Plutarch, Conjugalia Praecepta, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 42

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

[42] The Athenians observe three sacred ploughings: the first at Scirum ¹ in commemoration of the most ancient of sowings; the second in Raria,² and the third near the base of the Acropolis, the so-called Buzygius ³ (the ox-yoking). But most sacred of all such sowings is the marital sowing and ploughing for the procreation of children. It is a beautiful epithet which Sophocles applied to Aphrodite when he called her bountiful-bearing Cytherea.⁴ Therefore man and wife ought especially to indulge in this with circumspection, keeping themselves pure from all unholy and unlawful intercourse with others, and not sowing seed from which they are unwilling to have any offspring,⁵ and from which if any issue does result, they are ashamed of it, and try to conceal it.

Conjugalia Praecepta. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1928.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Advice to Bride and Groom (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. II. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1928 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Γαμικὰ παραγγέλματα Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1888.) — 42 focus

[42] Ἀθηναῖοι τρεῖς ἀρότους ἱεροὺς ἄγουσι, πρῶτον 144b ἐπὶ Σκίρῳ, τοῦ παλαιοτάτου τῶν σπόρων ὑπόμνημα, 15 δεύτερον ἐν τῇ Ρ̓αρίᾳ, τρίτον ὑπὸ πόλιν¹ τὸν καλούμενον Βουζύγιον. τούτων δὲ πάντων ἱερώτατός² ἐστιν ὁ γαμήλιος σπόρος καὶ ἄροτος ἐπὶ παίδων τεκνώσει. καλῶς τὴν Ἀφροδίτην ὁ Σοφοκλῆς³ εὔκαρπον Κυθέρειαν προσηγόρευσε. διὸ δεῖ μάλιστα 20 τούτῳ χρῆσθαι μετʼ εὐλαβείας τὸν ἄνδρα καὶ τὴν γυναῖκα, τῶν ἀνιέρων καὶ παρανόμων πρὸς ἑτέρους ἁγνεύοντας ὁμιλιῶν, καὶ μὴ σπείροντας ἐξ ὧν οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς φύεσθαι θέλουσιν ἀλλὰ κἂν γένηται καρπὸς αἰσχύνονται καὶ ἀποκρύπτουσι. 25

Translations (1)

Conjugal Precepts Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. II. Goodwin, William W., editor; Philips, John, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 42 focus

[42] The Athenians yearly solemnized three sacred seedtimes: the first in Scirus, in memory of the first invention by their ancestors of ploughing and sowing; the second at a place called Rharia; and the third under Pelis, which they call βουζύγιον in commemoration of the first spanning of oxen to the plough. But more sacred than all these is the nuptial ploughing and sowing, in order to the procreation of children. And therefore Sophocles rightly calls Venus the fruitful Cytherea. For which reason it highly imports both the man and the woman, when bound together by the holy tie of wedlock, to abstain from all unlawful and forbidden copulation, and from ploughing and sowing where they never desire to reap any fruit of their labor, or, if the harvest come to perfection, they conceal and are ashamed to own it.

Notes on the current edition

Advice to Bride and Groom

1. Scirum was near Athens on the road to Eleusis; the Rarian plain was near Eleusis; the most convenient references regarding these sacred ploughings are Roscher, Lexikon der griech. und. rom. Mythologie, s.v. Buzyges, and Narrison and Verrall, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, pp. 166-8.

2. Scirum was near Athens on the road to Eleusis; the Rarian plain was near Eleusis; the most convenient references regarding these sacred ploughings are Roscher, Lexikon der griech. und. rom. Mythologie, s.v. Buzyges, and Narrison and Verrall, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, pp. 166-8.

3. Scirum was near Athens on the road to Eleusis; the Rarian plain was near Eleusis; the most convenient references regarding these sacred ploughings are Roscher, Lexikon der griech. und. rom. Mythologie, s.v. Buzyges, and Narrison and Verrall, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, pp. 166-8.

4. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., p. 310, Sophocles, No. 763.

5. Cf. Plato, Laws, p. 839 A.

Plutarch Conjugalia Praecepta 42

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers