The Oracle at Delphi no Longer Given in Verse (30)

But, just as in those days there were people who complained of the obliquity and vagueness of the oracles, so to-day there are people who make an unwarranted indictment against their extreme simplicity. Such an attitude of mind is altogether puerile and silly. It is a fact that children take more delight and satisfaction in seeing rainbows, haloes, and comets than in seeing moon and sun; and so these persons yearn for the riddles, allegories, and metaphors which are but reflections of the prophetic art when it acts upon a human imagination. And if they cannot ascertain to their satisfaction the reason for the change, they go away, after pronouncing judgement against the god, but not against us nor against themselves for being unable by reasoning to attain to a comprehension of the god’s purpose.