De Pythiae oraculis

What statement, then, shall we make about the priestesses of former days? Not one statement, but more than one, I think. For in the first place, as has already been said,[*](403 e and 404 a, supra.) they also gave almost all their responses in prose. In the second place, that era produced personal temperaments and natures which had an easy fluency and a bent towards composing poetry, and to them were given also zest and eagerness and readiness of mind abundantly, thus creating an alertness which needed but a slight initial stimulus from without and a prompting of the

imagination, with the result that not only were astronomers and philosophers, as Philinus says, attracted at once to their special subjects, but when men carne under the influence of abundant wine or emotion, as some note of sadness crept in or some joy befell, a poet would slip into tuneful utterance[*](Cf.Moralia, 623 a.); their convivial gatherings were filled with amatory verses and their books with such writings. When Euripides said

1. Love doth the poet teach,
2. Even though he know naught of the Muse before,[*](The quotation, from the Stheneboea of Euripides, Plutarch repeats in more complete form in Moralia, 622 c and 762 b. Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 569, Euripides, no. 663.)

his thought was that Love does not implant in one the poetical or musical faculty, but when it is already existent in one, Love stirs it to activity and makes it fervent, while before it was unnoticed and idle. Or shall we say, my friend, that nobody is in love nowadays, but that love has vanished from the earth because nobody in verse or song

1. Launches swiftly the shafts
2. Of sweet-sounding lays
3. Aimed at the youth beloved,

as Pindar[*](Pindar, Isthmian Odes, ii. 3.) has put it? No, that is absurd. The fact is that loves many in number still go to and fro among men, but, being in association with souls that have no natural talent nor ear for music, they forgo the flute and lyre, but they are no less loquacious and ardent than those of olden time. Besides it is not righteous nor honourable to say that the Academy and Socrates and Plato’s congregation were loveless, for we may read their amatory discourses[*](Such, for example, as the Phaedrus of Plato.); but they have left us no poems.[*](A few epigrams (some amatory) attributed to Plato may be found in the Anthology; cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. ii. 295-312; Edmonds, Elegy and Iambic, ii. pp. 2-11 (L.C.L.); and for Socrates’ poems see Suidas s.v.; Plato, Phaedo, 60 c-d; Diogenes Laertius, ii. 42; Athenaeus, 628 e; Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. ii. 287-288.) As compared with him who says that the only poetess of love was Sappho, how much does he fall short who asserts that the only prophetess was the Sibyl and Aristonica and such others as delivered their oracles in verse? As Chaeremon[*](Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 787, no. 16; cf. also 437 d-e, infra.) says,

Wine mixes with the manners of each guest,

and as he drinks, prophetic inspiration, like that of love, makes use of the abilities that it finds ready at hand, and moves each of them that receive it according to the nature of each.

If, however, we take into consideration the workings of the god and of divine providence, we shall see that the change has been for the better. For the use of language is like the currency of coinage in trade: the coinage which is familiar and well known is also acceptable, although it takes on a different value at different times. There was, then, a time when men used as the coinage of speech verses and tunes and songs, and reduced to poetic and musical form all history and philosophy and, in a word, every experience and action that required a more impressive utterance. Not only is it a fact

that nowadays but few people have even a limited understanding of this diction, but in those days the audience comprised all the people, who were delighted with Pindar’s[*](Isthmian Odes, i. 68: repeated more fully in Moralia, 473 a.) song,

Shepherds and ploughmen and fowlers as well.

Indeed, owing to this aptitude for poetic composition, most men through lyre and song admonished, spoke out frankly, or exhorted; they attained their ends by the use of myths and proverbs,[*](Passages from Hesiod, Theognis, and Archilochus might be cited in confirmation of these statements. See also F. B. Stevens, The Topics of Counsel and Deliberation in Prephilosophic Greek Literature in Classical Philology, xxviii. (1933) pp. 104-120.) and besides composed hymns, prayers, and paeans in honour of the gods in verse and music, some through their natural talent, others because it was the prevailing custom. Accordingly, the god did not begrudge to the art of prophecy adornment and pleasing grace, nor did he drive away from here the honoured Muse of the tripod, but introduced her rather by awakening and welcoming poetic natures; and he himself provided visions for them, and helped in prompting impressiveness and eloquence as something fitting and admirable. But, as life took on a change along with the change in men’s fortunes and their natures, when usa ge banished the unusual and did away with the golden topknots[*](Cf. Thucydides, i. 6.) and dressing in soft robes, and, on occasion, cut off the stately long hair and caused the buskin to be no longer worn, men accustomed themselves (nor was it a bad thing) to oppose expensive outlay by adorning themselves with economy, and to rate as decorative the plain and simple rather than the ornate and elaborate. So, as language also underwent a change and put off its finery, history descended from its vehicle of versification, and went on foot in prose, whereby the truth was mostly sifted from the fabulous. Philosophy welcomed clearness and teachability in preference to creating amazement, and pursued its investigations through the medium of everyday language. The god put an end to having his prophetic priestess call her own citizens fire-blazers, the Spartans snake-devourers, men mountain-roamers, and rivers mountain-engorgers. When he had taken away from the oracles epic versification, strange words, circumlocutions, and vagueness, he had thus made them ready to talk to his consultants as the laws talk to States, or as kings meet with common people, or as pupils listen to teachers, since he adapted the language to what was intelligible and convincing.

Men ought to understand thoroughly, as Sophocles[*](Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 298, Sophocles, no. 704 (no. 771 Pearson).) says, that the god is

1. For wise men author of dark edicts aye,
2. For dull men a poor teacher, if concise.

The introduction of clearness was attended also by a revolution in belief, which underwent a change along with everything else. And this was the result: in days of old what was not familiar or common, but was expressed altogether indirectly and through circumlocution, the mass of people imputed to an assumed manifestation of divine power, and held it in awe and reverence; but in later times, being well satisfied to apprehend all these various things clearly and easily without the attendant grandiloquence and artificiality, they blamed the poetic language with which the oracles were clothed, not only for obstructing the understanding of these in their true meaning and for combining vagueness and obscurity with the communication, but already they were coming to look with suspicion upon metaphors, riddles, and ambiguous statements, feeling that these were secluded nooks of refuge devised for furtive withdrawal and retreat for him that should err in his prophecy. Moreover, there was the oft-repeated tale that certain men with a gift for poetry were wont to sit about close by the shrine waiting to catch the words spoken, and then weaving about them a fabric of extempore hexameters or other verses or rhythms as containers, so to speak, for the oracles. I forbear to mention how much blame men like Onomacritus,[*](Cf. Herodotus, vii. 6.) Prodicus, and Cinaethon have brought upon themselves from the oracles by foisting upon them a tragic diction and a grandiloquence of which they had no need, nor have I any kindly feeling toward their changes.

However, the thing that most filled the poetic art with disrepute was the tribe of wandering soothsayers and rogues that practised their charlatanry about the shrines of the Great Mother and of Serapis, making up oracles, some using their own ingenuity, others taking by lot from certain treatises oracles for the benefit of servants and womenfolk, who are most enticed by verse and a poetic vocabulary. This, then, is not the least among the reasons why poetry, by apparently lending herself to the service of tricksters, mountebanks,

and false prophets, lost all standing with truth and the tripod.

I should not, therefore, be surprised if there j were times when there was need of double entendre, indirect statement, and vagueness for the people of ancient days. As a matter of fact, this or that man assuredly did not go down to consult the oracle about the purchase of a slave or about business. No, powerful States and kings and despots, who cherished no moderate designs, used to appeal to the god regarding their course of action; and it was not to the advantage of those concerned with the oracle to vex and provoke these men by unfriendliness through their hearing many of the things that they did not wish to hear. For the god does not follow Euripides[*](Phoenissae, 958.) when he asserts as if he were laying down a law:

1. None but Phoebus ought
2. For men to prophesy.

But inasmuch as the god employs mortal men to assist him and declare his will, whom it is his duty to care for and protect, so that they shall not lose their lives at the hands of wicked men while ministering to a god, he is not willing to keep the truth unrevealed, but he caused the manifestation of it to be deflected, like a ray of light, in the medium of poetry, where it submits to many reflections and undergoes subdivisions, and thus he did away with its repellent harshness, There were naturally some things which it was well that despots should fail to understand and enemies should not learn beforehand. About these, therefore, he put a cloak of intimations and ambiguities[*](For example, the famous oracle given to Croesus (Herodotus, i. 53; Aristotle, Rhetoric, iii. 5 (1407 a 39)) that if he crossed the river Halys he should overthrow a great kingdom; but the kingdom was his own.) which concealed the communication so far as others were concerned, but did not escape the persons involved nor mislead those that had need to know and who gave their minds to the matter. Therefore anyone is very foolish who, now that conditions have become different, complains and makes unwarranted indictment if the god feels that he must no longer help us in the same way, but in a different way.