Plutarch, De Pythiae oraculis, ed. Grēgorios N. Vernardakēs, 12

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[12] ἅμα δὲ τούτων λεγομένων προῄειμεν. ἐν δὲ 399f τῷ Κορινθίων οἴκῳ τὸν φοίνικα θεωμένοις τὸν χαλκοῦν, ὅσπερ ἔτι λοιπός ἐστι τῶν ἀναθημάτων, οἱ περὶ τὴν ῥίζαν ἐντετορευμένοι βάτραχοι καὶ ὕδροι θαῦμα τῷ Διογενιανῷ παρεῖχον, ἀμέλει δὲ καὶ ἡμῖν. οὔτε γὰρ φοίνιξ, ὡς ἕτερα δένδρα, λιμναῖόν ἐστι καὶ φίλυδρον φυτόν, οὔτε Κορινθίοις· τι βάτραχοι προσήκουσιν, ὥστε σύμβολον ἢ παράσημον εἶναι τῆς πόλεως· ὥσπερ ἀμέλει Σελινούντιοί ποτε χρυσοῦν 5 σέλινον ἀναθεῖναι λέγονται, καὶ Τενέδιοι τὸν πέλεκυν ἀπὸ τῶν καρκίνων τῶν γιγνομένων περὶ 400a τὸ καλούμενον Ἀστέριον παρʼ αὐτοῖς· μόνοι γὰρ ὡς ἔοικεν ἐν τῷ χελωνίῳ τύπον πελέκεως ἔχουσι. καὶ μὴν αὐτῷ γε τῷ θεῷ κόρακας καὶ κύκνους καὶ λύκους 10 καὶ ἱέρακας καὶ πάντα μᾶλλον ἢ ταῦτʼ εἶναι προσφιλῆ τὰ θηρία νομίζομεν εἰπόντος δὲ τοῦ Σαραπίωνος,¹ ὅτι τὴν ἐξ ὑγρῶν ᾐνίξατο τροφὴν τοῦ ἡλίου καὶ γένεσιν καὶ ἀναθυμίασιν ὁ δημιουργός, εἴθʼ Ὁμήρου² λέγοντος ἀκηκοώς 15

ἠέλιος δʼ ἀπόρουσε³ λιπὼν, περικαλλέα λίμνην·

εἴτʼ Αἰγυπτίους ἑωρακὼς ἀρχὴς⁴ ἀνατολῆς παιδίον νεγνὸν γράφοντας ἐπὶ λωτῷ καθεζόμενον γελάσας 400b ἐγὼ ποῦ σὺ πάλιν εἶπον ὦ χρηστέ, τὴν Στοὰν δευρὶ παρωθεῖς καὶ ὑποβάλλεις ἀτρέμα τῷ λόγῳ 20 τὰς ἀνάψεις καὶ ἀναθυμιάσεις, οὐχ ὥσπερ αἱ Θετταλαὶ κατάγων⁵ τὴν σελήνην καὶ τὸν ἣλιον, ὡς ἐντεῦθεν ἀπὸ γῆς καὶ ὑδάτων βλαστάνοντας καὶ ἀρδομένους;⁶ ὁ μὲν γὰρ Πλάτων⁷ καὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον οὐράνιον ὠνόμασε φυτόν, ὥσπερ ἐκ ῥίζης ἄνω τῆς 25 κεφαλῆς ὀρθούμενον ὑμεῖς δὲ τοῦ μὲν Ἐμπεδοκλέους⁸ καταγελᾶτε, φάσκοντος τὸν ἣλιον περὶ γῆν⁹ ἀνακλάσει φωτὸς οὐρανίου γενόμενον αὖθις

ἀνταυγεῖν πρὸς ὄλυμπον ἀταρβήτοισι¹⁰ προσώποις 400c

αὐτοὶ δὲ γηγενὲς ζῷον ἢ φυτὸν ἕλειον ἀποφαίνετε 5 τὸν ἥλιον, εἰς βατράχων πατρίδα ἢ ὕδρων ἐγγράφοντες. ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν εἰς τὴν Στωικὴν ἀναθώμεθα τραγῳδίαν, τὰ δὲ τῶν χειροτεχνῶν¹¹ πάρεργα παρέργως ἐξετάσωμεν. ἐν πολλοῖς γάρ εἰσι κομψοί, τὸ δὲ ψυχρὸν οὐ πανταχοῦ καὶ περίεργον ἐκπεφεύγασιν. 10 ὥσπερ οὖν ὁ τὸν ἀλεκτρυόνα ποιήσας ἐπὶ τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ἑωθινὴν ὑπεδήλωσεν ὥραν καὶ καιρὸν ἐπιούσης ἀνατολῆς, οὕτως ἐνταῦθα τοὺς βατράχους ἐαρινῆς ὥροις φαίη τις ἂν γεγονέναι σύμβολον 400d ἐν κρατεῖν ἄρχεται τοῦ ἀέρος ὁ ἥλιος καὶ 15 τὸν χειμῶνα διαλύειν, εἴ γε δεῖ καθʼ ὑμᾶς τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα καὶ τὸν ἥλιον μὴ δύο θεοὺς ἀλλʼ ἕνα νομίζειν καὶ ὁ Σαραπίων σὺ γάρ εἶπεν οὐχ οὕτω νομίζεις ἀλλʼ οἴει τὸν ἣλιον διαφέρειν τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος;ʼ ἔγωγʼ εἶπεν ὡς τοῦ ἡλίου τὴν σελήνην ἀλλʼ 20 αὕτη¹² μὲν οὐ πολλάκις οὐδὲ πᾶσιν ἀποκρύπτει τὸν ἥλιον, ὁ δʼ ἥλιος ὁμοῦ τι πάντας ἀγνοεῖν τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα πεποίηκεν ἀποστρέφων τῇ αἰσθήσει τὴν διάνοιαν ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄντος ἐπὶ τὸ φαινόμενον.

De Pythiae oraculis. Plutarch. ed. Grēgorios N. Vernardakēs. Leipzig. 1891.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

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

Translations (2)

The Oracle at Delphi no Longer Given in Verse Perseus (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. V. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).) — 12 focus

[12] During this conversation we were moving forward. While we were looking at the bronze palm-tree in the treasure-house of the Corinthians, the only one of their votive offerings that is still left, the frogs¹ and water-snakes, wrought in metal about its base, caused much wonder to Diogenianus, and naturally to ourselves as well. For the palm does not, like many other trees, grow in marshes, or love water; nor do frogs bear any relation to the people of Corinth so as to be a symbol or emblem of their city, even as, you know, the people of Selinus are said to have dedicated a golden celery plant,² and the people of Tenedos the axe, derived from the crabs which are found on the island in the neighbourhood of Asterium, as the place is called. For these, apparently, are the only crabs that have the figure of an axe on the shell. Yet, in fact, wre believe that to the god himself ravens and swans and wolves and hawks, or anything else rather than these creatures, are pleasing.

Sarapion remarked that the artisan had represented allegorically the nurture and birth and exhalation of the sun from moisture, whether he had read what Homer³ says, Swiftly away moved the Sun, forsaking the beautiful waters, or whether he had observed that the Egyptians, to show the beginning of sunrise, paint a very young baby sitting on a lotus flower.⁴ I laughed and said, Where now, my good friend? Are you again slyly thrusting in your Stoicism here and unostentatiously slipping into the discussion their kindlings and exhalations,⁵ not indeed bringing down the moon and the sun, as the Thessalian women do,⁶ but assuming that they spring up here from earth and water and derive their origin from here? For Plato⁷ called man also a celestial plant, as though he were held upright from his head above as from a root. But you Stoics ridicule Empedocles⁸ for his assertion that the sun, created by the reflection of celestial light, about the earth,

Back to the heavens again sends his beams with countenance fearless.

And you yourselves declare the sun to be an earth-born creature or a water-plant, assigning him to the kingdom of the frogs or water-snakes. But let us refer all this to the heroics of the Stoic school, and let us make a cursory examination of the cursory work of the artisans. In many instances they indeed show elegance and refinement, but they have not in all eases avoided frigidity and over-elaboration. Just as the man who constructed the cock upon the hand of Apollo’s statue showed by suggestion the early morning and the hour of approaching sunrise, so here, one might aver, has been produced in the frogs a token of springtime when the sun begins to dominate the atmosphere and to break up the winter; that is, if, as you say, we must think of Apollo and the Sun, not as two gods, but as one.

Really, said Sarapion, do you not think so, and do you imagine that the sun is diiferent from Apollo?⁹

Yes, said I, as different as the moon from the sun; but the moon does not often conceal the sun, nor conceal it from the eyes of all,¹⁰ but the sun has caused all to be quite ignorant of Apollo by diverting the faculty of thought through the faculty of perception from what is to what appears to be.

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.) — 12 focus

[12] Thus discoursing, we kept on our walk; but when we came into the Corinthian Hall and observed the brazen palm-tree, the only remainder left of all the consecrated donatives, Diogenianus wondered to observe several figures of frogs and water-snakes, all in cast work about the root of the tree. Nor were we less at a stand, well knowing the palm to be no tree that grows by the water or delights in moist or fenny places; neither do frogs at all concern or belong to the Corinthians, either by way of emblem or religious ceremony, or as the city arms; as the Selinuntines formerly offered to their Gods parsley or smallage ( selinon) of goldsmith’s work and of the choicest yellow metal: and the inhabitants of Tenedos always kept in their temple a consecrated axe, a fancy taken from their esteem of the crab-fish that breed in that island near the promontory of Asterium, they being the only crabs that carry the figure of an axe upon the upper part of their shells. For as for Apollo, we were of opinion that crows, swans, wolves, sparrow-hawks, or any other sort of creature, would be more acceptable to him than despicable animals. To this Serapio replied, that sure the workman thereby designed to show that the Sun was nourished by moisture and exhalations; whether it was that he thought at that time of that verse in Homer,

The rising Sun then causing day to break,

Quits the cool pleasure of the oozy lake,

or whether he had seen how the Egyptians, to represent sunrise, paint a little boy sitting upon a lotus. Thereupon, not able to refrain laughing, What, said I, are you going about to obtrude your stoicisms again upon us; or do you think to slide insensibly into our discourse your exhalations and fiery prodigies? What is this but, like the Thessalian women, to call down the Sun and Moon by enchantments from the skies, while you derive their original from the earth and water?

Therefore Plato will have a man to be a heavenly tree, growing with his root, which is his head, upward. But you deride Empedocles for affirming that the Sun, being illumined by the reflection of the celestial light, with an intrepid countenance casts a radiant lustre back upon the convex of heaven; while you yourselves make the Sun to be a mere terrestrial animal or water plant, confining him to ponds, lakes, and such like regions of frogs. But let us refer these things to the tragical monstrosity of Stoical opinions, and now make some particular reflections touching the extravagant pieces of certain artificers, who, as they are ingenious and elegant in some things, so are no less weakly curious and ambitious in others of their inventions; like him who, designing to signify the dawn of day-light or the hours of sunrise, painted a cock upon the hand of Apollo. And thus may these frogs be thought to have been designed by the artist to denote the spring, when the Sun begins to exercise his power in the air and to dissolve the winter congealments; at least, if we may believe, as you yourselves affirm, that Apollo and the Sun are both one God, and not two distinct Deities. Why, said Serapio, do you think the Sun and Apollo differ the one from the other? Yes, said I, as the Moon differs from the Sun. Nay, the difference is somewhat greater. For the Moon neither very often nor from all the world conceals the Sun; but the Sun is the cause that all men are ignorant of Apollo, by sense withdrawing the rational intellect from that which is to that which appears.

Notes on the current edition

Περὶ τοῦ μὴ χρᾶν ἔμμετρα νῦν τὴν Πυθίαν

1. Σαραπίωνος] dat hic cod. E

2. Ὁμήρου] γ 1

3. ἀνόρουσε Homerus

4. ἀρχῆςBE

5. κατάγων] add. ἀλλ’ ἀνάγων R

6. ἀρδομένους W: ἀρχομένους

7. Πλάτων] Tim. p. 90 a

8. Ἐμπεδοκλέους] Mullach. 1 p. 7

9. περὶ γῆν] περιαυγῆ W

10. ἀταρβήτοισι W: ἀταρβήτοις

11. χειροτεχνῶν *: χειροτέχνων

12. R: αὐτὴ

Plutarch De Pythiae oraculis 12

ed. Grēgorios N. Vernardakēs

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