Plutarch, De E apud Delphos, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 9

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[9] If, then, anyone ask, What has this to do with Apollo?, we shall say that it concerns not only him, but also Dionysus, whose share in Delphi is no less than that of Apollo.¹ Now we hear the theologians affirming and reciting, sometimes in verse and sometimes in prose, that the god is deathless and eternal in his nature,² but, owing forsooth to some predestined design and reason, he undergoes transformations of his person, and at one time enkindles his nature into fire and makes it altogether like all else, and at another time he undergoes all sorts of changes in his form, his emotions and his powers, even as the universe does to-day; but he is called by the best known of his names.³ The more enlightened, however, concealing from the masses the transformation into fire, call him Apollo because of his solitary state,⁴ and Phoebus because of his purity and stainlessness.⁵ And as for his turning into winds and water, earth and stars, and into the generations of plants and animals, and his adoption of such guises, they speak in a deceptive way of what he undergoes in his transformation as a tearing apart, as it were, and a dismemberment. They give him the names of Dionysus, Zagreus, Nyctelius, and Isodaetes; they construct destructions and disappearances, followed by returns to life and regenerations — riddles and fabulous tales quite in keeping with the aforesaid transformations. To this god they also sing the dithyrambic strains laden with emotion and with a transformation that includes a certain wandering and dispersion. Aeschylus,⁶ in fact, says

Fitting it is that the dithyramb

With its fitful notes should attend

Dionysus in revel rout.

But to Apollo they sing the paean, music regulated and chaste.

Apollo the artists represent in paintings and sculpture as ever ageless and young, but Dionysus they depict in many guises and forms; and they attribute to Apollo in general a uniformity, orderliness, and unadulterated seriousness, but to Dionysus a certain variability combined with playfulness, wantonness, seriousness, and frenzy. They call upon him⁷:

Euoe Bacchus who incites

Womankind, Dionysus who delights

’Mid his honours fraught with frenzy,

not inappositely apprehending the peculiar character of each transformation.

But since the time of the cycles in these transformations is not equal, but that of the one which they call Satiety,⁸ is longer, and that of Dearth shorter, they observe the ratio, and use the paean at their sacrifices for a large part of the year; but at the beginning of winter they awake the dithyramb and, laying to rest the paean, they use the dithyramb instead of it in their invocations of the god; for they believe that, as three is to one, so is the relation of the creation to the conflagration.

De E apud Delphos. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1936.

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Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

The Ε at Delphi (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. 5. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ τοῦ Ε τοῦ ἐν Δελφοῖς Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol 3. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1891.) — 9 focus

[9] ἐὰν οὖν ἔρηταί τις, τί ταῦτα πρὸς τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα, φήσομεν οὐχὶ μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸς 388f τὸν Διόνυσον, ᾧ τῶν Δελφῶν οὐδὲν ἧττον ἢ τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι μέτεστιν. ἀκούομεν οὖν τῶν θεολόγων τὰ μὲν ἐν ποιήμασι τὰ δʼ ἄνευ μέτρου λεγόντων 5 καὶ ὑμνούντων, ὡς ἄφθαρτος ὁ θεὸς καὶ ἀίδιος πεφυκώς, ὑπὸ δή τινος εἱμαρμένης γνώμης καὶ λόγου μεταβολαῖς ἑαυτοῦ χρώμενος, ἄλλοτε μὲν εἰς πῦρ ἀνῆψε τὴν φύσιν¹ πάνθʼ ὁμοιώσας πᾶσιν, ἄλλοτε δὲ παντοδαπὸς ἔν τε μορφαῖς καὶ ἐν πάθεσι καὶ δυνάμεσι 10 διαφόροις γιγνόμενος, ὡς γίγνεται νῦν,² κόσμος ὀνομάζεται δὲ³ τῷ γνωριμωτάτῳ τῶν ὀνομάτων. κρυπτόμενοι δὲ τοὺς πολλοὺς οἱ σοφώτεροι τὴν μὲν εἰς πῦρ μεταβολὴν Ἀπόλλωνά τε τῇ μονώσει 389a Φοῖβόν τε τῷ καθαρῷ καὶ ἀμιάντῳ καλοῦσι. τῆς 15 δʼ εἰς πνεύματα⁴ καὶ ὓδωρ καὶ γῆν καὶ ἄστρα καὶ φυτῶν ζῴων τε γενέσεις τροπῆς αὐτοῦ καὶ διακοσμήσεως τὸ μὲν πάθημα καὶ τὴν μεταβολὴν διασπασμόν τινα καὶ διαμελισμὸν αἰνίττονται· Διόνυσον δὲ καὶ Ζαγρέα καὶ Νυκτέλιον καὶ Ἰσοδαίτην αὐτὸν 20 ὀνομάζουσι, καὶ φθοράς τινας καὶ ἀφανισμοὺς⁵ οἱ τὰς⁶ ἀποβιώσεις⁷ καὶ παλιγγενεσίας, οἰκεῖα ταῖς εἰρημέναις μεταβολαῖς αἰνίγματα καὶ μυθεύματα περαίνουσι· καὶ ᾅδουσι τῷ μὲν διθυραμβικὰ μέλη παθῶν μεστὰ καὶ μεταβολῆς πλάνην τινὰ καὶ διαφόρησιν 25 ἐχούσης· 389b

μιξοβόαν γὰρ Αἰσχύλος⁸ φησὶ πρέπει

διθύραμβον ὁμαρτεῖν

σύγκωμον⁹ Διονύσῳ;

τῷ δὲ παιᾶνα, τεταγμένην καὶ σώφρονα μοῦσαν. 5 ἀγήρων τε τοῦτον ἀεὶ καὶ νέον ἐκεῖνον δὲ πολυειδῆ καὶ πολύμορφον ἐν γραφαῖς καὶ πλάσμασι δημιουργοῦσι· καὶ ὅλως τῷ μὲν ὁμοιότητα καὶ τάξιν καὶ σπουδὴν ἄκρατον, τῷ δὲ μεμιγμένην τινὰ παιδιᾷ καὶ ὕβρει καὶ σπουδῇ καὶ μανίᾳ προσφέροντες¹⁰ ἀνωμαλίαν, 10 εὔιον ὀρσιγύναικα¹¹ μαινομέναις Διόνυσον ἀνθέοντα τιμαῖς ἀνακαλοῦσιν, οὐ φαύλως ἑκατέρας μεταβολῆς τὸ οἰκεῖον λαμβάνοντες. ἐπεὶ δʼ οὐκ ἴσος 389c τῶν περιόδων ἐν ταῖς μεταβολαῖς χρόνος, ἀλλὰ μείζων ὁ τῆς ἑτέρας ἣν κόρον·¹² καλοῦσιν, ὁ δὲ τῆς 15 χρησμοσύνης ἐλάττων, τὸ κατὰ λόγον τηροῦντες ἐνταῦθα τὸν μὲν ἄλλον ἐνιαυτὸν παιᾶνι χρῶνται περὶ τὰς θυσίας, ἀρχομένου δὲ χειμῶνος ἐπεγείραντες διθύραμβον τὸν δὲ παιᾶνα καταπαύσαντες, τρεῖς μῆνας ἀντʼ ἐκείνου τοῦτον κατακαλοῦνται τὸν θεὸν · 20 ὅπερ τρία πρὸς ἕν, τοῦτο τὴν διακόσμησιν οἰόμενοι χρόνῳ πρὸς τὴν ἐκπύρωσιν εἶναι.

Translations (1)

Of the word ΕΙ engraven over the gate of Apollo's temple at Delphi Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. 4. Goodwin, William W., editor; Kippax, R, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 9 focus

[9] Now if any one shall say, What is all this to Apollo? we will answer, that it concerns not Apollo only, but Bacchus also, who has no less to do with Delphi than Apollo himself. For we have heard the divines, partly in verse partly in prose, saying and singing, that the God is of his own nature incorruptible and eternal, but yet, through a certain fatal decree and reason, suffers changes of himself, having sometimes his nature kindled into a fire, and making all things alike, and otherwhiles becoming various, in different shapes, passions, and powers, like unto the World, and is named by this best-known of names. But the wiser, concealing from the vulgar the change into fire, call him both Apollo from his unity¹ and Phoebus from his purity and unpollutedness. But as for the passion and change of his conversion into winds, water, earth, stars, and the various kinds of plants and animals, and its order and disposition, this they obscurely represent as a certain distraction and dismembering; and they now call him Dionysus, Zagreus, Nyctelius, and Isodaetes, exhibiting and chanting forth certain corruptions, disparitions, deaths, and resurrections, which are all riddles and fables suited to the said mutations. To Dionysus or Bacchus they sing dithyrambic verses, full of passions and change, joined with a certain wandering and agitation backwards and forwards; for, as Aeschylus says,

The dithyramb, whose sounds are dissonant,

’Tis fit should wait on Bacchus.

But to Apollo they sing the well-ordered paean and a discreet song. And Apollo both in their sculptures and statues they always make to be young and never declining to old age; but Dionysus they represent in many shapes and forms. Lastly, to the one they attribute equality, order, and unmixed gravity; but to the other, a certain unequal mixture of sports, petulancy, gravity, and madness, surnaming him,

Evius Bacchus, who to rage incites

Women on tops of mountains, and delights

In frantic worship.

Thus they not unfitly touch the property of both changes. Now because the time of the revolutions in these changes is not equal, but that of the one which they call Koros (that is, satiety) is longer, and that of the other named Chresmosyne (or want) shorter; observing in this the proportion, they all the rest of the year use in their sacrifices the paean; but at the beginning of winter, rousing up the dithyramb, and laying the paean to rest, they do for three months invocate Bacchus instead of Apollo, esteeming the creation of the world to be the same in proportion of time to the conflagration of it as three to one.

Notes on the current edition

The

1. Cf. 365 a, supra, and Lucan, v. 73-74; and for the proverb Cf. Moralia, 280 d and the note.

2. Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, v. 14 (p. 711 Potter).

3. Cf. Stobaeus, Eclogae Phys. et Ethic. i. 21. 5 (i. p. 184. 11 ed. Wachsmuth).

4. Cf. 354 b, 381 f, supra, and 393 b, infra.

5. Cf. 393 c, infra.

6. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Aeschylus, no. 355.

7. Cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 730, Adespota, no. 131; quoted by Plutarch in Moralia, 607 c and 671 c also.

8. Cf. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ii. 616 (p. 186); Philo, De Spec. Leg. i. 208.

Plutarch De E apud Delphos 9

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

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