Plutarch, De sollertia animalium, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 20

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[20] ¹ Yet perhaps it is ridiculous for us to make a parade of animals distinguished for learning when Democritus² declares that we have been their pupils in matters of fundamental importance: of the spider in weaving and mending, of the swallow in homebuilding, of the sweet-voiced swan and nightingale³ in our imitation of their song. Further, of the three divisions of medicine,⁴ we can discern in animals a generous portion of each; for it is not cure by drugs alone of wrhich they make use. After devouring a serpent tortoises⁵ take a dessert of marjoram, and weasels⁶ of rue. Dogs⁷ purge themselves when bilious by a certain kind of grass. The snake⁸ sharpens and restores its fading sight with fennel. When the she-bear comes forth from her lair,⁹ the first thing she eats is wild arum¹⁰; for its acridity opens her gut which has become constricted. At other times, when she suffers from nausea,¹¹ she resorts to anthills and sits, holding out her tongue all running and juicy with sweet liquor until it is covered with ants; these she swallows¹² and is alleviated. The Egyptians¹³ declare that they have observed and imitated the ibis’ clyster-like purging of herself with brine; and the priests make use of water from which an ibis has drunk to purify themselves; for if the water is tainted or unhealthy in any way, the ibis will not approach it.

Then, too, some beasts cure themselves by a short fast, like wolves¹⁴ and lions who, when they are surfeited with flesh, lie still for a while, basking in the sun. And they say a tigress, if a kid is given her, will keep fasting for two days without eating; on the third, she grows hungry and asks for some other food. She will even pull her cage to pieces, but will not touch the kid which she has now come to regard as a fellow-boarder and room mate.¹⁵

Yet again, they relate that elephants employ surgery: they do, in fact, bring aid to the wounded¹⁶ by easily and harmlessly drawing out spears and javelins and arrows without any laceration of the flesh. And Cretan goats,¹⁷ when they eat dittany,¹⁸ easily expel arrows from their bodies and so have presented an easy lesson for women with child to take to heart, that the herb has an abortive property¹⁹; for there is nothing except dittany that the goats, when they are wounded, rush to search for.

De sollertia animalium. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.

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Current edition Perseus

Whether land or sea animals are cleverer (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. XII. Cherniss, Harold, and Helmbold, William C., translators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Πότερα τῶν ζῴων φρονιμώτερα τὰ χερσαῖα ἢ τὰ ἔνυδρα Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. VI. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1895.) — 20 focus

[20] γελοῖοι δʼ ἴσως ἐσμὲν ἐπὶ τῷ μανθάνειν τὰ ζῷα σεμνύνοντες, ὧν ὁ Δημόκριτος ἀποφαίνει μαθητὰς ἐν τοῖς μεγίστοις γεγονότας ἡμᾶς ἀράχνης ἐν ὑφαντικῇ καὶ ἀκεστικῇ, χελιδόνος ἐν οἰκοδομίᾳ καὶ τῶν λιγυρῶν, κύκνου καὶ ἀηδόνος, ἐν 5 974b ᾠδῇ κατὰ μίμησιν. ἰατρικῆς δὲ πολὺ τῶν τριῶν εἰδῶν ἑκάστου καὶ γενναῖον ἐν αὐτοῖς μόριον ὁρῶμεν· οὐ γὰρ μόνον τῷ φαρμακευτικῷ χρῶνται, χελῶναι μὲν ὀρίγανον γαλαῖ δὲ πήγανον, ὅταν ὄφεως φάγωσιν, ἐπεσθίουσαι κύνες δὲ πόᾳ τινὶ 10 καθαίροντες ἑαυτοὺς χολεριῶντας· ὁ δὲ δράκων τῷ μαράθρῳ τὸν ὀφθαλμὸν ἀμβλυώττοντα λεπτύνων καὶ διαχαράττων· ἡ δʼ ἄρκτος, ὅταν ἐκ τοῦ φωλεοῦ προέλθῃ, τὸ ἄρον ἐσθίουσα πρῶτον τὸ ἄγριον ἡ γὰρ δριμύτης ἀνοίγει συμπεφυκὸς αὐτῆς τὸ ἔντερον· 15 ἄλλως δʼ ἀσώδης γενομένη πρὸς τὰς μυρμηκιὰς τρέπεται καὶ κάθηται προβάλλουσα λιπαρὰν καὶ μαλακὴν ἰκμάδι γλυκείᾳ τὴν γλῶσσαν, ἄχρι οὗ μυρμήκων ἀνάπλεως γένηται· καταπίνουσα γὰρ 974c ὠφελεῖται. τῆς τʼ ἴβεως τὸν ὑποκλυσμὸν ἅλμῃ 20 καθαιρομένης Αἰγύπτιοι συνιδεῖν καὶ μιμήσασθαι λέγουσιν· οἱ δ’ ἱερεῖς ὕδατι χρῶνται, περιαγνίζοντες ἑαυτούς, ἐξ οὗ πέπωκεν ἶβις ἂν γὰρ ᾖ φαρμακῶδες ἢ νοσηρὸν ἄλλως τὸ ὕδωρ, οὐ πρόσεισιν. ἀλλὰ καὶ τροφῆς τροφῆς ἀποσχέσει ἔνια θεραπεύονται, 25 καθάπερ λύκοι καὶ λέοντες, ὅταν κρεῶν γένωνται διακορεῖς, ἡσυχίαν ἄγουσι κατακείμενοι καὶ συνθάλποντες ἑαυτούς. τίγριν δέ φασιν, ἐρίφου παραδοθέντος αὐτῇ, χρωμένην διαίτῃ μὴ φαγεῖν ἐφʼ ἡμέρας δύο, τῇ δὲ τρίτῃ πεινῶσαν αἰτεῖν ἄλλο καὶ 974d τὴν γαλεάγραν σπαράσσειν ἐκείνου δὲ φείσασθαι 5 οἰομένην σύντροφον ἔχειν ἤδη καὶ σύνοικον. οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ χειρουργίᾳ χρῆσθαι τοὺς ἐλέφαντας ἱστοροῦσι καὶ γὰρ ξυστὰ καὶ λόγχας καὶ τοξεύματα, παριστάμενοι τοῖς τετρωμένοις, ἄνευ σπαραγμοῦ ῥᾳδίως καὶ ἀβλαβῶς ἐξέλκουσιν. αἱ δὲ Κρητικαὶ αἶγες, 10 ὅταν τὸ δίκταμνον φάγωσιν, ἐκβάλλουσαι τὰ τοξεύματα ῥᾳδίως καταμαθεῖν ταῖς ἐγκύοις τὴν βοτάνην παρέσχον ἐκτρωτικὴν δύναμιν ἔχουσαν· ἐπʼ οὐδὲν γὰρ ἄλλο τρωθεῖσαι φέρονται καὶ ζητοῦσι καὶ διώκουσιν ἢ τὸ δίκταμνον. 15

Translations (1)

Which are the most crafty, water-animals or those creatures that breed upon the land? Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; Philips, John, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874.) — 20 focus

[20] But perhaps we may seem ridiculous for signalizing beasts in this manner because they learn, since we find that Democritus affirms us to have been their scholars in the greatest matters;—of the spider, in weaving and repairing what we tear or wear out; of the swallow, in building houses; and of the mournful swan and nightingale, in singing and imitation. Moreover in others we observe a threefold practice of physic, both natural and inbred. For tortoises make use of marjoram and weasels eat rue, when they have devoured a serpent; and dogs purge themselves from abounding gall with a certain sort of grass. The dragon quickens the dimness of his sight with fennel; and the bear, coming forth of her cave after long emaciation, feeds upon the wild arum, for the acrimony of that herb opens and separates her guts when clung together. At other times, being overcloyed with food, she repairs to the emmet-hills, and thrusting forth her tongue all soft and unctuous, by reason of the sweet kind of slime that all besmears it, till it be crowded with emmets, at length swallows them down her throat, and so recovers. And it is reported that the Egyptians observe and imitate the bird called ibis, in purging and cleansing her bowels with the briny sea-water. For which reason the priests, when they hallow themselves, make use of the water of which the ibis has drunk; for that those birds will not drink the water, if it be medicinal or otherwise infected. Some beasts there are that cure themselves by abstinence; as wolves and lions, who, when they are gorged with flesh, lie still and digest their crudities by the warmth of one another’s bodies. It is reported also of the tiger, that if a kid be thrown to her, she will not eat in two days; but growing almost famished the third day, if she be not supplied with another, she will tear down the cage that holds her, if she have strength enough; yet all this while she will not meddle with the first kid, as being her companion and fellow-housekeeper.

More than this, the elephants are said to make use of chirurgery; for that being brought to persons wounded, they will draw forth the heads of spears and arrows out of their bodies with little pain, and without dilacerating and mangling the flesh.

The Cretan goats, which by eating dittany expel the arrows shot into their bodies, taught women with child to understand the virtue of that herb, so prevalent to expel the birth. For those goats being wounded seek no other cure, but presently seek out and hunt for dittany.

Notes on the current edition

Whether land or sea animals are cleverer

1. On this chapter see T. Weidlich, Die Sympathie in Altertum, p. 42.

2. Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. ii, p. 173, frag. 154; Cf. Bailey on Lucretius, v. 1379 (vol. iii, p. 1540 of his edition); Aelian, De Natura Animal. xii. 16.

3. Cf. 973 a supra.

4. As given here, cure by (1) drugs, (2) diet, (3) surgery. There are five divisions in Diogenes Laertius, iii. 85; al.

5. Cf. Mor. 918 c, 991 e; Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 12 and Thompson on Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 6 (612 a 24); of wounded partridges and storks and doves in Aelian, op. cit. v. 46 (Aristotle, op. cit. 612 a 32).

6. Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 6 (612 a 28).

7. See Thompson on Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 6 (612 a 6); add Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, i. 71.

8. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xx. 254. Other details of snake diet in Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 4.

9. As in 971 d-e supra.

10. Probably the Adam-and-Eve ( Arum maculatum L.), since the Italian arum ( Arum italicum Mill.) was cultivated. See Aristotle, Historia Animal. viii. 17 (600 b 11); ix. 6 (611 b 34); Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 129; Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 3. Oribasius ( Coll. Med. iii. 24. 5) characterizes wild arum as an aperient.

11. When she has swallowed the fruit of the mandrake, according to Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 101.

12. Aristotle, Historia Animal. viii. 4 (594 b 9); Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 3; Sextus Empiricus, op. cit. i. 57.

13. Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. ii. 35; vii. 45; Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 97; Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii. 50.

14. Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. iv. 15; see the hippopotamus in Amm. Marc. xx. 15. 23.

15. Of a leopard in Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 2. This account seems to indicate a lacuna in our text explaining why the tigress did not eat the kid in the first place: because she had already had enough to eat.

16. For an example see the anecdote of Porus in 970 d supra, 977 b infra; Juba, frag. 52 (Jacoby); Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 45.

17. Cf. 991 f infra; Philo, 38 (p. 119); Vergil, Aen. xii. 415; Thompson on Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 6 (612 a 3); Pease, Melanges Marouzeau, 1948, p. 472.

18. Cretan dittany ( Origanum dictamnus L.); Pliny, Nat. Hist. xx. 156.

19. Cf. Pease, op. cit. p. 471.

Plutarch De sollertia animalium 20

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

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