Part 29

For the self of each of us is not courage, nor fear, nor desire, any more than it is a parcel of flesh and of humours; it is that whereby we understand and think. The soul being shaped by [Sidenote: 945] the mind and itself shaping the body and encompassing it upon all sides, stamps its form upon it, so that even if it is separated from both for a long time, yet it possesses the likeness and the stamp, and is rightly called an image. Of these, the moon, as has been said, is the element, for they are resolved into her just as are the bodies of the dead into earth; the temperate speedily, those who embraced a life of quiet and Philosophy; for, having been set free by mind, and having no further use for the passions, they wither away. But of the ambitious, [Sidenote: B] and active, and sensuous, and passionate, some are distracted as though in sleep, dreaming out their memories of life, as the soul of Endymion; but when their restless and susceptible nature starts them out of the moon and draws them to another birth, she does not suffer it, but draws them back and soothes them. For no trifling matter is it, nor quiet, nor conventional, when in the absence of mind, they get them a body by passionate endeavour; Tityi and Typhones, and that Typhon who seized Delphi and confounded the oracle there by insolence and force, came of such souls as these, deserted by reason, and left to the [Sidenote: C] wild wanderings of their emotional part. But in course of time the moon receives even these unto herself and brings them to order; then, when the sun again sows mind, she receives it with vital power and makes new souls, and, thirdly, earth provides a body; for earth gives nothing after death of what she received for birth; the sun receives nothing, save that he receives back the mind which he gives, but the moon both receives and gives, and compounds, and distributes in diverse functions; she who compounds has Ilithyia for her name, she who distributes, Artemis. And of the three Fates Atropus has her station about the sun and gives the first impulse of generation; Clotho moving about the moon combines and mingles, lastly Lachesis, upon the earth, lends her hand, and she has most to do with Fortune; for that which is without soul is powerless in itself and is affected by others, mind is free from affection and sovereign; soul a compound and a middle [Sidenote: D] term, has, like the moon, been formed by the God, a blend and mixture of things above and things below, and thus bears the same relation to the sun which the earth does to the moon.’

‘Such’, said Sylla, ‘is the story which I heard the stranger relate, but he had it from the chamberlains and ministers of Cronus, as he himself used to say. But you and your friends, Lamprias, may take the story in what way you will.’

NOTES

(1) c. 1, 920 B. The opening of the Dialogue is abrupt; compare that of ‘On the Instances of Delay in Divine Punishment’. Many of the Symposiacs open as abruptly, and there a former conversation is sometimes resumed by the same speakers. It seems not impossible that there had been a previous Dialogue on the Face in the Moon, and, again, that the περὶ ψυχῆς preceded the _De Sera numinum Vindicta_.

Wyttenbach reads τῷ γ᾽ ἐμῷ for the MSS. τῷ γὰρ ἐμῷ, but suggests τῷ παρ᾽ ἐμοί, which seems better. Sylla is not the author, but the depository, of the myth.

For εἰ δεῖ τι ... προσανακρούσασθαι he reads εἰ δή τι ... προσανεκρούσασθε. The past indicative is required by the τί δὲ οὐκ ἐμέλλομεν which follows, the reference being to the previous discussion (see Introduction). The combination εἰ δή or εἰ δή τι is a frequent one. If δή was altered to δεῖ, the further alteration of the verb would follow. Sylla’s language is nautical, as in c. 26, ‘Did you really stop rowing, and back-water on to the received views?’

(2) c. 3. 921 A. _For our sight._ ὄψις is an old correction for ἴτυς of the MSS., and is required by the context.

(3) c. 4. 921 C. _Equal in breadth and length._ Empedocles (Fr. 17, 20) has a line

καὶ Φιλότης ἐν τοῖσιν, ἴση μῆκός τε πλάτος τε.

This poetical quotation is introduced to indicate that the world is not a mere point, but has sensible dimensions. In literal truth, the habitable world was held to be twice as long as it was wide (i. e. N. to S.).

The words as to the earth occupying ‘a point central to the sphere (i. e. orbit) of the moon’ are quoted from the Second Hypothesis of Aristarchus (see Introduction). It has been proposed (by Dr. Max Adler) to substitute the name of Clearchus for that of Hipparchus. But the quarrel of Lamprias is not with philosophers but with astronomers and mathematicians, represented by Apollonides and Menelaus. The greatest of them is of absolute authority as to angles of reflexion, &c., not so when he propounds a physical theory of vision, which many find unsatisfactory. For the theory itself see the quasi-Plutarchean _De Placitis_, 4, 13.

For the words καίτοι γε φίλε πρίαμ᾽ (omitted in the translation), Turnebus proposed καίτοι γε φίλε Λαμπρία, which is very attractive as to the letters, but impossible, unless the text be wholly reconstructed, because Lamprias is himself the speaker.

For discrepancies between the mathematically correct theory of reflexion and its physical application see chapters 17 and 23.

(4) c. 7, 924 B. _That segments of beams...._ The sense intended by the translation is this: A beam is sawn into two segments on the earth’s surface. The two segments, which at first are separated by a short interval, move simultaneously towards the earth’s centre, but in converging, not parallel, lines, and jam each other long before they reach it. (This is suggested by Aristotle, _de Caelo_, 2, 14, 296 b 18.)

For ἀποκρίπτεσθαι Dr. Purser suggests ἀποθρύπτεσθαι, which I have rendered; ἀποκύπτεσθαι (Aristoph. Lysis. 1003), ‘to crouch aside’, seems possible.

(5) c. 9, 925 B. Perhaps the line of Empedocles may run ἅρματος ὡσπερανεὶ (L. C. P.) χνόη ᾄσσεται.

(6) c. 10, 925 E. The MSS. have ἀλλὰ καὶ κινητικὸ ταύτῃ διάστημα τὸ δέον, for which Madvig (_Adv. Crit._, vol. i, p. 665) makes the admirable correction: ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκείνῃ καὶ ταύτῃ δυίστημα δοτέον.

(7) c. 14, 927 F. _The growth within._ I read αὔξησιν, which is sometimes confused with ἕξιν. Cp. Ar. _Eth. N._ 3, 14, 149 b 4.

(8) c. 19, 932 C. [_the moon ... bodies also_]. The words in brackets have been supplied from the substance of the passage of Aristotle mentioned in the footnote.

(9) c. 19, 932 C. Posidonius’ definition is introduced because it contains an admission that the moon casts a shadow, and is therefore an earthlike, not a starlike, body. It has been proposed to alter σκιᾶς into σκιᾷ, and the construction with σύνοδος could be justified by Platonic examples (see R. Kunze in _Rhein. Mus._ vol. 64, p. 635), but the assumed corruption is improbable. E appears[375] to read οἷς not ἧς; the clause introduced by the relative seems to contain a limitation of the phenomenon to ‘those who experience the obscuration’, i.e. those in the track of the shadow over the earth’s surface. In this case, the words may either have come from a marginal gloss on τόδε τὸ πάθος, or should be transposed with those words, as suggested by Dr. Purser. This will be consistent with the account of a solar eclipse given by Cleomedes (2, 3, p. 172), doubtless after Posidonius; it is not αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ πάθος ἀλλὰ τῆς ἡμετέρας ὄψεως, whereas an eclipse of the moon is αὐτῆς τῆς θεοῦ πάθος, irrespective of the place of the terrestrial observer.

(10) c. 24, 937 F. _A lion._ Kepler suggests that there was an old confusion between λῖς, a lion, and λᾶς, a stone.

(11) c. 24, 938 C. _without mouths._ The MSS. have εὐστόμους, but ἀστόμους is an old correction adopted by W. Pliny, _N. H._ 7, 2, 25, quotes Megasthenes for a mouthless people living near the sources of the Ganges. See also Müller, _Fragm. Hist. Graec._ 2, 427 (Adler). For the notion of living by smell cp. Heraclitus (Fr. 38).

(12) c. 26, 941 A. This interesting passage should be read by the side of _De Defectu Oraculorum_, c. 18, p. 19 F (p. 135 above), which has a close verbal resemblance, and is perhaps extracted from it (Adler). Briareus may have been named in the full text here, as the son of Cronus. In Hesiod, _Theogon._ 147, he is the son of Uranus, and so Eustathius on Hom. _Il._ 1, 403, but a little later on Eustathius mentions Cronus as his father on the authority of Arrian. παρακάτω κεῖσθαι of the MSS. is difficult. Adler would read Βριάρεων δὲ τὸν υἱὸν ὡς ἔχοντα φρουρὰν τῶν τε νήσων ἐκείνων καὶ τῆς θαλάττης, ἣν Κρόνιον πέλαγος ὀνομάζουσιν, παρακατῳκίσθαι. Dr. Purser points out that the Straits of Gibraltar were first called the Pillars of Cronus, afterwards the Pillars of Briareus, and lastly the Pillars of Hercules (_Schol. ad Dionys. Perieg._ 64 in Müller’s _Fragm. Hist. Gr._ 3, 640).

I have followed the reading of Emperius πέραν κατῳκίσθαι, but without much confidence. Cronus could not well, as Dr. Purser points out, have been _in_ one of the islands, and also _beyond_ it.

(13) c. 26, 942 C. I venture to suggest that the text may have run something as follows:

Πλεῖστον γὰρ ἐν Καρχηδόνι χρόνον διέτριψεν ἅτε δὴ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν μέταλλα ἔχων, ὃς καί τινας, ὅθ᾽ ἡ προτέρα πόλις ἀπώλλυτο, κτλ.

The long sojourn of the stranger in Carthage would be explained if he owned mines there.

In the sequel φαινομένων may perhaps stand for Φοινικικῶν and χρῆναι for χρηστήρια εἶναι.

408 F (p. 110, l. 19). πρὸς δὲ πίστιν ἐπισφαλὴς καὶ ὑπεύθυνος. If ἐπισφαλής stands, it should rather mean ‘liable to take good faith (like an infection)‘, a very common use of the adjective and its adverb in Plutarch. See e. g. 661 B, 631 C. This seems rather a forced oxymoron here. Wyttenbach doubted, and Madvig proposed ἀνεπισφαλής, a word said to be found in Themistius.

On the passage see J. H. W. Strijd in _Class. Rev._, xxviii, p. 219.

Supplemental Notes 1918

418 A (p. 132, above). ... πυθυμένου (Φιλίππου) τίσιν ἀντιμαρτυρεῖν θεοῖς οἴεται τοὺς ἀνταγωνιζομένους, Τούτοις, ἔφη, τοῖς περὶ τὸ χρηστήριον, οἷς ἄρτι τοὺς ἔξω Πυλῶν πάντας Ἕλληνας ἡ πόλις κατοργιάζουσα μέχρι Τεμπῶν ἐλήλακεν.

I have followed Amyot, whose version is perhaps more intelligible than the Latin, but involves the change of θεοῖς to θείοις (Turnebus) and the transposition of Tempe and Thermopylae. If θεοῖς can be retained, the reference will be to Dionysus and Apollo, the two gods connected with the sanctuary (pp. 67, 138, &c.) and the purgation of the latter at Tempe, commemorated by periodical rites. θείοις appears to correspond more closely to ἱεροῖς above.

926 C-D (pp. 271-2). διὰ τοῦτο οὖν σώματι ψυχὴν μὴ λέγομεν εἶναι μηδέν, οὐ χρῆμα θεῖον ὑπὸ βρίθους ἢ πάχους, οὐρανόν τε πάντα καὶ γῆν καὶ θάλασσαν ἐν ταὐτῷ περιπολοῦντα, καὶ διιστάμενον εἰς σάρκας ἥκειν καὶ νεῦρα, καὶ μυελούς, καὶ παθέων μυρίων μεθ᾽ ὑγρότητος. For διιστάμενον W. proposes διιπτάμενον. I have, with great hesitation, followed Herwerden’s μηδὲ νοῦν (Emperius μηδὲ νοῦ χρῆμα), as the substantive agrees with the participle, but the whole passage is difficult. ὑπὸ βρίθους ἢ πάχους seems to be out of place (can ὑπό stand for something equivalent to ἄνευ or to Madvig’s ἀθῷον ὑπό)?

In the paper mentioned on p. 54 Dr. Max Adler adduces an interesting passage from Maximus Tyrius (diss. 22, 6) closely parallel to this, as proving that Plutarch was drawing upon Posidonius. The participle διιπταμένη occurs.

Footnote 302:

In c. 22 Apollonides is made to state the angular diameter of the moon at 12 ‘fingers’, i. e. one degree.

Footnote 303:

See Note (1), p. 309.

Footnote 304:

See Note (2), p. 309.

Footnote 305:

Arist. _Probl._ 12, 3.

Footnote 306:

See Note (3), p. 309.

Footnote 307:

See Aristarchus, _Magnitudes and Distances_, Hypothesis 2.

Footnote 308:

See the Homeric _Hymn to Hermes_, 99-100, where the moon is the daughter of Pallas (‘the Pallantean orb sublime’, Shelley), cp. p. 294.

Footnote 309:

As Homer, _Od._ 23, 330; 24, 539; Hesiod, _Theog._ 515.

Footnote 310:

e. g. _Il._ 10, 394. Cp. Heraclides Ponticus, 15.

Footnote 311:

_P. V._ 349.

Footnote 312:

Fr. 88.

Footnote 313:

W. reads μένειν (E has κινεῖν), but renders by ‘cieri’.

Footnote 314:

Fr. 733.

Footnote 315:

See note (4), p. 310.

Footnote 316:

Professor Henry Jackson has pointed out that the words form a hexameter line. For the Greek word see p. 291. Its introduction here is due to M. Bernardakis.

Footnote 317:

Reading τῇ γῇ, with Madvig.

Footnote 318:

See note (5), p. 310.

Footnote 319:

αἰρομένη MSS.

Footnote 320:

Prop. 7.

Footnote 321:

See note (6), p. 310.

Footnote 322:

Cf. _Il._ 9, 63.

Footnote 323:

Reading ὅλως (Emperius, ap. Ed. Teub.), for ὅμως.

Footnote 324:

See additional note, p. 312.

Footnote 325:

See e. g. _Tim._ 32 C.

Footnote 326:

_Theog._ 120, 195.

Footnote 327:

Pindar, Fr. 57: see p. 179.

Footnote 328:

Reading ἕξει, with Emperius.

Footnote 329:

See note (7), p. 310.

Footnote 330:

Reading ᾀἱδίου, with Emperius.

Footnote 331:

Ion Chius, Fr. 57 (Nauck).

Footnote 332:

Reading διίησιν, with Madvig.

Footnote 333:

I have followed the paraphrase of the Greek words suggested by Wyttenbach. For the physical facts see Ganot’s _Physics_, 516.

Footnote 334:

_Timaeus_, 46 A-C (Plato does not discuss plane folding mirrors).

Footnote 335:

Reading χωρεῖν for χωροῦντες.

Footnote 336:

Kepler has supplied such a diagram (in his translation, p. 131).

Footnote 337:

See p. 253.

Footnote 338:

Pindar, Fr. 107. Paean 9 (see _Oxy. Pap._ 1908, 841).

Footnote 339:

_Od._ 20, 352 and 357; 14, 162; 19, 307.

Footnote 340:

Reading τὸ ἕν for τόν.

Footnote 341:

Prop. 17.

Footnote 342:

_De Caelo_, 2, 13, 293 b 20.

Footnote 343:

See note (8), p. 310.

Footnote 344:

See note (9), p. 310.

Footnote 345:

Reading ἡ δὲ τῆς Σελήνης with Mr. W. R. Paton, see _Class. Rev._ vol. 26, p. 269.

Footnote 346:

Strictly speaking, both cases are of ‘overtaking’, but the results follow as stated.

Footnote 347:

_Il._ 9, 212.

Footnote 348:

See Plato, _Phaedo_, 110 B-C.

Footnote 349:

_Od._ 311.

Footnote 350:

Soph. (_Lemnians_), Fr. 348.

Footnote 351:

τραπέμπαλιν is due here to Meineke, ap. Ed. Teub., see p. 267.

Footnote 352:

_Tim._ 40 B.

Footnote 353:

See note (10), p. 311.

Footnote 354:

Aesch. _Suppl._ 937.

Footnote 355:

See p. 262 and note.

Footnote 356:

See n. (11), p. 311.

Footnote 357:

_Il._ 14, 246. The second line appears to have been added by Crates and is not in our texts.

Footnote 358:

_Tim._ 40 C.

Footnote 359:

Kepler would read ‘twelve’.

Footnote 360:

Fr. 48.

Footnote 361:

_W. and D._ 41.

Footnote 362:

_Il._ 20, 64.

Footnote 363:

_Il._ 8, 16.

Footnote 364:

_Od._ 7, 244.

Footnote 365:

See n. (13), p. 311.

Footnote 366:

Reading ἐπειδὰν παύσῃ, with Madvig.

Footnote 367:

See n. (14), p. 312.

Footnote 368:

_Od._ 9, 563.

Footnote 369:

i. e. the words τελεῖν, τελευτᾶν are allied, see p. 215.

Footnote 370:

Plato, _Tim._ 31 B and end.

Footnote 371:

Fr. 38.

Footnote 372:

_Tim._ 31 B.

Footnote 373:

_Od._ 11, 222.

Footnote 374:

_Od._ 11, 600.

Footnote 375:

From a note made in 1910, which cannot at present (1916) be verified.

NOTE ON THE MYTHS IN PLUTARCH

The three ‘myths’ which are found in these Dialogues are all avowedly Platonic; they are introduced and dismissed in Platonic formulae, and much of the imagery is drawn from Plato. Yet the treatment is Plutarch’s own, and the style, though dignified and elevated after his fashion, never suggests an imitation of Plato which could only be parody. New matter is brought in, mostly gleaned from the astronomy of his day. The movements of the heavenly bodies have been an inspiration to later poets of verse and prose:

_Minerva breathes on me, Apollo guides, And the nine Muses point me to the Bears._

To Plutarch the subject was rather one of earnest curiosity, as he turns to account the details and their theological application, read by him in the philosophers of, or nearly of, his own age.

The purpose of the Platonic myth is to carry the argument beyond and above the region of logic and analysis, into that of poetry and constructive truth, upon matters where strict proof was impossible. The reader may be referred to Bishop Westcott’s Essay on _Religious Thought in the West_, and to Professor J. A. Stewart’s book on _The Myths of Plato_.

(1) It will be convenient to look first into the myth of Thespesius in Plutarch’s Dialogue _On the Instances of Delay in Divine Punishment_ (see pp. 205-13 of this book). The motive is identical with that of the myth of Er in the _Republic_, yet with a difference. Plato gives us an experience from the world beyond death, granted to one who had been taken for dead during several days, in order to carry to a higher plane his argument for the victory here and hereafter of Justice over Injustice. Plutarch, as a moral teacher and ‘physician of souls’, concerned to restore individuals who have fallen, and to keep the falling on their feet, gives us the picture of ‘The Rake Reformed’, taking an extreme instance of a vicious character restored to sanity by glimpses of penalties and of bliss beyond this life, in order to deter and encourage others under temptation. The name Aridaeus, changed to Thespesius, ‘The Divine’, as an earnest of the reformation, reminds us of Ardiaeus the tyrant, in Plato. The language naturally falls into that of the Judgement-myth in the _Gorgias_. It is introduced by a similar form of words:

‘Now listen while I tell you a very beautiful story (λόγος) which you I think will call a myth (μῦθος), for all that I am about to say I wish to be regarded as true’ (Plato).

‘I can tell you a story which I have lately heard, yet I hesitate lest it may appear to you a myth.... Let me first make good the “probability” of my view, then we will start the myth, if myth indeed it be’ (Plutarch).

The details in Plutarch are fuller and grimmer, and the language, though solemn, lacks the stately reticence of Plato. We are often reminded of words and thoughts in the _Eumenides_ of Aeschylus. The celestial imagery is vague, and does not seem to suggest any special source more modern than Plato. It has a general resemblance to a passage in the _Phaedo_ (c. 58, p. 109 D, E).

‘We, dwelling in a hollow of the Earth, think that we dwell upon the Earth itself; and the air we call Heaven, and think that it is that Heaven wherein are the courses of the stars: whereas, by reason of weakness and sluggishness, we cannot go forth out of the air; but if a man could journey to the edge thereof, or having gotten wings could fly up, it would come to pass that even as fishes here which rise out of the sea do behold the things here, he, looking out, would behold the things there, and if his strength could endure the sight thereof, would see that there are the True Heaven, and the True Light, and the True Earth’ (Tr. J. A. Stewart).

The daemons are only mentioned as Ministers or Ushers in the after-world; there is no threefold division of the man into body, soul, and mind, only one into body and soul; there is one reference to Delphi and its oracle, where a popular belief that Night and Apollo were partners is corrected. An attentive reading will bring out a resemblance of words and phrases to those familiar to us in the Sixth Book of the _Aeneid_, the subject of E. Norden’s fruitful and convincing study.

(2) The beautiful story of Timarchus, the young friend of Socrates’ son, who passed into a trance in the cave of Trophonius, and saw things of the unseen world which were to be fully revealed to him three months later, i. e. in actual death, comes into the Dialogue _On the Genius of Socrates_ (pp. 36-40) to explain the special correspondence during life between the God and those gifted souls who possess mind, and become daemons or spirits after death. Here the three-fold division into body, soul, and mind (see p. 303) is maintained. A practical application of the myth is drawn by Theanor, the young Pythagorean visitor.

As the supposed Dialogue takes place in B. C. 378, we do not expect to find in it the astronomy of Plutarch’s day, though he would not have shrunk from any anachronism. The general imagery is again that of the _Phaedo_, but there is a sea on which circular bodies, the stars which are men’s souls, float. The current which bears them is circular, yet not completely circular, not ending in the point where it started, but describing a continuous spiral (just as the moon does with reference to the earth’s path). This sea is inclined to the middle and highest point of the firmament by ‘a little less than eight-ninths of the whole’. This is puzzling; it may suggest the inclination of the ecliptic to the equator, or, again, that of the Milky Way to the ecliptic. Doubtless some explanation will be forthcoming. An interesting detail is ‘Styx, a way to Hades’, clearly the shadow in a lunar eclipse, since the moon ‘only avoids Styx by a slight elevation, and is caught once in one hundred and seventy-seven secondary measures’, the exact number of periods of twenty-four hours contained in six lunar months, the normal interval between two eclipses (see p. 286). ‘Secondary measures’ is a curious expression, since Plutarch elsewhere (Plat. Quaest. 3, p. 1006 E) calls periods of a day and a night ‘the primary measures’. It seems not impossible that δευτέροις here has replaced some word which the scribe could not make out, such as νυχθημέροις. We have the four principles of birth and death, as in the _Face in the Moon_; only there Clotho takes the moon for her sphere of office, and Lachesis the earth, here Lachesis takes the moon, Clotho the sun, Atropus the ‘unseen’. Neither list agrees with the assignment of functions by Xenocrates (see the end of Dr. M. Adler’s Dissertation mentioned below).

(3) Sylla’s tale in the _Face in the Moon_ (pp. 299-308), a traveller’s story picked up in Carthage from one of those curious characters found on the outer margin of the Greek world in whom Plutarch delighted, is brought in with admirable dramatic fitness, shown in Sylla’s eagerness to produce it at the very outset, in the preparation for it by the skirmish between Theon and Lamprias, and in the vivacity of the narrative. It is dismissed with a Platonic formula:

‘Such is the story which I heard the stranger relate.... But you and your friends, Lamprias, may take the story in what way you will.’ Compare: ‘I am persuaded, O Callicles, that these things that are told are true.... Perchance this shall seem to you an old wife’s fable, and thou wilt despise it: well mightest thou despise it, if by searching we could find out aught better and truer’ (_Gorgias_, 526 D, 527 A). The astronomy of the myth is in the main that of the preceding Dialogue, and Sylla shows considerable familiarity with Plato and also with Xenocrates. It is perhaps noticeable how little interest Plutarch shows in geographical detail, contenting himself with such vague and antiquated views as sufficed for a setting to the story. He appears not to name Pytheas at all in the _Lives_, and only once (on a question of the tides) in the _Moralia_.