Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies

by Plutarch

Then Theon interrupting him said: Not at all, if we must trust those who have delivered down to us the ancients way of living. For they say that those being used to work, and very temperate in a morning, ate a bit of bread dipped in wine, and nothing else, and that they called that meal [Greek omitted] from the [Greek omitted] (WINE). Their supper they called [Greek omitted], because returning from their business they took it [Greek omitted] (LATE). Upon this we began to inquire whence those two meals [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted] took their names. In Homer [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted] seem to be the same meal. For he says that Eumaeus provided [Greek omitted] by the break of day; and it is probable that [Greek omitted] was so called from [Greek omitted], because provided in the morning; and [Greek omitted] was so named from [Greek omitted], EASING FROM THEIR LABOR. For men used to take their [Greek omitted] after they had finished their business, or whilst they were about it. And this may be gathered from Homer, when he says,

Then when the woodman doth his supper dress.
("Iliad," xi. 86.)

But some perhaps will derive [Greek omitted] from [Greek omitted], EASIEST PROVIDED, because that meal is usually made upon what is ready and at hand; and [Greek omitted] from [Greek omitted], LABORED, because of the pains used in dressing it.

My brother Lamprias, being of a scoffing, jeering nature, said: Since we are in a trifling humor, I can show that the Latin names of these meals are a thousand times more proper than the Greek; [Greek omitted] SUPPER, they call coena ([Greek omitted]) from community; because they took their [Greek omitted] by themselves, but their coena with their friends. [Greek omitted] DINNER, they call prandium, from the time of the dry; for [Greek omitted] signifies NOON-TIDE, and to rest after dinner is expressed by [Greek omitted]; or else by prandium they denote a bit taken in the morning, [Greek omitted], BEFORE THEY HAVE NEED OF ANY. And not to mention stragula, from [Greek Omitted], vinum from [Greek omitted], oleum from [Greek omitted], mel from [Greek omitted], gustare from [Greek omitted], propinare from [Greek omitted], and a great many more words which they have plainly borrowed from the Greeks,—who can deny but that they have taken their comessatio, BANQUETING, from our [Greek omitted] and miscere, TO MINGLE, from the Greeks too? Thus in Homer,

She in a bowl herself mixt ([Greek omitted]) generous wine.
("Odyssey," x. 356.)

They call a table mensam, from [Greek omitted], PLACING IT IN THE MIDDLE; bread, panem, from satisfying [Greek omitted], HUNGER; a garland, coronam, from [Greek omitted], THE HEAD;—and Homer somewhat likens [Greek omitted], a HEAD-PIECE, to a garland;—caedere, TO BEAT, from [Greek omitted]; and dentes, TEETH, from [Greek omitted]; lips they call labra, from [Greek omitted], TAKING OUR VICTUALS WITH THEM. Therefore we must either listen to such fooleries as these without laughing, or not give them so ready entrance by means of words....

QUESTION VII. CONCERNING PYTHAGORAS'S SYMBOLS, IN WHICH HE FORBIDS US TO RECEIVE A SWALLOW INTO OUR HOUSE, AND BIDS US AS SOON AS WE ARE RISEN TO RUFFLE THE BEDCLOTHES.

SYLLA, LUCIUS, PLUTARCH, PHILINUS.

Sylla the Carthaginian, upon my return to Rome after a long absence, gave me a welcoming supper, as the Romans call it, and invited some few other friends, and among the rest, one Lucius an Etrurian, the scholar of Moderatus the Pythagorean. He seeing my friend Philinus ate no flesh, began (as the opportunity was fair) to talk of Pythagoras; and affirmed that he was a Tuscan, not because his father, as others have said, was one, but because he himself was born, bred, and taught in Tuscany. To confirm this, he brought considerable arguments from such symbols as these:—As soon as you are risen, ruffle the bedclothes; leave not the print of the pot in the ashes; receive not a swallow into your house; never step over a besom; nor keep in your house creatures that have hooked claws. For these precepts of the Pythagoreans the Tuscans only, as he said, carefully observe.

Lucius, having thus said, that precept about the swallow seemed to be most unaccountable, it being a harmless and kind animal; and therefore it seemed strange that that should be forbid the house, as well as the hooked-clawed animals, which are ravenous, wild, and bloody. Nor did Lucius himself approve that only interpretation of the ancients, who say, this symbol aims directly at backbiters and tale-bearing whisperers. For the swallow whispers not at all; it chatters indeed, and is noisy, but not more than a pie, a partridge, or a hen. What then, said Sylla, is it upon the old fabulous account of killing her son, that they deny the swallow entertainment, by that means showing their dislike to those passions which (as the story goes) made Tereus and Procne and Philomel both act and suffer such wicked and abominable things? And even to this day they call the birds Daulides. And Gorgias the sophister, when a swallow muted upon him, looked upon her and said, Philomel, this was not well done. Or perhaps this is all without foundation; for the nightingale, though concerned in the same tragedy, we willingly receive.