Part 9

XXI. ‘There are those who think that Apollo and the sun are the same; we hail them and love them for the fair name they give, and it is fitting to do so; for they associate their idea of the God with that which they honour and desire more than all other things which they know. But now that we see them dreaming of the God in the fairest of nightly visions, let us rise and encourage them to mount yet higher, to contemplate him in a dream of the day, and to see his own being. Let them pay honour also to the image of him and worship the principle of increase which is about it; so far as what is of sense can lead to what is of mind, a moving body to that which abides, it allows presentments and appearances of his kind and blessed [Sidenote: E] self to shine through after a fashion. But as to transitions and changes in himself, that he now discharges fire, and so is drawn up, as they put it, or again presses down and strains himself into earth and sea, winds and animals, and all the strange passages into animals and also plants, piety forbids us so much as to hear them. Otherwise the God will be a greater trifler than the boy in Homer,[77] for ever playing with the universe the game which the boy plays with a pile of sand, which is heaped together and sucked away under his hand; moulding the universe when there is none, and again destroying it when it has come into being. The opposite principle which we find in the [Sidenote: F] universe, whatever its origin, is that which binds being together and prevails over the corporeal weakness tending to destruction. To my thinking the word “EI” is confronted with this false view, and testifies to the God that THOU ART, meaning that no shift or change has place in him, but that such things belong [Sidenote: 394] to some other God, or rather to some Spirit set over Nature in its perishing and becoming, whether to effect either process or to undergo it. This appears from the names, in themselves opposite and contradictory. He is called Apollo, another is called Pluto; he is Delius, the other Aidoneus; he is Phoebus, the other “Skotios”; by his side are the Muses, and Memory, with the other are Oblivion and Silence; he is Theorius and Phanaeus, the other is “King of dim Night and ineffectual Sleep”.[78] The other is [Sidenote: B]

_Of all the Gods to men the direst foe._[79]

Whereas of him Pindar[80] has pleasantly said:

_Well tried and mildest found, to men who live and die._

so Euripides[81] was right:

_Draughts to the dead out-poured, Songs which our bright-haired lord Apollo hath abhorred._

And still earlier Stesichorus:[82]

_Jest and song Apollo owns, Let Hades keep his woes and groans._

Sophocles again,[83] in his actual assignment of instruments to each, is quite clear, thus:

_Nor harp nor lyre to wailing strains is dear_,

for it was quite late, indeed only the other day, that the flute [Sidenote: C] ventured to let itself speak “on themes of joy”; in early times it trailed along in mourning, nor was its service therein much esteemed or very cheerful; then there came a general confusion. It was specially by mingling things which were of Gods with those which were of daemons that the distinction of the instruments was lost. Anyhow, the phrase “KNOW THYSELF” seems to stand in a sort of antithesis to the letter “E”, and yet, again, to accord with it. The letter is an appeal, a cry raised in awe and worship to the God, as being throughout all eternity; the phrase is a reminder to mortal man of his own nature and of his weakness.’

Footnote 51:

Fr. 960.

Footnote 52:

i.e. at draughts, with a play on words.

Footnote 53:

Fr. 71.

Footnote 54:

_Il._ 17, 29.

Footnote 55:

See p. 14.

Footnote 56:

_Il._ 1, 70.

Footnote 57:

So Emperius, whose reading is that of the Paris MS. E. (See Paton _in loco_.)

Footnote 58:

Fr. 22.

Footnote 59:

A reference to the complaint with which the first attempts of Aeschylus and others to give literary form to the popular hymns in honour of Dionysus were greeted.

Footnote 60:

i.e. ‘not many’.

Footnote 61:

See p. 76.

Footnote 62:

Fr. 392.

Footnote 63:

Terms used by Heraclitus (Fr. 24), adapted by the Stoics for the periodic conflagration and renewal of the universe.

Footnote 64:

_Timaeus_, 31 A and 55 E foll.

Footnote 65:

_De Caelo_, 1, 8-9, 276 a 18.

Footnote 66:

_Il._ 15, 190.

Footnote 67:

See _Iph. Aul._ 865 and _Herc. Fur._ 1221.

Footnote 68:

P. 409 A.

Footnote 69:

Pp. 255-6.

Footnote 70:

P. 23 D and p. 66 C.

Footnote 71:

Cp. Pindar’s:

_All vocal to the hearing of the wise, All voiceless to the herd._—_Ol._ 2, 152-3.

Footnote 72:

From Simonides, a favourite phrase with Plutarch.

Footnote 73:

Fr. 41.

Footnote 74:

Fr. 25.

Footnote 75:

See on this remarkable passage E. Norden, _Agnostos Theos_, p. 231 f., and the view of H. Diels, communicated to him. I have followed Norden in reading εἶ, ἤ (he suggests with hesitation προσεπιθειάζειν) (and so Paton and Diels). Diels thinks that οἱ παλαιοί may cover later philosophers such as Xenophanes.

Footnote 76:

_Il._ 4, 141.

Footnote 77:

_Il._ 15, 362.

Footnote 78:

Pindar (probably from a Threnos).

Footnote 79:

_Il._ 9, 158.

Footnote 80:

Fr. 149.

Footnote 81:

_Suppl._ 975.

Footnote 82:

Fr. 50.

Footnote 83:

Fr. 728, probably from the _Thamyras_.

II WHY THE PYTHIA DOES NOT NOW GIVE ORACLES IN VERSE

THE SPEAKERS

A. Introductory

BASILOCLES, a citizen of Delphi. PHILINUS, a friend (perhaps also of Delphi).

B. Philinus narrates a Conversation between

PHILINUS. DIOGENIANUS, a young visitor from Pergamum, son of a friend of the same name. THEON, a literary friend. SERAPION, the Athenian poet. BOETHUS, a geometrician, almost a convinced Epicurean. TWO GUIDES of the temple of Delphi.

1. PHILINUS, coming out of the temple, explains to BASILOCLES why his party has been so long in making the round of the sights. It included an intelligent and inquisitive visitor, the younger Diogenianus, of Pergamum. He continues:—

2. DIOGENIANUS raised a point about the tint of the Corinthian bronze. THEON interposed with a story:

3. And discussed the properties of olive oil, which produces a crust on metals. He refers to Aristotle’s view (which cannot be traced in his extant works).

4. He suggested special properties in the air of Delphi—density and rarity—and quotes Homer for the combination of such opposites.

5. A verse inscription catching the eye of DIOGENIANUS caused him to ask why the verses of oracles are so poor. SERAPION suggested that perhaps our standard ought to be revised by that of the God. BOETHUS told a story about Pauson the painter. He added that there is no excuse in the subject-matter, witness Serapion, who wrote excellent poetry on dry science!

6. SERAPION agreed that our standards are wrong—they lack severity. Pleasure was cast out, once for all, from the seat of the Sibyl.

7. THEON disclaimed the false theory of inspiration. The verses are not the God’s, he only gives the impulse. But there is no pleasing the Epicureans, whether the prophetess uses verse or prose. DIOGENIANUS protested against levity on a subject of profound interest to all Greeks. THEON asked that the question might be reserved, and the round continued.

8. Instances from Hiero’s statue, and others, of the jealous care of Providence for human affairs. BOETHUS thought Chance, or Spontaneity, sufficient to account for all, and was answered by PHILINUS, who continued,

9. And referred to the history of the first Sibyl. BOETHUS mocked, and was met by DIOGENIANUS with instances of prophecies verified,

10. Which BOETHUS would explain as successful guesses.

11. SERAPION called for a distinction to be made between prophecies made in general terms, and those which go into details.

12. DIOGENIANUS asked the emblematic import of the frogs on the Corinthian brazen bowl. SERAPION suggested a reference to the Sun rising out of water. PHILINUS here detected an intrusion of the Stoic ‘Conflagration’ into the discussion. A casual remark raised the question of the identity of the sun with Phoebus. ‘They are as different’, said DIOGENIANUS, ‘as the sun and the moon, only the sun has permanently eclipsed the God, the sensible, the spiritual.’

13. SERAPION asked a question which the guides had already answered: ‘No wonder if they are bewildered by our high-flown talk.’

14. The statue of Rhodope, the courtesan, called forth a stern protest from DIOGENIANUS.

15. THEON, on an appeal from SERAPION, pointed out the greater scandal of offerings made by Greeks for victories over Greeks.

16. One of the GUIDES reminded the company of the story of Croesus and the baker-woman.

17. DIOGENIANUS begged that, instead of more anecdotes, the original question might be discussed: ‘Why has the use of verse in oracular answers been discontinued?’ The company seated itself in a new position, and BOETHUS genially remarked on its appropriateness, the place of origin of the heroic metre.

18. SERAPION congratulated him on his improved tone, and PHILINUS agreed. Philosophers have dropped verse, yet we do not infer that Philosophy has died out. PHILINUS agreed.

19-end. THEON spoke to the original question.

19. He mentioned ancient oracles delivered in prose,

20. And modern oracles given in verse.

21. To sum up: Soul is the instrument of the God, body of soul; the result must partake in the infirmity of body. The cases of reflecting mirrors, and of the moon. Thus there are two separate emotions in the prophetess—inspiration and Nature.

22. Homeric instances of the choice of human instruments—Story of Battus.

23. Of the ancient oracles (1) many were delivered in prose, (2) the fashion of the times was for verse (cp. c. 18).

24. It is better that oracles should be given in current coin, not in the depreciated coin of verse. History of poetical usage.

25. In old times obscurity was thought dignified, now it provokes impatience; and it has become vulgarized through charlatans.

26. When cities and statesmen used to consult the oracle on questions of high policy, circumlocution was necessary.

27. Again, verse was a great help to memory, when intricate advice was given, as to Battus.

28. In these days of general rest, only homely questions are asked, and are best answered in homely prose.

29. Yet we fear lest the credit acquired in three thousand years by the straight concise answers of the oracle should be lost! We gush out with wealth, as the mythical Galaesus with milk. I am proud to have had some hand in this.

30. People who regret the old obscurity and bombast are like children who admire a rainbow more than the sun which makes it.

In Theon’s long concluding speech (c. 19, p. 403 A to the end) he is no doubt expressing Plutarch’s own views. But the literary references and the touch of levity are quite in Theon’s style; ‘my young friend’, in c. 20, recalls the same phrase in c. 3. Later on, Plutarch is, as Wyttenbach has observed, indicated by τὸν καθηγεμόνα ταύτης τῆς πολιτείας. Professor Hartman (see Preface, p. xx) states his conviction that Theon was an older friend of Plutarch and his predecessor in the priesthood (pp. 166 and 617). In a Dialogue in which the Epicureans are attacked (_Non posse suaviter_, p. 1088 D) a long speech clearly belonging to Theon is introduced by the words ‘I (Plutarch) said’. This slip is probably due to the author. (See, on the general subject, Mr. John Oakesmith’s note on p. 149 of The Religion of Plutarch.)

WHY THE PYTHIA DOES NOT NOW GIVE ORACLES IN VERSE

[Sidenote: 394 D] _Basilocles._ The shades of evening, Philinus, while you are conducting the stranger round the votive gifts! Here am I, [Sidenote: E] fairly tired out in waiting for you.

_Philinus._ Yes, Basilocles, we made slow progress, sowing arguments as we went and reaping them too; battle and war were beneath them, as they sprang and sprouted in our faces, like the ‘sown men’ of old.

_Basilocles._ Then shall I have to call in some one else of your [Sidenote: F] company, or will you oblige us with the whole story? What were the arguments, and who were the speakers?

_Philinus._ I shall have to do that myself, Basilocles, it seems, for you will not easily meet with any of the others in the town; I saw most of them going back to the Corycium and the Lycuria with the stranger.

_Basilocles._ A good sight-seer this stranger, and a mighty good listener!

_Philinus._ Say rather a good scholar and a good learner. Not that these are his most admirable points; there is a gentleness [Sidenote: 395] which is full of charm; and then his readiness to do battle and to raise sensible points: nothing captious or hard in his way of taking the answers. After a very short time in his company you would have to say ‘good father, good child’, for you know that Diogenianus was one of the very best.

_Basilocles._ I never saw him myself, but I have met many who spoke with warm approval of his talk and his character, and in just the same terms about this young man. But how did the argument begin, and what started it?

II. _Philinus._ The guides were going through their lectures, as prepared, showing no regard for our entreaties that they would cut short their periods and skip most of the inscriptions. The stranger was but moderately interested in the form and workmanship of the different statues; it appears that he has [Sidenote: B] seen many beautiful objects of art. What he did admire was the lustre on the bronze, unlike rust or deposit, but rather resembling a coat of deep shining blue, so much so, that it rather well became the sea-captains, with whom the round had begun, standing up out of the deep so naively with the true sea tint. ‘Now was there’, he asked, ‘some receipt of pharmacy known to the old artists in brass like that method of tempering swords of which we read? It was forgotten in time, and then bronze had a truce from works of war. As to the Corinthian bronze, that came by its beautiful colour accidentally, not through art. A fire spread over a house in which were stored some gold and silver and a large quantity of bronze. The whole was fused into one stream of metal, which took its name [Sidenote: C] from the bronze, as the largest ingredient.’ Theon broke in: ‘We have heard a different story, with a spice of mischief in it. A Corinthian bronze-worker found a chest containing much gold. Fearing discovery, he chipped it off little by little, and quietly mixed the bits with the bronze; the result was a marvellous blend, which he sold at a high price, as people were delighted with the beauty of the colour. However, the one story is as mythical as the other; what we may suppose is that some method was known of mixing and preparing, much as now they mix gold with silver, and get a peculiar and rare effect, [Sidenote: D] which to me appears a sickly pallor and a loss of colour with no beauty in it.’

III. ‘What has been the cause, then,’ said Diogenianus, ‘do you think, of the colour of the bronze here?’ ‘Here is a case’, said Theon, ‘in which, of the first and most natural elements which are or ever will be, fire, earth, air, water, none approaches or touches the bronze, save air only: clearly then, air is the agent; from its constant presence and contact the bronze gets its exceptional quality, or perhaps

_Thus much you knew before Theognis was_,[84]

as the comic poet has it; but what you want to learn is the [Sidenote: E] nature of air, and the property in virtue of which its repeated contact has coloured the bronze.’ Diogenianus said that it was. ‘And I too,’ Theon continued, ‘my young friend, let us follow the quest together; and first, if you will agree, ask why olive oil produces a more copious rust on the metal than other liquids; it does not, of course, actually make the deposit, being pure and uncontaminated when it is applied.’ ‘Certainly not;’ said the young man, ‘the real cause appears to me to be something different; the oil is fine, pure, and transparent, so the rust when it meets it is specially evident, whereas with other liquids it becomes invisible.’ ‘Excellent,’ said Theon, ‘my [Sidenote: F] young friend, that is prettily put. But consider also, if you please, the cause given by Aristotle.’ ‘I do please’, he said. ‘Aristotle says that the rust, when it comes over other liquids, passes invisibly through and is dispersed, because the particles are irregular and fine, whereas in the density of oil it is held up and permanently condensed. If, then, we can frame some such hypothesis for ourselves, we shall not be wholly at a loss for a spell to charm away this difficulty.’

IV. We encouraged him and agreed, so he (Theon) went [Sidenote: 396] on to say that the air of Delphi is thick and close of texture, with a tenseness caused by reflection from the hills and their resistance, but is also fine and biting, as seems to be proved by the facts of digestion of food. The tenuity allows it to enter the bronze, and to scrape up from it much solid rust, which rust again is held up and compressed, because the density of the air does not allow it a passage through; but the deposit breaks out, because it is so copious, and takes on a rich bright colour on the surface. We applauded this, but the stranger remarked that either hypothesis alone was sufficient for the argument. ‘The fineness’, [Sidenote: B] he went on, ‘will be found to be in contradiction to the density of which you speak, but there is no necessity to assume it. The bronze, as it ages, exhales or throws off the rust by its own inherent action; the density holds together and solidifies the rust, and makes it apparent because of its quantity.’ Theon broke in: ‘What is to prevent, Sir, the same thing being both fine and dense, as silks or fine linen stuffs, of which Homer says

_And from the close-spun weft the trickling oil will fall_,[85]

where he indicates the minute and delicate workmanship of the fabric by the fact that the oil would not remain, but trickled [Sidenote: C] or glided off, the fineness at once and the density refusing it a passage. And, again, the scraping up of the rust is not the only purpose served by the tenuity of the air; it also makes the colour itself pleasanter to the eye and brighter, it mingles light and lustre with the blue.’

V. Here there was an interval of silence; the guides were again getting their speeches in hand. A certain oracle given in verse was mentioned—I think it was one about the reign of Aegon the Argive—when Diogenianus observed that he had often been surprised at the badness and common quality of the verses in which the oracles are delivered. Yet the God is Choirmaster of the Muses, and eloquent language is no less [Sidenote: D] his function than beauty of ode or tune, and he should have a voice far above that of Homer and Hesiod in verse. Here we have most of the oracles saturated with bad taste and poverty of metre and diction. Then Serapion, the poet, who was with us from Athens, said: ‘Then do we really believe that these verses are the God’s, yet venture to say that they fall behind Homer and Hesiod in beauty? Shall we not rather take them for all that is best and most beautiful in poetry, and revise our judgement of them prejudiced by familiarity with a bad standard?’ Boethus, the geometer—you know the man, [Sidenote: E] already on his way to the camp of Epicurus—broke in: ‘Have you ever heard the story of Pauson the painter?’ ‘Not I’, said Serapion. ‘Well, it is worth hearing. It appears that he had contracted to paint a horse rolling, and painted him galloping. The owner was indignant; so Pauson laughed and turned the canvas upside down, with the result that the lower parts became the upper, and there was the horse rolling, not galloping. So [Sidenote: F] it is, Bion tells us, with certain syllogisms when converted. Thus some will tell us not that the oracles are quite beautiful because they are the God’s, but that they are not the God’s because they are bad! That point may be left unsettled. But that the verses used in the oracles are bad poetry,’ he went on, ‘is made clear also in your judgement, my dear Serapion, is it not so? For you write poems which are philosophical and severe as to matter, but in force and grace and diction more like the work of Homer and Hesiod than the utterances of the Pythia.’

VI. Then Serapion: ‘Yes, we are sick, Boethus, sick in ears and in eyes; luxury and softness have accustomed us to think things beautiful as they are more sweet, and to call them so. Soon we shall actually be finding fault with the Pythia because [Sidenote: 397] she does not speak with a more thrilling voice than Glauce the singing-girl, or use costly ointments, or put on purple robes to go down into the sanctuary, or burn on her censer cassia, mastic, and frankincense, but only bay leaves and barley meal. Do you not see’, he went on, ‘what grace the songs of Sappho have, how they charm and soothe the hearers, while the Sibyl “with raving mouth”, as Heraclitus says, “utters words with no laughter, no adornment, no spices”,[86] yet makes her voice carry to ten thousand years, because of the God. And Pindar[87] tells us that Cadmus heard from the God “right music”, not [Sidenote: B] sweet music, or delicate music, or twittering music. What is passionless and pure gives no admission to pleasure; she was cast out in this very place, together with pain,[88] and the most of her has dribbled away, it seems, into the ears of men.’

VII. When Serapion had done, Theon smiled. ‘Serapion’, he said, ‘has paid his usual tribute to his own proclivities, making capital out of the turn which the conversation had taken about pain and pleasure! But for us, Boethus, even if these verses are inferior to Homer, let us never suppose that the God has composed them; he only gives the initial impulse according to the capacity of each prophetess. Why, suppose the answers had [Sidenote: C] to be written, not spoken. I do not think we should suppose that the letters were made by the God, and find fault with the calligraphy as below royal standard. The strain is not the God’s, but the woman’s, and so with the voice and the phrasing and the metre; he only provides the fantasies, and puts light into her soul to illuminate the future; for that is what inspiration is. To put it plainly, there is no escaping you prophets of Epicurus—yes, you too, Boethus, are drifting that way—you blame those old prophetesses because they used bad poetry, and you also blame those of to-day because they speak their answers in [Sidenote: D] prose, and use the first words which come, that they may not be overhauled by you for headless, hollow, crop-tailed lines.’ Then Diogenianus: ‘Do not jest, in Heaven’s name, no! but help us to solve the problem which is common to us all. There is not a Greek[89] living who is not in search of a rational account of the fact that the oracle has ceased to use verse, epic or other.’ Theon interrupted: ‘At the present moment, my young friend, we seem to be doing a shabby turn by the guides, taking the bread out of their mouths. Suffer them first to do [Sidenote: E] their office, afterwards you shall discuss in peace whatever you wish.’