I may perhaps be allowed to mention that the dialogue On the Face which appears on the Orb of the Moon was translated by me, and tentatively published in 1911, with the hope of obtaining some helpful criticism. Having received several kind notices, and in particular a very full one in Hermathena by Dr. L. G. Purser, to which I am deeply indebted, I have now ventured to reproduce this dialogue in somewhat fuller form than the others, and to retain some of my original notes. I should add that I have no competence to deal with any scientific matters as such. I have added two longer notes on special points of interest.
Sir Thomas Browne, writing in 1681-2 to his son Edward who was by way of translating the Lives of Plutarch, and in fact accomplished two of them, assumes that he will in the main follow Amyot’s version, which North had followed absolutely, and suggests that, with some corrections and the removal of obsolete words, North’s work might still serve ‘especially with gentlemen, who if the expression bee playne looke not into criticisme’. ‘If you have the Greek Plutarke,’ he writes, ‘have also the Latin adjoyned unto it, so you may consult either upon occasion, though you apply yourself to translate out of French, and the English translation may be sometimes helpful.’ Very likely an acceptable version of the Moralia might now be produced out of Amyot and Philemon Holland, a racy and scholarly translator from the Greek, with the original and the old Latin at hand for reference. But Dr. Edward Browne was a physician, of little leisure and of delicate health, and it might hardly be respectful to Plutarch to adopt this procedure now; indeed it seems to recall that of ‘the dog’ in the proverb, who ‘drinks from the Nile’, running as he drinks, always with an eye on the crocodiles. However this may be, some indulgence may fairly be claimed by a translator of an author, who, however straight-forward himself, abounds in allusion and latent quotation, and also in difficulties of text not of his own making, and upon whom no commentary exists. I will mention, for the sake of clearness, two instances as to which I have troubled myself and, I fear, others a good deal:
In the dialogue On the Genius of Socrates, chap. iii, end (577 A), the speaker says that his brother Epaminondas is keeping out of the patriotic enterprise in hand, on the ground that the more hot-headed members of the party will not stop short of a general massacre and the murder of many of the leading citizens.
I have followed the Latin version in so rendering the words καὶ διαφθεῖραι πολλοὺς τῶν διαφερόντων. But I have felt some doubt—needlessly, I think—whether the Greek participle would bear this meaning, and also whether the sense so given is strong and suitable. Wyttenbach felt doubts too, for in his posthumous Index, s.v. διαφέρω, the rendering given is ‘hostes vel amici’, i.e. ‘friends or foes’. The sense is excellent, but seems hardly to be in the Greek; probably it was a mere query or jotting. The Teubner editor prints τῶν ἰδίᾳ διαφόρων ὄντων, i.e. ‘those with whom they had private differences’, giving Cobet’s name for the last two words. I have not been able to trace the reference in Cobet, but in Novae Lectiones, p. 565, he examines instances where he thinks that ἰδίᾳ should be supplied or suppressed, as the case may be, before compounds of διά. The sense seems good, but too special to be introduced into a text without cogent evidence, since, once given currency, it is difficult for a future critic to go back upon it. Meanwhile, in Wyttenbach’s note on ii, 75 A, he collects many instances where οἱ διάφοροι is used by Plutarch for ‘the enemy’, ‘the other party’, and τῶν διαφερόντων may have grown out of τῶν διαφόρων with τῶν repeated. I have thought it the more peaceable course to preserve the old rendering. I only quote this instance, which is of no great importance but is of some, as one where a Variorum editor would have stated at length and evaluated the possible alternatives. That a translator should do so is perhaps a case of ‘putting the cart before the horse’.
The other instance is one of real interest, where the problem is perhaps insoluble upon our present knowledge. In the long dialogue On the Cessation of the Oracles, c. 20 (420 c.), where Cleombrotus has been pressing a view that there may be daemons with a long, but yet a limited, term of existence, against the Epicureans, whose own strange theory of Eidola he derides, Ammonius replies in words which appear thus in the Latin:
‘Recte, inquit, mihi pronunciare videtur Theophrastus, quid enim obstat quin sententiam gravissimam et philosophiae convenientissimam recipiamus dicentis: opinionem de Daemonibus, si reiciatur, multa eorum simul abolere quae fieri possunt demonstratione autem carent; sin admittatur multa secum trahere impossibilia et quae non exstiterint.’
Amyot and others write ‘Cleombrotus’ for ‘Theophrastus’, a change which, in view of Plutarch’s carelessness as to personal names, seems not unlikely, and helps a little. No doubt Theophrastus is quoted, but his name need not have been mentioned, and may have been brought into the text in the wrong place. The absurdity of the words which I have given in italics seems evident, and I have returned to a suggestion of Xylander,[[2]] by introducing a negative before πολλά, assuming that Theophrastus is quoted, not for any opinion about daemons, but for a canon of what is logically ‘probable’. More subtle solutions are suggested, which could not be discussed here properly: the question seems too intricate to be settled by a translator as he goes on his way. We really want to know what Theophrastus said.
The remarks on the absence of a commentary do not apply to the dialogue on Instances of Delay in Divine Punishment, fully annotated by Wyttenbach in 1772, nor to the essay On Superstition and the greater part of The E at Delphi, which are dealt with in his continuous commentary. Nor should I omit to mention the great help afforded by Kepler’s notes on the Face in the Moon and his scholarly translation.
The large number of poetical quotations in Plutarch often stop a translator’s hand. Wherever it is possible, I have turned to standard versions: for Homer to that of Worsley completed by Conington, for Pindar’s extant Odes to that of Bishop George Moberly, which it has been an especial pleasure to use; for some lines of the Cyclops of Euripides I have been fortunate enough to draw upon Shelley. There remain a good many fragments, some of them of real poetical quality, and some jingling oracles and the like; for the latter doggerel is the proper vehicle, for the former the best attainable doggerel must serve. The range of Plutarch’s poetical quotations seems strangely limited considering their number. All are Greek, and most from the older poets; indeed, with the exception of a few from the New Comedy, nearly all might have been used by Plato. Those from the Tragedians are always to the point, but he does not appear to care from which of the three he is borrowing.[[3]] Homer and Hesiod always bring a welcome flavour of an older world. Perhaps Pindar is the poet whom he quotes with most hearty appreciation. Though he has given us many new poetical fragments, he introduces us to few, if any, new poets. Of Bacchylides there are only two slight quotations in all Plutarch’s works. A single reference to a passage of Horace is all that shows a knowledge of the existence of Roman poetry.
Southey’s comparison between the Moralia and the Lives need not be pressed; it is the scholar’s preference for the rare, which is his by privilege, over the popular. But it is well to realize, as it is easy to do with the help of indices, that the author’s hand is one in both. It is agreed that the Lives belong to Plutarch’s later years, and were written at Chaeroneia, under the limitations of his own library; the several books appeared at intervals, of what length we cannot say.[[4]] The few indications of date mentioned in the introductions to the dialogues now before us suggest the later part of Vespasian’s reign or the years nearly following it, say from A.D. 80 on. The dialogue on the Instances of Delay in Divine Punishment from its simpler psychology and demonology, and perhaps from some crudity in style, suggests a date earlier than that of some of the others. Dr. Max Adler, in his lucid and learned dissertation, has established the close connexion between the Face in the Moon and the Cessation of the Oracles, and thinks the former to have been the earlier, and to have been utilized for the latter piece.[[5]]