Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies

by Plutarch

For it was necessary that there should be first a place and room provided for the beings that were afterward to be produced; and not as was seen yesterday at my son's entertainment, according to Anaxagoras's saying,

All lay jumbled together.

But suppose a man hath room and provision enough, yet a large company itself is to be avoided for its own sake, as hindering all familiarity and conversation; and it is more tolerable to let the company have no wine, than to exclude all converse from a feast. And therefore Theophrastus jocularly called the barbers' shops feasts without wine; because those that sit there usually prattle and discourse. But those that invite a crowd at once deprive all of free communication of discourse, or rather make them divide into cabals, so that two or three privately talk together, and neither know nor look on those that sit, as it were, half a mile distant.

Some took this way to valiant Ajax's tent,
And some the other to Achilles' went.
("Iliad," xi. 7.)

And therefore some rich men are foolishly profuse, who build rooms big enough for thirty tables or more at once; for such a preparation certainly is for unsociable and unfriendly entertainments, and such as are fit for a panegyriarch rather than a symposiarch to preside over. But this may be pardoned in those; for wealth would not he wealth, it would be really blind and imprisoned, unless it had witnesses, as tragedies would be devoid of spectators. Let us entertain few and often, and make that a remedy against having a crowd at once. For those that invite but seldom are forced to have all their friends, and all that upon any account they are acquainted with together; but those that invite frequently, and but three or four, render their entertainments like little barks, light and nimble. Besides, the very reason why we ask friends teaches us to select some out of the number. For as when we are in want we do not call all together, but only those that can best afford, help in that particular case,—when we would be advised, the wiser part; and when we are to have a trial, the best pleaders; and when we are to go a journey, those that can live pleasantly and are at leisure,—thus to our entertainments we should only call those that are at the present agreeable. Agreeable, for instance, to a prince's entertainment will be the magistrates, if they are his friends, or chiefest of the city; to marriage or birthday feasts, all their kindred, and such as are under the protection of the same Jupiter the guardian of consanguinity; and to such feasts and merry-makings as this those are to be invited whose tempers are most suitable to the occasion. When we offer sacrifice to one god, we do not worship all the others that belong to the same temple and altar at the same time; but suppose we have three bowls, out of the first we pour oblations to some, out of the second to others and out of the third to the rest, and none of the gods take distaste. And in this a company of friends may be likened to the company of gods; none takes distaste at the order of the invitation, if it be prudently managed and every one allowed a turn.

QUESTION VI. WHAT IS THE REASON THAT THE SAME ROOM WHICH AT THE BEGINNING OF A SUPPER SEEMS TOO NARROW APPEARS WIDE ENOUGH AFTERWARDS.

After this it was presently asked, why the room which at the beginning of supper seems too narrow for the guest is afterwards wide enough; when the contrary is most likely, after they are filled with the supper. Some said the posture of our sitting was the cause; for they sit when they eat, with their full breadth to the table, that they may command it with their right hand; but after they have supped, they sit more sideways, and make an acute figure with their bodies, and do not touch the place according to the superficies, if I may so say, but the line. Now as cockal bones do not take up as much room when they fall upon one end as when they fall flat, so every one of us at the beginning sitting broadwise, and with a full face to the table, afterwards changes the figure, and turns his depth, not his breadth, to the board. Some attribute it to the beds whereon we sat, for those when pressed stretch; as strait shoes after a little wearing have their pores widened, and grow fit for—sometimes too big for—the foot. An old man in the company merrily said, that the same feast had two very different presidents and directors; in the beginning, Hunger, that is not in the least skilled in ordering and disposing, but afterward Bacchus, whom all acknowledge to be the best orderer of an army in the world. As therefore Epaminondas, when the unskilful captains had led their forces into narrow disadvantageous straits, relieved the phalanx that was fallen foul on itself and all in disorder, and brought it into good rank and file again; thus we in the beginning, being like greedy hounds confused and disordered by hunger, the god (hence named the looser and the dancesetter) settles us in a friendly and agreeable order.

QUESTION VII. CONCERNING THOSE THAT ARE SAID TO BEWITCH. METRIUS FLORUS, PLUTARCH, SOCLARUS, PATROCLES, CAIUS.

A discourse happening at supper concerning those that are said to bewitch or have a bewitching eye, most of the company looked upon it as a whim, and laughed at it. But Metrius Florus, who then gave us a supper, said that the strange events wonderfully confirmed the report; and because we cannot give a reason for the thing, therefore to disbelieve the relation was absurd, since there are a thousand things which evidently are, the reasons of which we cannot readily assign. And, in short, he that requires everything should be probable destroys all wonder and admiration; and where the cause is not obvious, there we begin to doubt, that is, to philosophize. So that they who disbelieve all wonderful relations do in some measure take away all philosophy. The cause why anything is so, reason must find out; but that a thing is so, testimony is a sufficient evidence; and we have a thousand instances of this sort attested. We know that some men by looking upon young children hurt them very much, their weak and soft temperature being wrought upon and perverted, whilst those that are strong and firm are not so liable to be wrought upon. And Phylarchus tells us that the Thibians, the old inhabitants about Pontus, were destructive not only to little children, but to some also of riper years; for those upon whom they looked or breathed, or to whom they spake, would languish and grow sick. And this, likely, those of other countries perceived who bought slaves there. But perhaps this is not so much to be wondered at, for in touching and handling there is some apparent principle and cause of the effect. And as when you mix other birds' wings with the eagles', the plumes waste and suddenly consume; so there is no reason to the contrary, but that one man's touch may be good and advantageous, and another's hurtful and destructive. But that some, by being barely looked upon, are extremely prejudiced is certain; though the stories are disbelieved, because the reason is hard to be given.

True, said I, but methinks there is some small track to the cause of this effect, if you come to the effluvia of bodies. For smell, voice, breath, and the like, are effluvia from animal bodies, and material parts that move the senses, which are wrought upon by their impulse. Now it is very likely that such effluvia must continually part from animals, by reason of their heat and motion; for by that the spirits are agitated, and the body, being struck by those, must continually send forth effluvia. And it is probable that these pass chiefly through the eye. For the sight, being very vigorous and active, together with the spirit upon which it depends, sends forth a strange fiery power; so that by it men act and suffer very much, and are always proportionably pleased or displeased, according as the visible objects are agreeable or not. Love, that greatest and most violent passion of the soul, takes its beginning from the eye; so that a lover, when he looks upon the fair, flows out as it were, and seems to mix with her. And therefore why should any one, that believes men can be affected and prejudiced by the sight, imagine that they cannot act and hurt is well? For the mutual looks of mature beauties, and that which comes from the eye, whether light or a stream of spirits, melt and dissolve the lovers with a pleasing pain, which they call the bittersweet of love. For neither by touching or hearing the voice of their beloved are they so much wounded and wrought upon, as by looking and being looked upon again. There is such a communication, such a flame raised by one glance, that those must be altogether unacquainted with love that wonder at the Median naphtha, that takes fire at a distance from the flame. For the glances of a fair one, though at a great distance, quickly kindle a fire in the lover's breast. Besides every body knows the remedy for the jaundice; if they look upon the bird called charadrios they are cured. For that animal seems to be of that temperature and nature as to receive and draw away the disease, that like a stream flows out through the eyes; so that the charadrios will not look on one that hath the jaundice; he cannot endure it, but turns away his head and shuts his eyes, not envying (as some imagine) the cure he performs, but being really hurt by the effluvia of the patient. And of all diseases, soreness of the eyes is the most infectious; so strong and vigorous is the sight, and so easily does it cause infirmities in another.