Many of the most learned philosophers held eggs in a kind of respect approaching to veneration, because they saw in them the emblem of the world and the four elements. The shell, they said, represented the earth; the white, water; the yolk, fire; and air was found under the shell.[XVIII_65]
In India and Syria, there was less scruple about swallowing a few eggs; but the hens were devoutly worshipped, because the world is indebted to them for chickens.[XVIII_66]
The Greeks and Romans, although more reasonable, felt, however, for eggs a trifling weakness not exempt from superstition. They already made use of them in their sacrifices, and carried them with great pomp in the festivals of Ceres.[XVIII_67] For them it was also a symbol of the universe, and an expiation would not have been complete if some eggs had not been broken on the altar of the irritated gods.[XVIII_68]
Magicians and sorcerers, who abounded in Rome, established singular fables with regard to eggs. Livia, the happy consort of Nero, being enceinte, consulted a sorceress, who said to her, “warm in your bosom a new laid egg until hatched; if a male chicken comes forth, thank the gods, who will grant you a son.” The empress followed this advice; a cock chick came, and the princess gave birth to Tiberius.[XVIII_69] This anecdote circulated in Rome, and all ladies in the same interesting situation, imitating Livia, amused themselves with hatching chickens.
It appears that the egg played also a most important part in dreams. A man having dreamed that he had eaten one, went to consult a soothsayer, who told him that the white signified he would soon have silver, and the yolk that he would receive gold. The fortunate dreamer really received very soon afterwards a legacy partly consisting of those two precious metals. He hastened to thank the diviner, and offered him a piece of silver. “This is very well for the white,” said the latter, “but is there nought for the yolk?”[XVIII_70] It is not known whether the heir was generous enough to understand this bon mot.
All these pagan follies are to be accounted for by the doctrine of the poet Orpheus, who first taught the Greeks that a primitive egg had produced all other beings;[XVIII_71] a very ancient idea, no doubt, transmitted to them by the Egyptians, who, as well as the Phœnicians, Persians, and Chaldeans, represented the world by that symbol.
It is now time to describe eggs as an aliment.
The shepherds of Egypt had a singular manner of cooking them without the aid of fire: they placed them in a sling, which they turned so rapidly that the friction of the air heated them to the exact point required for use.[XVIII_72]
In Rome and in Greece, new-laid eggs were served at the beginning of a repast;[XVIII_73] and the Roman gourmets asserted that, to maintain oneself in health, “it was necessary to remain at table from the egg to the apple.”[XVIII_74] We have adopted the half of that proverb, and we say every day, this story must be taken up ab ovo.
The Romans did not confine themselves to hens’ eggs, of which they preferred the long ones;[XVIII_75] they sought those of the partridge and pheasant, which Galen considered the most delicate.[XVIII_76] They also thought much of peacocks’ eggs. It was Quintus Hortensius who set the example of this luxury,[XVIII_77] which, however, was discarded by degrees when the precious fecundity of the hens of Adria began to be appreciated.[XVIII_78]