of combination he takes to be a fourth. The fifth, whereby things so mingled are again parted and distinguished, he has left to us to guess.
I [Sidenote: C] conjecture that those on the one list are figures of those on the other; to being corresponds that which becomes, to motion the unlimited; to position the limited, to identity the combining principle, to difference that which distinguishes. But if the two sets are different, yet, on one view as on the other, there would be five classes, and five modes of difference. Some early inquirer, it will surely be said, saw into this before Plato, and consecrated two “E’s” to the God, as a manifestation and symbol of the number of all things. But further, having perceived that the good also takes shape under five heads, firstly [Sidenote: D] moderation, secondly symmetry, thirdly mind, fourthly the sciences and arts and true opinions which relate to soul, fifthly every pleasure which is pure and unmingled with what causes pain, he there leaves off, merely suggesting the Orphic verse, _In the sixth order let the strain be stayed!_ XVI. ‘Having said so much’, I went on, ‘to you all, I will sing one short stave to Nicander and “his cunning men”.[71] ‘On the sixth day of the new moon, when the Pythia is introduced into the Prytaneum by one person, the first of your three castings of lot is a single one, namely the five: the three [Sidenote: E] against the two.’
‘It is so,’ said Nicander, ‘but the reason may not be disclosed to others.’ ‘Then,’ I answered with a smile, ‘until such time as we become priests, and the God allows us to know the truth, this much and no more shall be added to what we have to say about the Pempad.’ Such, so far as I remember, was the end of our account of the arithmetical or mathematical reasons for extolling the letter ‘E’.
XVII. Ammonius, as one who himself gave Mathematics no mean place in Philosophy, was pleased at the course the conversation was taking, and said: ‘It is not worth our while to answer our young friends with too absolute accuracy on these points; I will only observe that any one of the numbers will provide not a few points for those who choose to sing its praises. [Sidenote: F] Why speak about the others? Apollo’s holy “Seven” will take up all one day before we have exhausted its powers.
Are we then to show the Seven Wise Men at odds with common usage, and “the time which runs”[72], and to suppose that they ousted the “Seven” from its pre-eminence before the God, and consecrated the “Five” as perhaps more appropriate?
‘My own view is that the letter signifies neither number, nor [Sidenote: 392] order, nor conjunction, nor any other omitted part of speech; it is a complete and self-operating mode of addressing the God; the word once spoken brings the speaker into apprehension of his power. The God, as it were, addresses each of us, as he enters, with his “KNOW THYSELF”, which is at least as good as “Hail”. We answer the God back with “EI” (Thou Art), rendering to him the designation which is true and has no lie in it, and alone belongs to him, and to no other, that of BEING.
XVIII. ‘For we have, really, no part in real being; all mortal nature is in a middle state between becoming and perishing, and presents but an appearance, a faint unstable image, of itself. If you strain the intellect, and wish to grasp this, it [Sidenote: B] is as with water; compress it too much and force it violently into one space as it tries to flow through, and you destroy the enveloping substance; even so when the reason tries to follow out too closely the clear truth about each particular thing in a world of phase and change, it is foiled, and rests either on the becoming of that thing or on its perishing; it cannot apprehend anything which abides or really is. “It is impossible to go into the same river twice”, said Heraclitus;[73] no more can you grasp mortal being twice, so as to hold it. So sharp and so swift is change; it scatters and brings together again, nay not again, no nor afterwards; even while it is being formed it fails, [Sidenote: C] it approaches, and it is gone. Hence becoming never ends in being, for the process never leaves off, or is stayed. From seed it produces, in its constant changes, an embryo, then an infant, then a child; in due order a boy, a young man; then a man, an elderly man, an old man; it undoes the former becomings and the age which has been, to make those which come after.
Yet we fear (how absurdly!) a single death, we who have died so many deaths, and yet are dying. For it is not only that, as Heraclitus[74] would say, “death of fire is birth of air”, and “death of air is birth of water”; the thing is much clearer in [Sidenote: D] our own selves.
The man in his strength is destroyed when the old man comes into being, the young man was destroyed for the man in his strength to be, so the boy for the young man, the babe for the boy. He of yesterday has died into him of to-day; he of to-day is dying into him of to-morrow. No one abides, no one is; we that come into being are many, while matter is driven around, and then glides away, about some one appearance and a common mould. Else how is it, if we remain the same, that the things in which we find pleasure now are different from those of a former time; that we love, hate, admire, and censure [Sidenote: E] different things; that our words are different and our feelings; that our look, our bodily form, our intellect are not the same now as then? If a man does not change, these various conditions are unnatural; if he does change, he is not the same man. But if he is not the same man, he is not at all; his so-called being is simply change and new birth of man out of man. In our ignorance of what being is, sense falsely tells us that what appears is.
XIX. ‘What then really is? That which is eternal, was never brought into being, is never destroyed, to which no time ever brings change. Time is a thing which moves and takes the fashion of moving matter, which ever flows or is a sort of leaky vessel which holds destruction and becoming.
Of time we use the words “afterwards”, “before”, “shall be”, and [Sidenote: F] “has been”, each on its face an avowal of not being. For, in this question of being, to say of a thing which has not yet come into being, or which has already ceased from being, that “it is”, is silly and absurd. When we strain to the uttermost our apprehension of time, and say “it is at hand”, “it is here”, or “now”, a rational development of the argument brings it all to nothing. “Now” is squeezed out into the future or into the past, as though we should try to see a point, which of necessity passes away to right or left. But if the case be the [Sidenote: 393] same with Nature, which is measured, as with time which measures, nothing in it abides or really is. All things are coming into being, or being destroyed, even while we measure them by time. Hence it is not permissible, even in speaking of that which is, to say that “it was”, or “it shall be”; these all are inclinations, transitions, passages, for of permanent being there is none in Nature.
XX. ‘But the God IS, we are bound to assert; he is, with reference to no time but to that age wherein is no movement, or time, or duration; to which nothing is prior or subsequent; no future, no past, no elder, no younger, which by one long “now” has made the “always” perfect. Only with reference to this that which really is, is; it has not come into being, it is [Sidenote: B] not yet to be, it did not begin, it will not cease. Thus then we ought to hail him in worship, and thus to address him as “Thou Art”, aye, or in the very words of some of the old people, “Ei Hen”, “Thou art one thing”.[75] For the Divine is not many things, in the sense in which each one of us is made up of ten thousand different and successive states, a scrap-heap of units, a mob of individuals. No, that which is must be one, as that which is one is.
Variety, any difference in being, passes to one side to produce that which is not. Therefore the first [Sidenote: C] of the names of the God is right, and the second, and the third. “Apollo” (Not-many) denies plurality and excludes multitude. Ieïus means one and one only; Phoebus, we know, is a word by which the ancients expressed that which is clean and pure, even as to this day the Thessalians, when their priests pass their solemn days in strict seclusion outside the temple, apply to them a verb formed from Phoebus. Now The One is transparent and pure, pollution comes by commixture of this with that, just as Homer,[76] you remember, says of ivory dyed red that it is stained, and dyers say of mingled pigments that they are [Sidenote: D] destroyed, and call the process “destruction”. Therefore it is the property of that which is indestructible and pure to be one and without admixture.
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 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 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 69: Pp. 255-6.
Footnote 70: 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 78: Pindar (probably from a Threnos).
Footnote 80: Fr. 149.
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.’
VIII. Our round had now brought us in front of the statue of Hiero, the tyrant. Most of the stories the stranger knew well, but he good-naturedly lent his ear to them. At last, when he heard that a certain bronze pillar given by Hiero, which had been standing upright, fell of its own accord on the very day when Hiero died at Syracuse, he showed surprise. I set myself to remember similar instances, such as the notable one of Hiero the Spartan, how before his death at Leuctra the eyes fell out [Sidenote: F] of his statue, and the gold stars disappeared which Lysander had dedicated after the naval battle of Aegospotami. Then the stone statue of Lysander himself broke out into such a growth of weeds and grass that the face was hidden. At the time of the Athenian disaster at Syracuse, the golden berries kept dropping off from the palm trees, and crows chipped the shield on the figure of Pallas. Again, the crown of the Cnidians, which Philomelus, tyrant of Phocis, had given to Pharsalia the dancing [Sidenote: 398] girl, caused her death, as she was playing near the temple of Apollo in Metapontum, after she had removed from Greece into Italy. The young men made a rush at the crown, and in their struggle to get it from one another, tore the woman to pieces. Now Aristotle used to say that no one but Homer made ‘words which stir, because of their energy’.[90] But I would say that there have been votive offerings sent here which have movement in a high degree, and help the God’s foreknowledge to signify things; that none of them is void or without feeling, but all are full of Divinity. ‘Very good!’ said Boethus; ‘so it is not enough to shut the God into a mortal body once every month. We will also knead him into every morsel of stone and brass, to [Sidenote: B] show that we do not choose to hold Fortune, or Spontaneity, a sufficient author of such occurrences.’ ‘Then in your opinion’, I said, ‘each of the occurrences looks like Fortune or Spontaneity; and it seems probable to you that the atoms glided forth, and were dispersed, and swerved, not sooner and not later, but at the precise moment when each of the dedicators was to fare worse or better.
Epicurus helps you now by what he said or wrote three hundred years ago; but the God, unless [Sidenote: C] he take and shut himself up in all things, and be mingled with all, could not, you think, initiate movement, or cause change of condition in anything which is!’