The Oracle at Delphi no Longer Given in Verse (20-24)

Some of the oracles even to-day come out in metre, one of which an affair has made famous. There is in Phocis a shrine of Heracles the Womanhater, and it is the custom that the man who is appointed to the priesthood shall have no association with a woman within the year. For this reason they usually appoint as priests rather old men. By exception, only a few years ago, a young man, not at all bad, but ambitious, who was in love with a girl, gained the office. At first he was able to control himself, and succeeded in keeping out of her way; but when she suddenly carne in upon him as he was resting after drinking and dancing, he did the forbidden thing. Frightened and perturbed in consequence, he resorted at once to the oracle and asked the god about his sin, whether there were any way to obtain forgiveness or to expiate it; and he received this response:

All things that must be doth the god condone.

However, even if anybody were to grant that no word of prophecy is uttered in our time without being in verse, such a person would be in much more perplexity regarding the oracles of ancient times which gave their responses at one time in verse and at another time without versification. However, neither of these, my young friend, goes counter to reason if only we hold correct and uncontaminated opinions about the god, and do not believe that it was he himself who used to compose the verses in earlier times, while now he suggests the oracles[*] to the prophetic priestess as if he were prompting an actor in a play to speak his words.

However, it is worth our while to discuss these matters at greater length and to learn about them at another time; but for the present let us recall to our minds what we have learned in brief: that the body makes use of many instruments[*] and that the soul makes use of this very body and its members; moreover, the soul is created to be the instrument of God, and the virtue of an instrument is to conform as exactly as possible to the purpose of the agent that employs it by using all the powers which Nature has bestowed upon it, and to produce, presented in itself, the purpose of the very design; but to present this, not in the form in which it was existent in its creator, uncontaminated, unaffected, and faultless, but combined with much that is alien to this. For pure design cannot be seen by us, and when it is made manifest in another guise and through another medium, it becomes contaminated with the nature of this medium. Wax, for example, and gold and silver I leave out of account, as well as other kinds of material,[*] which, when moulded, take on the particular form of the likeness which is being modelled; and yet each one of them adds to the thing portrayed a distinguishing characteristic which comes from its own substance; and so also the numberless distortions in the reflected images of one single form seen in mirrors both plane and concave and convex. Indeed, if we contemplate the shining constellations, there is nothing that shows greater similarity in form, or which, as an instrument, is by nature more obedient in use than the moon. Receiving as it does from the sun its brilliant light and intense heat, it sends them away to us, not in the state in which they arrived, but, after being merged with it, they change their colour and also acquire a different potency. The heat is gone, and the light becomes faint because of weakness.

I imagine that you are familiar with the saying found in Heraeleitus[*] to the effect that the Lord whose prophetic shrine is at Delphi neither tells nor conceals, but indicates. Add to these words, which are so well said, the thought that the god of this place employs the prophetic priestess for men’s ears just as the sun employs the moon for men’s eyes. For he makes known and reveals his own thoughts, but he makes them known through the associated medium of a mortal body and a soul that is unable to keep quietior, as it yields itself to the One that moves it, to remain of itself unmoved and tranquil, but, as though tossed amid billows and enmeshed in the stirrings and emotions within itself, it makes itself more and more restless.

For, as the eddies exercise no sure control over the bodies carried round and round in them, but, since the bodies are carried round and round by a compelling force, while they naturally tend to sink, there results from the two a confused and erratic circular movement, so, in like manner, what is called inspiration seems to be a combination of two impulses, the soul being simultaneously impelled through one of these by some external influence, and through the other by its own nature. Wherefore it is not possible to deal with inanimate and stationary bodies in a way contrary to their nature by bringing force to bear upon them, nor to make a cylinder in motion behave in the manner of a sphere or a cube, nor a lyre like a flute, nor a trumpet like a harp. No, the use of each thing artistically is apparently no other than its natural use. And as for the animate, endowed with power to move of itself and with its share of initiative and reason, could anyone treat it in a manner other than in keeping with the condition, faculty, or nature, already pre-existent in it, as, for example, trying to arouse to music a mind unmusical, or to letters the unlettered, or to eloquence one with no observation or training in speeches? That is something which no one could assert.

Homer[*] also gives testimony on my side by his assumption that practically nothing is brought to pass for any reason without a god[*]; he does not, however, represent the god as employing everything for every purpose, but as employing each thing in accordance with the aptitude or faculty that each possesses. Do you not see, he continued, my dear Diogenianus, that Athena, when she wishes to persuade the Achaeans, summons Odysseus[*]; when she wishes to bring to naught the oaths, seeks out Pandarus[*]; when she wishes to rout the Trojans, goes to Diomedes[*]? The reason is that Diomedes is a man of great strength and a warrior, Pandarus a bowman and a fool, Odysseus adept at speaking and a man of sense. The fact is that Homer did not have the same idea as Pindar, if it really was Pindar who wrote God willing, you may voyage on a mat;[*] but Homer recognized the fact that some faculties and natures are created for some purposes and others for others, and each one of these is moved to action in a different way, even if the power that moves them all be one and the same. Now this power cannot move to flight that which can only walk or run, nor move a lisp to clear speaking, nor a shrill thin voice to melodious utterance. No, in the case of Battus[*] it was for this reason, when he came to consult the oracle for his voice, that the god sent him as a colonist to Africa, because Battus had a lisp and a shrill thin voice, but also had the qualities of a king and a statesman, and was a man or sense. So in the same way it is impossible for the unlettered man who has never read verse to talk like a poet. Even so the maiden who now serves the god here was born of as lawful and honourable wedlock as anyone, and her life has been in all respects proper; but, having been brought up in the home of poor peasants, she brings nothing with her as the result of technical skill or of any other expertness or faculty, as she goes down into the shrine. On the contrary, just as Xenophon[*] believes that a bride should have seen as little and heard as little as possible before she proceeds to her husband’s house, so this girl, inexperienced and uninformed about practically everything, a pure, virgin soul, becomes the associate of the god. Now we cherish the belief that the god, in giving indications to us, makes use of the calls of herons, wrens, and ravens; but we do not insist that these, inasmuch as they are messengers and heralds of the gods, shall express everything rationally and clearly, and yet we insist that the voice and language of the prophetic priestess, like a choral song in the theatre, shall be presented, not without sweetness and embellishment, but also in verse of a grandiloquent and formal style with verbal metaphors and with a flute to accompany its delivery I

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,[*] 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[*]; their convivial gatherings were filled with amatory verses and their books with such writings. When Euripides said

Love doth the poet teach,

Even though he know naught of the Muse before,[*]

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

Launches swiftly the shafts

Of sweet-sounding lays

Aimed at the youth beloved,

as Pindar[*] 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[*]; but they have left us no poems.[*] 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[*] 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[*] 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,[*] 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[*] 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.