De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet

When I expressed surprise at this and asked for a clearer account, he said[*](Here Sulla begins to quote the stranger directly and continues his direct quotation to the end of the myth in 945 D.): Many assertions about the gods, Sulla, are current among the Greeks, but not all of them are right. So, for example, although they give the right names to Demeter and Cora, they are wrong in believing that both are together in the same region. The fact is that the former is in the region of earth and is sovereign over terrestrial things, and the latter is in the moon and mistress of lunar things. She has been called both Cora and Phersephone,[*](For identification of Persephone and the moon cf. Epicharmus, frag. B 54 (i, p. 207. 9-11 [Diels-Kranz] = Ennius in Varro, Lingua Latina, v. 68); Porphyry, Antro Nymph. 18; Iamblichus in John Laurentius Lydus, Mensibus, iv. 149; Martianus Capella, ii. 161-162. Plutarch in Iside, 372 D notices the identification of Isis and the moon and in 361 E that of Isis and Persephassa (cf. note c on 922 A supra for Athena). The Pythagoreans are said to have called the planets the hounds of Persephone (Porphyry, Vita Pythag. 41 = Aristotle, frag. 196; Clement, Stromat. v. 50 [676 P, 244 S]); and Plutarch in Defectu Oraculorum, 416 E refers to some who call the moon χθονίας ὁμοῦ καὶ οὐρανίας κλῆρον Ἑκάτης (cf. Iside, 368 E). cf. further, Roscher, über Selene und Verwandtes, pp. 119 ff.) the latter as being a bearer of light[*](cf. for the ancient etymologies of Φερσεφόνη Bräuninger, R. E. xix. 1. 946-947, and Roscher, Lexicon, ii. 1288; there seems to be no ancient parallel to the one given here, to which Plutarch does not refer in Iside, 377 D, where he mentions the etymology proposed by Cleanthes. In the Orphic Hymn to Persephone (xxix. 9 = Orphica, rec. E. Abel, p. 74. 9) the epithet, φαεσφόρος, is used of the goddess but not by way of etymology (cf. line 16); nor is she expressly identified with the moon, although she is called φαεσφόρος, ἀγλαόμορφε, εὐφεγγές, κερόεσσα.) and Cora because that is what we call the part of the eye in which is reflected the likeness of him who looks into it[*](cf.[Plato], Alcibiades I, 133 A. The word κόρη means girl, maiden, for which reason it was used of such goddesses as Athena and Persephone, and also doll, whence like Latin pupilla it came to mean the pupil of the eye; cf. English the baby in the eye. ) as the light of the sun is seen in the moon. The tales told of the wandering and the quest of these goddesses contain the truth

[spoken covertly],[*](i.e. the wandering of Demeter in search of Persephone after the abduction of the latter by Hades: cf. e.g. the Homeric Hymn 11 to Demeter and Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, i. 5. In the myth, however, Demeter was the wanderer; but the earth, which she is here supposed to represent, is stationary. In the myth Persephone is in darkness when she is separated from her mother and with Hades, whereas Plutarch’s interpretation requires that Persephone, the moon, be in darkness and night when she is in the embrace of her mother, the earth.) for they long for each other when they are apart and they often embrace in the shadow. The statement concerning Cora that now she is in the light of heaven and now in darkness and night is not false but has given rise to error in the computation of the time, for not throughout six months but every six months we see her being wrapped in shadow by the earth as it were by her mother, and infrequently we see this happen to her at intervals of five months,[*](cf. 933 E supra and Genio Socratis, 591 C: σελήνη φεύγει τὴν Στύγα μικρὸν ὑπερφέρουσα λαμβάνεται δ᾽ ἅπαξ ἐν μέτροις δευτέροις ἑκατὸν ἑβδομήκοντα ἑπτά (177 days = one-half of a lunar year, 6 synodic months).) for she cannot abandon Hades since she is the boundary of Hades, as Homer too has rather well put it in veiled terms:

But to Elysium’s plain, the bourne of earth.[*](Odyssey, iv. 563 but with ἀλλά ς᾽ ἐς instead of ἀλλ᾽ εἰς.)

Where the range of the earth’s shadow ends, this he set as the term and boundary of the earth.[*](cf.Stobaeus, Eclogae, i. 49 (i, p. 448. 5-16 [Wachsmuth]) = frag. 146 β (vii, p. 176 [Bernardakis]), where Odyssey, iv. 563-564 is taken to indicate that the region of the moon is the seat of righteous souls after death (cf. Eustathius, Ad Odysseam, 1509. 18). There Ἠλύσιον πεδίον is said to mean the surface of the moon lighted by the sun (cf. 944 C s.v.) and πείρατα γαίης the end of the earth’s shadow which often touches the moon; but there is no mention of Hades, Persephone, or Demeter. In the present passage Plutarch does not say why his interpretation of Homer’s line justifies him in calling the moon τοῦ Ἅιδου πέρας, but the rest of the myth makes it certain that Hades is the region between earth and moon (cf. 943 C s.v.). This agrees with the myth of Genio Socratis, where (591 A-C) this region is the portion of Persephone and the earth’s shadow is Styx and the road to Hades and where (590 F) Hades and Earth are clearly identical (cf. Heinze, Xenokrates, p. 135; R. M. Jones, The Platonism of Plutarch, p. 57 and n. 147). Probably then Plutarch here thought that, if Homer could be shown to have set the boundary of earth at the moon, it follows that he understood the moon to be the boundary of Hades. In Genio Socratis, 591 B the moon is expressly made the boundary between the portion of Persephone, which is Hades, and the region which extends from moon to sun. Nevertheless, in 944 C s.v. the Elysian plain is said to be the part of the moon that is turned to heaven, i. e. away from the earth; and, though this does not explicitly contradict the present passage, it might still seem to suggest the notion ascribed to Iamblichus by John Laurentius Lydus ( Mensibus, iv. 149 [p. 167. 24 ff.]): τὸν ὑπὲρ σελήνης ἄχρις ἡλίου χῶρον τῷ Ἅιδῃ διδούς, παρ᾽ ᾧ φησὶ καὶ τὰς ἐκκεκαθαρμένας ἐστάναι ψυχάς, καὶ αὐτὸν μὲν εἶναι τὸν Πλούτωνα, Περσεφόνην δὲ τὴν σελήνην. ) To this point rises no one who is evil or unclean, but the good are conveyed thither after death and there continue to lead a life most easy to be sure[*](Cf, Odyssey, iv. 565: τῇ περ ῥηίστη βιοτὴ πέλει ἀνθρώποισιν.) though not blessed or divine until their second death.[*](In Quaest. Rom. 282 A Plutarch cites Castor (cf. 266 E) for the notion that after death souls dwell on the moon, for which cf. in general P. Capelle, De luna stellis lacteo orbe animarum sedibus (Halis Saxonum, 1917), pp. 1-18 and n. b. Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 18. 82; Varro in Augustine, Civ. Dei, vii. 6 (i, p. 282. 14-17 [Dombart]); S. V. F. ii, frag. 814.)

And what is this, Sulla? Do not ask about these things, for I am going to give a full explanation myself. Most people rightly hold man to be composite but wrongly hold him to be composed of only two parts. The reason is that they suppose mind to be somehow part of soul, thus erring no less than those who believe soul to be part of body, for in the same degree as soul is superior to body so is mind better and more divine than soul. The result of soul [and body commingled is the irrational or the affective factor, whereas of mind and soul] the conjunction produces reason; and of these the former is source of pleasure and pain, the latter of virtue and vice.[*](cf. Virtute Morali, 441 D 442 A, Genio Socratis, 591 D-E. The ultimate source of Plutarch’s conception of the relation of mind, soul, and body is such passages of Plato as Timaeus, 30 B, 41-42, 90 A; Laws, 961 D-E, Phaedrus, 247 C (cf. ThÈvenaz, L’Ame du monde chez Plutarque, pp. 70-73). Plutarch himself ascribes the twofold division, soul and body, to οἱ πολλοί and so cannot intend a reference to any philosophical school; by those who make soul a μόριον τοῦ σώματος he might mean Stoics (cf. Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 1052 F ff., Communibus Notitiis, 1083 C ff.) but might equally well mean Epicureans or materialists generally. Against Adler’s argument (Diss. Phil. Vind. x, pp. 171-172) that the first of the two notions rejected is Platonic and the second Stoic, so that Plutarch’s source must have been Posidonius, cf. Pohlenz, Phil. Woch. xxxii (1912), p. 653, and R. M. Jones, The Platonism of Plutarch, p. 55.)

In the composition of these three factors earth furnishes the body, the moon the soul, and the sun furnishes mind [to man] for the purpose of his generation[*](cf. Genio Socratis, 591 B, where motion and generation are linked by Mind in the sun and generation and destruction by Nature in the moon.) even as it furnishes light to the moon herself. As to the death we die, one death reduces man from three factors to two and another reduces him from two to one[*](For a mortal soul or mortal part of the soul cf. Plato, Timaeus, 42 D, 61 C, 69 C-D.); and the former takes place in the [earth] that belongs to Demeter [[wherefore to make an end is called] to render [one’s life] to her and Athenians used in olden times to call the dead Demetrians],[*](cf.Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 151.) [the latter] in the moon that belongs to Phersephone, and associated with the former is Hermes the terrestrial, with the latter Hermes the celestial.[*](cf. Iside, 367 D-E. Hermes appears in the myth of Persephone as early as Homeric Hymn II, 377 ff. and is connected with Hecate in the fragment of Theopompus in Porphyry, Abstinentia, ii. 16. cf. also Quaest. Graec. 296 F and Halliday’s note ad. loc. ) While the goddess here[*](i.e. on earth, Demeter, which is why Plutarch refers to her with αὕτη, though she is the former of the two mentioned.) dissociates the soul from the body swiftly and violently, Phersephone gently and by slow degrees detaches the mind from the soul and has therefore been called single-born because the best part of man is born single when separated off [by] her.[*](μονογενής, which appears as an epithet of Hecate and Persephone (cf.Hesiod, Theogony, 426; Orphic Hymns, xxix. 1-2 [Abel]; Apollonius Rhodius, iii. 847), means unique: cf.Timaeus, 31 B and 92 C, to which Plutarch refers in Defectu Oraculorum, 423 A and C, where he interprets the word to mean only born. Here, however, he probably takes the final element in an active sense such as it has in Καλλιγένεια, an epithet of Demeter, the moon, and the earth.) Each of the two separations naturally occurs in this fashion: All soul, whether without mind or with it,[*](This may mean only whether the soul has been obedient to reason in life or has not but ὅλη κατέδυ εἰς σῶμα, as Genio Socratis, 591 D-E puts it; but at 945 B s.v. Plutarch speaks of souls which ἄνευ νοῦ assume bodies and live on earth, and by avow here he may intend to refer to the separation of such souls from their bodies. He cannot mean, as Raingeard supposes, souls whose minds have immediately passed to the sun, for he has just said that the separation of mind from soul takes place at the second death on the moon and neither here nor in 944 F s.v. does he allow for any exception in the sense of the doctrine of the Hermetic Tractate, x. 16, where νοῦς is separated from ψυχή at the moment when the soul leaves the body (cf. Scott, Hermetica, ii, p. 265). In Genio Socratis, 591 D 592 D Plutarch makes νοῦς and φυχή not really two different substances as here in the Facie but considers φυχή to be a degeneration of νοῦς.) when it has issued from the body[*](cf. Sera Numinis Vindicta, 563 E: ἐπεὶ γὰρ ἐξέπεσε τὸ φρονοῦν τοῦ σώματος . . .) is destined to wander [in] the region between earth and moon but not for an equal time. Unjust and licentious souls pay penalties for their offences; but the good souls must in the gentlest part of the air, which they call the meads of Hades, [*](For the location of Hades cf. Iside, 382 E and the etymology in Latenter Vivendo, 1130 A (cf. Plato, Gorgias, 493 B and Phaedo, 80 D); for the identification of Hades with the dark air cf. [Plutarch], Vita et Poesi Homeri, § 97; Philodemus, Pietate, c. 13 (Dox. Graeci, p. 547 b); Cornutus, c. 5 and c. 35; Heraclitus, Quaestiones Homericae, § 41. Reference to a mead (λειμών)) or meads in the underworld is common: cf. Odyssey, xi. 539, 573 and xxiv. 13-14; Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, 32 f 6 and 222; Plato, Gorgias, 524 A, Republic, 614 E and 616 B. The Neo-Platonists argued that the λειμών in these Platonic passages is meant to be located in the atmosphere under the moon: Proclus, In Rem Publicam, ii, pp. 132. 20-133. 15 (Kroll); Olympiodorus, In Gorgiam, p. 237. 10-13 (Norvin); Hermias, In Phaedrum, p. 161. 3-9 (Couvreur).) pass a certain set time sufficient to purge and blow away [the] pollutions contracted from the body as from an evil odour.[*](cf. Antro Nymph. §§ 11-12 (p. 64. 24-25 [Nauck]); Proclus, In Timaeum, iii, p. 331. 6-9 (Diehl); and in general on the pollution of the soul by association with the body Plato, Phaedo, 81 B-C. Plutarch in a different context uses the words: ὅταν ἀτμοὶ πονηροί ταῖς τῆς φυχῆς ἀνακραθῶσι περιόδοις ( Tuenda Sanitate, 129 C).) [Then], as if brought home from banishment abroad, they savour joy most like that of initiates, which attended by glad expectation is mingled with confusion and excitement.[*](For life on earth as the soul’s exile from its proper home cf. Exilio, 607 C-E; and for the comparison with initiates and what follows in this vein a few lines below cf. fragment VI (vii, p. 23. 4-17 [Bernardakis]).) For many, even as they are in the act of clinging to the moon, she thrusts off and sweeps away; and some of those souls too that are on the moon they see turning upside down as if sinking again into the deep.[*](cf. Genio Socratis, 591 C, and Plato’s Phaedrus, 248 A-B, especially αἱ δὲ δὴ ἄλλαι γλιχόμεναι μὲν ἅπασαι τοῦ ἄνω ἕπονται, ἀδυνατοῦσαι δέ, ὑποβρύχιαι συμπεριφέρονται κτλ. ) Those that have got up, however, and have found a firm footing first go about like victors crowned with wreaths of feathers called wreaths of steadfastness,[*](For life as an athletic contest and the soul as athlete cf. Sera Numinis Vindicta, 561 A, Genio Socratis, 593 D-E and 593 F 594 A. The conception is Platonic (cf. Republic, 621 C-D, Phaedrus, 256 B); and it is irrelevant to cite oriental notions of life as a combat and immortality as a triumph as Soury does (La Dèmonologie de Plutarque, p. 189, n. 1) after Cumont. Soury follows Raingeard in misconstruing στεφάνοις λεγομένοις and supposing that πτερῶν εὐσταθείας is an expression mystique (Op. cit. pp. 189 and 191-192). εὐσταθείας does not depend upon πτερῶν or vice versa; and Plutarch has simply woven the feathers of the soul, which appear throughout the myth of the Phaedrus, into a wreath that is given to the souls of the good for their steadfastness, just as the Victorious souls in Phaedrus, 256 B become ὑπόπτεροι because in life they were ἐγκρατεῖς αὑτῶν καὶ κόσμιοι.) because in life they had made the irrational or affective element of the soul orderly and tolerably tractable to reason[*](cf. Genio Socratis, 592 A, and Plato’s Phaedrus, 247 B (n.b. εὐήνια ὄντα ῥᾳδίως πορεύεται).); secondly, in appearance resembling a ray of light but in respect of their nature, which in the upper region is buoyant as it is here in ours, resembling the ether about the moon,[*](αἰθήρ for Plato was simply the uppermost and purest air (cf. Timaeus, 58 D, Phaedo, 109 B and 111 B); but here the word is probably used under Stoic influence, for which see note d on 928 D and note g on 922 B supra and cf. [Plato], Axiochus, 366 A (ἡ ψυχὴ συναλγούσα τὸν οὐράνιον ποθεῖ καὶ σύμφυλον αἰθέρα). These last sentences of chapter 28 show several definitely Stoic traits, especially the conception of tension, nourishment of the soul by the exhalations, and the use of the quotation from Heraclitus. It has long been customary to compare with this passage Cicero, Tusc. Disp. i. 19, 43, and Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. ix. 71-73 (cf. Heinze, Xenokrates, pp. 126-128; K. Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie, pp. 308-313 and p. 323; R. M. Jones, Class. Phil. xxvii [1932], pp. 113 ff.).) they get from it both tension and strength as edged instruments get a temper,[*](For the Stoic doctrine of τόνος cf. Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 1054 A-B, Communibus Notitiis, 1085 C-D, and S. V. F. ii, frags. 447 and 448. The metaphor of tempering was also commonly used by the Stoics in connection with the soul: cf. S. V. F. ii, frags. 804-806.) for what laxness and diffuseness they still have is strengthened and becomes firm and translucent. In consequence they are nourished by any exhalation that reaches them, and Heraclitus was right in saying: Souls employ the sense of smell in Hades. [*](Frag. 98 (i, p. 173. 3 [Diels-Kranz]). For the nourishment of disembodied souls cf. the passages of Cicero and Sextus cited in note e, p. 203. Here the argument of Lamprias in 940 c-d supra is incorporated into the myth, which thereby appears to substantiate the argument.)

First they behold the moon as she is in herself[*](Plutarch certainly wrote αὐτῆς σελήνης (or perhaps αὐτῆς τῆς σελήνης) under the influence of Plato’s true earth, αὐτὴ ἡ γῆ, in Phaedo, 109 B 7, 110 B 6 (cf. 935 A supra and 944 B s.v.).): her magnitude and beauty and nature, which is not simple and unmixed but a blend as it were of star and earth. Just as the earth has become soft by having been mixed with breath and moist[ure] and as blood gives rise to sense-perception in the flesh with which it is commingled,[*](cf.Aristotle, Part. Animal. 656 B 19-21 and 25-26, 666 A 16-17; and Plato, Timaeus, 77 E on the connection of the blood-vessels with τὸ τῶν αἰσθήσεων πάθος.) so the moon, they say,[*](Not the demons who told the stranger the story, as Raingeard says, but the human authors of the theory mentioned in the next sentence; cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), pp. 151-152.) because it has been permeated through and through by ether is at once animated and fertile and at the same time has the proportion of lightness to heaviness in equipoise. In fact it is in this way too, they say, that the universe itself has entirely escaped local motion, because it has been constructed out of the things that naturally move upwards and those that naturally move downwards.[*](cf.S. V. F. ii, frag. 555 and Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 157, n. 105.) This was

also the conception of Xenocrates who, taking his start from Plato, seems[*](The Greek does not imply, as Adler supposes, that Plutarch had any doubt about what Xenocrates had said (cf. E. M. Jones, The Platonism of Plutarch, p. 55).) to have reached it by a kind of superhuman reasoning. Plato is the one who declared that each of the stars as well was constructed of earth and fire bound together in a proportion by means of the [two] intermediate natures, for nothing, as he said, attains perceptibility that does not contain an admixture of earth and light[*](Timaeus, 40 A and 31 B 32 C; cf.[Plato], Epinomis, 981 d-e; Plutarch, Fortuna Romanorum, 316 E-F. Timaeus, 31 B strictly requires γῆς καὶ πυρός here; but according to Timaeus, 45 B and 58 C φῶς is the species of fire that produces visibility.); but Xenocrates says that the stars and the sun are composed of fire and the first density, the moon of the second density and air that is proper to her, and the earth of water [and air] and the third kind of density and that in general neither density all by itself nor subtility is receptive of soul.[*](Xenocrates, frag. 56 (Heinze); for text and implications cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 152.) So much for the moon’s substance. As to her breadth or magnitude, it is not what the geometers say but many times greater. She measures off the earth’s shadow with few of her own magnitudes not because it is small but she more ardently hastens her motion in order that she may quickly pass through the gloomy place bearing away [the souls] of the good which cry out and urge her on because when they are in the shadow they no longer catch the sound of the harmony of heaven.[*](Plutarch here gives a mythical correction of the astronomical calculations in 923 A-B and 932 B supra (on the text and the paralogism of this correction cf. Class. Phil. xlvi [1951], pp. 152-153) and also a mythical explanation of the acceleration of which he had spoken in 933 B supra. With this account of the effect of the lunar eclipse upon the disembodied souls cf. Genio Socratis, 591 C and for the harmony in the heavens cf. 590 C-D there, Musica, 1147, Plato’s Republic, 617 B, Aristotle’s Caelo, 290 B 12 291 A 28. ) At the same time too with wails [and] cries the souls of the chastised then approach through the shadow from below. That is why most people have the custom of beating brasses during eclipses and of raising a din and clatter against the souls,[*](cf.Aemilius Paulus, 17 (264 B); Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 12. 9 (54); Tacitus, Annals, i. 28; Juvenal, vi. 442-443. The purpose of the custom is here made to fit the myth; in Genio Socratis, 591 C the moon herself flashes and bellows to frighten away the impure souls.) which are frightened off also by the socalled face when they get near it, for it has a grim and horrible aspect.[*](cf. Epigenes in Clement, Stromat. v. 49 (= Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, frag. 33): Γοργόνιον τὴν σελήνην διὰ τὸ ἐν αὐτῇ πρόσωπον. cf. the notion that the face in the moon is that of the Sibyl ( Pythiae Oraculis, 398 C-D; Sera Numinis Vindicta, 566 D).) It is no such thing, however; but just as our earth contains gulfs that are deep and extensive,[*](cf.Plato, Phaedo, 109 B.) one here pouring in towards us through the Pillars of Heracles and outside the Caspian and the Red Sea with its gulfs,[*](For the Caspian see note f on 941 C supra. By Red Sea Plutarch means what we call the Indian Ocean plus the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea; in Quaest. Conviv 733 B he cites Agatharchidas who wrote an extensive work on the Red Sea (cf. Photius, Bibliotheca, cod. 250 [pp. 441 ff., Bekker]).) so those features are depths and hollows of the moon. The largest of them is called[*](cf.Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 151 on 943 E.) Hecate’s Recess, [*](For Hecate and the moon see notes c on 937 F and b on 942 D supra; cf. Sophocles, frag. 492 (Nauck²) and Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, frag. 204. For Hecate’s association with a cave cf. Homeric Hymn II, 24-25, and Roscher, über Selene und Verwandtes, pp. 46-48. Plutarch himself associates μυχός with the punishments in Hades ( Superstitione, 167 A).) where the souls suffer and exact penalties for whatever they have endured or committed after having already become Spirits[*](a This has been called inconsistent with the preceding statement in chapter 28 that only pure or purified souls attain the moon. Even the pure souls that reach the moon, however, still have the affective soul as well as mind; and Plutarch has already said in chapter 28 (942 F) that the life which they lead on the moon is οὐ μακάριον οὐδὲ θεῖον.); and the two long ones are called the Gates,[*](cf.Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 153.) for through them pass the souls now to the side of the moon that faces heaven and now back to the side that faces earth.[*](They pass to the outer side on their say to the second death (944 E ff. s.v.) and to the hither side on their way to rebirth in bodies (945 C s.v.). In Amatorius, 766 B the place to which souls come to be reborn in the body is called οἱ Σελήνης καὶ Ἀφροδίτης λειμῶνες..) The side of the moon towards heaven is named Elysian plain, [*](See 942 F supra and note d there.) the hither side House of counter-terrestrial Phersephone. [*](Plutarch uses ἀντίχθων in the usual Pythagorean sense in An. Proc. in Timaeo, 1028 B (cf. Placitis, 891 f, 895 C, 895 E = Aëtius, ii. 29. 4; iii. 9. 2; iii. 11. 3). Identification of the moon with the counter-earth is ascribed to certain Pythagoreans (but cf. Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato and the Academy, i, p. 562) by Simplicius, Caelo, p. 512. 17-20 (cf. Asclepius, Metaph. p. 35. 24-27; Scholia in Aristotelem, 505 A 1 [Brandis]).)