De Pythiae oraculis

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. III. Goodwin, William W., editor; Philips, John, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.

But these things require a more prolix discourse and a stricter examination, to be deferred till another time. For the present, therefore, let us only call to mind thus much, that the body makes use of several instruments, and the soul employs the body and its members; the soul be ing the organ of God. Now the perfection of the organ is to imitate the thing that makes use of it, so far as it is capable, and to exhibit the operation of its thought, according to the best of its own power; since it cannot show it as it is in the divine operator himself,—neat, without any affection, fault, or error whatsoever,—but imperfect and mixed. For of itself, the thing is to us altogether unknown, till it is infused by another and appears to us as fully partaking of the nature of that other. I forbear to mention gold or silver, brass or wax, or whatever other substances are capable to receive the form of an imprinted resemblance. For true it is, they all admit the impression; but still one adds one distinction, another another, to the imitation arising from their presentation itself; as we may readily perceive in mirrors, both plane, concave, and convex, infinite varieties of representations and faces from one and the same original; there being no end of that diversity.

But there is no mirror that more exactly represents any shape or form, nor any instrument that yields more obsequiously to the use of Nature, than the Moon herself. And yet she, receiving from the Sun his masculine splendor and fiery light, does not transmit the same to us; but when it intermixes with her pellucid substance, it changes color and loses its power. For warmth and heat abandon the pale planet, and her light grows dim before it can reach our sight. And this is that which, in my opinion, Heraclitus seems to have meant, when he said that the prince

who rules the oracle of Delphi neither speaks out nor conceals, but signifies. Add then to these things thus rightly spoken this farther consideration, that the Deity makes use of the Pythian prophetess, so far as concerns her sight and hearing, as the Sun makes use of the Moon; for he makes use of a mortal body and an immortal soul as the organs of prediction. Now the body lies dull and immovable of itself; but the soul being restless, when once the soul begins to be in motion, the body likewise stirs, not able to resist the violent agitation of the nimbler spirit, while it is shaken and tossed as in a stormy sea by the tempestuous passions that ruffle within it. For as the whirling of bodies that merely move circularly is nothing violent, but when they move round by force and tend downward by nature, there results from both a confused and irregular circumrotation; thus that divine rapture which is called enthusiasm is a commixture of two motions, wherewith the soul is agitated, the one extrinsic, as by inspiration, the other by nature. For, seeing that as to inanimate bodies, which always remain in the same condition, it is impossible by preternatural violence to offer a force which is contrary to their nature and intended use, as to move a cylinder spherically or cubically, or to make a lyre sound like a flute, or a trumpet like a harp; how is it possible to manage an animate body, that moves of itself, that is indued with reason, will, and inclination, otherwise than according to its pre-existent reason, power, or nature; as (for example) to incline to music a person altogether ignorant and an utter enemy to music, or to make a grammarian of one that never knew his letters, or to make him speak like a learned man that never understood the least tittle of any science in the world?

For proof of this I may call Homer for my witness, who affirms that there is nothing done or brought to perfection of which God is not the cause, supposing that God

makes use not of all men for all things alike, but of every man according to his ability either of art or nature. Thus, dost thou not find it to be true, friend Diogenianus, that when Minerva would persuade the Greeks to undertake any enterprise, she brings Ulysses upon the stage?—when she designs to break the truce, she finds out Pandarus?—when she designs a rout of the Trojans, she addresses herself to Diomede? For the one was stout of body and valiant; the other was a good archer, but without brains; the other a shrewd politician and eloquent. For Homer was not of the same opinion with Pindar, at least if it was Pindar that made the following verses:
  • Were it the will of Heaven, an ozier bough
  • Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough.
    • [*](Θεοῦ θέλοντος, κἀν ἐπὶ ῥιπὸς πλέοις.)
    For he well knew that there were different abilities and natures designed for different effects, every one of which is qualified with different motions, though there be but one moving cause that gives motion to all. So that the same virtual power which moves the creature that goes upon all four cannot cause it to fly, no more than he that stammers can speak fluently and eloquently, or he that has a feeble squeaking voice can give a loud hollow. Therefore in my opinion it was that Battus, when he consulted the oracle, was sent into Africa, there to build a new city, as being a person who, although he lisped and stammered, had nevertheless endowments truly royal, which rendered him fit for sovereign government. In like manner it is impossible the Pythian priestess should learn to speak learnedly and elegantly; for, though it cannot be denied but that her parentage was virtuous and honest, and that she always lived a sober and a chaste life, yet her education was among poor laboring people; so that she was advanced to the oracular seat rude and unpolished, void of all the advantages of art or experience. For as it is the opinion of Xenophon, that
    a virgin ready to be espoused ought to be carried to the bridegroom’s house when she has seen and heard as little as possible; so the Pythian priestess ought to converse with Apollo, illiterate and ignorant almost of every thing, still approaching his presence with a truly and pure virgin soul.

    But it is a strange fancy of men; they believe that the God makes use of herons, wrens, and crows to signify future events, expressing himself according to their vulgar notes, but do not expect of these birds, although they are the messengers and ambassadors of the God, to deliver their predictions in words clear and intelligible; but they will not allow the Pythian priestess to pronounce her answers in plain, sincere, and natural expressions, but they demand that she shall speak in the poetical magnificence of high and stately verses, like those of a tragic chorus, with metaphors and figurative phrases, accompanied with the delightful sounds of flutes and hautboys.

    What then shall we say of the ancients? Not one, but many things. First then, as hath been said already, that the ancient Pythian priestesses pronounced most of their oracles in prose. Secondly, that those ages produced complexions and tempers of body much more prone and inclined to poetry, with which immediately were associated those other ardent desires, affections, and preparations of the mind, which wanted only something of a beginning and a diversion of the fancy from more serious studies, not only to draw to their purpose (according to the saying of Philinus) astrologers and philosophers, but also in the heat of wine and pathetic affections, either of sudden compassion or surprising joy, to slide insensibly into voices melodiously tuned, and to fill banquets with charming odes or love songs, and whole volumes with amorous canzonets and mirthful inventions. Therefore, though Euripides tells us,

    Love makes men poets who before no music knew,
    he does not mean that love infuses music and poetry into men that were not already inclined to those accomplishments, but that it warms and awakens that disposition which lay unactive and drowsy before. Otherwise we might say that now there were no lovers in the world, but that Cupid himself was vanished and gone, because that now-a-days there is not one
  • Who now, true archer-like,
  • Lets his poetic raptures fly
  • To praise his mistress’s lip or eye,
    • as Pindar said. But this were absurd to affirm. For amorous impatiencies torment and agitate the minds of many men not addicted either to music or poetry, that know not how to handle a flute or touch a harp, and yet are no less talkative and inflamed with desire than the ancients. And I believe there is no person who would be so unkind to himself as to say that the Academy or the quires of Socrates and Plato were void of love, with whose discourses and conferences touching that passion we frequently meet, though they have not left any of their poems behind. And would it not be the same thing to say, there never was any woman that studied courtship but Sappho, nor ever any that were endued with the gift of prophecy but Sibylla and Aristonica and those that delivered their oracles and sacred raptures in verse? For wine, as saith Chaeremon, soaks and infuses itself into the manners and customs of them that drink it. Now poetic rapture, like the raptures of love, makes use of the ability of its subject, and moves every one that receives it, according to its proper qualification.

    Nevertheless, if we do but make a right reflection upon God and his Providence, we shall find the alteration to be much for the better. For the use of speech seems to be like the exchange of money; that which is good and lawful is commonly current and known, and goes

    sometimes at a higher, sometimes at a lower value. Thus there was once a time when the stamp and coin of language was approved and passed current in verses, songs, and sonnets; for then all histories, all philosophical learning, all affections and subjects that required grave and solid discussion, were written in poetry and fitted for musical composition. For what now but a few will scarce vouchsafe to hear, then all men listened to,
    The shepherd, ploughman, and bird-catcher too,[*](Pindar, Isthm. I. 67.)
    as it is in Pindar; all delighted in songs and verses. For such was the inclination of that age and their readiness to versify, that they fitted their very precepts and admonitions to vocal and instrumental music. If they were to teach, they did it in songs fitted to the harp. If they were to exhort, reprove, or persuade. they made use of fables and allegories. And then for their praises of the Gods, their vows, and paeans after victory, they were all composed in verse; by some, as being naturally airy and flowing in their invention; by others, as habituated by custom. And therefore it is not that Apollo envies this ornament and elegancy to the science of divination; nor was it his design to banish from the Tripos his beloved Muse, but rather to introduce her when rejected by others, being rather a lover and kindler of poetic rapture in others, and choosing rather to furnish laboring fancies with imaginations, and to assist them to bring forth the lofty and learned kind of language, as most becoming and most to be admired.

    But afterwards, when the conversation of men and custom of living altered with the change of their fortunes and dispositions, consuetude expelling and discarding all manner of superfluity rejected also golden top-knots, and silken vestments loosely flowing in careless folds, clipped their long dishevelled locks, and, laying aside their embroidered

    buskin, taught men to glory in sobriety and frugality in opposition to wantonness and superfluity, and to place true honor in simplicity and modesty, not in pomp and vain curiosity. And then it was that, the manner of writing being quite altered, history alighted from versifying, as it were from riding in chariots, and on foot distinguished truth from fable; and philosophy, in a clear and plain style, familiar and proper to instruct rather than to astonish the world with metaphors and figures, began to dispute and enquire after truth in common and vulgar terms. And then it was, that Apollo caused the Pythian priestess to surcease calling her fellow-citizens fire-inflaming, the Spartans serpent-devourers, men by the name of Oreanes, and rivers by the name of mountain-drainers; and discarding verses, uncouth words, circumlocutions, and obscurity, taught the oracles to speak as the laws discourse to cities, and as princes speak to their people and their subjects, or as masters teach their scholars, appropriating their manner of speech to good sense and persuasive grace.

    For, as Sophocles tells us, we are to believe the Deity to be

  • Easy to wise men, who can truth discern;
  • The fool’s bad teacher, who will never learn.
    • And ever since belief and perspicuity thus associated together, it came to pass by alteration of circumstances that, whereas formerly the vulgar looked with a high veneration upon whatever was extraordinary and extravagant, and conceived a more than common sanctity to lie concealed under the veil of obscurity, afterwards men desirous to understand things clearly and easily, without flowers of circumlocutions and disguisements of dark words, not only began to find fault with oracles enveloped with poetry, as repugnant to the easy understanding of the real meaning, and overshadowing the sentence with mist and darkness, but also suspected the truth of the very prophecy itself
    which was muffled up in so many metaphors, riddles, and ambiguities, which seemed no better than holes to creep out at and evasions of censure, should the event prove contrary to what had been foretold. And some there were who reported that there were several extempore poets entertained about the Tripos, who were to receive the words as they dropped roughly from the oracle, and presently by virtue of their extempore fancy to model them into verses and measures, that served (as it were) instead of hampers and baskets to convey the answers from place to place. I forbear to tell how far those treacherous deceivers like Onomacritus, Herodotus (?), and Cyneso, have contributed to dishonor the sacred oracles, by their interlarding of bombast expressions and high-flown phrases, where there was no necessity of any such alteration. It is also as certain, that those mountebanks, jugglers, impostors, gipsies, and all that altar-licking tribe of vagabonds that set up their throats at the festivals and sacrifices to Cybele and Serapis, have highly undervalued poesy; some of them extempore, and others by lottery from certain little books, composing vain predictions, which they may sell to servants and silly women, that easily suffer themselves to be deluded by the overawing charms of serious ambiguity couched in strained and uncouth ballatry. Whence it comes to pass, that poetry, seeming to prostitute itself among cheats and deluders of the people, among mercenary gipsies and mumping charlatans, has lost its ancient credit, and is therefore thought unworthy the honor of the Tripos.

    And therefore I do not wonder that the ancients stood in need of double meaning, of circumlocution, and obscurity. For certainly never any private person consulted the oracle when he went to buy a slave or hire workmen; but potent cities, kings and princes, whose undertakings and concernments were of vast and high

    concernment, and whom it was not expedient for those that had the charge of the oracle to disoblige or incense by the return of answers ungrateful to their ears. For the deity is not bound to observe that law of Euripides, where he says,
  • Phoebus alone, and none but he,
  • Should unto men the prophet be.
    • Therefore, when he makes use of mortal prophets and agents, of whom it behooves him to take a more especial care that they be not destroyed in his service, he does not altogether go about to suppress the truth, but only eclipses the manifestation of it, like a light divided into sundry reflections, rendering it by the means of poetic umbrage less severe and ungrateful in the delivery. For it is not convenient that princes or their enemies should presently know what is by Fate decreed to their disadvantage. Therefore he so envelops his answers with doubts and ambiguities as to conceal from others the true understanding of what was answered; though to them that came to the oracle themselves, and gave due attention to the deliverer, the meaning of the answer is transparently obvious. Most impertinent therefore are they who, considering the present alteration of things, accuse and exclaim against the Deity for not assisting in the same manner as before.

    And this may be farther said, that poetry brings no other advantage to the answer than this, that the sentence being comprised and confined within a certain number of words and syllables bounded by poetic measure is more easily carried away and retained in memory. Therefore it behooved those that formerly lived to have extraordinary memories, to retain the marks of places, the times of such and such transactions, the ceremonies of deities beyond the sea, the hidden monuments of heroes, hard to be found in countries far from Greece. For in those expeditions of Phalanthus and several other admirals of

    great navies, how many signs were they forced to observe, how many conjectures to make, ere they could find the seat of rest allotted by the oracle! In the observance of which there were some nevertheless that failed, as Battus among others. For he said that he failed because he had not landed in the right place to which he was sent; and therefore returning back he complained to the oracle. But Apollo answered:
  • As well as I thou knowest, who ne’er hast been
  • In Libya covered o’er with sheep and kine;
  • If this is true, thy wisdom I admire:
    • and so sent him back again. Lysander also, ignorant of the hillock Archelides, also called Alopecus, and the river Hoplites, nor apprehensive of what was meant by
    The earth-born dragon, treacherous foe behind,
    being overthrown in battle, was there slain by Neochorus the Haliartian, who bare for his device a dragon painted upon his shield. But it is needless to recite any more of these ancient examples of oracles, difficult to be retained in memory, especially to you that are so well read.

    And now, God be praised, there is an end of all those questions which were the grounds of consulting the oracle. For now we repose altogether in the soft slumbers of peace; all our wars are at an end. There are now no tumults, no civil seditions, no tyrannies, no pestilences nor calamities depopulating Greece, no epidemic diseases needing powerful and choice drugs and medicines. Now, when there is nothing of variety, nothing of mystery, nothing dangerous, but only bare and ordinary questions about small trifles and vulgar things, as whether a man may marry, whether take a voyage by sea, or lend his money safely at interest,—and when the most important enquiries of cities are concerning the next harvest, the increase of their cattle, or the health of the inhabitants,—there to make use of verses, ambiguous words, and confounding obscurities,

    where the questions require short and easy answers, causes us to suspect that the sacred minister studies only cramp expressions, like some ambitious sophister, to wrest admiration from the ignorant. But the Pythian priestess is naturally of a more generous disposition; and therefore, when she is busy with the Deity, she has more need of truth than of satisfying her vain-glory, or of minding either the commendations or the dispraise of men.

    And well it were, that we ourselves should be so affected. But on the contrary, being in a quandary and jealousy lest the oracle should lose the reputation it has had for these three thousand years, and lest people should forsake it and forbear going to it, we frame excuses to ourselves, and feign causes and reasons of things which we do not know, and which it is not convenient for us to know; out of a fond design to persuade the persons thus oddly dissatisfied, whom it became us rather to let alone. For certainly the mistake must redound to ourselves,[*](Odyss. II. 190.) when we shall have such an opinion of our Deity as to approve and esteem those ancient and pithy proverbs of wise men, written at the entrance into the temple, Know thyself, Nothing to excess, as containing in few words a full and close compacted sentence, and yet find fault with the modern oracle for delivering answers concise and plain. Whereas those apophthegms are like waters crowded and pent up in a narrow room or running between contracted banks, where we can no movie discern the bottom of the water than we can the depth and meaning of the sentence. And yet, if we consider what has been written and said concerning those sentences by such as have dived into their signification with an intent to clear their abstruseness, we shall hardly find disputes more prolix than those are. But the language of the Pythian priestess is such as the mathematicians define a right line to be, that is to say, the

    shortest that may be drawn betwixt two points. So likewise doth she avoid all winding and circles, all double meanings and abstruse ambiguities, and proceed directly to the truth. And though she has been obnoxious to strict examination, yet is she not to be misconstrued without danger, nor could ever any person to this very day convict her of falsehood; but on the other side, she has filled the temple with presents, gifts, and offerings, not only of the Greeks but barbarians, and adorned the seat of the oracle with the magnificent structures and fabrics of the Amphictyons. And we find many additions of new buildings, many reparations of the old ones that were fallen down or decayed by time. And as we see from trees overgrown with shade and verdant boughs other lesser shoots sprout up; thus has the Delphian concourse afforded growth and grandeur to the assembly of the Amphictyons, which is fed and maintained by the abundance and affluence arising from thence, and has the form and show of magnificent temples, stately meetings, and sacred waters; which, but for the ceremonies of the altar, would not have been brought to perfection in a thousand years. And to what other cause can we attribute the fertility of the Galaxian Plains in Boeotia but to their vicinity to this oracle, and to their being blessed with the neighboring influences of the Deity, where from the well-nourished udders of the bleating ewes milk flows in copious streams, like water from so many fountain-heads?
  • Their pails run o’er, and larger vessels still
  • With rich abundance all their dairies fill.
    • To us appear yet more clear and remarkable signs of the Deity’s liberality, while we behold the glory of far-famed store and plenty overflowing former penury and barrenness. And I cannot but think much the better of myself for having in some measure contributed to these things with Polycrates and Petraeus. Nor can I less admire the
    first author and promoter of this good order and management. And yet it is not to be thought that such and so great change should come to pass in so small a time by human industry, without the favor of the Deity assisting and blessing his oracle.

    But although there were some formerly who blamed the ambiguity and obscurity of the oracle, and others who at this day find fault with its modern plainness and perspicuity, yet are they both alike unjust and foolish in their passion; for, like children better pleased with the sight of rainbows, comets, and those halos that encircle the sun and moon, than to see the sun and moon themselves in their splendor, they are taken with riddles, abstruse words, and figurative speeches, which are but the reflections of oracular divination to the apprehension of our mortal understanding. And because they are not able to make a satisfactory judgment of this change, they find fault with the God himself, not considering that neither we nor they are able by discourse of reason to reach unto the hidden counsels and designs of the Deity.