Plutarch, De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 27

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[27] When I expressed surprise at this and asked for a clearer account, he said¹: Many assertions about the gods, Sulla, are current among the Greeks, but not all of them are right. So, for example, although they give the right names to Demeter and Cora, they are wrong in believing that both are together in the same region. The fact is that the former is in the region of earth and is sovereign over terrestrial things, and the latter is in the moon and mistress of lunar things. She has been called both Cora and Phersephone,² the latter as being a bearer of light³ and Cora because that is what we call the part of the eye in which is reflected the likeness of him who looks into it⁴ as the light of the sun is seen in the moon. The tales told of the wandering and the quest of these goddesses contain the truth [spoken covertly],⁵ for they long for each other when they are apart and they often embrace in the shadow. The statement concerning Cora that now she is in the light of heaven and now in darkness and night is not false but has given rise to error in the computation of the time, for not throughout six months but every six months we see her being wrapped in shadow by the earth as it were by her mother, and infrequently we see this happen to her at intervals of five months,⁶ for she cannot abandon Hades since she is the boundary of Hades, as Homer too has rather well put it in veiled terms:

But to Elysium’s plain, the bourne of earth.⁷

Where the range of the earth’s shadow ends, this he set as the term and boundary of the earth.⁸ To this point rises no one who is evil or unclean, but the good are conveyed thither after death and there continue to lead a life most easy to be sure⁹ though not blessed or divine until their second death.¹⁰

De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.

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Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. XII. Cherniss, Harold and William Clark Helmbold translators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ τοῦ ἐμφαινομένου προσώπου τῷ κύκλῳ τῆς σελήνης Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. V. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1893.) — 27 focus

[27] 15 θαυμάζοντος δʼ ἐμοῦ ταῦτα καὶ δεομένου 942d σαφέστερον ἀκοῦσαι, πολλά εἶπεν ὦ Σύλλα, περὶ θεῶν οὐ πάντα δὲ καλῶς λέγεται παρʼ Ἕλλησιν. οἷον εὐθὺς ὀρθῶς Δήμητρα καὶ Κόρην ὀνομάζοντες οὐκ ὀρθῶς ὁμοῦ καὶ περὶ τὸν αὐτὸν ἀμφοτέρας 20 εἶναι τόπον νομίζουσιν ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἐν γῇ καὶ κυρία τῶν περὶ γῆν ἐστιν ἡ δʼ ἐν σελήνῃ καὶ τῶν περὶ σελήνην. κόρη δὲ καὶ Φερσεφόνη κέκληται τὸ μὲν ὡς φωσφόρος οὖσα,. κόρη δʼ ὅτι καὶ τοῦ ὄμματος, ἐν ᾧ τὸ εἴδωλον ἀντιλάμπει τοῦ βλέποντος,, ὥσπερ τὸ ἡλίου φέγγος ἐνορᾶται τῇ σελήνῃ, κόρην προσαγορεύομεν. τοῖς τε περὶ τὴν πλάνην καὶ τὴν ζήτησιν 942e αὐτῶν λεγομένοις ἔνεστι ἀληθές· ἀλλήλων γὰρ ἐφίενται χωρὶς οὖσαι καὶ συμπλέκονται περὶ 5 τὴν σκιὰν πολλάκις· τὸ δὲ νῦν μὲν ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ φωτί, νῦν δʼ ἐν σκότῳ καὶ νυκτὶ γενέσθαι περὶ τὴν Κόρην, ψεῦδος μὲν οὐκ ἔστιν, ὁ δὲ χρόνος τῷ ἀριθμῷ πλάνην παρέσχηκεν. οὐ γὰρ ἓξ μῆνας ἀλλὰ παρʼ ἓξ μῆνας ὁρῶμεν αὐτὴν ὑπὸ τῆς γῆς, ὥσπερ 10 942f ὑπὸ τῆς μητρός, τῇ σκιᾷ λαμβανομένην, ὀλιγάκις δὲ τοῦτο διὰ πέντε μηνῶν πάσχουσαν· ἐπεὶ τὸν γʼ Ἅιδην ἀπολιπεῖν ἀδύνατόν ἐστιν αὐτήν, τοῦ Ἅιδου πέρας οὖσαν, ὥσπερ καὶ Ὅμηρος ἐπικρυψάμενος οὐ φαύλως τοῦτʼ εἶπεν 15

ἀλλʼ εἰς Ἠλύσιον πεδίον καὶ πείρατα γαίης·

ὅπου γὰρ ἡ σκιὰ τῆς γῆς ἐπινεμομένη παύεται, τοῦτο τέρμα τῆς γῆς ἔθετο καὶ πέρας· εἰς δὲ τοῦτο φαῦλος μὲν οὐδεὶς οὐδʼ ἀκάθαρτος ἄνεισιν, οἱ δὲ χρηστοὶ μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν κομισθέντες αὐτόθι, 20 ῥᾷστον μὲν οὕτω βίον, οὐ μὴν μακάριον οὐδὲ θεῖον ἔχοντες, ἄχρι τοῦ δευτέρου θανάτου διατελοῦσι.

Translations (1)

Of the Face Appearing Within the Orb Of the Moon Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; G., A., translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 27 focus

[27] At these things when I was amazed, and entreated him to declare and explain them a little more fully to me, he said: The Greeks, O Sylla, deliver many things concerning the Gods, but they are not always in the right, For first, when they tell us that there is a Ceres and a Proserpine, they say well; but not so well, when they put them both in one and the same place. For one, to wit Ceres, is on the earth, and the lady and mistress of all earthly things. The other, to wit Proserpine, is in the moon, and the mistress of all lunar things; and she is called both Cora and Persephone; Persephone, as being a bringer of light and brightness, and Cora, because the apple of the eye, in which the image of him who looks into it is represented, as the brightness of the sun appears in the moon, is by the Greeks called κόρη. And as to what they say concerning the wandering about of Ceres and Proserpine, and their mutual seeking of one another, there is in it somewhat of truth, for they long after each other, being separated, and often embrace in shadow. And that Cora is sometimes in heaven and light, and sometimes in darkness and night, is not untrue; only there is some error in the computation of the time. For we see her not six whole months, but every sixth month, caught in the shadow by the earth, as by her mother; and this rarely happens within five months, because it is impossible she should forsake Pluto (Hades), being herself the bound or limit of Hades; which Homer also covertly but not unelegantly signified, when he said,

Into th’ Elysian fields, earth’s utmost bounds,

The Gods will bring thee;

for he has there placed the end and boundary of the earth, where the shadow ceases and goes no farther. Now into that place no wicked or impure person can have access. But good folks, being after their decease carried thither, lead there indeed an easy and quiet, but yet not a blessed and divine life, till the second death.

Notes on the current edition

Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon

1. Here Sulla begins to quote the stranger directly and continues his direct quotation to the end of the myth in 945 D.

2. For identification of Persephone and the moon cf. Epicharmus, frag. B 54 (i, p. 207. 9-11 [Diels-Kranz] = Ennius in Varro, Lingua Latina, v. 68 ); Porphyry, Antro Nymph. 18 ; Iamblichus in John Laurentius Lydus, Mensibus, iv. 149; Martianus Capella, ii. 161-162. Plutarch in Iside, 372 D notices the identification of Isis and the moon and in 361 E that of Isis and Persephassa ( cf. note c on 922 A supra for Athena). The Pythagoreans are said to have called the planets the hounds of Persephone (Porphyry, Vita Pythag. 41 = Aristotle, frag. 196; Clement, Stromat. v. 50 [676 P, 244 S]); and Plutarch in Defectu Oraculorum, 416 E refers to some who call the moon χθονίας ὁμοῦ καὶ οὐρανίας κλῆρον Ἑκάτης ( cf. Iside, 368 E). cf. further, Roscher, über Selene und Verwandtes, pp. 119 ff.

3. cf. for the ancient etymologies of Φερσεφόνη Bräuninger, R. E. xix. 1. 946-947, and Roscher, Lexicon, ii. 1288; there seems to be no ancient parallel to the one given here, to which Plutarch does not refer in Iside, 377 D, where he mentions the etymology proposed by Cleanthes. In the Orphic Hymn to Persephone (xxix. 9 = Orphica, rec. E. Abel, p. 74. 9) the epithet, φαεσφόρος, is used of the goddess but not by way of etymology ( cf. line 16); nor is she expressly identified with the moon, although she is called φαεσφόρος, ἀγλαόμορφε, εὐφεγγές, κερόεσσα.

4. cf. [Plato], Alcibiades I, 133 A . The word κόρη means girl, maiden, for which reason it was used of such goddesses as Athena and Persephone, and also doll, whence like Latin pupilla it came to mean the pupil of the eye; cf. English the baby in the eye.

5. i.e. the wandering of Demeter in search of Persephone after the abduction of the latter by Hades: cf. e.g. the Homeric Hymn 11 to Demeter and Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, i. 5 . In the myth, however, Demeter was the wanderer; but the earth, which she is here supposed to represent, is stationary. In the myth Persephone is in darkness when she is separated from her mother and with Hades, whereas Plutarch’s interpretation requires that Persephone, the moon, be in darkness and night when she is in the embrace of her mother, the earth.

6. cf. 933 E supra and Genio Socratis, 591 C: σελήνη φεύγει τὴν Στύγα μικρὸν ὑπερφέρουσα λαμβάνεται δ᾽ ἅπαξ ἐν μέτροις δευτέροις ἑκατὸν ἑβδομήκοντα ἑπτά (177 days = one-half of a lunar year, 6 synodic months).

7. Odyssey, iv. 563 but with ἀλλά ς᾽ ἐς instead of ἀλλ᾽ εἰς.

8. cf. Stobaeus, Eclogae, i. 49 (i, p. 448. 5-16 [Wachsmuth]) = frag. 146 β (vii, p. 176 [Bernardakis]), where Odyssey, iv. 563-564 is taken to indicate that the region of the moon is the seat of righteous souls after death ( cf. Eustathius, Ad Odysseam, 1509. 18 ). There Ἠλύσιον πεδίον is said to mean the surface of the moon lighted by the sun ( cf. 944 C s.v.) and πείρατα γαίης the end of the earth’s shadow which often touches the moon; but there is no mention of Hades, Persephone, or Demeter. In the present passage Plutarch does not say why his interpretation of Homer’s line justifies him in calling the moon τοῦ Ἅιδου πέρας, but the rest of the myth makes it certain that Hades is the region between earth and moon ( cf. 943 C s.v.). This agrees with the myth of Genio Socratis, where (591 A-C) this region is the portion of Persephone and the earth’s shadow is Styx and the road to Hades and where (590 F) Hades and Earth are clearly identical ( cf. Heinze, Xenokrates, p. 135; R. M. Jones, The Platonism of Plutarch, p. 57 and n. 147). Probably then Plutarch here thought that, if Homer could be shown to have set the boundary of earth at the moon, it follows that he understood the moon to be the boundary of Hades. In Genio Socratis, 591 B the moon is expressly made the boundary between the portion of Persephone, which is Hades, and the region which extends from moon to sun. Nevertheless, in 944 C s.v. the Elysian plain is said to be the part of the moon that is turned to heaven, i. e. away from the earth; and, though this does not explicitly contradict the present passage, it might still seem to suggest the notion ascribed to Iamblichus by John Laurentius Lydus ( Mensibus, iv. 149 [p. 167. 24 ff.]): τὸν ὑπὲρ σελήνης ἄχρις ἡλίου χῶρον τῷ Ἅιδῃ διδούς, παρ᾽ ᾧ φησὶ καὶ τὰς ἐκκεκαθαρμένας ἐστάναι ψυχάς, καὶ αὐτὸν μὲν εἶναι τὸν Πλούτωνα, Περσεφόνην δὲ τὴν σελήνην.

9. Cf, Odyssey, iv. 565 : τῇ περ ῥηίστη βιοτὴ πέλει ἀνθρώποισιν.

10. In Quaest. Rom. 282 A Plutarch cites Castor ( cf. 266 E) for the notion that after death souls dwell on the moon, for which cf. in general P. Capelle, De luna stellis lacteo orbe animarum sedibus (Halis Saxonum, 1917), pp. 1-18 and n. b. Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 18. 82; Varro in Augustine, Civ. Dei, vii. 6 (i, p. 282. 14-17 [Dombart]); S. V. F. ii, frag. 814.

Plutarch De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet 27

Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator)

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