresh, new always
arriving; therefore Heraclitus said well, that no man could go twice
into the same river. And yet these very waters nourish worse than
rain-water. But water from the heavens is light and aerial, and, being
mixed with spirit, is the quicker passed and elevated into the plant,
by reason of its tenuity. And for this very reason it makes bubbles
when mixed with the air. Or does that nourish most which is soonest
altered and overcome by the thing nourished?—for this very thing
is concoction. On the contrary, inconcoction is when the aliment is
too strong to be affected by the thing nourished. Now thin, simple,
and insipid things are the most easily altered, of which number is
rain-water, which is bred in the air and wind, and falls pure and
sincere. But fountain-water, being assimilated to the earth and places
through which it passes, is filled with many qualities which render
it less nutritive and slower in alteration to the thing nourished.
Moreover, that rain-water is easily alterable is an argument, because
it sooner putrefies than either spring or river-water. For concoction
seems to be putrefaction as Empedocles says,—
When in vine wood the water putrefies,
It turns to wine, while under bark it lies.
Or, which may most readily be assigned for a reason, is it because
rain is sweet and mild, when it is presently sent by the wind? For
this reason cattle drink it most greedily, and frogs in expectation of
it raise their voice, as if they were calling for rain to sweeten the
marsh and to be sauce to the water in the pools. For Aratus makes this
a sign of approaching rain,
When father frogs, to watery snakes sweet food,
Do croak and sing in mud, a wretched brood.
III.
WHY DO HERDSMEN SET SALT BEFORE CATTLE?
Whether (as many think) to nourish them the more, and fatten them
the better? For salt by its acrimony sharpens the appetite, and by
opening the passages brings meat more easily to digestion. Therefore
Apollonius, Herophilus’s scholar, would not have lean persons, and such
as did not thrive, be fed with sweet things and gruel, but ordered them
to use pickles and salt things for their food, whose tenuity, serving
instead of frication or sifting, might apply the aliment through the
passages of the body. Or is it for health’s sake that men give sheep
salt to lick, to cut off the redundance of nutriment? For when they are
over fat, they grow sick; but salt wastes and melts the fat. And this
they observe so well, that they can more easily flay them; for the fat,
which agglutinates and fastens the skin, is made thin and weak by the
acrimony. The blood also of things that lick salt is attenuated; nor do
things within the body stick together when salts are mixed with them.
Moreover, consider this, whether the cattle grow more fruitful and more
inclined to coition; for bitches do sooner conceive when they are fed
with salt victuals, and ships which carry salt are more pestered with
mice, by reason of their frequent coition.
IV.
WHY IS THE WATER OF SHOWERS WHICH FALLS IN THUNDER AND LIGHTNING FITTER
TO WATER SEEDS? AND THEY ARE THEREFORE CALLED THUNDER-SHOWERS.
Is it because they contain much spirit, by reason of their confusion
and mixture with the air? And the spirit moving the humor sends it more
upwards. Or is it because heat fighting against cold causes thunder and
lightning? Whence it is that it thunders very little in winter, but
in spring and autumn very much, because of the inequality of temper;
and the heat, concocting the humor, renders it friendly and commodious
for plants. Or does it thunder and lighten most in the spring for the
aforesaid cause, and do the seeds have greater occasion for the vernal
rains before summer? Therefore that country which is best watered with
rain in spring, as Sicily is, produces abundance of good fruit.
V.
HOW COMES IT TO PASS, THAT SINCE THERE BE EIGHT KINDS OF TASTES, WE
FIND THE SALT IN NO FRUIT WHATEVER?
Indeed, at first the olive is bitter, and the grape acid; one whereof
afterward turns fat, and the other vinous. But the harshness in dates
and the austere in pomegranates turn sweet. Some pomegranates and
apples have only a simple acid taste. The pungent taste is frequent in
roots and seeds.
Is it because a salt taste is never natural, but arises when the
rest are corrupt? Therefore such plants and seeds as are nourished
receive no nourishment from salt; it serves indeed some instead of
sauce, by preventing a surfeit of other nourishment. Or, as men take
away saltness and bitingness from the sea-water by distilling, is
saltness so abolished in hot things by heat? Or indeed does the taste
(as Plato says) arise from water percolated through a plant, and does
even sea-water percolated lose its saltness, being terrene and of
gross parts? Therefore people that dig near the sea happen upon wells
fit to drink. Several also that draw the sea-water into waxen buckets
receive it sweet and potable, the salt and earthy matter being strained
out. And straining through clay renders sea-water potable, since the
clay retains the earthy parts and does not let them pass through. And
since things are so, it is very probable either that plants receive
no saltness extrinsically, or, if they do, they put it not forth into
fruit; for things terrene and consisting of gross parts cannot pass, by
reason of the straitness of the passages. Or may saltness be reckoned a
sort of bitterness? For so Homer says:
Out of his mouth the bitter brine did flow,
And down his body from his head did go.[145]
Plato also says that both these tastes have an abstersive and
colliquative faculty; but the salt does it less, nor is it rough. And
the bitter seems to differ from the salt in abundance of heat, since
the salt has also a drying quality.
VI.
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT, IF A MAN FREQUENTLY PASS ALONG DEWY TREES,
THOSE LIMBS THAT TOUCH THE WOOD ARE SEIZED WITH A LEPROSY?
Whether (as Laitus said) that by the tenuity of the dew the moisture of
the skin is fretted away? Or, as smut and mildew fall upon moistened
seeds, so, when the green and tender parts on the superficies are
fretted and dissolved by the dew, is a certain noxious taint carried
and imparted to the most bloodless parts of the body, as the legs and
feet, which there eats and frets the superficies? For that by Nature
there is a corrosive faculty in dew sufficiently appears, in that it
makes fat people lean; and gross women gather it, either with wool or
on their clothes, to take down their flesh.
VII.
WHY IN WINTER DO SHIPS SAIL SLOWER IN RIVERS, BUT DO NOT SO IN THE
SEA?
Whether, because the river-air, which is at all times heavy and slow,
being in winter more condensed by the cold, does more resist sailing?
Or is it long of the water rather than the air? For the piercing cold
makes the water heavy and thick, as one may perceive in a water-clock;
for the water passes more slowly in winter than in summer. Theophrastus
talks of a well about Pangaeum in Thrace, how that a vessel filled
with the water of it weighs twice as much in winter as it does in
summer. Besides, hence it is apparent that the grossness of the water
makes ships sail slower, because in winter river-vessels carry greater
burthens. For the water, being made more dense and heavy, makes the
more renitency; but the heat hinders the sea from being condensed or
frozen.
VIII.
WHY, SINCE ALL OTHER LIQUORS UPON MOVING AND STIRRING ABOUT GROW COLD,
DOES THE SEA BY BEING TOSSED IN WAVES GROW HOT?
Whether that motion expels and dissipates the heat of other liquors as
a thing adscititious, and the winds do rather excite and increase the
innate heat of the sea? Its transparentness is an argument of heat; and
so is its not being frozen, though it is terrene and heavy.
IX.
WHY IN WINTER IS THE SEA LEAST SALT AND BITTER TO THE TASTE? FOR THEY
SAY THAT DIONYSIUS THE HYDRAGOGUE REPORTED THIS.
Is it that the bitterness of the sea is not devoid of all sweetness, as
receiving so many rivers into it; but, since the sun exhales the sweet
and potable water thereof, arising to the top by reason of its levity,
and since this is done in summer more than in winter, when it affects
the sea more weakly by reason of the debility of its heat, that so in
winter a great deal of sweetness is left, which tempers and mitigates
its excessive poisonous bitterness? And the same thing befalls potable
waters; for in summer they are worse, the sun wasting the lightest and
sweetest part of them. And a fresh sweetness returns in winter, of
which the sea must needs participate, since it moves, and is carried
with the rivers into the sea.
X.
WHY DO MEN POUR SEA-WATER UPON WINE, AND SAY THE FISHER MEN HAD AN
ORACLE GIVEN THEM, WHEREBY THEY WERE BID TO DIP BACCHUS INTO THE SEA?
AND WHY DO THEY THAT LIVE FAR FROM THE SEA CAST IN SOME ZACYNTHIAN
EARTH TOASTED?
Whether that heat is good against cold? Or that it quenches heat, by
diluting the wine and destroying its strength? Or that the aqueous and
aerial part of wine (which is therefore prone to mutation) is stayed
by the throwing in of terrene parts, whose nature it is to constipate
and condense? Moreover, salts with the sea-water, attenuating and
colliquating whatever is foreign and superfluous, suffer no fetidness
or putrefaction to breed. Besides, the gross and terrene parts, being
entangled with the heavy and sinking together, make a sediment or lees,
and so make the wine fine.
XI.
WHY ARE THEY SICKER THAT SAIL ON THE SEA THAN THEY THAT SAIL IN
FRESH RIVERS, EVEN IN CALM WEATHER?
Of all the senses, smelling causes nauseousness the most, and of all
the passions of the mind, fear. For men tremble and shake and bewray
themselves upon apprehension of great danger. They that sail in a river
are troubled with neither of these. And the smell of sweet and potable
water is familiar to all, and the voyage is without danger. On the sea
an unusual smell is troublesome; and men are afraid, not knowing what
the issue may be. Therefore tranquillity abroad avails not, while an
estuating and disturbed mind disorders the body.
XII.
WHY DOES POURING OIL ON THE SEA MAKE IT CLEAR AND CALM?
Is it for that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force,
nor cause any waves? This may be probably said in respect of things
external; but they say that divers take oil in their mouths, and when
they spout it out they have light at the bottom, and it makes the water
transparent; so that the slipping of the winds will not hold good here
for an argument. Therefore it is to be considered, whether the sea,
which is terrene and uneven, is not compacted and made smooth by the
dense oil; and so the sea, being compact in itself, leaves passes,
and a pellucidity penetrable by the sight. Or whether that the air,
which is naturally mixed with the sea, is lucid, but by being troubled
grows unequal and shady; and so by the oil’s density, smoothing its
inequality, the sea recovers its evenness and pellucidity.
XIII.
WHY DO FISHERMEN’S NETS ROT MORE IN WINTER THAN IN SUMMER, SINCE
OTHER THINGS ROT MORE IN SUMMER?
Is not that the cause which Theophrastus assigns,—that heat (to wit)
shuns the cold, and is constrained by it on every side? Hence the
waters are hottest in the bottom of the sea. And so it is on land; for
springs are hotter in winter, and then lakes and rivers send up most
vapors, because the heat is compelled to the bottom by the prevailing
cold. Or it may be, nets do not rot at that time more than at another;
but being frozen and dried in the cold, since they are therefore the
more easily broken by the waves, they are liable to something like
putrefaction and rottenness. And they suffer most in the cold (as
strained cords are aptest to break in such a season), because then
there be most frequent storms at sea. Therefore fishermen guard their
nets with certain tinctures, for fear they should break. Otherwise
a net, neither tinged nor daubed with any thing, might more easily
deceive the fish; since line is of an air color, and is not easily
discerned in the sea.
XIV.
WHY DO THE DORIANS PRAY FOR BAD MAKING OF THEIR HAY?
Is it because hay rained upon is never well made? For the grass is
cut down green and not dry, wherefore it putrefies when wet with rain
water. But when before harvest it rains upon corn, this is a help to
it against the hot south winds; which otherwise would not let the
grain fill in the ear, but by their heat would hinder and destroy all
coalition, unless by watering the earth there came a moisture to cool
and moisten the ear.
XV.
WHY IS A FAT AND DEEP SOIL FRUITFUL OF WHEAT, AND A LEAN SOIL OF BARLEY?
Is it because a stronger grain needs more nourishment, and a weaker
a light and thin one? Now barley is weaker and laxer than wheat,
therefore it affords but little nourishment. And, as a farther
testimony to this reason, wheat, that is ripe in three months, grows
in dryer ground; because it is juiceless, and stands in need of less
nourishment, and therefore is more easily brought to perfection.
XVI.
WHY DO MEN SAY, SOW WHEAT IN CLAY AND BARLEY IN DUST?
Is the reason (as we said) because wheat takes up more nourishment;
and barley cannot bear so much, but is choked with it? Or does wheat,
because it is hard and ligneous, thrive better when it is softened
and loosened in a moist soil; and barley at the first in a dry soil,
because of its rarity? Or is the one temperament congruous and harmless
to wheat, because it is hot; and the other to barley, because it is
cold? Or are men afraid to sow wheat in a dry soil, because of the
ants, which presently lie in wait for it; but they cannot so easily
deal with barley nor carry it away, because it is a larger grain?
XVII.
WHY DO MEN USE THE HAIR OF HORSES RATHER THAN OF MARES FOR
FISHING-LINES?
Is it that the males are stronger in those parts, as well as in others,
than the females? Or is it that the females spoil the hair of their
tails by their staling?
XVIII.
WHY IS THE SIGHT OF A CUTTLE-FISH A SIGN OF A GREAT STORM?
Is it because all fishes of the soft kind cannot endure cold, by reason
of their nakedness and tenderness? For they are covered neither with
shell, skin, or scale, though within they have hard and bony parts.
Hence the Greeks call them soft fish. Therefore they easily perceive a
storm coming, since they are so soon affected by the cold. When the
polypus gets to shore and embraces the rocks, it is a sign the wind is
rising; but the cuttle-fish jumps up, to shun the cold and the trouble
of the bottom of the sea; for, of all soft fishes, she is the tenderest
and soonest hurt.
XIX.
WHY DOES THE POLYPUS CHANGE COLOR?
Whether, as Theophrastus writes, because it is an animal by nature
timorous; and therefore, being disturbed, it changes color with its
spirit, as some men do, of whom it is said, an ill man ever changes
color? But though this may serve as a reason for changing its color, it
will not for the imitation of colors. For the polypus does so change
its color, that it is of the color of every stone it comes nigh. Hence
that of Pindar, Mind the color of the marine beast, and so converse
cunningly in all cities; and that of Theognis:
Put on a mind like th’ polyp fish,—
And learn so to dissemble,—
Which of the rock whereto it sticks
The color doth resemble.[146]
And they say, that such as are excellent at craftiness and juggling
have this in their eye,—that they may the better cheat them they
have to deal withal,—ever to imitate the polypus. Some think the
polypus can use her skin as a garment, and can put it on or off at
pleasure. But if fear occasions this change in the polypus, is not
something else more properly the cause? Let us consider what Empedocles
says, that effluvia proceed from all things whatever. For not only
animals, plants, the earth and sea, but stones, and even brass and
iron, do continually send out many effluvia. For all things corrupt
and smell, because there runneth always something from them, and they
wear continually; insomuch that it is thought that by these effluvia
come all attractions and insultations, some supposing embraces,
others blows, some impulses, others circuitions. But especially about
the sea rocks, when they are wet and cool by the waves (as is most
likely), constantly some small particles are washed off, which do not
incorporate with other bodies, but either pass by the smaller passages,
or pass through the larger. Now the flesh of the polypus, as one may
judge by the eye, is hollow, full of pores, and capable of effluvia.
When therefore she is afraid, as her spirit changes she changes
herself, and by straitening and contracting her body, she encloses
the neighboring effluvia. And, as a good token of this argument, the
polypus cannot imitate the color of every thing he comes near, nor
the chameleon of any thing that is white; but each of these creatures
is assimilated only to those things to whose effluvia it has pores
proportionable.
XX.
WHAT IS THE REASON, THAT THE TEARS OF WILD BOARS ARE SWEET, AND THE
TEARS OF THE HART SALT AND HURTFUL?
The reason seems to be the heat and cold of these animals. For the hart
is cold, and the boar is very hot and fiery; therefore the one flies
from, the other defends himself against, his pursuers. Now when great
store of heat comes to the eyes (as Homer says, with horrid bristles,
and eyes darting fire), tears are sweet. Some are of Empedocles’s
opinion, who thought that tears proceed from the disturbance of the
blood, as whey does from the churning of milk; since therefore boar’s
blood is harsh and black, and hart’s blood thin and watery, it is
consentaneous that the tears, which the one sheds when excited to
anger, and the other when dejected with fear, should be of the same
nature.
XXI.
WHY DO TAME SOWS FARROW OFTEN, SOME AT ONE TIME AND OTHERS AT ANOTHER;
AND THE WILD BUT ONCE A YEAR, AND ALL OF THEM ABOUT THE SAME TIME AT
THE BEGINNING OF SUMMER, WHENCE IT IS SAID,—
The wild sow farrowing, that night falls no rain?
Is it because of plentiful feeding, as in very truth fulness doth
produce wantonness? For abundance of nourishment breeds abundance of
seed both in animals and plants. Now wild sows live by their own toil,
and that with fear; the tame have always food enough, either by nature
or given them. Or may it not be ascribed to their rest and exercise?
For the tame do rest and go not far from their keepers; the wild get to
the mountains, and run about, by which means they waste the nutriment,
and consume it upon the whole body. Therefore either through continual
converse, or abundance of seed, or because the females feed in herds
with the males, the tame sows call to mind coition and stir up lust,
as Empedocles talks of men. But in wild sows, which feed apart, desire
is cold and dull for want of love and conversation. Or is it true,
what Aristotle says, that Homer called the wild boar χλούνης,
because he had but one stone? For most boars spoil their stones (he
says) by rubbing them against stumps of trees.
XXII.
WHY ARE THE PAWS OF BEARS THE SWEETEST AND PLEASANTEST FOOD?
Because the flesh of those parts of the body which concoct aliment
the best is sweetest; and that concocts best which transpires most by
motion and exercise. But the bear uses the fore-feet most in going and
running, and in managing of things, as it were with hands.
XXIII.
WHY ARE THE STEPS OF WILD BEASTS MOST DIFFICULTLY TRACED IN
SPRING-TIME?
Whether the dogs, as Empedocles says, “with noses find the steps of
all wild beasts,” and draw in those effluvia which the beasts leave in
the ground; but the various smells of plants and flowers lying over
the footsteps do in spring-time obscure and confound them, and put the
dogs to a loss at winding them? Therefore about Etna in Sicily no man
keeps any hunting dogs, because abundance of wild marjoram flourishes
and grows there the year round, and the perpetual fragrancy of the
place destroys the scent of the wild beasts. There is also a tale, how
Proserpine, as she was gathering flowers thereabout, was ravished by
Pluto; therefore people, revering that place as an asylum, do not catch
any creature that feeds thereabout.
XXIV.
WHY ARE THE TRACKS OR WILD BEASTS WORST SCENTED ABOUT THE FULL
MOON?
Whether for the foresaid cause? For the full moons bring down the dews;
and therefore Alcman calls dew the daughter of Jove and Luna in a verse
of his,
Fed by the dew, bred by the Moon and Jove.
For dew is a weak and languid rain, and there is but little heat in the
moon; which draws water from the earth, as the sun does; but because it
cannot raise it on high, it soon lets it fall.
XXV.
WHY DOES FROST MAKE HUNTING DIFFICULT?
Whether is it because the wild beasts leave off going far abroad by
reason of the cold, and so leave but few signs of themselves? Therefore
some say, beasts spare the neighboring places, that they may not be
sore put to it by going far abroad in winter, but may always have food
ready at hand. Or is it because that for hunting the track alone is not
sufficient, but there must be scent also? And things gently dissolved
and loosened by heat afford a smell, but too violent cold binds up the
scent, and will not let it reach the sense. Therefore they say that
unguents and wine smell least in winter and cold weather; for the then
concrete air keeps the scent in, and suffers it not to disperse.
XXVI.
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT BRUTES, WHEN THEY AIL ANY THING, SEEK AND
PURSUE REMEDIES, AND ARE OFTEN CURED BY THE USE OF THEM?
Dogs eat grass, to make them vomit bile. Swine seek craw-fish, because
the eating of them cures the headache. The tortoise, when he has eaten
a viper, feeds on wild marjoram. They say, when a bear has surfeited
himself and his stomach grows nauseous, he licks up ants, and by
devouring them is cured. These creatures know such things neither by
experience nor by chance.
Whether, as wax draws the bee, and carcasses the vulture afar off by
the scent, do craw-fish so draw swine, wild marjoram the tortoise, and
ants the bear, by smells and effluvia accommodated to their nature,
they being prompted altogether by sense, without any assistance from
reason? Or do not the temperaments of the body create appetites in
animals, while diseases create these, producing divers acrimonies,
sweetnesses, and other unusual and absurd qualities, the humors being
altered; as is plain in women with child, who eat stones and earth?
Therefore skilful physicians take their prognostic of recovery or
death from the appetites of the sick. For Mnesitheus the physician
says that, in the beginning of a disease of the lungs, he that craves
onions recovers, and he that craves figs dies; because appetites follow
the temperament, and the temperament follows diseases. It is therefore
probable that beasts, if they fall not into mortal diseases, have such
a disposition and temper, that by following their temper they light on
their remedies.
XXVII.
WHY DOES MUST, IF THE VESSEL STAND IN THE COLD, CONTINUE LONG SWEET?
Is it because the changing of the sweet must into wine is concoction,
but cold hinders concoction, because this is caused by heat? Or, on the
contrary, is the proper taste of the grape sweet, and is it then said
to be ripe, when the sweetness is equally diffused all over it; but
does cold, not suffering the heat of the grape to exhale, and keeping
it in, conserve the sweetness of the grape? And this is the reason
that, in a rainy vintage, must ferments but little; for fermentation
proceeds from heat, which the cold does check.
XXVIII.
WHY, OF ALL WILD BEASTS, DOES NOT THE BOAR BITE THE TOIL, ALTHOUGH
BOTH WOLVES AND FOXES DO THIS?
Is it because his teeth stand so far within his head, that he cannot
well come at the thread? For his lips, by reason of their thickness
and largeness, meet close before. Or does he rather rely on his paws
and mouth, and with those rend the toil, and with this defend himself
against the hunters? His chief refuge is rolling and wallowing;
therefore, rather than stand gnawing the toil, he rolls often about,
and so clears himself, having no occasion for his teeth.
XXIX.
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT WE ADMIRE HOT WATERS (_i. e._ BATHS) AND NOT
COLD; SINCE IT IS PLAIN THAT COLD IS AS MUCH THE CAUSE OF ONE SORT AS
HEAT IS OF THE OTHER?
It is not (as some are of opinion) that heat is a quality, and cold
only a privation of that quality, and so that an entity is even less
a cause than a non-entity. But we do it because Nature has attributed
admiration to what is rare, and she puts men upon enquiry how any thing
comes to pass that seldom happens. As Euripides saith,
Behold the boundless Heaven on high,
Bearing the earth in his moist arms,—
what wonders he brings out by night, and what beauty he shows forth by
day!... The rainbow and the varied beauty of the clouds by day, and the
lights which burst forth by night....
XXX.
WHY ARE VINES WHICH ARE RANK OF LEAVES, BUT OTHERWISE FRUITLESS,
SAID τραγᾶν?
Is it because very fat goats (τράγοι) are less able to
procreate, nay, scarce able to use coition, by reason of their fatness?
Seed is the superfluity of the aliment which is allotted to the body:
now, when either an animal or a plant is of a very strong constitution
and grows fat, it is a sign that all the nourishment is spent within,
and that there is little and base excrement, or none at all.
XXXI.
WHY DOES THE VINE IRRIGATED WITH WINE DIE, ESPECIALLY THE VERY WINE
MADE FROM ITS OWN GRAPES?
Is it as baldness happens to great wine-bibbers, the heat of the wine
evaporating the moisture? Or, as Empedocles saith, “the putrefied water
in the wood becomes wine beneath the bark,” ... thus, when the vine is
outwardly irrigated with wine, it is as fire to the vine, and destroys
the nutritive faculty. Or, because wine is obstructive, it gets into
the roots, stops the passages, and so hinders any moisture from coming
to the plant to make it grow and thrive. Or, it may seem contrary to
Nature that that should return into the vine which came out of it; for
whatsoever moisture comes from plants can neither nourish nor be again
a part of the plant.
XXXII.[147]
WHY DOTH THE PALM ALONE OF ALL TREES BEND UPWARD WHEN A WEIGHT IS
LAID THEREUPON?
Is it that the fiery and spiritual power which it hath, being once
provoked and (as it were) angered, putteth forth itself so much the
more, and mounteth upward? Or is it because the weight, forcing the
boughs suddenly, oppresseth and keepeth down the airy substance which
they have, and driveth all of it inward; but the same afterwards,
having resumed strength again, maketh head afresh, and more eagerly
withstandeth the weight? Or, lastly, is it that the softer and more
tender branches, not able to sustain the violence at first, so soon as
the burden resteth quiet, by little and little lift up themselves, and
make a show as if they rose up against it?
XXXIII.
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT PIT-WATER IS LESS NUTRITIVE THAN EITHER THAT
WHICH ARISETH OUT OF SPRINGS OR THAT WHICH FALLETH DOWN FROM HEAVEN?
Is it because it is more cold, and withal hath less air in it? Or
because it containeth much salt from the earth mingled therewith?—now
it is well known that salt above all other things causeth leanness. Or
because standing still, and not exercised with running and stirring, it
getteth a certain malignant quality, which is hurtful to both plants
and animals, and is the cause that it is neither well concocted nor
able to feed and nourish any thing? Hence it is that all dead waters
of pools are unwholesome, for that they cannot digest and despatch
those harmful qualities which they borrow of the evil property of the
air or of the earth.
XXXIV.
WHY IS THE WEST WIND HELD COMMONLY TO BE THE SWIFTEST ACCORDING TO
THIS VERSE OF HOMER:
Let us likewise bestir our feet,
As fast as Western winds do fleet.[148]
Is it not because this wind is wont to blow when the sky is very well
cleansed, and the air is exceeding clear and without all clouds?—for
the thickness and impurity of the air doth not a little impeach and
interrupt the course of the winds. Or is it rather because the sun,
striking through a cold wind with his beams, is the cause that it
passeth the faster away?—for whatsoever of cold is drawn in by the
force of the winds, when the same is overcome by heat, as it were
its enemy, we must think, is driven and set forward further and with
greater celerity.
XXXV.
WHY CANNOT BEES ABIDE SMOKE?
Whether is it because the passages of their viStal spirits are
exceeding strait, and, if it chance that smoke be gotten into them and
there kept in and intercepted, it is enough to stop the poor bees’
breath,—yea, and to strangle them quite? Or is not the acrimony and
bitterness (think you) of the smoke in cause?—for bees are delighted
with sweet things, and in very truth they have no other nourishment;
and therefore no marvel if they detest and abhor smoke, as a thing
for the bitterness most adverse and contrary unto them. Therefore
honey-masters, when they make a smoke for to drive away bees, are wont
to burn bitter herbs, as hemlock, centaury, &c.
XXXVI.
WHY WILL BEES SOONER STING THOSE WHO NEWLY BEFORE HAVE COMMITTED
WHOREDOM?
Is it not because it is a creature that wonderfully delighteth in
purity, cleanliness, and elegancy, and withal hath a marvellous quick
sense of smelling? Because therefore such unclean dealings between man
and woman are wont to leave behind much filthiness and impurity, the
bees both sooner find them out and also conceive the greater hatred
against them. Hereupon it is that in Theocritus the shepherd pleasantly
sendeth Venus away unto Anchises to be well stung with bees for her
adultery
Now to mount Ida, to Anchises go,
Where mighty oaks and cypresses do grow;
Where hives and trees with honey sweet abound,
And both with humming noise of bees resound.[149]
And Pindar saith: “Thou little creature, who honey-combs dost frame,
and with thy sting hast pricked false impure Rhoecus for his lewd
villanies.”
XXXVII.
WHY DO DOGS FOLLOW AFTER A STONE THAT IS THROWN AT THEM AND BITE
IT, LETTING THE MAN ALONE WHO FLUNG IT?
Is it because he can comprehend nothing by imagination nor call a
thing to mind, which are gifts and virtues proper to man alone; and
therefore, seeing he cannot discern the party that offered him injury,
he supposeth that to be his enemy which seemeth in his eye to threaten
him, and of it he goes about to be revenged? Or is it that he thinks
the stone, while it runs along the ground, to be some wild beast, and
according to his nature he intendeth to catch it first; but afterwards,
when he seeth himself deceived and put besides his reckoning, he
setteth upon the man? Or rather, doth he not hate the man and the stone
both alike, but pursueth that only which is next unto him?
XXXVIII.
WHY AT A CERTAIN TIME OF THE YEAR DO ALL SHE-WOLVES WHELP WITHIN
THE COMPASS OF TWELVE DAYS?
Antipater in his History of Animals affirms, that she-wolves exclude
forth their young ones about the time that mast trees shed their
blossoms, for upon the taste thereof their wombs open; but if there be
none of such blooms to be had, then their young die within the body and
never come to light. Moreover, he saith, those countries which bring
not forth oaks and mast are never troubled nor spoiled with wolves.
Some attribute all this to a tale that goes of Latona; who being with
child, and finding no abiding place of rest and safety by reason of
Juno for the space of twelve days, went to Delos, and, being transmuted
by Jupiter into a wolf, obtained at his hands that all wolves for ever
after might within that time be delivered of their young.
XXXIX.
HOW COMETH IT THAT WATER, SEEMING WHITE ALOFT, SHOWETH TO BE BLACK
IN THE BOTTOM?
Is it because depth is the mother of darkness, so that it doth dim
and mar the sunbeams before they can descend so low as it? As for the
uppermost superficies of the water, because it is immediately affected
by the sun, it must needs receive the white brightness of the light;
the which Empedocles verily approveth in these verses.
A river in the bottom seems
By shade of color black;
The like is seen in caves and holes,
By depth, where light they lack.
Or, since the bottom of the sea and of great rivers is often full of
mud, doth it by reflection of the sunbeams represent the like color
that the said mud hath? Or is it more probable that the water toward
the bottom is not pure and sincere, but corrupted with an earthy
quality,—as continually carrying with it somewhat of that by which it
runneth and wherewith it is stirred,—and the same settling once to the
bottom causeth it to be more troubled and less transparent?
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From Euripides, Frag. 897.
[2] Sophocles, Frag. 779.
[3] From Pindar.
[4] Odyss. XI. 219.
[5] See Aristoph. Knights, 437, 455; Thesm. 455; Acharn. 1109, 1124.
[6] Eurip. Phoeniss. 388 and 389.
[7] This translation is taken from Burges’s Greek Anthology, p. 470. It
is there signed J.H.M. (G.)
[8] Plato, Timaeus, p. 90 A.
[9] Euripides, Frag. 935.
[10] Eurip. Iph. Taur. 258.
[11] From the Niobe of Aeschylus, Frag. 153 and 154.
[12] Odyss. VI. 204.
[13] Il. XIV. 230; XXIV. 544; IX. 668; II. 625.
[14] II. XXI. 59.
[15] Eurip. Phoeniss. 388.
[16] Eurip. Phoeniss. 396.
[17] _Ibid._, 430 and 344.
[18] From the Phryxus of Euripides, Frag. 816.
[19] Odyss. XVI. 117.
[20] Euripides, Frag. 1071.
[21] Eurip. Phoeniss. 504 and 536.
[22] See Sophocles, Antig. 905-912.
[23] Odyss. XIII. 331.
[24] Il X 122.
[25] Soph. Antig. 742.
[26] Eurip. Phoeniss. 68.
[27] Il. VI. 227.
[28] Il. VIII. 272.
[29] Hesiod, Works and Days, 707.
[30] Odyss. VII. 107.
[31] Odyss. III. 1.
[32] See Thucydides, I. 118. V. 16.
[33] Θεοῦ θέλοντος, κἀν ἐπὶ ῥιπὸς πλέοις.
[34] Pindar, Isthm. I. 67.
[35] Odyss. II. 190.
[36] Il. XIV. 246.
[37] From Aratus.
[38] Elsewhere quoted in a long passage from the Sisyphus of Critias.
See Nauck, p. 598. (G.)
[39] Hesiod, Theogony, 134.
[40] According to Bentley, “Panchaean Jove.” See Diodorus, VI. Frag. 2;
and Bentley’s note to Callimachus, Frag. 86. (G.)
[41] Il. III. 179.
[42] We should probably here read “Pythagoras.” (G.)
[43] Il. XVII. 547.
[44] Eurip. Orestes, 255.
[45] From Menander.
[46] Odyss. XVI. 278.
[47] Odyss. IV. 242.
[48] Il. II. 554.
[49] It was said that all the people in the island Myconus were bald;
hence the proverb μία Μύκονος, all of a piece. (G.)
[50] Il. XII. 311.
[51] Odyss. VII. 170.
[52] Il. XX. 15.
[53] Il. XXIV. 100.
[54] Hesiod, Works and Days, 26.
[55] It seems absolutely necessary to read τρίτῃ for πρώτῃ here, to
make the description intelligible, and to avoid inconsistency. See
Becker’s Gallus, III, p. 209. (G.)
[56] From Eurip. Stheneboea, Frag. 666.
[57] Soph. Oed. Tyr. 4.
[58] Il. XI. 846.
[59] See Odyss. VI. 137, 218, 226.
[60] Eurip. Antiope, Frag. 183.
[61] Il. X. 544.
[62] Odyss. IX. 12.
[63] Soph. Oed. Colon. 510.
[64] Eurip. Andromeda, Frag. 131.
[65] Odyss. III. 247.
[66] Soph. Oed. Tyr. 385.
[67] The whole line, from some unknown tragic poet, is Κακῶν γὰρ ἄρχεις
τήνδε Μοῦσαν εἰσάγων. See Athenaeus, XIV. p. 616 C. (G.)
[68] Referring to the saying ἐν Καρὶ κινδυνεύειν, _experimentum facere
in corpore vili_. (G.)
[69] Il. XXIII. 620 and 634.
[70] Odyss. VIII. 206 and 246.
[71] Il. III. 375.
[72] Eurip. Phoeniss. 536.
[73] Odyss. XIV. 464.
[74] Odyss. XXI. 35.
[75] From Sappho, Frag. 68.
[76] Odyss. XX. 69.
[77] In the old translation, Question IX. is entirely omitted, and
Question X. is numbered IX. (G.)
[78] Il. XXIII. 190.
[79] From the Hypsipyle of Euripides, Frag. 754.
[80] Il. XVIII. 495.
[81] The Greek text here is badly mutilated. (G.)
[82] Il. I. 156.
[83] Il. XXIII. 886.
[84] Il. IX. 208.
[85] Il. XX. 467.
[86] Il. IX. 325.
[87] Hesiod, Theog. 116.
[88] Il. XI. 7.
[89] Odyss. VII. 115.
[90] Il. IX. 214.
[91] Il. XIV. 170.
[92] See Odyss. VI. 79 and 215.
[93] Il. XXII. 325-329.
[94] Odyss. IX. 373.
[95] Il. II. 409.
[96] Works and Days, 342.
[97] Il. VII. 324.
[98] Il. IX. 70 and 74.
[99] Odyss. VII. 138.
[100] For an account of the belief that Plato was the son of Apollo,
not of Aristo, and the vision of Apollo said to have appeared to
Aristo, see Diogenes Laertius, III. 1, 1. (G.)
[101] Il. XXIV. 258.
[102] Il. XXIII. 659.
[103] Works and Days, 595.
[104] Il. XI. 86.
[105] Odyss. X. 356.
[106] Odyss. XII. 329-332.
[107] Soph. Antigone, 456.
[108] Plutarch seems to give this meaning to the Homeric phrase ἐν
καρὸς αἴσῃ (Il. IX. 378) usually interpreted _at a hair’s worth_, or
_like unto death_ (as Aristarchus understood it, taking καρός for
κηρός). See the Scholia on the passage of the Iliad. (G.)
[109] Works and Days, 11.
[110] Il. XVIII. 356.
[111] Eurip. Orest. 271.
[112] Odyss. V. 306.
[113] Soph. Electra, 2.
[114] Il. III. 428.
[115] Hesiod, Works and Days, 763.
[116] Odyss. X. 72.
[117] Il. V. 335. It is evident from what follows that Plutarch
interprets μετάλμενος in this passage _having leaped to one side_. (G.)
[118] Il. V. 422.
[119] What follows, to the beginning of Question XIII., is omitted in
the old editions of this translation. (G.)
[120] See Il. III. 68, 88, 255, and 281.
[121] Il. III. 137.
[122] Il. IV. 13.
[123] Il. III. 308.
[124] Il. VII. 69.
[125] Il. III. 450.
[126] Il. III. 101.
[127] Il. III. 365.
[128] Odyss. X. 38.
[129] From Simonides.
[130] Pindar, Pyth. I. 25.
[131] Euripides, Frag. 975; Pindar, Olymp. I. 31; Il. XXIII. 503.
[132] Hesiod, Theog. 16.
[133] These verses are quoted by Tzetzes with three others as belonging
to Hesiod’s Heroic Genealogy. If they are genuine, they contain the
earliest reference to Hellen and his three sons. See Fragment XXXII. in
Göttling’s Hesiod. (G.)
[134] The fragments of Simonides may be found in Bergk, Poet. Lyr.
Gr. pp. 879, 880 (Nos. 29, 30, 31). They are too mutilated to be
translated. (G.)
[135] Odyss. XIX. 208.
[136] Soph. Oed. Tyr. 4.
[137] From Mimnermus.
[138] From the Chrysippus of Euripides, Frag. 837 and 838.
[139] Odyss. XII. 168.
[140] Il. VII. 98.
[141] Eurip. Hippol. 384.
[142] Il. XI. 547.
[143] Il. XIII. 284.
[144] Il. XV. 262; V. 185.
[145] Odyss. V. 322.
[146] Theognis, vs. 215.
[147] The Questions which follow (XXXII-XXXIX) are not found in the
Greek, but are restored from the Latin translation, said to have been
made in the 16th century from a Greek manuscript now lost. The version
here given is based upon that of Holland. (G.)
[148] Il. XIX. 415.
[149] Theoc. I. 105.
END OF VOL. III.
INDEX.
A.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” a proverb among the Greeks, iv. 229.
“Abstain from beans,” meaning of the aphorism, i. 29.
Achelous, a river in Aetolia, v. 504.
Acrotatus, apothegm of, i. 400.
Actaeon, a beautiful youth of Corinth, murdered, iv. 313-315.
Ada, queen of Caria, sends delicacies to Alexander, i. 199.
Adimantus, admiral of the Corinthian fleet at the battle of Salamis, iv. 362;
his courage vindicated, 364.
Adrastus, anecdote of, i. 288.
Advice to a new-married couple, ii. 486-507.
Aeacus, his two sons, v. 466.
Aemilius Censorinus, v. 475.
Aemilius of Sybaris, v. 464.
Aemilius Paulus, sayings of, i. 232; iv. 202.
Aeolus, king of Etruria, v. 467.
Aeschines, quoted, Prom., i. 40;
anecdote of, 55;
Eumen., 59;
Frag., 163;
Prom., 299;
Ctesiphon, 334;
his early life, and concern in public affairs, v. 34;
incurs the hostility of Demosthenes, _ib._;
accused by Demosthenes and acquitted, 34, 35;
impeaches Ctesiphon, is fined and exiled, 35;
his school at Rhodes, _ib._;
his death, _ib._;
his orations, _ib._;
his public employments, 36.
Aeschylus, quoted, Septem, i. 210, 286, 315, 329, 493;
quoted, ii. 47;
anecdote of, 77, 160;
Frag., 48, 83, 127, 165, 374, 431, 458, 463, 474, 477;
quoted, iii. Frag., 24, 222;
quoted, iv. 20, 54, 385;
Frag., 276, 279;
quoted, v. Frag., 170;
Prom., 241, 320, 398.
Aesop, murdered by the citizens of Delphi, iv. 160;
their punishment, 161.
_See Esop._
Agamedes and Trophonius built the temple at Delphi, i. 313.
Agasicles, apothegms of, i. 385.
Agatharchides the Samian, his Persian History, v. 451.
Agatho the Samian, v. 474.
Agathocles, anecdote of, i. 46; ii. 317.
Aged Men, Shall they meddle in State Affairs?, v. 64-96.
Agesianax quoted, v. 235, 236.
Agesilaus, reply of, i. 73, 219, 220;
his sayings and great actions, 385-397;
his upright character, ii. 109, 115, 319, 455;
his punishment, iii. 46, 79;
anecdote of, v. 67;
his faults, 118; 457;
his Italian History, 468.
Agesipolis, two of the name, apothegms of, i. 397, 398.
Agis, king of Sparta, his sayings, i. 218, 221;
anecdote of, v. 95.
Agis, son of Archidamus, apothegm of, i. 398.
Agis the Argive, ii. 125.
Agis the Last, apothegm of, i. 400.
Agis the Younger, apothegms of, i. 400.
Ajax’s soul, her place in Hell, iii. 442.
Alba, king of, torn in pieces by horses, v. 455.
Albinus, a Roman general, v. 453.
Alcaeus quoted, ii. 298; iii. 264.
Alcamenes, apothegm of, i. 400.
Alcibiades, i. 143;
his sayings, 211;
his lustful conduct, 489;
the prince of flatterers, ii. 108, 471;
failure of, 460;
spoke with hesitation, v. 110, 112.
Alcippus, a Lacedaemonian, banished for his virtue; his wife slays
herself and her daughters, iv. 320-322.
Alcmaeon, saying of, i. 288;
philosophical opinions;
of the planets, iii. 140;
of hearing, 170;
of smelling, 170;
of taste, 170;
of the barrenness of mules, 182;
of embryos, 184;
of the formation of the body, 184;
of the cause of sleep, 188;
of health, sickness, and old age, 192.
Alcmaeonidae, unfairly represented by Herodotus, iv. 338, 347.
Alcman, quoted; Frag., i. 494; iii. 16; v. 279.
Aleuas the Thessalian, iii. 67.
Alexander of Macedon, and Porus, i. 45;
lament of, 140;
and Criso the runner, 152;
his sayings, 198-202;
the Fortune or Virtue of, 475-516;
anecdotes of, ii. 125, 138, 473;
his moderation, 475; iii. 29;
was he a great drinker, 219;
his purpose to attack the Romans, iv. 219; v. 140.
Alexander, tyrant of Pherae, his cruel temper softened by a play, i. 492.
Alexandridas, apothegm of, i. 401.
Alexarchus, his Italian History, v. 456.
Alexidemas, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Alexinus the sophist, i. 76.
Alexis quoted, ii. 58.
Alpha, why placed first in the Alphabet, iii. 438.
Alpheus, a river in Arcadia, v. 501.
Amasis, king of Egypt, required to drink the ocean dry, ii. 13;
questions of, 16.
Ammonius, teacher of Plutarch, anecdote of, ii. 147.
Amphiaraus, quoted, i. 317;
his lance turned into a laurel, v. 455.
Amphidamas, poets meet at his grave in Chalcis, ii. 19.
Amphion, first invented playing on the harp and lyric poesy, i. 105.
Anarcharsis, and Eumetis, ii. 8;
his utterances at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 12, 15, 20,
21, 27, 39.
Anatole, a mountain, v. 482.
Anaxagoras, saying of, i. 159;
said the sun was red-hot metal, 179;
anecdote of, 332; ii. 357; iii. 35, 37;
philosophical opinions;
Homoeomeries, 108;
of the origin of bodies, 119;
how bodies are mixed, 126;
of fortune, 131;
of the world’s inclination, 136;
of the stars, 138, 140;
of the sun, 142, 143;
of the moon, 145, 147;
of the milky way, 149;
of shooting stars, 150;
of thunder, lightning and hurricanes, 151;
of the rainbow, 153;
of earthquakes, 157;
of the sea, 158;
of the overflow of the Nile, 160;
of the voice, 172;
of generation, 178;
of the generation of animals, 186;
of reason in animals, 187;
of sleep, 190; v. 145, 255.
Anaxander, apothegm of, i. 401.
Anaxilas, apothegm of, i. 402.
Anaximander, philosophical opinions;
of principles, iii. 107;
the stars were heavenly deities, 121;
of the stars, 140;
of the essence and magnitude of the sun, 141, 142;
of eclipses of the sun, 144;
of the moon, 145;
of fire from clouds, 150;
of winds, 154;
of the earth, 155;
of the sea, 158;
of the generation of animals, 186.
Anaximenes, philosophical opinions;
air is the principle of all beings, iii. 107;
of heaven, 137;
of the stars, 139, 140;
cause of summer and winter, 141;
of the shape of the sun and summer and winter solstice, 143;
of the moon, 146;
of clouds, 151;
of the rainbow, 153;
of the earth, 155;
of earthquakes, 157; v. 313.
Ancients, suppers of the, iii. 255-259.
Andocides, one of the ten Attic orators, v. 21-23;
of a noble family, 21;
accused of impious acts, 22;
his adventures in Cyprus, 22, 23;
his exile, 23;
his orations, _ib._
Androclidas, apothegm of, i. 402.
Anecdotes of
Aeschylus, ii. 458.
Agathocles, i. 46.
Agesilaus, i. 73, 219, 220; v. 67, 118.
Agis, king of Sparta, v. 95.
Alcibiades, ii. 108, 109.
Alexander the Great, i. 45; ii. 473.
Ammonius, ii. 147.
Anaxagoras, i. 332.
Antigonus, i. 44, 47, 67, 202, 205, 334; iv. 231.
Antimachus, i. 307.
Antiochus Hierax, iii. 60.
Antipater, i. 64, 197, 205, 215.
Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 127.
Apelles the painter, i. 16, 153; ii. 122, 133.
Appius Claudius, v. 89.
Arcesilaus and Apelles, ii. 133.
Archelaus of Macedon, i. 67, 193.
Archidamus, i. 74.
Archimedes, ii. 174; v. 71.
Archytas of Tarentum, i. 18, 24.
Aristippus, i. 11, 55, 147, 459; ii. 55.
Athenian barber, iv. 238.
Attalus and Eumenes, iii. 61.
Augustus Caesar and Fulvius, iv. 235, 236.
Bocchoris, i. 63.
Brasidas, ii. 458.
Caesar, i. 293; iv. 204, 205; v. 67.
Cato, i. 295; ii. 490.
Cato and Catulus, i. 73.
Cleon, v. 100, 116.
Corinna, v. 404.
Crassus, i. 288, 290.
Croesus and Solon, ii. 122.
Demades and Phocion, ii. 298.
Demaratus and Philip, ii. 146.
Demetrius Phalereus, ii. 145; iii. 21.
Demosthenes, i. 15, 65, 334; ii. 460; v. 43-53.
Diogenes, i. 51, 67, 141, 142, 166, 283,
285, 311, 487; ii. 455, 458; iii, 21, 29.
Diogenes and Philip, ii. 147.
Diogenes and the mouse, ii. 453.
Dion, i. 64, 333.
Dionysius of Syracuse, i. 83, 152, 493; ii. 108, 140; iv. 238.
Epaminondas, v. 72, 95, 101, 120, 121, 125, 401.
Euclid, i. 55.
Eudoxus, ii. 174.
Eumenes, iii. 61; iv. 232.
Fulvius and Augustus, iv. 235, 236.
Hiero, i. 291.
Hyperides, v. 55, 56.
Isocrates, v. 31.
Leaena, iv. 229, 230.
Lucretia, i. 355.
Lycurgus, the lawgiver, i. 7.
Lycurgus, the orator, v. 39.
Lysander, i. 72; ii. 495.
Lysias, iv. 226.
Magas, i. 45.
Menander, v. 403.
Nasica, i. 285.
Nero, v. 123.
Nicias, the Athenian general, i. 177.
Nicias, the painter, ii. 173; v. 71.
Nicostratus and Archidamus, i. 74.
Olympias, ii. 494, 495.
Pericles, i. 15, 18, 66, 211, 332; ii. 309, 315; v. 67, 106.
Philip of Macedon, i. 305; ii. 146, 147, 494.
Phocion, ii. 298; v. 118.
Pindar, v. 404.
Pisistratus, iii. 41.
Plato, i. 71.
Plato and Socrates, ii. 148.
Polemon, i. 55.
Pompey, v. 70.
Postumia, i. 290.
Priest of Hercules, iii. 90.
Prometheus, i. 289.
Ptolemy Lagus, i. 45.
Pythagoras, ii. 174.
Roman Senator and his wife, iv. 233-235.
Scaurus, i. 295.
Scilurus, a Scythian king, iv. 244.
Seleucus Callinicus, iv. 237.
Seneca, i. 53.
Simonides, v. 68.
Socrates, i. 11, 13, 23, 26, 38, 53, 141, 150.
Socrates and Plato, ii. 148.
Solon, v. 89.
Solon and Croesus, ii. 122.
Sophocles, v. 68.
Stasicrates, i. 495.
Stilpo the philosopher, ii. 468.
Stratonicus, iii. 21.
Sylla, v. 72.
Terpander, i. 91, 92.
Themistocles, i. 73, 290, 296; iii. 21; v. 120.
Theramenes, i. 306.
Timotheus the musician, i. 92.
Valeria, i. 356.
Xanthippe, wife of Socrates, i. 53, 292.
Xenocrates, i. 71.
Xenophon, i. 333.
Xerxes and Ariamenes, iii. 59, 60.
Zeno, i. 72, 142, 283; ii. 455; iii. 25; iv. 225.
Anger, concerning the cure of, i. 33-59.
Animal Food, shall it be eaten? Of Eating of Flesh, v. 3-16.
Animals, generation of, iii. 186;
how many species of, 187;
appetites and pleasures of, 191;
ails and cures of, 510;
their intelligence, v. 157-217.
Anius, king of the Tuscans, v. 475.
Antalcidas, his sayings, i. 222, 402;
his reply to a railing Athenian, v. 125.
Anthes, the first author of hymns, i. 105.
Anthias, the sacred fish, v. 208.
Anthipphus, Lydian harmony first used by, i. 114.
Antichthon, the, iii. 155.
Antigonus, anecdote of, i. 25;
saying of, 44, 47, 67, 202, 205, 334,
484; iv. 231.
Antigonus the Second, his sayings, i. 205; ii. 319.
Antimachus, anecdote of, i. 308.
Antiochus and Charicles, iii. 49.
Antiochus and Seleucus, iii. 60.
Antiochus, apothegm of, i. 403.
Antiochus Hierax, anecdotes of, i. 206; iii. 60.
Antiochus Sidetes, anecdotes of, i. 207.
Antiochus the Spartan, his saying, i. 221.
Antiochus the Third, anecdotes of, i. 206.
Antipater, anecdotes of, i. 64, 197, 205, 215; ii. 135, 298; iii. 517; v. 49.
Antiperistasis of motion, v. 435.
Antiphanes, witty saying of his, ii. 456.
Antiphon, one of the ten Attic orators, ii. 142; v. 17-21;
his birth, education, &c., 17;
wrote speeches for others, _ib._;
a man of great talent and learning, 18;
concerned in the revolution which subverted the popular government, _ib._;
on the overthrow of the oligarchical party he was involved in their ruin, _ib._;
number of his orations, 19;
decree of the senate against him, 20;
his condemnation and punishment, 21;
opinion concerning the moon, iii. 146;
of the sea, 158.
Antisthenes quoted, i. 77, 289, 496; v. 125.
Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 127.
Apelles, the painter, anecdotes of, i. 16, 153;
his picture of Alexander, 494;
and Megabyzus, ii. 122;
and Arcesilaus, 133.
Aphareus, adopted son of Isocrates, wrote orations and tragedies, v. 32.
Apis, the sacred bull of the Egyptians, iv. 68;
slain by Ochus, king of Persia, 74, 92.
Apollo and the dragon Python, iv. 20.
Apollo, inventor of the flute and harp, i. 113.
Apollo, temple of, iv. 478-498;
the inscription ει over its gate, 479.
Apollodorus, first invented the mixing of colors and the softening of
shadows, v. 400.
Apollonides, of shadow, v. 265;
of spots in the moon, 269.
Apollonis of Cyzicum, iii. 41.
Apollonius, consolation to, i. 299-339.
Apollonius, the Peripatetic, iii. 57.
Apothegms of Kings and Great Commanders, i. 185-250.
Agathocles, sayings of, i. 193.
Agesilaus, 219.
Agis, 218-221.
Alcibiades, 211.
Alexander the Great, 198-202.
Antalcidas, 222.
Antigonus, 202.
Antigonus the Second, 205.
Antiochus Sidetes, 207.
Antiochus the Spartan, 221.
Antiochus the Third, 206.
Antipater, 205.
Archelaus, 193.
Archidamus, 218.
Aristides, 210.
Artaxerxes Longimanus, 187.
Artaxerxes Mnemon, 188.
Ateas, 189.
Augustus Caesar, 248-250.
Brasidas, 218.
Caecilius Metellus, 239.
Caius Fabricius, 227.
Caius Marius, 239.
Caius Popilius, 240.
Cato the Elder, 233-235.
Chabrias, 213.
Charillus, 217.
Cicero, 244.
Cneus Domitius, 231.
Cneus Pompeius, 241-244.
Cotys, 189.
Cyrus the Elder, 186.
Cyrus the Younger, 188.
Darius, 186.
Demetrius, 204.
Demetrius Phalereus, 217.
Dion, 193.
Dionysius the Elder, 191.
Dionysius the Younger, 192.
Epaminondas, 222-226.
Eudaemonidas, 221.
Eumenes of Pergamus, 206.
Fabius Maximus, 227-228.
Gelo, 190.
Hegesippus, 213.
Hiero, 190.
Idathyrsus, 189.
Iphicrates, 212.
Lucullus, 241.
Lycurgus, 217.
Lysander, 219.
Lysimachus, 205.
Manius Curius, 226.
Memnon, 189.
Nicostratus, 221.
Orontes, 188.
Parysatis, 188.
Paulus Aemilius, 232.
Pelopidas, 225.
Pericles, 211.
Philip of Macedon, 194-198.
Phocion, 213, 216.
Pisistratus, 216.
Poltys, 189.
Ptolemy Lagus, 202.
Pyrrhus the Epirot, 207.
Pytheas, 213.
Scilurus, 190.
Scipio Junior, 235-239.
Scipio the Elder, 229.
Semiramis, 187.
Teres, 189.
Themistocles, 208.
Theopompus, 217.
Timotheus, 212.
Titus Quinctius, 230.
Xerxes, 187.
Appius Claudius, anecdote of, v. 89.
Apple tree, of the, iii. 333.
Arar, a river in Gaul, v. 484.
Aratus, quoted, iii. 116;
of the stars, 141;
quoted, 334, 497; iv. 98; v. 112;
quoted, 177.
Araxes, a river in Armenia, v. 506.
Arcadian prophet in Herodotus, iii. 38.
Arcadio the Archaean, saying of, i. 44.
Arcesilaus, i. 53, 148;
quoted, 258, 315;
and Battus, ii. 115;
his kindness to Apelles, 133; v. 371.
Archelaus, king of Macedon, anecdote of, i. 67, 193.
Archelaus, his opinions concerning principles, iii. 109.
Archias, ii. 379 _et seq._; iv. 314, 315.
Archidamidas, apothegms of, i. 404.
Archidamus, i. 4, 74, 218, 404; ii. 379 _et seq._
Archilochus the poet, banished from Sparta, i. 96;
quoted, 97;
his improvements in music, 122, 123, 177;
phrase of, ii. 17, 61, 84; iii. 26; v. 108, 216, 320.
Archimedes, of the sun’s diameter, v. 71;
anecdote of, ii. 173, 174.
Archytas of Tarentum, anecdotes of, i. 18, 24.
Ardalus, a minstrel at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 11, 12.
Aregeus, apothegm of, i. 403.
Aretades Cnidus, his Macedonian History, v. 458;
his Second Book of Islands, 467.
Aretaphila, her fortitude and virtue, i. 367.
Argive women, their repulse of the Spartan army, i. 346.
Argives, wrestling matches of, i. 121;
imposed a fine for playing with more than seven strings, 130;
combat of the, with the Lacedaemonians, v. 452.
Ariamenes yields the throne of Persia to his younger brother Xerxes, iii. 59.
Arion and the dolphins, ii. 33-36.
Aristarchus, iii. 36;
concerning the eclipse of the sun, 144; v. 246.
Aristides, his Persian History, v. 453.
Aristides, his sayings, i. 210.
Aristides Milesius, his Italian History, v. 451, 452, 453, 458, 459,
460, 462, 463, 465, 466, 469, 473, 474, 475, 476;
Italian Commentaries, 461;
quoted, 462.
Aristippus, anecdotes of, i. 11, 55, 79, 147; ii. 295, 459.
Aristo of Chios, ii. 369.
Aristobolus, his Third Book of Italian History, v. 470.
Aristocles, Third Book of his Italian History, v. 466, 476.
Aristoclia, a beautiful maiden, iv. 312, 313.
Aristodemus, his Third Collection of Fables, v. 472.
Aristodemus, king of Messenia, i. 177.
Aristodemus the Epicurean, ii. 158, 159, 180.
Aristomenes, preceptor of Ptolemy, ii. 149.
Ariston, apothegm of, i. 403; iii. 18;
his opinion of moral virtue, 462; v. 111.
Aristonicus the musician, i. 494.
Aristonymus, a woman hater, v. 468.
Aristophanes, his comedy of “The Clouds,” i. 23;
quoted, 79, 125, 500;
quoted, ii. 78, 149, 429;
his coarseness and buffoonery, iii. 11;
compared with Menander, 11-14;
quoted, iv. 196, 273;
quoted, v. 42, 405.
Aristotinus, tyranny of, i. 357-363; v. 172.
Aristotle, quoted, i. 37; 50;
on harmony, 119; 155, 272, 326;
the teacher of Alexander, 478, ii. 302, 319;
letter of, 455;
his philosophical opinions; of nature, 105;
of principles and elements, 106;
of God, 121;
of matter, 123;
of ideas, 123;
of causes, 124;
of a vacuum, 127;
of motion, 128;
of fortune, 131;
of the world, 133, 134, 135;
of vacuum, 137;
of the world, 137;
of heaven, 137;
of the stars, 140;
of the sun, 142;
of the summer and winter solstices, 143;
of the moon, 146;
of the milky way, 148, 149;
of comets, 149;
of thunder and lightning, 151;
of earthquakes, 157;
of tides, 159;
of the motion of the soul, 164;
of the senses, 166;
of the voice, 172;
of generative seed, 177;
of the sperm, 177;
of emission of women, 177;
of conception, 178;
of generation, 179;
of the first form in the womb, 184;
of seven months’ children, 185;
of the species of animals, 187;
of sleep, 189;
of plants, 190;
quoted, 225, 226;
opinions concerning the soul, 465;
opinion concerning a plurality of worlds, iv. 33;
concerning prophetic inspiration, 54; v. 189, 253, 262, 313, 316, 355;
quoted, 439;
the Second Book of Paradoxes, 468.
Aristoxenus, of music, i. 114, 115, 125, 134.
Arsinoe, Queen, i. 319.
Artaxerxes Longimanus, his sayings, i. 187.
Artaxerxes Mnemon, his sayings, i. 188.
Aruntius and Medullina, v. 463.
Asclepiades, opinions: of the soul, iii. 161;
of respiration, 174;
of two or three children at one birth, 180;
animals in the womb, 188;
of health, sickness, and old age, 193.
Aster the archer, v. 456.
Astycratidas, apothegm of, i. 405.
Ateas, saying of, i. 189; ii. 177.
Atepomarus, king of the Gauls, v. 469.
Atheism and superstition compared, i. 168 _et seq._
Athenian citizens, their number, v. 42;
their temper and disposition, 100.
Athenians, whether they were more renowned for their warlike
achievements, or for their learning, v. 399-411.
Athenodorus, memorable action of, iii. 50.
Athens, was a democracy, v. 397;
the nurse of history, of painting, and poetry, 400, 401;
not renowned for epic or lyric verse, 404.
Atoms, doctrine of, v. 345-348.
Atreus and Thyestes, v. 470, 471.
Attalus and Eumenes, their kindness and fidelity to each other, iii. 61, 62.
Attica, invasion of, by Datis, v. 450, 451.
Augustus Caesar, his sayings, i. 248-250;
the favored son of Fortune, iv. 205; v. 67.
Augustus Caesar and Fulvius, anecdote of, iv. 235, 236.
Autobulus, v. 156 _et seq._
Autumn, dreams in, iii. 432.
B.
Baccho, iv. 256, 264, 269.
Bacchus, ii. 12, 29.
Ballenaeus, mount, v. 492.
Banishment, or flying one’s country, iii. 15-35.
Banquet of the Seven Wise Men; Solon, Bias, Thales, Anacharsis,
Cleobulus, Pittacus, Chilo, ii. 3-41.
Barley, sow, in dust, iii. 505.
Barrenness in women, iii. 181.
Barrenness of mules, iii. 182.
Bashfulness, i. 60-77.
Basilocles, iii. 69, 70.
Baths, hot and cold, iii. 512.
Battus, ii. 115.
Bear, cunning of the, v. 185.
Bears, flesh of, iii. 509.
Beasts, flesh of sacrificial, iii. 361.
Bees, cannot abide smoke, iii. 515;
stinging of, 516.
Bellerophon, fable of, i. 351.
Berecyntus, mount, v. 490.
Berosus concerning the eclipse of the moon, iii. 146.
Bewitching, power of, iii. 327.
Bias, quoted, i. 17, 406;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 4, 14, 128.
Bion, saying of, i. 76;
his opinion concerning the punishment of children for the sins of
their fathers, iv. 171;
saying of, v. 170.
Bird or the egg, which was first, iii. 242-246.
Birds, prophetic nature of, v. 193.
Birth, two or three at one, iii. 180.
Birthdays of famous men, iii. 400.
Biton and Cleobis, their filial piety, i. 313.
Boar and the toil, iii. 512.
Bocchoris, anecdote of, i. 63.
Bodies, of, iii. 124;
division of, 126;
how mixed with one another, 126.
Body, passions of the, iii. 175;
what part is first formed, 184;
diseases of the, iv. 504-508.
Boedromion, month of, iii. 444.
Boethus, his opinion concerning comets, iii. 150.
Book of Rivers, v. 455.
Brasidas, apothegm of, i. 218; ii. 458.
Brennus, king of the Gauls, v. 460.
Britain, longevity in, iii. 193.
Brixaba, mount, v. 494.
Brotherly love, iii. 36-68.
Brute animals, ails and cures of, iii. 510;
their intelligence; which are the more crafty, water or land
animals? v. 157-217.
Brute beasts make use of reason, v. 218-233.
Bucephalus, the horse, v. 183.
Bulimy, or the greedy disease, iii. 355.
Busiris, king of Egypt, strangers murdered by, v. 474.
C.
Caecilius Metellus, apothegm of, i. 239.
Caesar, Augustus, his sayings, i. 248-250;
anecdote of, iv. 205;
and Fulvius, 235, 236; v. 67, 132.
Caesar, C. Julius, his sayings, i. 246-248;
his magnanimity, 293;
his reliance on fortune, iv. 205.
Caesar, Tiberius, sayings of, i. 277; ii. 126; iii. 23.
Caicus, a river, v. 503.
Caius Fabricius, apothegm of, i. 227.
Caius Gracchus, i. 40; v. 99.
Caius Marius, apothegm of, i. 239.
Caius Maximus, and his two sons, v. 466.
Caius Popilius, apothegm of, i. 240.
Callicratidas, apothegms of, i. 412;
saying of, ii. 187.
Callimachus, saying of, i. 323; iii. 23, 118, 321.
Callisthenes, saying of, i. 37;
his Book of Transformations, v. 454;
Third Book of the Macedonics, 456;
Third Book of History of Thrace, v. 469.
Calpurnius Crassus, liberated from captivity, v. 465.
Calpurnius and Florentia, v. 467.
Calydon, mount, v. 505.
Camillus, anecdote of, iv. 204.
Camma, the Galatian, her revenge, i. 372.
Canus the piper, v. 71.
Caphene and Nymphaeus, i. 348.
Caphisias, ii. 379 _et seq._
Carneades, i. 160;
a striking observation of his, ii. 123.
Cassius, a Roman traitor, v. 457.
Castor and Pollux, iii. 48.
Cato and Catulus, anecdotes of, i. 73.
Cato, saying of, i. 61;
and Catulus, 73; 261;
his integrity, 295;
his sayings, ii. 42, 72, 76, 318; v. 10, 66, 67;
anecdotes of, 83, 112, 120, 123, 144, 155.
Cato the Elder, apothegms of, i. 233-235;
anecdote of, ii. 490.
Catoptrics, doctrine of the, v. 257.
Cattle, salt given to, iii. 497.
Catulus, v. 457.
Caucasus, mount, v. 483.
Caudine Forks, defeat of the Romans at the, v. 452, 453.
Causes, of, iii. 123.
Causes of sleep and death, iii. 188.
Celtic women, virtue of the, i. 347.
Cephisocrates, ii. 133.
Cephisophan, a rhetorician, i. 98.
Ceres, mistress of earthly things, v. 285, 286.
Chabrias, his sayings, i. 213.
Chaeremon quoted, Frag., ii. 475.
Chameleon, the, v. 202.
Chaplet of flowers at table, iii. 260-265.
Charicles and Antiochus, iii. 49.
Charillus, his sayings, i. 217, 432; ii. 97, 116.
Charon, the Theban, ii. 381.
Chasms in the earth closed by men leaping into them, v. 454.
Chersias at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Chian women, virtue of the, i. 344.
Children, training of, i. 3-32;
similitude to their parents, iii. 180;
similitude to strangers, 181.
Chilo, i. 280;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Chilon, saying of, i. 471.
Chiomara of Galatia, i. 374.
Chorus of the Aeantis, iii. 226-228.
Chorus of the Leontis, iii. 226.
Chromatic scale, in music, i. 117.
Chrysermus, his Peloponnesian History, v. 452;
Second Book of Histories, 457.
Chrysippus, ii. 87;
his opinion concerning fate, iii. 130;
of moral virtue, 462;
his doctrines refuted, 488; iv. 372 _et seq._, 428-477; v. 205;
his opinion concerning the cause of cold combated, 324;
First Book of Italian History, 468.
Cicero, apothegm of, i. 244; ii. 310; v. 96.
Cilician geese, v. 175.
Cinesias, the lyric poet, i. 180.
Cinna stoned to death, v. 469.
Cios, maids of, i. 354.
Circe, her supposed conversation with Ulysses, v. 218-219.
Cithaeron, mount, v. 479.
Cleanthes, his opinion concerning the stars, iii. 139, 140; v. 176, 420.
Cleobis and Biton, i. 313.
Cleobulus at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Cleodemus, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
first brought the cupping-glass into request, 20.
Cleodorus, the physician, ii. 16.
Cleombrotus, i. 413; iv. 3, 4, 26.
Cleomenes, v. 161.
Cleomenes, apothegms of, i. 346, 413, 416.
Cleon, anecdotes of, v. 100, 116.
Clisthenes, vindicated from the aspersions of Herodotus, iv. 343.
Clitonymus, his Italian History, v. 458;
Second Book of his Sybaritics, v. 464.
Clitophon, his First Book of Gallican History, v. 460.
Cloelia and Valeria, i. 356.
Clonas, a musical composer, i. 107, 109.
Clouds, eruption of fire out of the, iii. 150;
rain, hail, and snow, 151.
Cneus Domitius, apothegm of, i. 231.
Cneus Pompeius, apothegms of, i. 241-244.
Cocles, the Roman, v. 145.
Codrus, king of Athens, v. 462.
Coeranus and the dolphins, v. 215.
Cold, First Principle of, v. 309-330.
Color, does it exist in the dark, v. 344, 345.
Colors, of, iii. 125.
Colotes, the Epicurean, ii. 187;
book written by, v. 338;
misrepresents Democritus, 341;
his doctrines, 349;
misrepresents Plato, 355, 356;
falls at the feet of Epicurus, 360;
disparagement of Socrates, 361;
against Stilpo, 367;
assaults the Philosophers, 367;
condemns the opinion of Epicurus, 368;
Cyrenaic philosophers ridiculed, 369;
treats Arcesilaus unfairly, 371;
absurdity of Epicureanism, 373;
opinions of Epicurus, 374;
danger of his doctrines, 377, 378, 338-385.
Comets and shooting fires, iii. 149.
Comminius Super, a Laurentine, v. 472.
Common conceptions against the Stoics, iv. 372-427.
Comparison between the actions of the Greeks and Romans, v. 450-476.
Comparison betwixt Aristophanes and Menander, iii. 11-14.
Conception, how it is made, iii. 178.
Concerning Music, i. 102-135.
Concerning such whom God is slow to punish, iv. 140-188.
Concerning the fortune of the Romans, iv. 198-219.
Concerning the virtues of women, i. 340-384.
Conciseness of speech, recommended, iv. 243;
examples given, 243, 244.
Conjugal Precepts; Advice to a New-married Couple, ii. 486-507.
Consolation to Apollonius, i. 299-339.
Consolatory Letter from Plutarch to his Wife, Timoxena, on Occasion
of the Death of their Daughter, two years old, v. 386-394.
Contingent and possible defined, v. 299.
Contradictions of the Stoics, iv. 428-477.
Cora and Proserpine, v. 285.
Corinna, anecdote of, v. 404.
Corinthian Hall at Delphi, iii. 80-82.
Cornelius Scipio, consul, v. 96, 112, 114, 136.
Cotys, his sayings, i. 189.
Crabs charmed by fifes, v. 163.
Cranes, flight of, v. 175, 203.
Crantor, quoted, i. 300, 304, 324, 326;
his opinion of the soul, ii. 327, 328, 345, 349, 360.
Crassus, anecdotes of, i. 288, 290; v. 125.
Crassus Calpurnius, v. 465.
Crassus’s mullet, v. 196.
Crates, i. 141;
saying of, 495; ii. 145, 321;
opinion of the stars, iii. 140; v. 419, 423.
Cratinus the comic poet, v. 410.
Crato, iii. 198.
Creon’s daughter, i. 472.
Cretinus, the Magnesian, v. 121.
Criticism on passages in Homer, ii. 69-72, 74-84, 89, 90, 91.
Criticism on Sophocles, ii. 72.
Critolaus, his History of the Epirots, v. 455;
Fourth Book of Celestial Appearances, 457.
Crocodile, story of a, v. 196, 206, 210.
Croesus, ii. 122; iii. 85; iv. 339.
Cronium, mount, v. 501.
Ctesiphon, his Third Book of the Boeotian History, v. 458.
Ctesiphon the Pancratiast, i. 42.
Curatii and Horatii, v. 461.
Cure of anger, i. 33-59.
Curiosity, of, ii. 424-445;
mischiefs of vain, iv. 236.
Cuttle-fish, sign of a storm, iii. 505;
wariness of the, v. 200.
Cyanippus, a Syracusan, v. 462.
Cyanippus, a Thessalian, v. 463.
Cyclades islands, iii. 24.
Cycloborus, a brook near Athens, v. 110.
Cynaegirus, an Athenian commander, story of, v. 450.
Cyprus, female parasites of, called Steps, ii. 103.
Cyrus the Elder, his sayings, i. 186; ii. 319;
enlarges the Persian empire, iv. 85.
Cyrus the Younger, his sayings, i. 188.
D.
Daemon of Socrates, Discourse concerning the, ii. 378-423.
Daemons, their nature, attributes, and actions, iv. 14 _et seq._;
some of them are malignant and cruel, 19;
they are mortal, 15, 23, 24;
vainglorious, 28;
have the care of oracles, 21, 27;
sometimes have quarrels and combats with one another, 27;
our souls are by nature endued with similar powers, 50 _et seq._;
in the Moon, v. 289;
will of the, 304;
providence of the, 307, 308.
Damindas, apothegm of, i. 407.
Damis, apothegm of, i. 406.
Damonidas, apothegm of, i. 406.
Darius, his sayings, i. 186, 502; v. 458.
Darkness, whether visible, iii. 169.
Datis, a Persian commander, his invasion of Attica, v. 450.
Daughters who had carnal knowledge of their fathers, v. 464.
Death appertains to soul or body, iii. 189.
Death a reward for distinguished piety; illustrated by the cases of
Biton and Cleobis, of Agamedes and Trophonius, of Pindar and Euthynous, i. 313, 314.
Death of fire is the generation of air, v. 316.
Death the brother of sleep, i. 311.
Debates at entertainments, iii. 394.
Debt, Evils of. Against running in Debt, or Taking up Money upon Usury, v. 412-424.
Debt of nature, i. 309.
Decius of Rome, v. 462.
Decrees proposed to the Athenians, v. 58.
Deity, knowledge of a, whence derived, iii. 115.
Delay of Providence in Punishing the Wicked. De sera Numinis Vindicta, iv. 140-188.
Delight in hearing the passions of men represented, iii. 314.
Delphi, a walk in, iii. 69;
the statues there, 70;
atmosphere of, 72;
ancient oracles of, 73;
Corinthian Hall at, 80-82;
statue of Phryne, 83.
Delphic Oracle, inscription on the, Know thyself, and Nothing too much, i. 328.
Demades and Phocion, anecdotes of, ii. 298; v. 108, 141.
Demaratus and Philip, anecdote of, ii. 146.
Demaratus, apothegm of, i. 407, 482;
his Second Book of Arcadian History, v. 461.
Demetrius Phalereus, his saying, i. 217;
anecdotes of, ii. 145; iii. 21; v. 145.
Demetrius, his sayings, i. 204.
Demetrius of Tarsus, comes to Delphi, iv. 3.
Demochares, a nephew of Demosthenes, procures a statue to be set up for his uncle, v. 58-60;
a decree for a statue for himself, 60, 61.
Democracy and Oligarchy, v. 395-398.
Democrates, saying of, v. 109.
Democritus, saying of, i. 22, 263, 275; ii. 440; iii. 7;
his philosophical opinions, 121, 123, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 133, 135, 139, 140, 142, 145, 149, 155,
156, 157, 160, 162, 163, 164, 166, 168, 169, 171, 176, 177, 179, 183, 187, 227;
his opinions misrepresented, v. 341;
his doctrine concerning atoms, 345, 346, 381.
Demodocus, i. 105.
Demonides, the cripple, ii. 51.
Demosthenes, the orator, anecdotes of, i. 15, 65;
quoted, 67, 286, 325;
anecdote of, 334, 481;
quoted, ii. 145, 300, 312, 313;
anecdote of, 460;
quoted, iv. 212;
quoted, v. 34, 35;
sketch of his life, 43-53;
his birth, education, and early years, 43;
calls his guardians to account, _ib._;
is chosen choregus, 44;
his methods to obtain excellence in speaking, _ib._;
opposes the designs of Philip, 45;
describes “action” as of supreme importance in oratory, _ib._;
his early failures as an orator, _ib._;
defends the Olynthians, 46;
is admired by Philip, though an enemy, _ib._;
his magnanimity, 47;
his conduct at Chaeronea, _ib._;
his patriotism, _ib._;
the oration for the Crown, _ib._;
accused of receiving a bribe, 48;
his exile, _ib._;
recalled, _ib._;
returns to the administration of public affairs, 49;
leaves Athens to avoid being delivered up to Antipater, _ib._;
his death, 50;
his family, _ib._;
honors paid to his memory, 51;
anecdotes of him, 49, 50-53;
his great temperance, 53;
his public services recounted in a decree, 58-60;
quoted, 69, 109, 110, 124, 138, 146,
409, 411, 447, 448.
Dercyllidas, apothegm of, i. 407.
Dercyllus, his First Book of Foundations, v. 461;
Third Book of Italian History, 474.
Destiny, or fate, iii. 130.
Deucalion [like Noah] sent forth a dove from the ark, and with like
purpose, v. 179.
Diagoras the Melian, iii. 118.
Diana Orthia, rites of, i. 98.
Dicaearchus, opinion concerning the soul, iii. 161;
of divination, 176; v. 93.
Dignity of places at table, iii. 210, 212.
Dinarchus, an Athenian orator, v. 57, 58;
becomes rich, 57;
his exile in Chalcis, 58;
restored, _ib._;
his orations, _ib._
Diocles, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
his philosophical opinions, iii. 179, 182, 185, 192.
Diogenes Laertius quoted, i. 77.
Diogenes, quoted, i. 4, 12;
anecdotes of, 51, 67, 141, 142, 166, 283, 285, 311, 487;
quoted, ii. 58, 155, 193; 455, 458, 465, 466;
story of the mouse, 453; iii. 21, 27, 29, 31;
his philosophical opinions, 132, 136, 138, 143, 148, 163, 183, 187,
189, 494; iv. 311; v. 8, 65.
Diogenes and Philip, ii. 147.
Diogenianus, iii. 71, 73, _et seq._
Diomedes, ii. 41;
liberated from captivity, v. 465.
Dion, example of, i. 64, 193, 333.
Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, does not relish the Lacedaemonian broth, i. 83;
his unreasonable anger, 152;
his sayings, 449, 484, 491;
his ungenerous behavior, 493;
parasites of, ii. 166; 314;
anecdote of, iv. 238.
Dionysius and Plato, ii. 108, 140.
Dionysius the Elder, his sayings, i. 191; v. 84.
Dionysius the Younger, his sayings, i. 192, 501.
Diophantus, saying of, i. 4.
Diorphus, mount, v. 507.
Discourse to an Unlearned Prince, iv. 323-330.
Diseases of the body, iv. 504-508.
Divination, of, iii. 176; iv. 59.
Dog, habit of biting of stones, iii. 516;
affection for his master, v. 180, 182, 184;
docility of the, 191.
Dolphin, sagacity of the, v. 200;
nature of the, 204;
story of a, 213;
its love of music, 214;
stories of affection of, 215, 216.
Dolphin and Arion, ii. 33-36;
and the lad of Jasus, v. 215.
Domitian is mentioned [which fixes the era of Plutarch], ii. 443.
Domitius, anecdote of, i. 288, 295; v. 125.
Dorian Mood of music, i. 109, 115.
Dorians pray for bad making of their hay, iii. 504.
Dorotheus, his First Book of Transformations, v. 466;
his Fourth Book of Italian History, v. 463.
Dositheus, his Third Book of Sicilian History, v. 463, 471, 472, 474;
Third Book of Lydian History, 469;
his Pelopidae, 471;
First Book of Italian History, 475.
Dream, a romantic, ii. 407-411.
Dreams and Omens, ii. 401, 402.
Dreams in Autumn, iii. 432.
Dreams, whence do they arise, iii. 176.
Drink either five or three, iii. 282-284.
Drink passeth through the lungs, iii. 363.
E.
Earth, its nature and magnitude, iii. 154;
figure of the, 155;
site and position of the, 155;
inclination of the, 155;
motion of the, 156;
zones of the, 156;
exhalations from the, iv. 53;
its form and its place, v. 247;
an instrument of time, 439.
Earthquakes, of, iii. 157.
Echo, what gives the, iii. 172.
Eclipse of the moon, iii. 146.
Eclipses of the sun, iii. 144.
Ecphantus, his opinion concerning the motion of the earth, iii. 156.
Egg or the bird, which was first, iii. 242-246.
Egypt, its Religion and Philosophy; of Isis and Osiris, or of the
Ancient Religion and Philosophy of Egypt, iv. 65-139.
Egyptian skeleton at feasts, ii. 7.
Egyptians in Ethiopia, iii. 20.
Ει at Apollo’s temple at Delphi, iv. 479-498.
Eleans, the, v. 426.
Elements, mixture of the, iii. 126.
Elephant, understanding of the, v. 178;
stories of, 178;
of King Porus, 183;
most beloved by the Gods, 187;
amour of the, 188;
chirurgery of the, 192.
Elephas, mount, v. 478.
Elysian fields in the moon, v. 289.
Elysius the Terinean, vision of, i. 314.
Embryo, how nourished, iii. 183;
is an animal, _ib._
Empedocles, i. 59;
saying of, 158, 469;
quoted, ii. 49, 195; 357;
quoted, iii. 34, 81;
his philosophical opinions, 112, 114, 125-129, 131, 132,
136-138, 143, 145, 147, 154, 158, 163, 165,
168-170, 173, 178-184, 188-191;
quoted, 209, 262, 293, 333, 497, 509, 518;
quoted, iv. 21, 52, 85, 87, 108, 273;
quoted, v. 169, 239, 246, 249, 252, 255, 318, 348, 350, 351;
misunderstood by Colotes, 351;
quoted, 381, 420, 421, 439.
Emprepes, apothegm of, i. 408.
Enemies, how a man may profit by his, i. 280-298.
Entertainment, late to an, iii. 417.
Envy and Hatred, ii. 95-99.
Epaminondas, his sayings, i. 222-226, 277;
his great actions, 225;
his consistency of character, ii. 109; 182, 185, 309, 313, 319,
381, 396, 399, 414; iii. 6; v. 72, 75, 95,
101, 121, 125;
his invasion of Laconia, 401, 407, 458.
Epaminondas, son of, beheaded, v. 458.
Ephorus, his opinion concerning the overflowing of the Nile, iii. 161.
Epicharmus, quoted, i. 315, 496; ii. 141; iv. 242.
Epicureans, misrepresentations of the, v. 352-354.
Epicurus, quoted, i. 138, 139, 159;
famous sentence of, ii. 92;
his doctrine; refutation of it; pleasure is not attainable, 157-203;
reverence of his brothers, iii. 57;
his philosophical opinions, 111, 122, 124, 127, 128,
131, 134, 135, 139, 142, 143, 151, 163, 164, 165, 169, 177, 183;
opinions of, v. 350, 374;
danger of his doctrines, 377, 378;
disciples of, 383, 385.
Epigenes, opinion concerning comets, iii. 150.
Epimenides, long sleep of, v. 66; 279.
Erasistratus, his opinion of the soul, iii. 163;
of superfetation, 180;
his definition of a fever, 192.
Eratosthenes, his philosophical opinions: of time, iii. 128;
of the sun, 147; v. 456.
Erectheus, sacrifice of his daughter, v. 463.
Eryxo of Cyrene, i. 378.
Esop, fable of, ii. 11, 12, 16, 19-22, 23;
dog of, 25;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 3-41; iii. 63, 202.
Eteocles the Theban, i. 257.
Euboea, king of, drawn in pieces by horses, v. 455.
Euboidas, apothegm of, i. 408.
Euclid, anecdote of, i. 55; ii. 173.
Euclides, his brotherly love, iii. 61.
Euctus and Eulaeus, ii. 146.
Eudaemonidas, his sayings, i. 221.
Eudamidas, apothegm of, i. 408.
Eudemus, of matter, ii. 334.
Eudorus, system of numbers, ii. 343, 345.
Eudoxus, anecdotes of, ii. 174;
his opinion of the cause of winter and summer, iii. 141;
of the overflow of the Nile, 161.
Euemerus, his opinion of God, iii. 118.
Eumenes of Pergamus, his sayings, i. 206;
anecdotes of, iii. 61, iv. 232.
Eumetis at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
her riddle, 20.
Euphorion quoted, iii. 321.
Euphranor, the painter, v. 400.
Euphrates, the river, v. 502.
Eupolis, saying of, ii. 112.
Euripides, quoted, i. 3, 158, 291, 300, 301, 302, 308, 320, 329, 330, 335, 458;
Hippol., 4, 14, 471;
Protesilaus, 23;
Dictys, 26, 58;
Bellerophon, 63, 141;
Frag., 287, 472;
Pirithous, 70;
Orestes, 37, 137, 140, 165, 170, 286;
Medea, 64, 71, 255;
Iph. Aul., 152, 302;
Bacchae, 163;
Troad, 170;
Phoeniss, 257, 303, 327;
Danae, 307;
Adrastus, 288;
Stheneboea, 301;
Ino, 303, 304;
Alcestis, 310;
Suppliants, 316;
Cresphontes, 316;
Erectheus, 500;
Hypsipyle, 317, 465; ii. 54, 56, 62, 87, 92, 121, 148, 150, 251, 300, 306, 357, 363, 391, 472;
Cresphontes, 93;
Hippol., 73, 108, 173, 198, 373, 374;
Frag., 86, 181, 318, 437, 501;
Orestes, 143, 443;
Medea, 66;
Iph. Aul., 49, 85;
Phoeniss, 51, 61, 66, 130, 151;
Ion, 102, 144;
Ino, 131;
Erectheus, 132;
Electra, 85;
Aeolus, 66, 85, 88, 175;
Herc. Furens, 151;
Hecuba, 197;
Iph. Taur., 447; iii. 27, 99, 116, 194;
Frag., 3, 19, 33, 41, 42, 94,
230, 458, 475, 512;
Hippol., 483;
Orestes, 168, 437;
Phoeniss, 16, 32, 43, 49, 257;
Stheneboea, 217;
Iph. Taur., 21;
Androm., 232;
Hipsipyle, 291, iv. 17, 128, 142, 270, 308,
450, 478, 497;
Frag., 47, 220, 233, 251, 272, 273,
292, 301, 325, 392, 461, 475;
Bacchae, 223, 272, 422, 506;
Hippol., 294, 298;
Cyclops, 56;
Aeolus, 105;
Troad, 132;
Orestes, 141, 507;
Ino, 158, 231;
Alcestis, 197;
Danae, 274, 283;
Stheneboea, 288;
Androm., 401;
Herc. Furens, 459, 467; v. 126, 128, 157, 172;
Frag., 15, 79, 105, 108, 118, 345;
Aeolus, 71;
Hippol., 158;
Iph. Taur., 374;
Orestes, 77, 380;
Troad, 440;
Erectheus, 463;
Meleager, 466.
Eurotas, a river in Laconia, v. 497.
Eurycratidas, apothegm of, i. 410.
Eurydice of Hierapolis, her epigram, i. 32.
Euthrymenes, his opinion of the overflow of the Nile, iii. 160.
Euthynous and Pindar, i. 313.
Eutropion, anecdote of, i. 25.
Evenus quoted, ii. 102, 192.
Evenus, son of Mars, v. 475.
Exercises, different kinds of, iii. 248-250.
Exile, consolations of, iii. 15-35.
Eyes, images of the, iii. 169.
F.
Fabius Maximus, his sayings, i. 227, 228;
in the Punic war, v. 453.
Fable of Minerva, i. 41.
Fable of the defeat of Neptune, iii. 444.
Fable of the Fox and Leopard, ii. 21.
Fable of the Lydian Mule, ii. 11.
Fabricianus, v. 474.
Fabricius, iv. 201.
Face appearing in the moon, v. 234-292.
Fasting creates more thirst than hunger, iii. 339.
Fate, or destiny, iii. 130;
nature of, 130; v. 293-308.
Faunus, king of Italy, strangers murdered by, v. 474.
Fever, cause of a, iii. 192.
Fig-trees, of, iii. 250, 335.
Figures, of, iii. 125.
Filial treachery in Persian and Roman history, v. 458.
Fire or water, which is more useful, v. 331-337.
Firmus and Nuceria, v. 471.
Fish called the fisherman, v. 201.
Fish, eating of, iii. 422.
Fisherman’s nets, rotting of, iii. 503.
Fishes, of; the labrax, mullet, scate, anthias, dolphin, cuttle-fish,
star-fish, torpedo, the fisherman, tunny, amiae, pionetras,
sponge, porphyrae, hegemon, whale, pinoterus, gilthead,
phycides, galeus, tortoise, v. 195, 209.
Fittest time for a man to know his wife, iii. 274-279.
Fives, we reckon by, iv. 43-47.
Five tragical histories of Love, iv. 312-322.
Flattery: How to know a Flatterer from a Friend, ii. 100-156.
Flattery fatal to whole kingdoms, ii. 118.
Flesh exposed to the moon, iii. 284-287.
Flute girls, whether they are to be admitted to a feast, iii. 387.
Folly of Seeking Many Friends, i. 464-474.
Food, digesting of, iii. 289-295.
Fortune, of, ii. 475-481; iii. 131;
is a cause by accident, v. 302;
not the same as chance, 303;
relates to men only, 303.
Fortune of the Romans, iv. 198-219.
Fox, cunning of the, v. 179.
Fresh water washes clothes better than salt, iii. 224-226.
Friends, folly of seeking many, i. 464-474.
Frogs, croaking of, v. 210.
Frost makes hunting difficult, iii. 510.
Fruit, salt not found in, iii. 498.
Fulvius and Augustus, anecdotes of, iv. 235, 236.
Fulvius Stellus, v. 468.
Fundanus, i. 34, 35.
G.
Galaxy, or milky way, iii. 148.
Galeus, affection of, for their young, v. 209.
Ganges, the river, v. 481.
Garlands at sacred games, iii. 411.
Garrulity, or Talkativeness, iv. 220-253.
Gauran, mount, v. 508.
Gelo, his saying, i. 190.
Generation and corruption, iii. 128.
Generation of males and females, iii. 178;
of animals, 186;
of the Gods, 400.
Generative seed, iii. 177.
Geniuses and heroes, opinions concerning, iii. 122.
Germanicus, ii. 96.
Gnatho the Sicilian, iii. 3.
Gobryas, a Persian noble, ii. 104.
God always plays the Geometer, saying attributed to Plato, iii. 402.
God bade Socrates act the midwife’s part, v. 425.
God, Father and Maker of all things, v. 428.
God, what is, iii. 118.
Gods, generation of the, iii. 400.
Gorgias, i. 340;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41; 44, 134; ii. 502; v. 405.
Government. Of the Three Sorts of Government, Monarchy, Democracy,
and Oligarchy, v. 395-398.
Gracchus, Caius, example of, i. 40.
Greek music, principles of, i. 102, 103.
Greek Questions, ii. 265-293.
Groom, saying of the king’s, i. 21.
Gryllus, v. 218 _et seq._
Guests, should the entertainer seat the, iii. 203-210;
to a wedding supper, 300;
that are called shadows, iii. 381.
Gylippus, his dishonesty, i. 23.
H.
Habits of animals, v. 173-177.
Halcyon, of the, v. 211.
Halo, of the, iii. 160.
Hannibal and Fabius, i. 228.
Hares, cunning of the, v. 185.
Harp, an invention of Apollo, i. 113.
Hart, tears of the, iii. 507.
Health, preservation of, i. 251-279.
Health, sickness, and old age, iii. 192.
Hearing, of, i. 441-463; iii. 170.
Heaven, its nature and essence, iii. 137;
division of, 137.
Hebrus, a river of Thrace, v. 480.
Hedgehog, ingenuity of the, v. 186.
Hedgehog of the sea, v. 203.
Hegemon, of the fish, v. 206.
Hegesippus, sayings of, &c., i. 213.
Hegesistratus, an Ephesian, v. 476.
Helicon the mathematician, i. 57.
Hephaestion, the friend of Alexander, i. 489, 505.
Heracleo, v. 194.
Heraclides, his compendium of music, i. 105; ii. 158;
his philosophical opinions, iii. 139, 149, 156, 159, 165.
Heraclides the wrestler, iii. 220.
Heraclitus, i. 44, 79, 276, 308, 448, 453; ii. 74, 165, 330, 358,
477; iii. 26, 74;
his philosophical opinions, 111, 125, 128, 130, 131,
143, 144, 145, 146, 162;
apothegm, v. 9;
quoted, 73, 169, 425.
Hercules and Iole, v. 459.
Hercules in Antisthenes, precept of, i. 77.
Hercules, ridiculous representation of, v. 70;
and King Faunus, 474.
Hercules the woman-hater, his temple in Phocis, iii. 90;
singular anecdote, _ib._
Hermes, iv. 74.
Hermias, v. 121.
Hermogenes, ii. 194.
Herodotus, quoted, i. 80, 441;
saying of, ii. 202, 489;
Arcadian prophet, iii. 38;
quoted, iv. 248, 335 _et seq._;
malice of, iv. 331-371; v. 397.
Herondas, apothegm of, i. 410.
Herons, artifices of the, v. 176.
Herophilus, opinion of, iii. 128, 163.
Hesianax, his Third Book of African History, v. 465.
Hesiod, quoted, Works and Days, i. 22, 65, 70, 138, 156, 178, 261, 296, 307, 325;
Works and Days, ii. 24;
spare diet recommended by, 27;
and the dolphin, 36, 37;
Works and Days, 63, 64, 65, 73, 87, 92,
302, 303, 449, 452, 480, 483;
Theogony, 102;
Works and Days, iii. 64, 210, 382, 416, 436, 438;
Theogony, 118, 324, 458; iv. 15;
Works and Days, 48, 49, 68, 87, 154, 173,
264, 385, 442, 457;
Theogony, 53;
Works and Days, v. 153, 168, 172, 279.
Hicetes, his opinion of the earth, iii. 154.
Hiero, his sayings, i. 190;
anecdote of, 291.
Hiero the Spartan, statue of, iii. 76.
Hiero the Tyrant, statue of, iii. 75.
Hieronymus, saying of, i. 38, 50, 462.
Himerius, an Athenian parasite, ii. 126.
Hippasus, opinions of, iii. 111.
Hippocrates, saying of, i. 40;
quoted, 261, 292; ii. 165, 185;
his magnanimity, ii. 466.
Hippocratidas, apothegm of, i. 412.
Hippodamus, apothegm of, i. 411.
Hippolytus, son of Theseus, v. 471, 472.
Hippomachus, ii. 294.
Hipponax, i. 108.
History of music, i. 104 _et seq._
History of wind instruments, i. 108.
Homer, passages in, criticised, ii. 69-72, 74-84, 89, 90.
Homer quoted: Iliad, i. 34, 38, 39, 51, 52, 55,
62, 104, 132, 133, 134, 138, 141, 151, 153, 154, 156,
161, 165, 178, 180, 181, 200, 236, 251, 292, 303, 305, 306,
310, 324, 325, 329, 330, 331, 385, 466, 469, 475, 486, 490,
507, 508, 510, 511; ii. 25, 32, 41, 44, 47, 48, 49, 52,
53, 55, 56, 59, 62, 63, 65,
67, 68, 74, 75, 77, 79, 81, 82, 84,
88, 89, 90, 91, 108, 114, 115,
120, 123, 131, 140, 142, 145, 150, 151,
152, 154, 185, 197, 198, 200, 237,
295, 305, 310, 311, 314, 317, 319,
413, 501, 505; iii. 25, 26, 47, 53, 54, 107, 120, 152, 206, 207,
221, 231, 248, 255, 285, 301, 313, 317, 321, 323, 325, 336, 354,
364, 381, 394, 401, 413, 418, 437, 442, 447, 448, 449, 450,
480, 486, 492, 493, 515; iv. 16, 65, 108, 111, 152, 191, 194,
195, 216, 237, 238, 280, 285, 291, 327, 329, 383, 386, 401, 405,
434, 462, 483, 490, 499, 504; v. 78, 79, 85, 88, 90, 92, 96,
104, 119, 122, 123, 134, 135, 138, 146, 147, 171, 182, 200,
208, 214, 266, 276, 281, 315, 339, 350, 371, 386, 394, 400,
418, 443, 444, 447;
Odyss. i. 52, 134, 138, 154, 236, 252,
305, 310, 318, 325, 452, 469; ii. 41, 43, 47, 48, 52, 53, 54,
56, 59, 63, 65, 67, 70, 71, 82, 83, 108, 110, 114, 115,
127, 149, 158, 159, 162, 184, 195, 304, 316, 317, 320, 371, 427,
463, 467, 478; iii. 10, 42, 45, 72, 81, 101, 196, 201, 207,
226, 232, 233, 249, 259, 280, 333, 359, 365, 395, 419, 425, 437,
438, 451, 466, 477, 499; iv. 5, 30, 86, 97, 191, 200, 219,
224, 226, 230, 231, 289, 307, 325, 401, 405; v. 3, 11, 105, 106, 143,
171, 184, 281, 285, 290, 315, 323, 403, 416, 422, 423,
446.
Horatii and Curatii, v. 460, 461.
Horatius Cocles, v. 456.
Horsehair for fishing lines, iii. 505.
Horses, called λυχοσπάδες, iii. 253.
Horus, son of Osiris, iv. 80, 114 _et seq._
Hounds that hunt hares, v. 184.
How a man may praise himself without being envied, ii. 306.
How a man may receive advantage and profit from his enemies, i. 280-298.
How animals are begotten, iii. 186.
How a young man ought to hear poems, ii. 42.
How plants grow, and whether they are animals, iii. 190.
How to know a flatterer, ii. 100-156.
Hunger, cause of, iii. 341;
allayed by drinking, 345.
Hurricanes, of, iii. 150.
Hyagnis, first that sung to the pipe, i. 107.
Hydaspes, a river in India, v. 477.
Hyperides, the Athenian orator, ii. 140; v. 53-57;
his part in public affairs, 53;
his friendship for Demosthenes, 54;
this friendship broken, _ib._;
demanded by Antipater, he escapes to Aegina, _ib._;
is apprehended, tortured, and put to death, 55;
an excellent orator, _ib._;
his amorous propensities, 55, 56;
his patriotism, 56;
sent as ambassador, 56, 57.
Hypsipyle, foster-child of, i, 465.
I.
Ibis, habits of, imitated by the Egyptians, v. 192.
Ibycus, the poet, iv. 240.
Ichneumon, of the, v. 174.
Ida, mount, v. 493.
Idathyrsus, his sayings, i. 189.
Ideas, of, iii. 123.
Images presented to our eyes in mirrors, iii. 169.
Imagination, imaginable and phantom, difference between, iii. 167.
Immortality of the soul, argument for it, iv. 169, 170.
Impotency in men, iii. 181.
Improbabilities of the Stoics, iii. 194-196.
Inachus, a river in Argolis, v. 498.
Incest, case of, v. 467.
Indus, the river, v. 508.
Infants, seven months’, iii. 184.
Inquisitiveness, or vain curiosity; of curiosity, or an over-busy
inquisitiveness into things impertinent, ii. 424-445.
Iole, the beloved of Hercules, v. 459.
Ion the tragedian, i. 322, 328; v. 186, 254.
Iphicrates, his saying, i. 80, 212; v. 105.
Iphigenia at Aulis, v. 459, 460.
Irascible faculty, v. 441.
Isaeus, an Athenian orator, v. 33;
considered by some equal to Lysias, _ib._;
the teacher of Demosthenes, _ib._;
number of his orations, _ib._
Isis and Osiris, iv. 66-139.
Ismenodora, iv. 256, 264, 269, 311.
Ismenus, a river of Boeotia, v. 478.
Isocrates, an Athenian orator, iii. 198; v. 27-33;
his parentage, birth, and education, 27;
composed orations for others, 28;
his school at Chios, _ib._;
his great success as a teacher of rhetoric, _ib._;
lived to a great age, 29;
his death and burial, 30;
number of his orations, 31;
his timidity, 27, 31;
his description of the use of rhetoric, 31;
the two suits against him, 32, 409;
his Panegyric, 410.
Isthmian games, iii. 318.
Ivy, nature of, iii. 265-268.
J.
Jason, saying of, v. 140.
Jewish religion, statements and conjectures respecting it, iii. 307-312.
Jews, their fatal inaction in war because it was their Sabbath day, i. 178.
Juba, his third Book of Lybian History, v. 465.
L.
Lacedaemonians, their laws and customs, i. 82-101;
their currency, 99;
influx of gold and silver, 100;
refuse to assist Philip and Alexander in their designs against Persia, 101;
lose all their ancient glory, 101;
combat with the Argives, v. 452.
Lachares, tyranny of, ii. 166.
Laconic answers, iv. 243.
Laconic Apothegms, of, i. 385-440.
Acrotatus, 400.
Agasicles, 385.
Agesilaus, 385-397.
Agesipolis, 397, 398.
Agis, son of Archidamus, 398.
Agis the Last, 400.
Agis the Younger, 400.
Alcamenes, the son of Teleclus, 400.
Alexandridas, 401.
Anaxander, 401.
Anaxilas, 402.
Androclidas, 402.
Antalcidas, 402.
Antiochus, 403.
Archidamidas, 403.
Archidamus, son of Agesilaus, 404.
Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, 404.
Aregeus, 403.
Ariston, 403.
Astycratidas, 405.
Bias, 406.
Callicratidas, 412.
Charillus, 432.
Cleombrotus, 413.
Cleomenes, son of Cleombrotus, 413, 416.
Damindas, 407.
Damis, 406.
Damonidas, 406.
Demaratus, 407.
Dercyllidas, 407.
Emprepes, 408.
Euboidas, 408.
Eudamidas, son of Archidamas, 408.
Eurycratidas, 410.
Herondas, 410.
Hippocratidas, 412.
Hippodamus, 411.
Leonidas, the son of Anaxandrias, 417.
Leo, the son of Eucratidas, 417.
Leotychides, 416.
Lycurgus the Lawgiver, 419-425.
Lysander, 425.
Namertes, 427.
Nicander, 427.
Paedaretus, 429.
Panthoidas, 427.
Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, 428.
Pausanias, son of Plistoanax, 428.
Phoebidas, 431.
Plistoanax, 430.
Polycratidas, 431.
Polydorus, 430.
Soos, 431.
Telecrus, 431.
Thectamenes, 411.
Themisteas, 410.
Theopompus, 410.
Thorycion, 411.
Zeuxidamus, 410.
Lacydes, King of the Argives, i. 290.
Lais, murder of, iv. 302.
Lampis, a sea commander, v. 73.
Lampsace, anecdote of, i. 366.
Lamps and tables of the ancients, iii. 372.
Land, food of the, iii. 302-306.
Lasus, his innovation upon ancient music, i. 123.
Leaena, anecdote of, iv. 229, 230.
Least things in nature, iii. 125.
Leo, apothegm of, i. 417.
Leo Byzantinus, saying of, i. 288;
and his wife, v. 110.
Leonidas, apothegm of, i. 417;
vindicated from the statements of Herodotus, iv. 354; v. 157;
at Thermopylae, 453.
Leotychides, apothegm of, i. 422.
Leprosy caused by dewy trees, iii. 500.
Leptis, custom in, ii. 499.
Leucippus, his opinions of the world, iii. 135;
of the earth, 155;
of the senses, 165.
Light and darkness, of, v. 325.
Lightning, of, iii. 150.
Light, of reflected, iii. 168, 169; v. 236 _et seq._
Lilaeus, mount, v. 508, 509.
Linus, elegies of, i. 105.
Lions, of, v. 187.
Liquids, of, iii. 359.
Live concealed, whether’t were rightly said, iii. 3-10.
Lives of the ten Attic orators, v. 17-63.
Love: Five tragical histories of, iv. 312-322.
Love, of, iv. 254-311;
makes a man a poet, iii. 217-219.
Love of wealth, ii. 294-305.
Lucretia, the Roman matron, i. 355.
Lucullus, apothegm of, i. 241;
quoted, iii. 51; v. 84.
Lugdunum, mount, v. 485.
Lyaeus and choraeus, i. 54.
Lybian crows, v. 175.
Lycastus and Parasius, v. 473.
Lycian women, virtue of the, i. 351.
Lycormas, a river in Aetolia, v. 487.
Lycurgus, an Athenian orator, v. 36-42;
treasurer of the commonwealth, 36;
his great public services, 37;
his fidelity in office and great reputation, 37;
his justice and integrity, 37, 38;
useful laws procured by his influence, 38;
his diligence in the study and practice of oratory, 39;
his incorruptible honesty, 40;
his death, _ib._;
honors paid to his memory, _ib._;
his family, 40, 41;
his orations and success as an orator, 41;
his benevolence, 42;
a decree for honors to be paid to his memory, 61-63.
Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, anecdote of, i. 7;
his institutions, 82 _et seq._;
their final overthrow, 101, 217, 419-425;
his sayings, ii. 22; v. 12, 92.
Lydian mood of music, i. 109, 114.
Lyric nomes, i. 106.
Lysander, i. 72;
his great victory over the Athenians, 99;
introduces gold and silver into Lacedaemon, 100;
the results, _ib._;
his sayings, 219, 425;
saying of, ii. 149;
anecdote of, 495; iii. 100; v. 92.
Lysias, the Athenian orator, his remarks on music, i. 104;
anecdote of, iv. 226; v. 24-26;
his birth, early residence in Athens, residence in Thurii, and return to Athens, 24;
banished by the Thirty Tyrants, 25;
return after their overthrow, _ib._;
death, _ib._;
number of his orations, _ib._;
his other works, 26;
his eloquence, _ib._; v. 33.
Lysimache, the priestess, i. 73.
Lysimachus, his sayings, i. 205, 259.
Lysippus, his statue of Alexander, i. 494.
M.
Madness of animals, v. 167.
Maeander, a river in Asia, v. 488.
Magas, anecdote of, i. 45.
Magpie, story of a, v. 189.
Maimactes, king of the gods, i. 45.
Man, perfection of a, iii. 189;
most unhappy of all creatures, iv. 504;
compounded of three parts, v. 286.
Maneros, the foster-son of Isis, iv. 79.
Manius Curius, apothegm of, i. 226.
Manlius, son of, beheaded, v. 458.
Man’s progress in virtue, ii. 446-474.
Mantinea, battle of, v. 401.
Marius, sacrifice of his daughter, v. 463.
Mars, some bad actions of his, v. 466, 467.
Marsyas, a river in Phrygia, v. 490.
Marsyas, the musician, i. 41, 108.
Massinissa, his vigorous old age, v. 83.
Mathematics, applied to Music, i. 118-121;
affords unspeakable delight, ii. 172, 174.
Matter, of, iii. 122.
Medius, the parasite, ii. 137.
Megasthenes, saying of, v. 275.
Megisto and Micca, and other women of Elis, i. 357-363.
Meilichius, king of the gods, i. 45.
Melanippides, quoted, iv. 278.
Melanthius, quoted, i. 35, 449; ii. 103; iv. 147.
Melian women, virtue of the, i. 348.
Melisponda and Nephalia, i. 59.
Melissus, his opinion of generation, iii, 128.
Memnon, his saying, i. 189.
Menalippides, i. 114, 123.
Menander, quoted, i. 70, 139, 158, 161, 164, 335,
470;
quoted, ii. 52, 57, 65, 86, 87, 124, 192,
297;
his superiority to Aristophanes, iii. 11-14;
quoted, 38, 65, 196, 488; iv. 290;
anecdote of, v. 403;
saying of, 425.
Mendesian goat, v. 225.
Menedemus, i. 77; ii. 115, 464;
his opinion of the nature of moral virtue, iii. 461.
Menelaus, the mathematician, v. 257.
Men, impotency in, iii. 181;
elements of, 188;
have better stomachs in autumn, 240;
temper of, 270-272;
when asleep are never thunderstruck, 295-300;
having carnal knowledge of brutes, 468.
Menon, his definition of virtue, i. 464.
Menyllus, his First Book of Boeotic History, v. 460;
Third Book of Italian History, 467.
Messenians, saying among the, v. 416.
Metellus, quoted, iii. 53; iv. 202; v. 459, 461.
Meteors, of, which resemble rods, iii. 153.
Metiochus, his misuse of power, v. 127.
Metius Fufetius, king of Alba, torn in pieces, v. 455.
Metrocles, i. 144.
Metrodorus, ii. 158, 160, 161, 167, 169, 175,
180, 183, 496;
his philosophical opinions, iii. 115, 127, 132, 149, 150, 151,
153, 154, 155, 157, 158; v. 378, 383, 384.
Micca and Megisto, and other women of Elis, i. 357-363.
Midas, i. 326; v. 454.
Miletus, maidens of, i. 354.
Mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind fine, iv. 143.
Miltiades, v. 407-411.
Mimnermus, quoted, iii. 475.
Mind, tranquillity of the, i. 136-167.
Minerva, admonished by a satyr, i. 41; iii. 195;
temple of, v. 461.
Mirrors, causes and reasons of, iii. 169; v. 236 _et seq._
Mithridates, i. 204; ii. 121;
story of, iii. 219.
Mixture of the elements, iii. 126.
Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses, i. 22.
Mnesarete, statue of, iii. 83.
Mnesiphilus, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Mnesitheus, the physician, iii. 511.
Monarchy, Democracy, and Oligarchy, v. 395-398.
Money upon usury, v. 412-424.
Monstrous births, of, iii. 179.
Moon: essence of the, iii. 145;
magnitude of the, 145;
figure of the, 145;
whence her light, 145;
eclipses of the, 146;
phases of the, 147;
distance from the sun, 147;
of the face appearing within the orb of the moon, v. 234-292;
its distance from the earth, 246;
its nature, 253-260;
its size, 261;
why called Glaucopis, 267;
is it inhabited, 274, 275.
Moot point in Homer’s Iliad, iii. 446.
Moral virtue, essay on, iii. 461-494.
Moschio, dialogue on health, i. 251, 252.
Motherland a Cretan expression, v. 85.
Motion, of, iii. 128.
Mount Athos’ shade, v. 270.
Mule and the salt, v. 184.
Mule, superannuated, v. 182.
Mules, barrenness of, iii. 182.
Mullet, of the, v. 213.
Muses, number of the, iii. 450.
Mushrooms produced by thunder, iii. 295-300.
Music, treatise concerning, i. 102-135;
pleasures from bad, iii. 376;
for entertainments, 389.
Musonius, his rule of health, i. 35.
Must, sweet, iii. 511.
Mycenae, mount, v. 501.
N.
Namertes, apothegm of, i. 427.
Names of rivers and mountains, and of such things as are to be found
therein, and the fables connected therewith, v. 477-509.
Nasica, his saying, i. 285.
Natural affection towards one’s offspring, iv. 189-197.
Natural philosophy, iii. 105.
Natural Questions, Plutarch’s, iii. 495-518.
Nature, of, iii. 131;
what is, 105;
things that are least in, 125;
animated, v. 160.
Necessity, of, iii. 129;
nature of, 129;
defined, v. 299.
Nephalia and Melisponda, i. 59.
Neptune, ii. 38, 39, 41.
Nero, i. 53; iv. 228, 229;
anecdote of, v. 123.
New diseases and how caused, iii. 426.
New-married couple, advice to, ii. 486-507.
New wine, of, iii. 279.
Nicander, apothegm of, i. 427, 441.
Nicias Maleotes, quoted, v. 459.
Nicias, the Athenian general, superstition of, i. 177; v. 107.
Nicias, the painter, anecdote of, ii. 173; v. 71.
Nicostratus and Archidamus, i. 74;
apothegm of, 221.
Niger, anecdote of, i. 267.
Nightingale, of the, v. 189.
Nile, the river, v. 495;
overflow of the, iii. 160;
water of the, 415.
Niloxenus, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Niobe, i. 328.
Noises in the night and day, iii. 406.
Numa, of the reign of, iv. 208-210.
O.
Oenopides, his discovery of the obliquity of the Zodiac, iii. 138.
Ogygia, an island west from Britain and its neighbor islands,
described, v. 281-283.
Oil, top of the, iii. 370;
on the sea, 503;
is transparent, v. 318;
does not easily freeze, 319.
Old age, health, and sickness, iii. 192.
Old men, love pure wine, iii. 221;
read best at a distance, 222-224;
easily foxed, 268-270;
in state affairs, v. 64-96.
Oligarchy, Monarchy, and Democracy, v. 395-398.
Olympias, anecdotes of, ii. 494, 495.
Olympus, a Phrygian player, i. 107, 108, 110, 112, 115, 116,
123.
Omens and dreams, ii. 401, 402.
Onesicrates, banquet of, i. 103, 133.
Onomademus, wisdom of, i. 295; v. 129.
Opinions of philosophers, iii. 104-193.
Optatus, v. 171.
Oracle in Cilicia, iv. 55.
Oracles of Delphi, iii. 73.
Oracles, why they cease to give answers, iv. 3-64.
Orestes slays his mother, v. 474.
Origin of things, opinions concerning the, iii. 107-113.
Orontes, his saying, i. 188.
Orpheus never imitated any one, i. 107.
Orphic Fragments, iv. 59, 404.
Oryx, fables of the, v. 193.
Osiris, iv. 75-135;
story about his birth, 74;
great actions of, 75;
his death, 76;
his body torn in pieces by Typhon, 80;
is identical with Serapis and Bacchus, 89;
with the bull Apis, 90;
sacred vestments of, 135.
Othryadas, iv. 338.
Otus, the bird, v. 163.
Oxen, teaching of, v. 193.
P.
Paeans, makers of, i. 110.
Paedaretus, apothegm of, i. 429.
Painter, neat saying of a, ii. 378.
Painting is silent poetry, v. 402.
Palladium in Ilium and in Rome, v. 461.
Palm tree, of the, iii. 514.
Panaetius, sayings of, i. 57.
Pancrates, i. 117.
Pandora’s box, i. 306.
Pangaeus, mount, v. 480.
Panthoidas, apothegm of, i. 427.
Papirius Tolucer, v. 468.
Parallels, or a comparison between the actions of Greeks and Romans, v. 450-476.
Parmenides, v. 357;
his philosophical opinions: of generation and corruption, iii. 128;
of necessity, 129;
of the world, 135;
of the moon, 145;
of the galaxy, 149;
of the earth, 155;
of earthquakes, 157;
of the soul, 163;
defended from the misrepresentations of the Epicureans, v. 352-354;
quoted, 357, 359, 381.
Partridge, cunning of the, v. 185.
Parysatis, her saying, i. 188.
Passions of the body, iii. 175.
Passions of the soul, or diseases of the body: which are worse, iv. 504, 508.
Paulus Aemilius, apothegm of, i. 232.
Pausanias, the Spartan traitor, v. 457.
Pausanius, i. 305;
apothegm of, 428.
Pauson the painter, iii. 73.
Pederasty, or the love of boys, iv. 259;
defended, 259, 260;
instances of its power, 284-286;
severely condemned, 304;
the connection is uncertain and short-lived, 307;
it ceases on the sprouting of the beard, 307.
Pelopidas, his saying, i. 225.
Pelops and his two sons, v. 470, 471.
Pemptides, iv. 272, 275, 279.
Pergamus, woman of, i. 374.
Periander, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
tyrant of Corinth sends three hundred boys to be castrated, iv. 341;
the crime prevented, 342.
Pericles, anecdotes of, i. 15, 18, 66, 211, 332; ii. 309, 315; v. 67, 102;
his absolute sway over the Athenians, 106;
his soliloquy when about to address the people, 130, 131, 410, 413.
Periclitus, a Lesbian harper, i. 108.
Persaeus, anecdote of, i. 70.
Perseus, king of Macedonia, his sorrow on losing his kingdom, i. 160.
Persian Magi, killers of mice, ii. 96.
Persian women, virtue of the, i. 347.
Persians had a monarchy, v. 397.
Pestilence, relief from, a virgin sacrificed for, v. 472.
Petron, doctrine of, iv. 30.
Phaedimus, v. 171, 194.
Phaeton, i. 141.
Phalaris, brazen cow of, v. 474.
Pharnaces, of the moon, v. 265.
Phasis, a river of Thrace, v. 482.
Phayllus, iv. 282.
Phemius, the poet, i. 105.
Pherecrates, fragment of, i. 124.
Phidias, statue of Venus, ii. 498; iv. 133.
Philammon, verses in honor of Latona, Diana, and Apollo, i. 105.
Philemon and Magas, i. 45.
Philinus, iii. 69, 70.
Philip of Macedonia, examples from, i. 44, 45;
sayings of, 194-198, 305;
anecdotes of, ii. 141, 146, 147, 494; iii. 22; v. 115.
Philippides the comedian, ii. 430.
Philippus, his demonstration of the figure of the moon, ii. 173.
Philolaus, his philosophical opinions: of the nutriment of the world, iii. 134;
of the essence of the sun, 142;
of the position of the earth, 155;
of the motion of the earth, 156.
Philosophers ought chiefly to converse with great men, ii. 368-377.
Philosophers, their various opinions. Of those sentiments concerning
nature with which philosophers were delighted, iii. 104-193.
Philosophical discourses at merry meetings, iii. 198-203.
Philosophy, threefold division of, iii. 104.
Philotas and Antigona, i. 504.
Philotas, son of Parmenio, i. 504.
Philotimus, the physician, i. 452; ii. 153.
Philoxenus, i. 125;
sayings of, ii. 42; iii. 3; iv. 289; v. 423.
Phocian women, virtue of the, i. 343, 355.
Phocion, his saying on the death of Alexander, i. 49;
his sayings, 70;
wife of, 102, 216; ii. 135, 298, 311, 321,
328; v. 83, 109, 118;
his magnanimity, 122;
his reply to Demades, 125, 142, 149.
Phocus, a story of love respecting him, iv. 319.
Phocylides the poet, quoted, i. 9, 462.
Phoebidas, apothegm of, i. 431.
Phoenix, tutor to Achilles, i. 9; ii. 150.
Phrygian mood of music, i. 109.
Phryne, the statue of, iii. 83.
Phrynis, the musician, ii. 470.
Pieria and other women of Myus, i. 363, 364.
Pierus, the first that wrote in praise of the Muses, i. 105.
Pindar and Euthynous, i. 314.
Pindar, his sayings, i. 77, 114;
quoted, 143, 173, 174, 286, 293, 303,
304, 310, 313, 328;
his description of the state of the blessed, 336;
quoted, ii. 57, 143, 177, 193, 306;
quoted, iii. 9, 23, 74, 93, 95, 96, 194,
207, 218, 377, 455, 458, 491, 516;
quoted, iv. 10, 15, 96, 138, 145, 150, 163,
260, 289, 405;
quoted, v. 64, 111, 117, 148, 194, 197,
202, 214, 316, 331, 404;
anecdote of, 404, 440.
Pine, sacred to Neptune and Bacchus, iii. 318.
Pine trees, of, iii. 250.
Pinoteras, the fish, v. 205.
Pisias, of love, iv. 270 _et seq._
Pisistratus, i. 216;
anecdote of, iii. 41, 200.
Pittacus, sayings of, i. 31, 151;
his reply to Myrsilus, ii. 5;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 3-41; iii. 50; iv. 231; v. 145.
Pitwater, of, iii. 514.
Place at table called Consular, iii. 210-212.
Place, of, iii. 127.
Plague in Falerie and in Lacedaemon, v. 472.
Plain of truth, iv. 29.
Planetiades, iv. 9, 11.
Plants, grow how, iii. 190;
nourishment and growth of, 191.
Plato, quoted, i. 9, 19, 24, 26;
saying of, 27;
quoted, 41, 57, 71, 74, 79;
on harmony, 115, 118;
quoted, 141, 173, 256, 264, 279,
287;
laws, 292;
quoted, 297, 311, 314, 321, 337, 339,
456;
quoted, ii. 49, 92, 100, 104, 106;
at the court of Dionysius, 108, 109, 141, 146;
and Socrates, 148, 150, 168, 174, 326;
concerning the soul, 328 _et seq._, 334;
quoted, 344, 352, 353, 355, 356, 359,
364, 455, 456, 457, 492, 496, 504;
quoted, iii. 19, 81;
his philosophical opinions: of the universe, 112, 114, 115;
of the understanding, 116;
what is God, 119;
of God, 121;
of matter and ideas, 123;
of causes and of bodies, 124;
of colors, 125;
of bodies, 126;
of place and time, 127, 128;
of motion, 128;
of necessity, 129;
of fate, 130;
of fortune, 131;
of the world, 134, 135, 137;
of the stars, 137-141;
of the sun, 142, 143;
of the moon, 145, 146;
of the rainbow, 152;
of earthquakes, 158;
of the sea, 159;
of the soul, 161-165;
of sight, 168;
of hearing, 170;
of the voice, 171;
of the echo, 172;
of divination, 176;
of generative seed, 177;
of the embryo, 183;
of reason in animals, 187;
of sleep, 189;
that plants are animals, 190;
quoted, 200, 201, 213, 221, 223, 243,
365, 368-370, 401, 462, 464, 499;
iv. 18, 28, 30, 41, 45;
his opinion about daemons, 86, 87, 109, 115-117, 119,
146, 254, 261, 292, 305;
quoted, v. 10, 82, 103, 116, 120, 172, 257,
276, 288, 293, 295, 297, 302, 305, 306, 338, 355, 364,
377, 381, 412, 425-433, 435, 440, 441, 444.
Pleasure not attainable according to Epicurus, ii. 157-203.
Pleasures from bad music, iii. 376.
Plistoanax, apothegm of, i. 430.
Plurality of worlds, iv. 29-39.
Plutarch, his rules for the preservation of health, i. 251-279;
his Symposiacs, iii. 197-460;
his natural questions, 495-518;
on the immortality of the soul, iii. 164, iv. 169; v. 393;
consolatory letter to his wife, 386-394;
his Platonic questions, 425-449;
his spurious remains, 450-509.
Poet, love makes a man a, iii. 217-219.
Poetry, essay on. How a young man ought to hear poems, ii. 42-94.
Polemon, his kind reply, i. 55.
Policy or government defined, v. 396.
Political precepts, v. 97-156.
Poltys, saying of, i. 189.
Polus the tragedian, v. 69.
Polybus, of seven-months’ infants, iii. 185.
Polycephalus, the nome, i. 108.
Polycratidas, apothegm of, i. 431.
Polycrita, a woman of Naxos, i. 364, 366.
Polydorus, apothegm of, i. 430.
Polyhistor, his Third Book of Italian History, v. 476.
Polymnestus, his improvements in music, i. 107, 110, 112, 123.
Polypus, why it changes color, iii. 506;
many-colored, v. 202.
Polysperchon’s treachery, i. 64, 71.
Pompey, his great actions and sayings, i. 241 _et seq._, 290;
statues of, 293, v. 70, 102, 112, 114;
owed his success to Sylla, 115.
Porsena of Clusium, war with the Romans, v. 451, 456.
Porus, an Indian king, i. 202.
Posidonius, his opinion of fate, iii. 130;
of a vacuum, 137;
of eclipses, v. 262.
Possible and contingent defined, v. 299.
Postumia, chastity of, i. 290.
Power, necessity, &c., defined, v. 300.
Praise, inordinate, a sign of a flatterer, ii, 116, 117, 120;
young people are often spoiled by it, 123.
Preservation of health, rules for, i. 251-279.
Priam and Polydore, v. 465.
Price of peace, women given as the, v. 468.
Priest of Hercules, iii. 90.
Principle and element, difference between, iii. 106.
Principle of cold, v. 309-330.
Principles, what they are, iii. 106.
Prize for poets at the games, iii. 316.
Procles, tyrant of Epidaurus, puts Timarchus to death, iii. 89;
his own unhappy end, _ib._
Procreation of the soul as discussed in the Timaeus of Plato, ii. 326-367.
Progress in virtue, how it may be ascertained, ii. 446-474.
Prometheus, anecdote of, i. 289.
Proserpine, the same as Isis, iv. 88;
and Cora, v. 285, 286.
Prosodia, songs called, i. 106.
Protagoras quoted, i. 332.
Protogenes, iv. 257, 258, 260-265.
Providence, of God, iv. 140-188; v. 305;
of the inferior gods, 306;
of the daemons, 307, 308.
Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, i. 25.
Ptolemaeus Soter, iv. 88.
Ptolemy Lagus, anecdote of, i. 45;
his saying, 202; ii. 177.
Publius Decius, his dream, v. 462.
Publius Nigidius, v. 96.
Punishment of the wicked, why so long delayed, iv. 140-188.
Pupius Piso, the rhetorician, iv. 245.
Purple shell fish, v. 205.
Pylades and Orestes, their friendship, i. 465.
Pyraechmes’s horses, v. 455.
Pyrander, his Fourth Book of Peloponnesian Histories, v. 474.
Pyrandrus, the commissary, v. 469.
Pyrrhon, the Stoic philosopher, anecdote of, ii. 467.
Pyrrhus the Epirot, his saying, i. 207.
Pythagoras, his aphorisms, i. 28, 29;
of music, 130;
quoted, 175;
aphorism, 179, 294;
symbols of, 454, 471;
his unseasonable reproof, ii. 148;
his joy on discovering the relation to each other of the three
sides of a right-angled triangle, 174;
his philosophical opinions: of the principles of things, iii. 109;
of the unity of God, 121;
of geniuses and heroes, 122;
of matter, 123;
of causes, 124;
of bodies, 126;
of time, 127;
of motion, 128;
of generation and corruption, 129;
of the world, 132-137;
of the zodiac, 138;
of the summer and winter solstice, 143;
of the moon, 145;
of the zones, 156;
of the soul, 161-164;
of the voice, 172;
of divination, 176;
of generative seed, 177;
of reason in animals, 187;
precepts of, derived his philosophy from Egyptian priests, iv. 72.
Pythagorean philosophy of dreams, daemons, ii. 412, 413.
Pythagoreans, precept of, iii. 22;
why they do not eat fish, 422-426.
Pytheas, his saying, i. 213; iii. 159;
apothegm of, v. 107, 110.
Pythes, the Lydian, i. 382.
Pythian games, iii. 316.
Pythian priestess, iv. 8, 9, 62, 63;
why she now ceases to deliver her oracles in verse, iii. 69-103.
Pythocles, his Third Book of Italian History, v. 460;
Third Book of the Georgics, 476.
Pythoclides the flute player, i. 114.
Python of Aenos, ii. 314.
Q.
Quarry of Carystus, iv. 54.
Questions or Causes, Second Book of, v. 475.
R.
Raillery, of, iii. 229-240.
Rainbow, of the, iii. 151.
Rain, snow, and hail, of, iii. 151.
Rational faculty, of the, v. 441.
Reason, beasts make use of, v. 218-233.
Reason, habit of our, iii. 166.
Remarkable speeches of some obscure men amongst the Spartans, i. 432-440.
Remora or Echeneis, iii. 252.
Reproof, how to be administered, ii. 138-156.
Respiration or breathing, iii, 173.
Rhesus and Similius, v. 466.
Rhodope and Haemus, mountains, v. 491.
Riddles and their solutions, ii. 19, 20.
Roman questions, ii. 204-264.
Roman senator and his wife, iv. 233-235.
Romans, fortune of the, iv. 198-219.
Rome, saved by the cackling of geese, iv. 217;
favored by fortune, 219.
Romulus, his birth and education, iv. 206-208;
murdered in the senate, v. 470;
and Remus, suckled by a she-wolf, 473.
Rules for the preservation of health, i. 251-279.
Rutilius the usurer, v. 419.
S.
Sabinus of Galatia, iv. 308.
Sacadas, a flute player, i. 109, 110, 112.
Sacred games, garlands of, iii. 411.
Sacrificed beasts, iii. 361.
Sagaris, a river in Phrygia, v. 492.
Salmantica, women of, i. 352.
Salt and cummin, why does Homer call it divine, iii. 336.
Salt given to cattle, iii. 497;
not found in fruit, 498.
Sappho, i. 42, 114; ii. 506;
quoted, iii. 95, 263;
quoted, iv. 260.
Sappho’s measures, grace in, iii. 74.
Sardanapalus, his luxury and lust, i. 497.
Sardians and Smyrnaeans, v. 468.
Saturn and his four children, v. 456, 457.
Satyrus the orator, i. 47.
Scamander, a river in Troas, v. 493.
Scaurus, his magnanimity, i. 295.
Scilurus, anecdote of, iv. 244.
Scipio the Elder, apothegm of, i. 229; ii. 475; iv. 201; v. 96, 112, 114, 136.
Scipio the Younger, his sayings and great actions, i. 235-239.
Scopas, saying of, ii. 303.
Scythinus, verses of, iii. 86.
Sea calves, of, v. 210.
Sea, of the, iii. 158;
ebbing and flowing of the, 159;
food of the, 302-306;
made hot by wind, 501.
Sea-sickness, iii. 502.
Sea water nourishes not trees, iii. 495;
upon wine, 502;
oil on the, 503.
Seed, nature of generative, iii. 177;
that fall on the oxen’s horns, 368;
watering of, 496;
watered by thunder showers, 498.
Seleucus the mathematician, iii. 159.
Seleucus Callinicus, anecdote of, iv. 237.
Self-praise. How a man may inoffensively praise himself without being
liable to envy, ii. 306-325.
Semiramis, her saying, i. 187, 497; iv. 85.
Seneca, anecdote of, i. 53.
Senses, of the, iii. 164;
represent what is true, 165;
number of the, 165;
actions of the, 166.
Sentiments concerning Nature with which Philosophers were delighted, iii. 104-193.
Serapio, iii. 74, 79, 81, 82.
Serapis is Pluto, iv. 88, 89.
Serpent and the Aetolian woman, v. 188.
Seven months’ infants, of, iii. 184.
Seven Wise Men, Banquet of the, ii. 3-41.
Servius Tullius, his birth, elevation, and prosperous reign, iv. 212, 213.
Shadows, guests called, iii. 381.
Sheep bitten by wolves, iii. 254.
She-wolves, of, iii. 517.
Ships in winter, sailing of, iii. 500.
Shoe pinches, where the, ii. 494.
Sibyl with her frantic grimaces, iii. 74.
Sight, of our, iii. 168.
Silence commended, iv. 230, 243.
Simonides, quoted, i. 149, 257, 295, 305, 309, 318;
quoted, ii. 44, 101, 136, 436, 457, 471;
quoted, iii. 22, 87, 259, 409, 451, 459,
473;
quoted, iv. 158;
saying of, v. 66, 68, 71, 121.
Sipylus, mount, v. 489.
Siramnes, saying of, i. 185.
Sleep or death, causes of, iii. 188;
whether it appertains to the soul or body, 189.
Smelling, of, iii. 170.
Smyrna and Cinyras, v. 464.
Snow, preservation of, iii. 350.
Soclarus, iv. 292; v. 156, 158, 160, 166, 169, 170,
171, 216.
Socrates, anecdotes of, i. 11, 13, 23, 26, 38, 53,
141, 150, 162;
rules of health, 255;
quoted, 307, 310, 312, 337; ii. 46, 148,
150, 338, 441;
his Daemon, 378-423, 441, 495; iii. 4, 19, 35,
112, 121, 123; iv. 249; v. 93, 359, 361, 362-364, 377, 381.
Socrates, his Second Book of Thracian History, v. 462.
Soil, deep, for wheat, iii. 504;
lean soil for barley, 504.
Solon and Croesus, anecdote of, ii. 122.
Solon, quoted, i. 155, 297;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
quoted, 297, 454, 487;
quoted,
iii. 50; iv. 72;
quoted, 260;
anecdote of, 304; v. 89, 113, 117, 118, 131.
Sophocles, quoted, i. 46, 57, 244, 288;
Thamyras, 39;
Frag., 58, 63;
Tyre, 206, 467;
Antig., 51, 462;
Oed. Tyr., 179, 470;
quoted, ii. 45, 57, 61, 72;
criticisms on, 72;
Frag., 173, 241, 244, 298, 431, 452,
456, 470, 495;
Oed. Tyr., 60, 172, 442, 476, 495;
Antig., 110;
Trachin., 311;
Electra, 440;
quoted, iii. 97, 210, 222;
Frag., 7;
Antig. 45;
Oed. Tyr., 235, 474;
Oed. Col., 232;
Electra, 437;
quoted, iv. 87, 246, 287, 304;
Oed. Tyr., 197, 202;
Trachin., 281;
Antig., 239, 283, 404;
Frag., 221, 226, 274, 284, 301;
quoted, v. 69, 76, 158, 216;
Oed. Col., 68;
Frag., 75, 84;
anecdote of, 68.
Sostratus, his Second Book of Tuscan History, v. 468.
Sotades, jest of, i. 25.
Soterichus, the musician, i. 103, 112.
Soul of Ajax, her place in hell, iii. 442.
Soul or body, death appertains to, iii. 189.
Soul, procreation of the, ii. 326-367;
its nature and essence, iii. 161, 163;
parts of the, 162;
in what part of the body it resides, 163;
motion of the, 163;
immortality of the, 164;
principal part of the, 173;
three sorts of motion in the, v. 371;
state of, after death, 393, 394;
ancienter than the body, 432.
Souls dispersed into the earth, moon, &c., v. 438.
Sounds in the night and day, iii. 406.
Sows, tame and wild, iii. 508.
Space, of, iii. 127.
Sparta had an oligarchy, v. 397.
Speech composed of nouns and verbs, v. 444.
Speech of a statesman, what it should be, v. 107.
Sperm, whether it be a body, iii. 177.
Spermatic emission of women, iii. 177.
Sphodrias, v. 118.
Spiders, labor of the, v. 174.
Sponge, of the, v. 205.
Spurious remains of Plutarch, v. 450-509.
Star-fish, subtlety of the, v. 201.
Stark drunk, those that are, iii. 281.
Stars, essence of the, iii. 138;
what figure they are, 139;
order and place of, 139;
motion and circulation of, 140;
whence do they receive their light, 140;
which are called the Dioscuri, the twins, or Castor and Pollux, 141;
how they prognosticate, 141;
number of the, whether odd or even, 446.
Stasicrates proposes to turn Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander, i. 495.
Stesichorus, i. 109, 112; iv. 497.
Steward of a feast, iii. 212-216.
Stilpo, the philosopher, i. 13, 76, 144, 161;
anecdote of, ii. 468;
defended, v. 365-367.
Stoics speak greater improbabilities than the poets, iii. 194-196;
their opinions concerning daemons, iv. 24;
common conceptions against the, 372-427;
contradictions of the, 428-477.
Strabo, quoted, i. 27.
Strato, i. 155; iii. 163; v. 161.
Stratonica of Galatia, i. 373.
Stratonicus, anecdote of, ii. 298; iii. 21.
Strymon, a river in Thrace, v. 491.
Summer and winter, cause of, iii. 141.
Summer and winter solstice, iii. 143.
Sun, essence of the, iii. 141;
magnitude of the, 142;
figure or shape of the, 143;
turning and returning of the, 143;
eclipses of the, 144.
Superstition of the Gauls, Scythians, and Carthaginians, i. 182, 183.
Superstition, or indiscreet devotion, i. 168-184;
folly of, ii. 387.
Supper, many guests at, iii. 323.
Supper-room, why too narrow at first for guests, iii. 326.
Suppers of the ancients, iii. 255-259.
Swallows in the house, iii. 419;
intelligence of the, v. 174.
Sylla, i. 32-35;
anecdote of, v. 72, 115, 135.
Symposiacs, or table discourses, iii. 197-460.
Synorix and Camma, iv. 302.
T.
Table, dignity of places at, iii. 210-212.
Tables and lamps of the ancients, iii. 372.
Talkativeness, or garrulity, iv. 220-253.
Talk, deliberate or tumultuous, iii. 395.
Tanais, a river in Scythia, v. 494.
Tarpeia, a virgin, the story of, v. 460.
Taste, of, iii. 170.
Taxiles of India, i. 201.
Taygetus, mount, v. 498.
Tears of the hart, iii. 507.
Tears of wild boars, iii. 507.
Telamon and Periboea, v. 467.
Telamon and Phocus, v. 466.
Telecrus, apothegm of, i. 431.
Telegonus, son of Ulysses, v. 476.
Telephanes of Megara, i. 117.
Telephus, i. 289.
Telesias the Theban, an eminent flute-player, i. 125.
Telesphorus, in an iron cage, iii. 31.
Temple of Apollo, iv. 478-498.
Teres, his saying, i. 189.
Teribazus, anecdote of, i. 176.
Terpander, the musician, fined by the Ephori, and why? i. 91, 92;
an inventor of ancient music, 102, 105, 109;
an excellent composer to the harp, 106, 112;
added the octave to the heptachord, 102, 122.
Teuthras, mount, v. 504.
Thales, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
first of philosophers; the Ionic sect took its denomination from him, iii. 107;
his philosophical opinions; difference between a principle and an element, 106;
that the intelligence of the world was God, 121;
of geniuses and heroes, 122;
of division of bodies, 126;
of necessity, 129;
of the division of heaven, 137;
of the eclipses of the sun, 144;
that the moon borrows her light from the sun, 146;
that the earth is globular, and the centre of the universe, 155;
of earthquakes, 157;
of the overflow of the Nile, 160;
of the soul, 161; iv. 337, 480.
Thaletas, a composer, i. 110, 112;
power of his music, 133.
Thamyras, the singer, i. 105.
Theanor, ii. 395, 396.
Thebes, liberation of, ii. 414-423.
Thectamenes, apothegm of, i. 411.
Themisteas, apothegm of, i. 410.
Themistocles, quoted, i. 73;
his saying, 208;
suspected of treason, 290, 296, 480;
quoted, ii. 97, 311, 471;
his kind reception by the Persian king, iii. 21, 30; iv. 208, 361, 365; v. 101, 116, 120, 121, 127.
Theo, iii. 70, 71, 74, 88.
Theocritus, his remark and death, i. 25, 73; ii. 380; iii. 516.
Theodorus, saying of, i. 142; ii. 321, 349; iii. 31;
his Book of Transformations, v. 464.
Theognis, i. 473; ii. 59; iii. 506.
Theon, ii. 157 _et seq._; v. 273-275.
Theophilus, his Third Book of Italian History, v. 459;
Second Book of Peloponnesian Histories, 470.
Theophrastus, sayings of, i. 276, 304, 442; ii. 303; iii. 45, 64,
218, 219, 334; v. 202, 427.
Theopompus, his sayings, i. 217, 410; v. 137.
Theotimus, his Italian History, v. 456.
Theramenes, anecdote of, i. 306.
Thermodon, a river in Scythia, v. 495.
Thero, anecdote of, iv. 286.
Theseus and his son Hippolytus, v. 471.
Thespesius, iv. 177, 182 _et seq._, 188.
Thirst, cause of, iii. 341.
Thorycion, apothegm of, i. 411.
Thrasonides quoted, ii. 297.
Thucydides, quoted, i. 70, 76, 472, 490;
quoted, ii. 98, 117, 149, 152, 458;
quoted, iii. 88;
quoted, iv. 141;
quoted, v. 65, 106, 403.
Thunder, of, iii. 150.
Thymbris, and his son Rustius, v. 466.
Tides, of, iii. 159.
Tigris, the river, v. 507.
Timaeus, his opinion of tides, iii. 159.
Timesias, the oracle and, i. 471;
anecdote of, v. 127.
Time, essence and nature of, iii. 127, 128.
Timoclea, at the taking of Thebes, i. 376.
Timoleon, ii. 314.
Timotheus, the musician, anecdote of, i. 92, 106, 112; ii. 83, 306; v. 76.
Titus Quinctius, apothegm of, i. 230.
Tmolus, mount, v. 486.
Torpedo, or crampfish, v. 201.
Torquatus and Clusia, v. 459.
Tortoise, their care for their young, v. 209.
Training of children, i. 3-32.
Tranquillity of the mind, the, i. 136-167.
Transmutation of bodies, v. 14.
Trees and seeds, watering of, iii. 496.
Trees not nourished by sea-water, iii. 495.
Triangles, of, v. 433.
Trisimachus, his book of Foundations of Cities, v. 455.
Trochilus and crocodile, v. 206.
Troilus wept less than Priam, i. 323.
Trojan women, virtue of the, i. 342.
Trophonius and Agamedes, i. 313.
True friendship, of, i. 464-474; ii. 100-134.
True happiness, of, v. 392.
Tullus Hostilius, v. 455.
Tunnies, dim sight of the, v. 204.
Typhon, in Egyptian mythology, iv. 80, 81, 86, 88, 91, 92,
99, 101, 105, 110, 114, 118, 122.
Tyrrhene women, virtue of the, i. 349.
U.
Ulysses, i. 160;
in the island of Circe, v. 218 _et seq._
Unity of God. Of the word εἰ engraven over the gate of the temple of
Apollo at Delphi, iv. 478-498.
Universe, whether it is one, iii. 114;
division of the, v. 429.
Unlearned Prince, Discourse to an, iv. 323-330.
Usurers, what sort of men they are, 417.
Usury, evils of, v. 412-424.
V.
Vacuum, of a, iii. 126;
there can be none in nature, iv. 33;
suppose there were, it would have no beginning, middle, or end, 34.
Valeria and Cloelia, i. 356.
Valeria Tusculanaria, v. 464.
Valerius Conatus swallowed up alive, v. 455.
Venus’s hands wounded by Diomedes, iii. 441.
Verses seasonably and unseasonably applied, iii. 436.
Vice and virtue, ii. 482-485.
Vice, whether it is sufficient to render a man unhappy, iv. 499-503.
Vines irrigated with wine, iii. 513;
rank of leaves, iii. 513.
Virtue and vice, ii. 482-485.
Virtue may be taught, i. 78-81.
Virtue or fortune, to which of these was due the greatness and glory of Rome? iv. 198-219.
Virtue, progress in, ii. 446-474.
Virtues of women, i. 340-384.
Vision, doctrine of, iii. 168; v. 236 _et seq._
Voice is incorporeal, iii. 172.
Voice, of the, iii. 171.
Vowels and semi-vowels, iii. 438.
W.
Water made colder by stones and lead, iii. 348.
Water or fire, which is more useful? v. 331-337.
Water, white and black, iii. 518.
Wealth, the love of, ii. 294-305.
Well water, change of the temperature in, iii. 347.
West wind the swiftest, iii, 515.
Whale, of the, v. 207.
Wheat, sow, in clay, iii. 505.
Whether an aged man ought to meddle in state affairs, v. 64-96.
Whether the passions of the soul, or diseases of the body, are worse, iv. 504-508.
Whether ’twere rightly said, “Live concealed,” iii. 3-10.
Whether vice is sufficient to render a man unhappy, iv. 499-503.
Whirlwinds, of, iii. 150.
Why the oracles cease to give answers, iv. 3-64.
Wicked, delay of Providence in punishing the, iv. 140-188.
Widows in India, iv. 502.
Wild beasts, steps of, iii. 509;
their tracks, 509.
Wild boars, tears of the, iii. 507.
Winds, of, iii. 154.
Wine, whether it is potentially cold, iii. 272-274;
straining of, 351;
middle of, 370;
sea water upon, 502;
irrigation with, 513.
Winter and summer, cause of, iii. 141, 154.
Winter, ships in, iii. 500;
sea least hot in, 501.
Wise Men, the Seven, Banquet of, ii. 3-41;
their names, iv. 480.
Woman, of Pergamus, i. 374.
Woman of Thessaly torn in pieces by dogs, v. 463.
Women, the virtues of, i. 340-384;
barrenness in, iii. 181;
are hardly foxed, 268-270;
temper of, 270-272;
given as the price of peace, v. 468.
Word ει at Apollo’s temple at Delphi. iv. 478-498.
World, how it was brought into its present order, iii. 113.
World, of the, iii. 132;
figure of the, 133;
whether it be an animal, 133;
whether it is eternal and incorruptible, 133;
its nutriment, 134;
from what element was it raised, 134;
in what form and order was it composed, 135;
cause of its inclination, 136;
thing which is beyond the, 136;
what parts on the right and left hand, 137.
Worlds, plurality of, iv. 29-38.
Wrestling, of, iii. 246.
X.
Xanthippe, wife of Socrates, anecdotes of, i. 53, 292.
Xenaenetus, v. 109.
Xenocrates, anecdote of; i. 71, 442;
his opinions concerning the soul, ii. 327, 439;
of triangles, iii. 24, 139, 494;
his opinion about daemons, iv. 17, 87;
saying of, v. 10, 494.
Xenocritus, a composer, i. 110, 380.
Xenodamus, a composer, i. 110.
Xenophanes, his reply, i. 65, 183;
his philosophical opinions, iii. 134, 138, 141, 144, 145, 150,
155;
quoted, ii. 49; iv. 291.
Xenophon, quoted, i. 137;
maxim of, 281, 333, 447; ii. 115, 144, 178,
307;
the scene of his old age, iii. 24; v. 67, 72, 121, 139.
Xerxes, his saying, i. 39, 187;
and Arimanes, iii. 59, 60;
invasion of Greece, v. 451, 452.
Y.
Year, length of, in different planets, iii. 147.
Z.
Zaleucus, laws of, ii. 315.
Zaratas, ii. 327.
Zeno, saying of, i. 56;
anecdotes of, 72, 142, 283; ii. 321, 365, 455;
quoted, 467, 481; iii. 25, 113, 125, 128;
his definition of virtue, 462;
anecdote of, iv. 225; v. 382.
Zenocrates, v. 288, 377, 441.
Zeuxidamus, apothegm of, i. 410.
Zeuxippus, dialogue on health, i. 251-279; ii. 157 _et seq._; iv. 270, 278, 288.
Zeuxis, reply of, i. 468.
Zopyrus Byzantius, his Third Book of Histories, v. 473.
Zoroaster, ii. 357; iv. 106.
Uncharted Knowledge
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