Plutarch, De esu carnium I, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 6

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

[6] Diogenes¹ ventured to eat a raw octopus in order to put an end to the inconvenience of preparing cooked food. In the midst of a large throng he veiled his head and, as he brought the flesh to his mouth, said, It is for you that I am risking my life. Good heavens, a wondrous fine risk! Just like Pelopidas² for the liberty of the Thebans or Harmodius and Aristogiton³ for that of the Athenians, this philosopher risked his life struggling with a raw octopus - in order to brutalize our lives!

Note that the eating of flesh is not only physically against nature, but it also makes us spiritually coarse and gross by reason of satiety and surfeit. For wine and indulgence in meat make the body strong and vigorous, but the soul weak.⁴ And in order that I may not offend athletes, I shall take my own people as examples. It is a fact that the Athenians used to call us Boeotians⁵ beef-witted and insensitive and foolish, precisely because we stuffed ourselves.⁶ These men are swine⁷; and Menander⁸ says, Who have jaws; and Pindar⁹ And then to learn ; A dry soul is wisest according to Heraclitus.¹⁰ Empty jars make a noise when struck, but full ones do not resound to blows.¹¹ Thin bronze objects will pass the sounds from one to another in a circle until you dampen and deaden the noise with your hand as the beat goes round.¹² The eye¹³ when it is flooded by an excess of moisture grows dim and weakened for its proper task. When we examine the sun through dank atmosphere and a fog of gross vapours, we do not see it clear and bright, but submerged and misty, with elusive rays. In just the same way, then, when the body is turbulent and surfeited and burdened with improper food, the lustre and light of the soul inevitably come through it blurred and confused, aberrant and inconstant, since the soul lacks the brilliance and intensity to penetrate to the minute and obscure issues of active life.

De esu carnium I. 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

On the eating of flesh I (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)

Περὶ σαρκοφαγίας λόγος α′ Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. VI. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1895.) — 6 focus

[6] Διογένης δʼ ὠμὸν φαγεῖν πολύπουν ἐτόλμησεν, 995d ἵνα τὴν διὰ τοῦ πυρὸς ἐκβάλῃ κατεργασίαν τῶν κρεῶν· καὶ πολλῶν περιεστώτων αὐτὸν ἀνθρώπων, ἐγκαλυψάμενος τῷ τρίβωνι καὶ τῷ στόματι προσφέρων τὸ κρέας ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν φησὶν ἐγὼ παραβάλλομαι καὶ 5 προκινδυνεύω καλόν, ὦ Ζεῦ, κίνδυνον οὐ γάρ, ὡς Πελοπίδας ὑπὲρ τῆς Θηβῶν ἐλευθερίας ἢ ὡς Ἁρμόδιος καὶ Ἀριστογείτων ὑπὲρ τῆς Ἀθηναίων, προεκινδύνευσεν ὁ φιλόσοφος ὠμῷ πολύποδι διαμαχόμενος, ἵνα τὸν βίον ἀποθηριώσῃ; οὐ τοίνυν μόνον αἱ κρεοφαγίαι 10 τοῖς σώμασι γίγνονται παρὰ φύσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰς ψυχὰς ὑπὸ πλησμονῆς καὶ κόρου παχύνουσιν· 995e οἶνος γὰρ καὶ σαρκῶν ἐμφορήσιες σῶμα μὲν ἰσχυρὸν ποιέουσι καὶ ῥωμαλέον, ψυχὴν δὲ ἀσθενέα καὶ ἵνα μὴ τοῖς ἀθληταῖς ἀπεχθάνωμαι, συγγενέσι χρῶμαι 15 παραδείγμασι· τοὺς γὰρ Βοιωτοὺς ἡμᾶς οἱ Ἀττικοὶ καὶ παχεῖς καὶ ἀναισθήτους καὶ ἠλιθίους, μάλιστα διὰ τὰς ἀδηφαγίας προσαγορεύουσιν· οὗτοι δʼ αὖ συ καὶ ὁ Μένανδρος οἳ γνάθους ἔχουσι, καὶ ὁ Πίνδαρος γνῶναὶ τʼ ἔπειτα αὐγὴ ξηρὴ ψυχὴ 20 σοφωτάτη κατὰ τὸν Ἡράκλειτον· οἱ κενοὶ πίθοι κρουσθέντες ἠχοῦσι, γενόμενοι δὲ πλήρεις οὐχ ὑπακούουσι ταῖς πληγαῖς· τῶν χαλκωμάτων τὰ λεπτὰ τοὺς ψόφους ἐν κύκλῳ διαδίδωσιν, ἄχρι οὗ ἐμφράξῃ 995f καὶ τυφλώσῃ τις τῇ χειρὶ τῆς· πληγῆς περιφερομένης 5 ἐπιλαμβανόμενος· ὀφθαλμὸς; ὑγροῦ πλεονάσαντος ἀναπλησθεὶς μαραυγεῖ καὶ ἀτονεῖ πρὸς τὸ οἰκεῖον ἔργον· τὸν ἥλιον διʼ ἀέρος ὑγροῦ καὶ ἀναθυμιάσεων πλήθους ἀπέπτων ἀθρήσαντες οὐ καθαρὸν οὐδὲ λαμπρὸν ἀλλὰ βύθιον καὶ ἀχλυώδη καὶ ὀλισθαίνοντα 10 ταῖς αὐγαῖς ὁρῶμεν. οὕτω δὴ καὶ διὰ σώματος 996a θολεροῦ καὶ διακόρου καὶ βαρυνομένου τροφαῖς ἀσυμφύλοις πᾶσα ἀνάγκη τὸ γάνωμα τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ τὸ φέγγος ἀμβλύτητα καὶ σύγχυσιν ἔχειν καὶ πλανᾶσθαι καὶ φέρεσθαι, πρὸς τὰ λεπτὰ καὶ δυσθεώρητα 15 τέλη τῶν πραγμάτων αὐγὴν καὶ τόνον οὐκ ἐχούσης.

Translations (1)

Of eating of flesh: Tract I. Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; Baxter, William, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 6 focus

[6] Diogenes ventured once to eat a raw pourcontrel, that he might disuse himself from meat dressed by fire; and as several priests and other people stood round him, he wrapped his head in his cassock, and so putting the fish to his mouth, he thus said unto them: It is for your sake, sirs, that I undergo this danger, and run this risk. A noble and gallant risk, by Jupiter! For far otherwise than as Pelopidas ventured his life for the liberty of the Thebans, and Harmodius and Aristogiton for that of the Athenians, did this philosopher encounter with a raw pourcontrel, to the end he might make human life more brutish. Moreover, these same flesh-eatings not only are preternatural to men’s bodies, but also by clogging and cloying them, they render their very minds and intellects gross. For it is well known to most, that wine and much flesh-eating make the body indeed strong and lusty, but the mind weak and feeble. And that I may not offend the wrestlers, I will make use of examples out of my own country. The Athenians are wont to call us Boeotians gross, senseless, and stupid fellows, for no other reason but our over-much eating; and Pindar calls us also hogs, for the same reason. Menander the comedian calls us fellows with long jaws. It is observed also that, according to the saying of Heraclitus, the wisest soul is like a dry light.¹ Earthen jars, if you strike them, will sound; but if they be full, they perceive not the strokes that are given them. Copper vessels also that are thin communicate the sound round about them, unless some one stop and dull the ambient stroke with his fingers. Moreover, the eye, when seized with an over-great plenitude of humors, grows dim and feeble for its ordinary work. When we behold the sun through a humid air and a great quantity of gross and indigested vapors, we see it not clear and bright, but obscure and cloudy, and with glimmering beams. Just so in a muddy and clogged body, that is swagged down with heavy and unnatural nourishments; it must needs happen that the gayety and splendor of the mind be confused and dulled, and that it ramble and roll after little and scarce discernible objects, since it wants clearness and vigor for higher things.

Notes on the current edition

On the eating of flesh I

1. Cf. 956 b supra where the context is quite different. See also Athenaeus, 341 e; Lucian, Vit. Auctio 10; Julian, Oration, vi. 181 a, 191 c ff.; Diogenes Laertius, vi. 76; al.

2. Cf. Life of Pelopidas, chapters 7-11.

3. Cf. Thucydides, vi. 54-59.

4. A quotation from the medical writer Androcydes; see Mor. 472 b and the note.

5. Cf. Rhys Roberts, The Ancient Boeotians, pp. 1-5.

6. The passage that follows is badly mutilated: it probably contained other quotations and fuller ones than the mss. indicate.

7. Cf. the proverbial sow and Athena ( Life of Demosthenes, xi. 5, 851 b and Mor. 803 d) and the Introduction to the Gryllus.

8. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii, p. 238 (frag. 748 Koerte); the words probably mean Who are greedy fellows.

9. Olympians, vi. 89, which continues whether we are truly arraigned by that ancient gibe, Boeotian swine. (For this interpretation see G. Norwood, Pindar, pp. 82 and 237.)

10. Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. i, p. 100, frag. B 118; cf. the note on Mor. 432 f.

11. Cf. Mor. 721 b-d.

12. Mor. 721 c-d suggests that Plutarch is talking about a single cauldron with a wave going around it rather than about a circular arrangement of tuning forks. Sounding brass: cf. L. Parmentier, Recherches sur l’Isis et Osiris ( Mem. Acad. Roy. Belg. ii, vol. II, 1912/13), pp. 31 ff.

13. Cf. Mor. 714 d.

Plutarch De esu carnium I 6

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

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers