Plutarch, De Pythiae oraculis, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 23

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[23] What statement, then, shall we make about the priestesses of former days? Not one statement, but more than one, I think. For in the first place, as has already been said,¹ they also gave almost all their responses in prose. In the second place, that era produced personal temperaments and natures which had an easy fluency and a bent towards composing poetry, and to them were given also zest and eagerness and readiness of mind abundantly, thus creating an alertness which needed but a slight initial stimulus from without and a prompting of the imagination, with the result that not only were astronomers and philosophers, as Philinus says, attracted at once to their special subjects, but when men carne under the influence of abundant wine or emotion, as some note of sadness crept in or some joy befell, a poet would slip into tuneful utterance²; their convivial gatherings were filled with amatory verses and their books with such writings. When Euripides said

Love doth the poet teach,

Even though he know naught of the Muse before,³

his thought was that Love does not implant in one the poetical or musical faculty, but when it is already existent in one, Love stirs it to activity and makes it fervent, while before it was unnoticed and idle. Or shall we say, my friend, that nobody is in love nowadays, but that love has vanished from the earth because nobody in verse or song

Launches swiftly the shafts

Of sweet-sounding lays

Aimed at the youth beloved,

as Pindar⁴ has put it? No, that is absurd. The fact is that loves many in number still go to and fro among men, but, being in association with souls that have no natural talent nor ear for music, they forgo the flute and lyre, but they are no less loquacious and ardent than those of olden time. Besides it is not righteous nor honourable to say that the Academy and Socrates and Plato’s congregation were loveless, for we may read their amatory discourses⁵; but they have left us no poems.⁶ As compared with him who says that the only poetess of love was Sappho, how much does he fall short who asserts that the only prophetess was the Sibyl and Aristonica and such others as delivered their oracles in verse? As Chaeremon⁷ says,

Wine mixes with the manners of each guest,

and as he drinks, prophetic inspiration, like that of love, makes use of the abilities that it finds ready at hand, and moves each of them that receive it according to the nature of each.

De Pythiae oraculis. 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 Oracle at Delphi no Longer Given in Verse (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. V. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ τοῦ μὴ χρᾶν ἔμμετρα νῦν τὴν Πυθίαν Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol II. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1891.) — 23 focus

[23] τί οὖν φήσομεν περὶ τῶν παλαιῶν; οὐχ ἓν 405e τὰ πλείονα, οἶμαι. πρῶτον μὲν γάρ, ὥσπερ εἴρηται, τὰ πλεῖστα κἀκεῖναι καταλογάδην ἀπεφθέγγοντο. 15 δεύτερον δὲ καὶ σωμάτων ἤνεγκε κράσεις καὶ φύσεις ὁ χρόνος ἐκεῖνος εὔρουν τι καὶ φορὸν ἐχούσας πρὸς ποίησιν, αἷς εὐθὺς ἐπεγίγνοντο προθυμίαι καὶ ὁρμαὶ καὶ παρασκευαὶ ψυχῆς ἑτοιμότητα ποιοῦσαι μικρᾶς ἔξωθεν ἀρχῆς καὶ παρατροπῆς¹ τοῦ φανταστικοῦ 20 δεομένην,² ὡς εὐθὺς ἕλκεσθαι πρὸς τὸ οἰκεῖον μόνον, ὡς λέγει Φιλῖνος, ἀστρολόγους καὶ φιλοσόφους, ἀλλʼ ἐν οἴνῳ τε πολλῷ καὶ πάθει³ γιγνομένων, οἴκτου τινος ὑπορρυέντος ἢ χαρᾶς προσπεσούσης, 405f ὠλίσθανον⁴ εἰς ἐνῳδὸν ⁵ γῆρυν ἐρωτικῶν τε 25 κατεπίμπλαντο μέτρων καὶ ᾀσμάτων τὰ συμπόσια καὶ τὰ βιβλία γραμμάτων. ὁ δʼ Εὐριπίδης⁶ εἰπὼν⁷ ὡς ἔρως ποιητὴν διδάσκει, κἂν ἄμουσος ᾖ τὸ πρίν ἐνενόησεν,⁸ ὅτι ποιητικὴν καὶ μουσικὴν Ἔρως δύναμιν οὐκ ἐντίθησιν, ἐνυπάρχουσαν δὲ κινεῖ καὶ ἀναθερμαίνει 5 λανθάνουσαν καὶ ἀργοῦσαν. ἢ μηδένα νῦν ἐρᾶν, ὦ ξένε, λέγωμεν, ἀλλὰ φροῦδον οἴχεσθαι τὸν ἔρωτα, ὅτι μέτροις οὐδεὶς οὐδʼ ᾠδαῖς ῥίμφα παιδείους⁹ ὡς Πίνδαρος ἔφη τοξεύει μελιγάρεας ὕμνους; 406a ἀλλʼ ἄτοπον· ἔρωτες γὰρ ἔτι¹⁰ πολλοὶ τῶν 10 ἀνθρώπων¹¹ ἐπιστρέφονται, ψυχαῖς δʼ¹² ὁμιλοῦντες οὐκ εὐφυῶς οὐδʼ ἑτοίμως πρὸς μουσικὴν ἐχούσαις, ἄναυλοι μὲν καὶ ἄλυροι λάλοι δʼ οὐδὲν ἧττόν εἰσι καὶ διάπυροι τῶν παλαιῶν· ὅτι¹³ οὐδʼ ὅσιον¹⁴ εἰπεῖν ἢ καλὸν ὡς ἀνέραστος ἦν ἡ Ἀκαδήμεια¹⁵ καὶ ὁ Σωκράτους 15 καὶ Πλάτωνος; χορός, ὧν λόγοις μὲν ἐρωτικοῖς ἐντυχεῖν ἔστι, ποιήματα δʼ οὐκ ἀπολελοίπασι. τί δʼ ἀπολείπει τοῦ λέγοντος; ἐρωτικὴν μόνην γεγονέναι Σαπφὼ γυναικῶν ὁ¹⁶ μαντικὴν φάσκων μόνην¹⁷ γεγονέναι 406b Σίβυλλαν καὶ Ἀριστονίκαν καὶ ὅσαι διὰ μέτρων 20 ἐθεμίστευσαν; ὁ μὲν γὰρ οἶνος ὡς ἔλεγε Χαιρήμων¹⁸ τοῖς τρόποις κεράννυται τῶν πινόντων ὁ δὲ μαντικὸς ἐνθουσιασμός, ὥσπερ ὁ ἐρωτικός, χρῆται τῇ ὑποκειμένῃ δυνάμει καὶ κινεῖ τῶν δεξαμένων ἕκαστον καθʼ ὃ πέφυκεν.

Translations (1)

Wherefore the Pythian Priestess now Ceases to Deliver her Oracles in Verse Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. III. Goodwin, William W., editor; Philips, John, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 23 focus

[23] What then shall we say of the ancients? Not one, but many things. First then, as hath been said already, that the ancient Pythian priestesses pronounced most of their oracles in prose. Secondly, that those ages produced complexions and tempers of body much more prone and inclined to poetry, with which immediately were associated those other ardent desires, affections, and preparations of the mind, which wanted only something of a beginning and a diversion of the fancy from more serious studies, not only to draw to their purpose (according to the saying of Philinus) astrologers and philosophers, but also in the heat of wine and pathetic affections, either of sudden compassion or surprising joy, to slide insensibly into voices melodiously tuned, and to fill banquets with charming odes or love songs, and whole volumes with amorous canzonets and mirthful inventions. Therefore, though Euripides tells us,

Love makes men poets who before no music knew,

he does not mean that love infuses music and poetry into men that were not already inclined to those accomplishments, but that it warms and awakens that disposition which lay unactive and drowsy before. Otherwise we might say that now there were no lovers in the world, but that Cupid himself was vanished and gone, because that now-a-days there is not one

Who now, true archer-like,

Lets his poetic raptures fly

To praise his mistress’s lip or eye,

as Pindar said. But this were absurd to affirm. For amorous impatiencies torment and agitate the minds of many men not addicted either to music or poetry, that know not how to handle a flute or touch a harp, and yet are no less talkative and inflamed with desire than the ancients. And I believe there is no person who would be so unkind to himself as to say that the Academy or the quires of Socrates and Plato were void of love, with whose discourses and conferences touching that passion we frequently meet, though they have not left any of their poems behind. And would it not be the same thing to say, there never was any woman that studied courtship but Sappho, nor ever any that were endued with the gift of prophecy but Sibylla and Aristonica and those that delivered their oracles and sacred raptures in verse? For wine, as saith Chaeremon, soaks and infuses itself into the manners and customs of them that drink it. Now poetic rapture, like the raptures of love, makes use of the ability of its subject, and moves every one that receives it, according to its proper qualification.

Notes on the current edition

The Oracle at Delphie no Longer Given in Verse

1. 403 e and 404 a, supra.

2. Cf. Moralia, 623 a.

3. The quotation, from the Stheneboea of Euripides, Plutarch repeats in more complete form in Moralia, 622 c and 762 b. Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 569, Euripides, no. 663.

4. Pindar, Isthmian Odes, ii. 3.

5. Such, for example, as the Phaedrus of Plato.

6. A few epigrams (some amatory) attributed to Plato may be found in the Anthology; cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. ii. 295-312; Edmonds, Elegy and Iambic, ii. pp. 2-11 (L.C.L.); and for Socrates’ poems see Suidas s.v.; Plato, Phaedo, 60 c-d; Diogenes Laertius, ii. 42; Athenaeus, 628 e; Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. ii. 287-288.

7. Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 787, no. 16; cf. also 437 d-e, infra.

Plutarch De Pythiae oraculis 23

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

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