The Oracle at Delphi no Longer Given in Verse (5-9)

Following this a silence ensued, and again the guides began to deliver their harangues. A certain oracle in verse was recited (I think it concerned the kingdom of Aegon the Argive[*], whereupon Diogenianus said that he had often wondered at the barrenness and cheapness of the hexameter lines in which the oracles are pronounced. Yet the god is Leader of the Muses, and it is right and fair that he should take no less interest in what is called elegance of diction than in the sweetness of sound that is concerned with tunes and songs, and that his utterances should surpass Hesiod and Homer in the excellence of their versification. Yet we observe that most of the oracles are full of metrical and verbal errors and barren diction.

Sarapion, the poet who was present from Athens, said, Then do we believe these verses to be the god’s, and yet dare to say that in beauty they fall short of the verses of Homer and Hesiod? Shall we not treat them as if they were the best and fairest of poetic compositions, and correct our own judgement, prepossessed as it is as the result of unfortunate habituation?

At this point Boëthus[*] the mathematician entered into the conversation. (You know that the man is already changing his allegiance in the direction of Epicureanism.) Said he, Do you happen to have heard the story of Pauson the painter? [*]

No, said Sarapion, I have not.

Well, it is really worth hearing. It seems that he had received a commission to paint a horse rolling, and painted it galloping. His patron was indignant, whereupon Pauson laughed and turned the canvas upside down, and, when the lower part became the upper, the horse now appeared to be not galloping, but rolling. Bion says that this happens to some arguments when they are inverted. So some people will say of the oracles also, not that they are excellently made because they are the god’s, but that they are not the god’s because they are poorly made! The first of these is in the realm of the unknown; but that the verses conveying the oracles are carelessly wrought is, of course, perfectly clear to you, my dear Sarapion, for you are competent to judge. You write poems in a philosophic and restrained style, but in force and grace and diction they bear more resemblance to the poems of Homer and Hesiod than to the verses put forth by the prophetic priestess.

The fact is, Boëthus, said Sarapion, that we are ailing both in ears and eyes, accustomed as we are, through luxury and soft living, to believe and to declare that the pleasanter things are fair and lovely. Before long we shall be finding fault with the prophetic priestess because she does not speak in purer tones than Glaucê,[*] who sings to the lyre, and because she is not perfumed and clad in purple when she goes down into the inner shrine, and does not burn upon the altar cassia or ladanum or frankincense, but only laurel and barley meal. Do you not see, he continued, what grace the songs of Sappho have, charming and bewitching all who listen to them? But the Sibyl with frenzied lips, as Heracleitus[*] has it, uttering words mirthless, unembellislied, unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice through the god. And Pindar[*] says that Cadmus heard the god revealing music true, not sweet nor voluptuous nor with suddenly changing melody. For the emotionless and pure does not welcome Pleasure, but she, as well as Mischief,[*] was thrown down here, and the greater part of the evil in her has, apparently, gathered together to flood the ears of men. [*]

When Sarapion had said this, Theon smiled and said, Sarapion has yielded as usual to his propensity by taking advantage of the incidental mention of Mischief and Pleasure. But as for us, Boëthus, even if these verses be inferior to Homer’s, let us not believe that the god has composed them, but that he supplies the origin of the incitement, and then the prophetic priestesses are moved each in accordance with her natural faculties. Certainly, if it were necessary to write the oracles, instead of delivering them orally, I do not think that we should believe the handwriting to be the god’s, and find fault with it because in beauty it fell short of that of the royal scribes. As a matter of fact, the voice is not that of a god,[*] nor the utterance of it, nor the diction, nor the metre, but all these are the woman’s; he puts into her mind only the visions, and creates a light in her soul in regard to the future; for inspiration is precisely this. And, speaking in general, it is impossible to escape you who speak for Epicurus[*] (in fact you yourself, Boëthus, are obviously being borne in that direction); but you charge the prophetic priestesses of old with using bad verse, and those of the present day with delivering their oracles in prose and using commonplace words, so that they may not be liable to render an account to you for their wrong use of a short syllable at the beginning, middle, or end of their lines![*]

In Heaven’s name, said Diogenianus, do not jest, but solve for us this problem, which is of universal interest. For there is not one of us that does not seek to learn the cause and reason why the oracle has ceased to employ verse and metre.

Whereupon Theon, interrupting, said, But just now, my young friend, we seem rather rudely to be taking away from the guides their proper business. Permit, therefore, their services to be rendered first, and after that you shall, at your leisure, raise questions about any matters you wish.

By this time we had proceeded until we were opposite the statue of Hiero the despot. The foreign visitor, by reason of his genial nature, made himself listen to the various tales, although he knew them all perfectly well; but when he was told that a bronze pillar of Hiero’s standing above had fallen of itself during that day on which it happened that Hiero was coming to his end at Syracuse, he expressed his astonishment. Whereupon I proceeded to recall to his mind other events of a like nature, such, for example, as the experience of Hiero[*] the Spartan, how before his death, which came to him at Leuctra, the eyes fell out of his statue, and the stars disappeared which Lysander had dedicated from the naval battle at Aegospotami; and the stone statue of Lysander[*] himself put forth a growth of wild shrubs and grass in such abundance as to cover up the face; and at the time of the Athenian misfortunes in Sicily, the golden dates were dropping from the palm-tree and ravens were pecking off the edge of the shield of Pallas Athena[*]; and the crown of the Cnidians which Philomela, despot of the Phocians, had presented to the dancing-girl,[*] Pharsalia caused her death, after she had emigrated from Greece to Italy and was disporting herself in the vicinity of the temple of Apollo at Metapontum; for the young men made a rush for the crown, and as they struggled with one another for the gold, they tore the girl to pieces.

Aristotle[*] used to say that Homer is the only poet who wrote words possessing movement because of their vigour; but I should say that among votive offerings also, those dedicated here have movement and significance in sympathy with the god’s foreknowledge, and no part of them is void or insensible, but all are filled with the divine spirit.

Yes indeed, said Boethus. It is not enough to incarnate the god once every month in a mortal body, but we are bent upon incorporating him into every bit of stone and bronze, as if we did not have in Chance or Accident an agent responsible for such coincidences.

Then, said I, does it seem to you that chance and accident have ordered every single one of such occurrences; and is it credible that the atoms slipped out of place and were separated one from another and inclined towards one side neither before nor afterwards, but at precisely the time when each of the dedicators was destined to fare either worse or better? And now Epicurus[*] comes to your aid, apparently, with what he said or wrote three hundred years ago; but it does not seem to you that the god, unless he should transport himself and incorporate himself into everything and be merged with everything, could initiate movement or cause anything to happen to any existent object!

Such was my answer to Boëthus, and in similar vein mention was made of the oracles of the Sibyl. For when we halted as we reached a point opposite the rock which lies over against the council-chamber, upon which it is said that the first Sibyl[*] sat after her arrival from Helicon where she had been reared by the Muses (though others say that she came from the Malians and was the daughter of Lamia whose father was Poseidon), Sarapion recalled the verses in which she sang of herself: that even after death she shall not cease from prophesying, but that she shall go round and round in the moon,[*] becoming what is called the face that appears in the moon; while her spirit, mingled with the air, shall be for ever borne onward in voices of presage and portent; and since from her body, transformed within the earth, grass and herbage shall spring, on this shall pasture the creatures reared for the holy sacrifice, and they shall acquire all manner of colours and forms and qualities upon their inward parts, from which shall come for men prognostications of the future.

Boëthus even more plainly showed his derision.

The foreign visitor remarked that even if these matters appear to be fables, yet the prophecies have witnesses to testify for them in the numerous desolations and migrations of Grecian cities, the numerous descents of barbarian hordes, and the overthrow of empires. And these recent and unusual occurrences near Cumae and Dicaearcheia,[*] were they not recited long ago in the songs of the Sibyl? and has not Time, as if in her debt, duly discharged the obligation in the bursting forth of fires from the mountain, boiling seas, blazing rocks tossed aloft by the wind, and the destruction of such great and noble cities that those who came there by daylight felt ignorance and uncertainty as to where these had been situated, since the land was in such confusion? Such things, if they have come to pass, it is hard to believe, to say nothing of foretelling them, without divine inspiration.