Plutarch, De esu carnium II, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 1

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Reason urges us with fresh ideas and fresh zeal to attack again our yesterday’s discourse¹ on the eating of flesh. It is indeed difficult, as Cato² remarked, to talk to bellies which have no ears. And the potion of familiarity has been drunk, like that of Circe³

Commingling pains and pangs, tricks and tears⁴;

nor is it easy to extract the hook of flesh-eating, entangled as it is and embedded in the love of pleasure. And, like the Egyptians e who extract the viscera of the dead and cut them open in view of the sun, then throw them away as being the cause of every single sin that the man had committed, it would be well for us to excise our own gluttony and lust to kill and become pure for the remainder of our lives, since it is not so much our belly that drives us to the pollution of slaughter; it is itself polluted by our incontinence. Yet if, for heaven’s sake, it is really impossible for us to be free from error because we are on such terms of familiarity with it, let us at least be ashamed of our ill doing and resort to it only in reason. We shall eat flesh, but from hunger, not as a luxury. We shall kill an animal, but in pity and sorrow, not degrading or torturing it - which is the current practice in many cases, some thrusting red-hot spits into the throats of swine so that by the plunging in of the iron the blood may be emulsified and, as it circulates through the body, may make the flesh tender and delicate. Others jump upon the udders of sows⁵ about to give birth and kick them so that, when they have blended together blood and milk and gore (Zeus the Purifier!) and the unborn young have at the same time been destroyed at the moment of birth, they may eat the most inflamed part of the creature. Still others sew up the eyes of cranes⁶ and swans,⁷ shut them up in darkness and fatten them, making the flesh appetizing with strange compounds and spicy mixtures.

De esu carnium II. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.

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Current edition Perseus

On the eating of flesh II (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 β′ Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. VI. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1895.) — 1 focus

[1] 966d επὶ τὰ ἕωλοι τῆς σαρκοφαγίοις προσφάτους ἡμᾶς ὁ λόγος παρακαλεῖ ταῖς τε διανοίαις καὶ ταῖς 5 προθυμίαις γενέσθαι. χαλεπὸν μὲν γάρ, ὥσπερ ὁ Κάτων ἔφησε, λέγειν πρὸς γαστέρας ὦτα μὴ ἐχούσας· καὶ πέποται ὁ τῆς συνηθείας κυκεών, ὥσπερ ὁ τῆς 966e Κίρκης

ὠδίνας ὀδύνας κυκεὼν ἀπάτας τε γόους τε·

10 καὶ τὸ ἄγκιστρον ἐκβάλλειν τῆς σαρκοφαγίας ὡς ἐμπεπηγμένον τῇ φιληδονίᾳ καὶ διαπεπαρμένον οὐ ῥᾴδιόν ἐστιν. ἐπεὶ καλῶς εἶχεν, ὥσπερ Αἰγύπτιοι τῶν νεκρῶν τὴν κοιλίαν ἐξελόντες καὶ πρὸς τὸν ἥλιον ἀνασχίζοντες ἐκβάλλουσιν ὡς αἰτίαν ἁπάντων 15 ὧν ὁ ἄνθρωπος; ἥμαρτεν, οὕτως ἡμᾶς ἑαυτῶν τὴν γαστριμαργίαν καὶ μιαιφονίαν ἐκτεμόντας ἁγνεῦσαι τὸν λοιπὸν βίον ἐπεὶ ἥ γε γαστὴρ οὐ μιαιφόνον ἐστὶν ἀλλὰ μιαινόμενον ἀπὸ τῆς ἀκρασίας. οὐ μὴν ἀλλʼ εἰ καὶ ἀδύνατον νὴ Δία διὰ τὴν συνήθειαν τὸ 996f ἀναμάρτητον, αἰσχυνόμενοι τῷ ἁμαρτάνοντι χρησόμεθα διὰ τὸν λόγον, ἐδόμεθα σάρκας, ἀλλὰ πεινῶντες οὐ τρυφῶντες· ἀναιρήσομεν ζῷον, ἀλλʼ οἰκτείροντες καὶ ἀλγοῦντες, οὐχ ὑβρίζοντες οὐδὲ 5 βασανίζοντες· οἷα νῦν πολλὰ δρῶσιν οἱ μὲν εἰς 997a σφαγὴν ὑῶν ὠθοῦντες ὀβελοὺς διαπύρους, ἵνα τῇ βαφῇ τοῦ σιδήρου περισβεννύμενον τὸ αἷμα καὶ διαχεόμενον τὴν σάρκα θρύψῃ καὶ μαλάξῃ· οἱ δʼ οὔθασι συῶν ἐπιτόκων ἐναλλόμενοι καὶ λακτίζοντες, 10 ἵνʼ αἷμα καὶ γάλα καὶ λύθρον ἐμβρύων ὁμοῦ συμφθαρέντων ἐν ὠδῖσιν ἀναδεύσαντες, ὦ Ζεῦ καθάρσιε, φάγωσι τοῦ ζῴου τὸ μάλιστα φλεγμαῖνον ἄλλοι γεράνων ὄμματα καὶ κύκνων ἀπορράψαντες καὶ ἀποκλείσαντες ἐν σκότει πιαίνουσιν, ἀλλοκότοις 15 μίγμασι καὶ καρυκείαις τισὶν αὐτῶν τὴν σάρκα ὀψοποιοῦντες.

Translations (1)

Of eating of flesh: Tract II. 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.) — 1 focus

[1] Reason persuades us now to return with fresh cogitations and dispositions to what we left cold yesterday of our discourse about flesh-eating. It is indeed a hard and a difficult task to undertake (as Cato once said) to dispute with men’s bellies, that have no ears; since most have already drunk that draught of custom, which is like that of Circe,

Of groans and frauds and sorcery replete.

And it is no easy task to pull out the hook of flesh-eating from the jaws of such as lave gorged themselves with luxury and are (as it were) nailed down with it. It would indeed be a good action, if as the Egyptians draw out the stomach of a dead body, and cut it open and expose it to the sun, as the only cause of all its evil actions, so we could, by cutting out our gluttony and blood-shedding, purify and cleanse the remainder of our lives. For the stomach itself is not guilty of bloodshed, but is involuntarily polluted by our intemperance. But if this may not be, and we are ashamed by reason of custom to live unblamably, let us at least sin with discretion. Let us eat flesh; but let it be for hunger and not for wantonness. Let us kill an animal; but let us do it with sorrow and pity, and not abusing and tormenting it, as many nowadays are used to do, while some run red-hot spits through the bodies of swine, that by the tincture of the quenched iron the blood may be to that degree mortified, that it may sweeten and soften the flesh in its circulation; others jump and stamp upon the udders of sows that are ready to pig, that so they may trample into one mass, (O Piacular Jupiter!) in the very pangs of delivery, blood, milk, and the corruption of the crushed and mangled young ones, and so eat the most inflamed part of the animal; others sew up the eyes of cranes and swans, and so shut them up in darkness to be fattened, and then souse up their flesh with certain monstrous mixtures and pickles.

Notes on the current edition

On the eating of flesh II

1. Cf. Plutarch’s introduction to the second essay on the Fortune of Alexander ( Mor. 333 d).

2. Cf. Mor. 131 d, 198 d; Life of Cato Major, 8 (340 a).

3. Odyssey, x. 236.

4. Perhaps a verse of Empedocles: Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. i, p. 372, frag. 154 a; cf. Wilamowitz, Hermes, xl, p. 165. (Andrews prefers to adopt the reading κυκεών, potion, assuming a verbal form, dulls or blunts, in the preceding or following line.)

5. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xi. 210-211 is not quite so gruesome.

6. Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 60.

7. Wyttenbach reasonably suggested geese, but see Athenaeus, 131 f; 393 c-d.

Plutarch De esu carnium II 1

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

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