Plutarch, De esu carnium II, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 3

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[3] For what sort of dinner is not costly for which a living creature loses its life? Do we hold a life cheap? I do not yet go so far as to say that it may well be the life¹ of your mother or father or some friend or child, as Empedocles² declared. Yet it does, at least, possess some perception, hearing, seeing, imagination, intelligence, which last every creature receives from Nature to enable it to acquire what is proper for it and to evade what is not. Do but consider which are the philosophers who serve the better to humanize us: those³ who bid us eat our children and friends and fathers and wives after their death,⁴ or Pythagoras⁵ and Empedocles who try to accustom us to act justly toward other creatures also? You ridicule a man who abstains from eating mutton. But are we, they⁶ will say, to refrain from laughter when we see you slicing off portions from a dead father or mother and sending them to absent friends and inviting those who are at hand, heaping their plates with flesh? But as it is, perhaps we commit a sin when we touch these books of theirs without cleansing our hands and faces, our feet and ears - unless, by Heaven, it is a purification of those members to speak on such a subject as this, washing, as Plato⁷ says, the brine from one’s ears with the fresh water of discourse. If one should compare these two sets of books and doctrines,⁸ the former may serve as philosophy for the Scyths and Sogdians and the Black Cloaks, whose story as told by Herodotus⁹ gains no credit¹⁰; but the precepts of Pythagoras¹¹ and Empedocles were the laws for the ancient Greeks, along with their diet of wheat ¹² [Because there is no question of justice between us and the irrational animals.]

De esu carnium II. 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

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.) — 3 focus

[3] ποῖον οὖν οὐ πολυτελὲς δεῖπνον, εἰς ὃ οὐ θανατοῦταί τι ἔμψυχον; μικρὸν ἀνάλωμα ἡγούμεθα 5 997e ψυχήν; οὔπω λέγω τάχα μητρὸς ἢ πατρὸς ἢ φίλου τινὸς ἢ παιδός, ὡς ἔλεγεν Ἐμπεδοκλῆς· ἀλλʼ αἰσθήσεώς γε μετέχουσαν, ὄψεως ἀκοῆς, φαντασίας συνέσεως, ἣν ἐπὶ κτήσει τοῦ οἰκείου καὶ φυγῇ τάλλοτρίου παρὰ τῆς φύσεως ἕκαστον εἴληχε. σκόπει 10 δʼ ἡμᾶς πότεροι βέλτιον ἐξημεροῦσι τῶν φιλοσόφων, οἱ καὶ τέκνα καὶ φίλους καὶ πατέρας καὶ γυναῖκας ἐσθίειν κελεύοντες ὡς ἀποθανόντας, ἢ Πυθαγόρας καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἐθίζοντες εἶναι καὶ πρὸς· τὰ ἄλλα μέρη δικαίους. σὺ μὲν καταγελᾷς τοῦ τὸ πρόβατον 15 μὴ ἐσθίοντος· ἀλλʼ ἡμεῖς γε, φήσουσι, θεασάμενοι τοῦ πατρὸς τεθνηκότος ἢ τῆς μητρὸς ἀποτεμόντα 997f μερίδας καὶ τῶν φίλων ἀποπεμπόμενον τοῖς μὴ παροῦσι, τοὺς δὲ παρόντας καλοῦντα καὶ παρατιθέντα τῶν σαρκῶν ἀφειδῶς, μή τι γελάσωμεν; ἀλλὰ 20 καὶ νῦν ἴσως ἁμαρτάνομεν, ὅταν ἁψώμεθα τῶν βιβλίων τούτων, μὴ καθαιρόμενοι χεῖρας καὶ ὄψεις καὶ πόδας καὶ ἀκοάς, εἰ μὴ νὴ Δία ἐκείνων καθαρμὸς 998a ἐστι τὸ περὶ τούτων διαλέγεσθαι ποτίμῳ λόγῳ ὥς φησιν ὁ Πλάτων ἁλμυρὰν ἀκοὴν ἀποκλυζομένους. εἰ δὲ θείη τις τὰ βιβλία παρʼ ἄλληλα καὶ τοὺς λόγους, ἐκεῖνα μὲν Σκύθαις φιλοσοφεῖσθαι καὶ Σογδιανοῖς καὶ Μελαγχλαίνοις, περὶ ὧν Ἡρόδοτος ἱστορῶν ἀπιστεῖται τὰ δὲ Πυθαγόρου καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλέους 5 δόγματα νόμοι τῶν παλαιῶν ἦσαν Ἑλλήνων καὶ αἱ ἄπυροι δίαιται. ὅτι πρὸς τὰ ἄλογα ζῷα δίκαιον ἡμῖν οὐδὲν ἔστι.

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.) — 3 focus

[3] And what meal is not expensive? That for which no animal is put to death. Shall we reckon a soul to be a small expense. I will not say perhaps of a mother, or a father, or of some friend, or child, as Empedocles did; but one participating of feeling, of seeing, of hearing, of imagination, and of intellection; which each animal hath received from Nature for the acquiring of what is agreeable to it, and the avoiding what is disagreeable. Do but consider this with yourself now, which sort of philosophers render us most tame and civil, they who bid people to feed on their children, friends, fathers, and wives, when they are dead; or Pythagoras and Empedocles, that accustom men to be just towards even the other members of the creation. You laugh at a man that will not eat a sheep: but we (they will say again) — when we see you cutting off the parts of your dead father or mother, and sending it to your absent friends, and calling upon and inviting your present friends to eat the rest freely and heartily — shall we not smile? Nay, peradventure we offend at this instant time while we touch these books, without having first cleansed our hands, eyes, feet, and ears; if it be not (by Jupiter) a sufficient purgation of them to have discoursed of these matters in potable and fresh language (as Plato speaketh), thereby washing off the brackishness of hearing. Now if a man should set these books and discourses in opposition to each other, he will find that the philosophy of the one sort suits with the Scythians, Sogdians, and Melanchlaenians, of whom Herodotus’s relation is scarce believed; but the sentiments of Pythagoras and Empedocles were the laws and customs of the ancient Grecians.

Notes on the current edition

On the eating of flesh II

1. That is, the reincarnated life.

2. As in frag. B 137 (Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. i, p. 275).

3. Cf. von Arnim, S.V.F. iii, p. 186.

4. That is, they tell us to eat meat without compunction, because human beings are only mortal, and their souls are not reincarnated in animals.

5. Cf. 993 a supra. The argument is somewhat weakened by the fact (certainly well known to Plutarch, e.g. Mor. 286 d-e) that Pythagoras placed an even more stringent taboo on beans than he did on meat.

6. Pythagoras and Empedocles.

7. Phaedrus, 243 d; Cf. Mor. 627 f, 706 e, 711 d.

8. That is, of the two schools of philosophy mentioned above in 997 e.

9. Plutarch seems to have confused the Black Cloaks (Herodotus, iv. 20, but cf. iv. 107) with the Issedones (iv. 26); and perhaps the Sogdians (iii. 93) with the Padaei (iii. 99); cf. also i. 216 and iii. 38.

10. But this clause looks like a semi-learned addition.

11. Cf. 964 e-f supra.

12. There seems to be a lacuna here followed by an interpolation from chapter 6 or 7.

Plutarch De esu carnium II 3

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

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