Plutarch, De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 7

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[7] At this — for I wished Lucius to have time to collect his thoughts — I called to Theon. Which of the tragic poets was it, Theon, I asked, who said that physicians

With bitter drugs the bitter bile purge?

Theon replied that it was Sophocles.¹ Yes, I said, and we have of necessity to allow them this procedure; but to philosophers one should not listen if they desire to repulse paradoxes with paradoxes and in struggling against opinions that are amazing fabricate others that are more amazing and outlandish,² as these people do in introducing their motion to the centre. What paradox is not involved in this doctrine? Not the one that the earth is a sphere although it contains such great depths and heights and irregularities?³ Not that people live on the opposite hemisphere clinging to the earth like wood-worms or geckos turned bottomside up?⁴ — and that we ourselves in standing remain not at right angles to the earth but at an oblique angle, leaning from the perpendicular like drunken men?⁵ Not that incandescent masses of forty tons⁶ falling through the depth of the earth stop when they arrive at the centre, though nothing encounter or support them; and, if in their downward motion the impetus should carry them past the centre, they swing back again and return of themselves? Not that pieces of meteors burnt out on either side of the earth do not move downwards continually but falling upon the surface of the earth force their way into it from the outside and conceal themselves about the centre?⁷ Not that a turbulent stream of water, if in flowing downwards it should reach the middle point, which they themselves call incorporeal,⁸ stops suspended [or] moves round about it, oscillating in an incessant and perpetual see-saw?⁹ Some of these a man could not even mistakenly force himself to conceive as possible. For this amounts to upside down and all things topsy-turvy, everything as far as the centre being down and everything under the centre in turn being up.¹⁰ The result is that, if a man should so coalesce with the earth¹¹ that its centre is at his navel, the same person at the same time has his head up and his feet up too. Moreover, if he dig through the further side, his [bottom] in emerging is [up], and the man digging himself up is pulling himself down from above¹²; and, if someone should then be imagined to have gone in the opposite direction to this man, the feet of both of them at the same time turn out to be up and are so called.

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

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

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.) — 7 focus

[7] πρὸς τοῦτʼ ἐγὼ τῷ Λευκίῳ χρόνον ἐγγενέσθαι βουλόμενος ἀναμιμνησκομένῳ, τὸν Θέωνα καλέσας 20 τίς ἔφην ὦ Θέων, εἴρηκε τῶν τραγικῶν ὡς ἰατροὶ

πικρὰν πικροῖς κλύζουσι φαρμάκοις χολήν;

ἀποκριναμένου δὲ τοῦ Θέωνος ὅτι Σοφοκλῆς, καὶ δοτέον εἶπον ὑπʼ ἀνάγκης ἐκείνοις· φιλοσόφων δʼ οὐκ ἀκουστέον, ἂν τὰ παράδοξα παραδόξοις ἀμύνεσθαι 25 βούλωνται καὶ μαχόμενοι πρὸς τὰ θαυμάσια τῶν δογμάτων ἀτοπώτερα καὶ θαυμασιώτερα πλάττωσιν, 924a ὥσπερ οὗτοι τὴν ἐπὶ τὸ μέσον φορὰν εἰσάγουσιν. ᾗ τί παράδοξον οὐκ ἔνεστιν; οὐχὶ τὴν γῆν σφαῖραν εἶναι, τηλικαῦτα βάθη καὶ ὕψη καὶ ἀνωμαλίας 5 ἔχουσαν; οὐκ ἀντίποδας οἰκεῖν, ὥσπερ θρῖπας ἢ γαλεώτας τραπέντα ἄνω τὰ κάτω τῇ γῇ προσισχομένους; ἡμᾶς δʼ αὐτοὺς μὴ πρὸς ὀρθὰς βεβηκότας ἀλλὰ πλαγίους ἐπιμένειν ἀπονεύοντας ὥσπερ οἱ μεθύοντες; οὐ μύδρους χιλιοταλάντους διὰ βάθους 10 τῆς γῆς φερομένους, ὅταν ἐξίκωνται πρὸς τὸ μέσον, ἵστασθαι, μηδενὸς ἀπαντῶντος μηδʼ ὑπερείδοντος· εἰ δὲ ῥύμῃ κάτω φερόμενοι τὸ μέσον ὑπερβάλλοιεν, 924b αὖθις ὀπίσω στρέφεσθαι καὶ ἀνακάμπτειν ἀπʼ αὐτῶν; οὐ τμήματα δοκῶν ἀποπρισθέντα τῆς, γῆς ἑκατέρωθεν 15 μὴ φέρεσθαι κάτω διὰ παντός, ἀλλὰ προσπίπτοντα πρὸς τὴν γῆν ἔξωθεν εἴσω διωθεῖσθαι καὶ ἀποκρύπτεσθαι περὶ τὸ μέσον; οὐ ῥεῦμα λάβρον ὕδατος κάτω φερόμενον εἰ πρὸς τὸ μέσον ἔλθοι σημεῖον, ὅπερ αὐτοὶ λέγουσιν; ἀσώματον, ἵστασθαι 20 περικρεμαννύμενον ἢ κύκλῳ περιπολεῖν, ἄπαυστον 924c αἰώραν καὶ ἀκατάπαυστον αἰωρούμενον; οὐδὲ γὰρ ψευδῶς ἔνια τούτων βιάσαιτο ἄν τις αὑτὸν εἰς τὸ δυνατὸν τῇ ἐπινοίᾳ καταστῆσαι. τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι τὰ ἄνω κάτω καὶ πάντα τραπέμπαλιν εἶναι, τῶν ἄχρι τοῦ μέσου κάτω τῶν δʼ ὑπὸ τὸ μέσον αὖ πάλιν ἄνω γιγνομένων· ὥστʼ, εἴ τις συμπαθείᾳ τῆς γῆς τὸ μέσον αὐτῆς ἔχων σταίη περὶ τὸν ὀμφαλόν, 5 ἅμα καὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν ἄνω καὶ τοὺς πόδας ἄνω ἔχειν τὸν αὐτόν· κἂν μὲν διασκάπτῃ τις τὸν ἐπέκεινα τόπον, ἀνακύπτον αὐτοῦ τὸ εἶναι καὶ κάτω ἄνωθεν ἕλκεσθαι τὸν ἀνασκαπτόμενον εἰ δὲ δὴ τούτῳ τις ἀντιβεβηκὼς νοοῖτο, τοὺς ἀμφοτέρων ἅμα 10 πόδας ἄνω γίγνεσθαι καὶ λέγεσθαι.

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.) — 7 focus

[7] For the refutation of which, being willing to give Lucius time for the calling to mind his arguments, I addressed myself to Theon, and asked him which of the tragic poets it was who said that physicians

With bitter med’cines bitter choler purge.

And Theon having answered me that it was Sophocles; This, said I to him, we must of necessity permit them to do; but we are not to give ear to those philosophers who would overthrow paradoxes by assertions no less strange and paradoxical, and for the oppugning strange and extravagant opinions, devise others yet more wonderful and absurd; as these men do, who broach and introduce this doctrine of a motion tending towards the middle, in which what sort of absurdity is there not to be found? Does it not thence follow, that the earth is spherical, though we nevertheless see it to have so many lofty hills, so many deep valleys, and so great a number of inequalities? Does it not follow that there are antipodes dwelling opposite to another, sticking on every side to the earth, with their heads downwards and their heels upwards, as if they were woodworms or lizards? That we ourselves go not on the earth straight upright, but obliquely and bending aside like drunken men? That if bars and weights of a thousand talents apiece should be let fall into the hollow of the earth, they would, when they were come to the centre, stop and rest there, though nothing came against them or sustained them; and that, if peradventure they should by force pass the middle, they would of themselves return and rebound back thither again? That if one should saw off the two trunks or ends of a beam on either side of the earth, they would not be always carried downwards, but falling both from without into the earth, they would equally meet, and hide themselves together in the middle? That if a violent stream of water should run downwards into the ground, it would, when it came to the centre of the earth, which they hold to be an incorporeal point, there gather together, and turn round like a whirlpool, with a perpetual and endless suspension? Some of which positions are so absurd, that none can so much as force his imagination, though falsely, to conceive them possible. For this is indeed to make that which is above to be below; and to turn all things upside down, by making all that is as far as the middle to be downwards, and all that is beyond the middle to be upwards; so that if a man should, by the sufferance and consent of the earth, stand with his navel just against her centre, he would by this means have his feet and head both upwards; and if one, having digged through that place which is beyond the middle, should come to pull him out from thence, that part which is below would at one and the same time be drawn upwards, and that which is above, downwards. And if another should be imagined to stand the contrary way, their feet, though the one’s were opposite to the other’s, would both be and be said to be upwards.

Notes on the current edition

Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon

1. Sophocles, frag. 770 (Nauck²). The verse is quoted with variations at Cohibenda Ira, 463 F, and Tranquillitate Animi, 468 B.

2. cf. Aristotle’s remark, Caelo, 294 A 20-21: τὸ δὲ τὰs περὶ τούτου λύσεις μὴ μᾶλλον ἀτόπους εἶναι δοκεῖη τῆς ἀπορίας, θαυμάσειεν ἆνa τις.

3. This objection to the Peripatetic and Stoic theory that the sphericity of the earth is a necessary consequence of the natural motion of earth downwards to the centre of the universe ( Aristotle, Caelo, 297 A 8 - b 23 ; Strabo, i. 1. 20 , chap. 11; Adrastus in Theon of Smyrna, p. 122. 1-16 [Hiller]) was often answered ( cf. Dicaearchus in Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 65. 162; Adrastus in Theon of Smyrna, pp. 124. 7-127, 23, using arguments from Archimedes, Eratosthenes, and Dicaearchus; Cleomedes, i. 56 [p. 102. 9-20 Ziegler]; Alexander in Simplicius, Caelo, p. 546. 15-23; Alexander, Mixtione, p. 237. 5-15 [Bruns]). Plutarch, who defends Plato for constructing the spherical earth of molecules that are cubes on the ground that no material object can be a perfect sphere ( Quaest. Plat. 1004 B - C), probably did not intend this or the subsequent paradoxes to be taken too seriously. Lamprias is simply riding Pharnaces as hard as he can, using any argument, good or bad, to make him appear ridiculous.

4. cf. Lucretius, i. 1052-1067 in his argument against the Stoic motion to the centre. Plutarch mentions the antipodes in connection with the Stoics in Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 1050 B. In Herodoti Malignitate, 869 C it is said that some say that there are antipodes.

5. cf. Aristotle, Caelo, 296 B 18 - 21 and 297 B 17 - 21: the courses of bodies falling to the earth form equal angles with the horizontal plane at the point of contact and are not parallel. So, Lamprias argues, men standing upright on the earth would not be parallel to one another but all in converging on the centre would deviate from the absolute perpendicular.

6. Probably not aeroliths, as Raingeard supposes, but incandescent boulders such as are thrown up by volcanoes; for μύδροι in this sense cf. [Aristotle], Mundo, 395 B 22-23; Strabo, vi. 2. 8, chap. 274; vi. 2. 10, chap. 275; xiii. 4. 11, chap. 628. For the falling of great boulders within the earth cf. Lucretius, vi. 536-550, and Seneca, Nat. Quaest. vi. 22. 2; but Plutarch probably had in mind a subterranean geography such as that of Phaedo, 111 D ff., of which the next sentence but one contains an explicit reminiscence.

7. For the text and interpretation of this sentence cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), pp. 139-140.

8. cf. 926 B s.v.. According to the Stoics the limits of bodies are incorporeal and therefore in the strict sense nonexistent ( Communibus Notitiis, 1080 e; cf. 1081 B and S. V. F. ii, p. 159, frag. 488), since only the corporeal exists ( S. V. F. ii, p. 115, frag. 320 and p. 117, frag. 329). Only corporeal existence, moreover, can produce an effect or be affected ( Communibus Notitiis, 1073 E, cf. S. V. F. ii, p. 118, frag. 336 and p. 123, frag. 363). How then can the incorporeal centre have any effect upon corporeal entities?

9. cf. Plato, Phaedo, 111 E 112 E , which is certainly the source of Plutarch’s figure, and Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s account in Meteorology, 355 B 32 356 A 19.

10. cf. Phaedo, 112 E 1-3. By introducing the conventional phrase ὑπὸ τὸ μέσον, which really begs the question, Lamprias makes the notion appear to be a ridiculous self-contradiction.

11. That συμπαθείᾳ τῆς γῆς, which has given rise to many conjectures, need mean no more than this is proved by Dox. Graeci, p. 317 B 14-16: τῆς τε τῶν ὄντων συμαθείας καὶ τῆς τῶν σωμάτων ἀλληλουχίας. For the figure used here cf. Aristotle, Caelo, 285 A 27-b 5 , and Simplicius, Caelo, p. 389. 8-24 and p. 391. 33 ff. The most famous later parallel is the position of Lucifer in Dante’s Inferno, xxxiv. 76-120.

12. i.e. his feet emerge first; and they, his bottom part, are up. In digging himself up relatively to the surface through which he emerges, he is with reference to himself pulling himself not up to a position above his head but down to a position below his feet. The paradox rests upon the assumption that head and feet are respectively absolute up and absolute down for man ( cf. Aristotle, Incessu Animal. 705 A 26 706 B 16 , and Parva Nat. 468 A 1-12 ).

Plutarch De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet 7

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

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