Chapter 6

Grind, mill, grind;For Pittacus is grinding,As he kings it over great Mytilene.’

Grind, mill, grind;

For Pittacus is grinding,

As he kings it over great Mytilene.’

Then Solon expressed his surprise that Ardalus had not read the law ordaining the diet in question, seeing that it was written in the verses of Hesiod. ‘For it is he who first supplied Epimenides with hints for that form of nourishment, by teaching him to make trial|F|

How great and sustaining the food that in mallow and asphodel lieth.

‘Nay,’ said Periander, ‘do you imagine Hesiod conceived of anything of the kind? Don’t you suppose that, with his habitual praise of economy, he is merely urging us to try the most frugal dishes as being the most agreeable? The mallow makes good eating, and asphodel-stalk is sweet; but I am told that anti-hunger and anti-thirst drugs—for they are drugs rather than foods—include among their ingredients some sort of foreign honey and cheese, and a large number of seeds which are difficult to procure. Most certainly, therefore, Hesiod would find that the “rudder” hung “above the smoke” and

The works of the drudging mules and the oxen’s labour would perish,

|158|if all that provision is to be made. I am surprised, Solon, if your guest, on recently making his great purification of Delos, failed to note how they present to the temple—as commemorative samples of the earliest form of food—mallow and asphodel-stalk along with other cheap and self-grown produce. The natural reason for which Hesiod also recommends them to usis that they are simple and frugal.’ ‘Not only so,’ remarked Anacharsis, ‘but both vegetables bear the highest possible character for wholesomeness.’ ‘You are quite right,’ said Cleodorus. ‘That Hesiod possessed medical knowledge is manifest from the careful and well-informed manner in which he speaks about diet, the mixing of wine, good quality in water,|B|bathing, women, and the way to seat infants. But it seems to me that there is more reason for Aesop to declare himself a pupil of Hesiod than there is for Epimenides. It is to the speech of the hawk to the nightingale that our friend owes the first promptings to his admirably subtle wisdom in many tongues. But for my part I should be glad to hear what Solon has to say. We may assume that, in his long association with Epimenides at Athens, he asked him what motive or subtle purpose he had in adopting such a diet.’

‘What need was there to ask him that question?’ replied Solon. ‘It was self-evident that the next best thing to the|C|supreme and greatest good is to require the least possible food. You allow, I suppose, that the greatest good is to require no food at all?’ ‘Not I, by any means,’ answered Cleodorus, ‘if I am to say what I think, especially with a table in front of us. Take away food, and you take away the table—that is to say, the altar of the Gods of Friendship and Hospitality. As Thales tells us that, if you do away with the earth, the whole cosmos will fall into confusion, so the abolition of food means the dissolution of house and home. For with it you do away with the hearth-fire, the hearth, the wine-bowl, all entertainment and hospitality—the most humanizing and essential elements in our mutual relations. Or rather you do away with the whole of life, if life is “a passing of the time on the part|D|of a human being involving a series of actions”, most of those actions being evoked by the need, and in the acquirement, of food. Of immense importance, my good friend, is the question|*|of mere agriculture. Let agriculture perish, and the earth that it leaves us becomes unsightly and foul, a corrupt wilderness of barren forest and vagabond streams. The ruin of agriculture means the ruin of all arts and crafts as well; for she takes the lead of them, and provides them with their basis and their|E|material. Do away with her, and they count for nothing. There is an end also to our honouring the gods. Men will thank the Sun but little, and the Moon still less, for mere light and warmth. Where will you find altar or sacrifice to Zeus of the Rain, Demeter of the Plough, or Poseidon the Fosterer of Plants? How can Dionysus be Boon-Giver, if we need nothing that he gives? What sacrifice or libation shall we make? What offering of firstfruits? All this means the overthrow and confounding of our most important interests. Though to cling to every pleasure in every case is to be a madman, to avoid every pleasure in every case is to be a block. By all means let the soul have|F|other pleasures of a superior kind to enjoy; the body can find no pleasure more right and proper than that derived from taking food. All the world recognizes the fact, for this pleasure people take openly, sharing with each other in the table and the banquet, whereas their amorous pleasure is screened by night and all the darkness possible. To share that pleasure with others is considered as shameless and brutelike as it is not to share in the case of the table.’

Here, as Cleodorus paused for a moment, I joined in: ‘And is there not another point—that in discarding food we also|159|discard sleep? If there is no sleep, there is no dreaming either, and we lose our most important means of divination. Moreover, life will be all alike, and there will be practically no purpose in wearing a body round our soul. Most of its parts, and the most important, are provided as instruments to feeding—the tongue, teeth, stomach, and liver. None of them is without its work, and none has other business to attend to. Consequentlyany one who has no need of food has no need of a body either. Which means that a person has no need of himself; for it is thanks to the body that each of us is a “self”.’ ‘Such,’ I added, ‘are our contributions on behalf of the belly. If Solon or any one else has objections to bring, we will listen.’

‘Of course I have objections,’ replied Solon. ‘I have no|B|wish to be thought a poorer judge than the Egyptians. After cutting open a dead body, they take out the entrails and expose them to the sunlight. They then throw those parts into the river and proceed to attend to the rest of the body, which is now regarded as purified. Yes, therein in truth lies the pollution of our flesh. It is its Tartarus—like that in Hades—full of “dreadful streams”, a confused medley of wind and fire and of dead things. For while itself lives, nothing that feeds it can be alive. We commit the wrong of murdering animate things and of destroying plants, which can claim to have life through the fact that they feed and grow. I say destroying, because|C|anything that changes from what nature has made it into something else, is destroyed; it must perish utterly in order to become the other’s sustenance. To abstain from eating flesh, as we are told Orpheus did in ancient times, is more a quibble than an avoidance of crime in the matter of food. The only way of avoiding it, and the only way of attaining to justice by a complete purification, is to become self-sufficing and free of external needs. If God has made it impossible for a thing to secure its own preservation without injury to another, He has also endowed it with the principle of injustice in the shape of its own nature. Would it not, therefore, be a good thing, my dear friend, if, when cutting out injustice, we could cut out the belly, the gullet, and the liver, which impart to us no perception|D|of anything noble and no appetite for it, but partly resemble the utensils for cooking butcher’s meat—such as choppers and stew-pans—and partly the apparatus for a bakery—ovens, water-tanks,and kneading-troughs? Indeed, in the case of most|*|people you can see their soul shut up in their body as if in a baker’s mill, and perpetually going round and round at the business of getting food. Take ourselves, for example. Just now we were neither looking at nor listening to one another, but we all had our heads down, slaving at the business of feeding. But now that the tables have been removed, we have—as you perceive—become free, and with garlands on our heads we are|E|engaged in sociable and leisurely conversation together, because we have arrived at the state of not requiring food. Well then, if the state in which we now find ourselves remains as a permanence all our lives, shall we not be at perpetual leisure to enjoy each other’s society? We shall have no fear of poverty. Nor shall we know the meaning of wealth, since the quest for luxuries is but the immediate consequence and concomitant of the use of necessaries.

‘But, thinks Cleodorus, there must be food so that there may be tables and wine-bowls and sacrifices to Demeter and the Maid. Then let some one else demand that there shall be war and fighting, so that we may have fortifications and arsenals and|F|armouries, and also sacrifices in honour of slaying our hundreds, such as they say are the law in Messenia. Another, I suppose, is aggrieved at the prospect of the healthfulness which would follow. A terrible thing if, because there is no illness, there is no more use in soft bedclothes, and no more sacrificing to Asclepius or the Averting Powers, and if medical skill, with all its drugs and implements, must be put away into inglorious hiding! What is the difference between these arguments and the other? Food is, in fact, “taken” as a “remedy” for hunger, and all who use food are said to be “taking care” of|160|themselves and using some “diet”; and this implies that the act is not a pleasant and agreeable performance, but one which Nature renders compulsory. Certainly one can enumerate morepains than pleasures arising from feeding. Further still; whereas the pleasure affects but a small region of the body, and lasts but a short time, it needs no telling how full we become of ugly and painful experiences through the worry and difficulty of digesting.

Homer had these in view, I suppose, when he used as a proof that the gods do not die the fact that they do not feed:

For they eat not the bread of corn, nor drink they the wine that is ruddy,And therefore blood have they none in their veins, and are called the Immortals.

For they eat not the bread of corn, nor drink they the wine that is ruddy,

And therefore blood have they none in their veins, and are called the Immortals.

Food, he gives us to understand, is the necessary means not only|B|for living, but for dying. From it come our diseases, feeding themselves with the feeding of our bodies, which suffer quite as much from repletion as from want. Very often it is an easier business to get together our supply of victuals than to make away with them and get quit of them again when once they are in the body. Just suppose it were a question with the Danaids what sort of life they would live and what they would do if they could get rid of their menial labour at filling the cask. When we raise the question, “Supposing it possible to cease from heaping into this unconscionable flesh all these things from|C|land and sea, what are we going to do?” it is because in our ignorance of noble things we are content with the life which our necessities impose. Well, as those who have been in slavery, when they are emancipated, do for themselves and on their own account what they used formerly to do in the service of their masters, so is it with the soul. As things are, it feeds the body with continual toil and trouble; but let it get quit of its menial service, and it will presumably feed itself in the enjoyment of freedom, and will live with an eye to itself and the truth, with nothing to distract and deter it.’

This, Nicarchus, concluded the discussion as to food.

While Solon was still speaking, Gorgos, Periander’s brother, entered the room. It happened that, in consequence of certain|D|oracles, he had been sent on a mission to Taenarum in charge of a sacrificial embassy. After we had welcomed him, and Periander had taken him to his arms and kissed him, he sat down by his brother on the couch and gave him a private account of some occurrence which appeared to cause Periander various emotions as he listened to it. At one part he was manifestly vexed, at another indignant; often he showed incredulity, and this was followed by amazement. Finally he laughed and said to us, ‘I should like to tell the company the news; but I have|E|scruples about it, because I heard Thales once say that when a thing is probable we should speak of it, but when it is impossible we should say nothing about it.’ At this Bias interposed, ‘Yes, but here is another wise saying of Thales, that “while we should disbelieve our enemies even in matters believable, we should believe our friends even when the thing is unbelievable”. By enemies I presume he meant the wicked and foolish, and by friends the good and wise.’ ‘Very well then,’ said Periander, ‘you must let every one hear it; or rather you must pit the story you have brought us against those new-fangled dithyrambs and overcrow them.’

Gorgos then told us his story.

His sacrificial ceremony had occupied three days, and on the|F|last there was an all-night festival with dancing and frolic by the sea-shore. The sea was covered with the light of the moon, and, though there was no wind, but a dead calm, there appeared in the distance a ripple coming in past the promontory, accompanied by foam and a very appreciable noise of surge. At this they all ran in astonishment down to the place where it was|*|coming to land. This happened so quickly that, before they could guess what was approaching, dolphins were seen, some of them massed together and moving in a ring, some leadingthe way to the levellest part of the shore, and others as it were|161|bringing up the rear. In the middle there stood out above the sea, dim and indistinct, the shape of a body being carried. So they came on, until, gathering together and coming to land at the same moment, they put ashore a human being, alive and moving; after which they themselves retired in the direction of the promontory, leaping out of the water more than ever and for some reason, apparently, frolicking and bounding for joy. ‘Many of our number,’ continued Gorgos, ‘fled from the sea in a panic, but a few found the courage to approach along with myself, and discovered that it was Arion, the harp-player. Not only did he utter his own name, but his dress spoke for itself,|B|for he was actually wearing the festal robes which he adopted when performing at the competitions. Well, we brought him to a tent, and, inasmuch as there was nothing the matter with him except that he was evidently tired and overstrained from the rushing motion, we heard him tell a story which no one would believe except us who actually saw the end of it.

‘What Arion told us was this. He had for some time made up his mind to leave Italy, and had been made the more eager to do so by a letter from Periander. Accordingly, when a Corinthian merchant-vessel appeared on the scene, he at once went on board and put to sea. They had a moderate wind for three days, when he perceived that the sailors were forming a plot to make away with him, and was afterwards secretly informed|C|by the pilot that they had resolved to do the deed that night. At this, being helpless and at a loss what to do, he acted upon a kind of heaven-sent impulse. He decided that he would adorn his person and—while still alive—put on his own shroud in the shape of his festal attire. Then, in meeting his death, he would sing afinaleto life, and in that respect show no less spirit than the swan does. Accordingly, having dressed himself and given notice that he felt moved to perform the Pythianhymn on behalf of the safety of himself and the ship and crew,|D|he took his stand on the poop by the bulwarks. After some prelude invoking the gods of the sea, he began to sing the piece. Just before he was half-way through, the sun began to set into the sea and the Peloponnese to come into sight. Thereupon the sailors no longer waited for night, but advanced to their murderous deed. Arion, seeing their knives unsheathed and the pilot beginning to cover his face from the sight, ran back and hurled himself as far as possible from the vessel. Before, however, his body had all sunk into the water, a number of dolphins ran under him and bore him up. At first he was filled with bewilderment, distress, and alarm; but when he found himself riding easily, and saw many of them gathering about|E|him in a friendly way, and taking turns at the work as if it were a necessary duty belonging to them all; and when the long distance at which the vessel was left behind showed how great was their speed; he said that what he felt was not so much fear of death or desire of life, as eagerness to be rescued, so that he might become recognized as the object of divine favour, and might have his reputation as a religious man assured.

At the same time, observing that the sky was full of stars, and that the moon was rising bright and clear, while the sea|F|on all sides was waveless and a kind of path was being cut for his course, he was led to reflect that Justice has more eyes than one, and that God looks abroad with all those orbs upon whatever deeds are done by land or sea. By these reflections (he told us) he found relief from the weariness which was by this time beginning to weigh upon his body, and when at last, dexterously avoiding and rounding the lofty and precipitous headland which ran out to meet them, they swam close in by the shore and|162|brought him safely to land like a ship into harbour, he realized beyond doubt that he had been steered on his voyage by the hand of God. ‘When Arion had told us this story,’ continuedGorgos, ‘I asked him where he thought the ship would put in. He answered that it would certainly be at Corinth, but that it was left far behind; for, after throwing himself off it in the evening, he believed he had been carried over sixty miles and a calm had fallen immediately.’ Gorgos added, however, that after ascertaining the names of the captain and pilot, and also the ship’s flag, he had sent out vessels and soldiers to the various landing-places to keep a watch. Moreover, he had Arion with|B|him in hiding, so that they might not hear of his rescue beforehand and make their escape. ‘The event,’ he said, ‘has proved truly miraculous; for no sooner did we arrive here than we learned that the ship had been seized by the soldiers, and the traders and sailors arrested.’

Thereupon Periander ordered Gorgos to get up and go out at once and place the men in custody where no one would approach them or tell them of Arion’s escape.

‘Well now,’ said Aesop, ‘you gentlemen make fun of my jackdaws and crows for talking. Do dolphins behave in this outrageous way?’ To which I replied, ‘A different matter,|C|Aesop! A story to the same effect as this has been believed and written among us for more than a thousand years, ever since the times of Ino and Athamas.’

Solon here interposed: ‘Well, Diodes; let us grant that these events are in the sphere of the divine and beyond us. But what happened to Hesiod is on our own human plane. You have probably heard the story.’ ‘For my part, no,’ I answered. ‘Well, it is worth hearing. Hesiod and a Milesian—I think it was—shared the same room as guests in a house at|D|Locri. The Milesian having been found out in a secret intrigue with the host’s daughter, Hesiod fell under suspicion of having all along known of the offence and helped in concealing it. Though in no way guilty, he fell a victim to cruel circumstance at a critical time of anger and misrepresentation. For the girl’sbrothers lay in wait for him at the Nemeum in Locris and killed him, together with his servant, whose name was Troilus. Their bodies having been pushed into the sea, that of Troilus, which was carried out into the current of the river Daphnus, was caught by a low wave-washed rock projecting a little above the water. The rock still bears his name. Meanwhile the|E|dead body of Hesiod was picked up immediately off the shore by a shoal of dolphins, who proceeded to carry it to Rhium, close to Molycrea. It happened that the Locrians were engaged in the Rhian festival and fair, which is still a notable celebration in those parts. At sight of the body being borne towards them they were naturally amazed, and when, on running down to the shore, they recognized the corpse—for it was still fresh—they could think of nothing but tracking out the murder, so high was the renown of Hesiod. Their object was soon achieved. They discovered the murderers, threw them into the sea, and razed their house to the ground. Meanwhile Hesiod was buried near the Nemeum. Most strangers, however, are ignorant of his tomb, which has been concealed because the people of|F|Orchomenus are in quest of it, from a desire, it is said, to recover the remains and bury them in their own country in accordance with an oracle.

‘If, then, dolphins show such affectionate interest in the dead, it is still more natural for them to render help to the living, especially if they have been charmed by the flute or the singing of tunes. For, of course, we are all aware that music is a thing which these animals enjoy and court, swimming and gambolling beside a ship as its oarsmen row to the tune of song and flute in calm weather. They take a delight also in children when|163|swimming, and they have diving matches with them. Hence there is an unwritten law that they shall not be harmed. No one hunts them or injures them; the only exception being that, when they get into the nets and do mischief to the catch, theyare punished with a beating, like naughty children. I further remember hearing some Lesbians tell of a girl having been rescued from the sea by a dolphin. I am not, however, sure as to the exact details, and, since Pittacus knows them, he is the right person to tell us about them.’

Pittacus thereupon assured us that the story had good warrant and was mentioned by many authorities. ‘An oracle was given to the colonizers of Lesbos that, when on the voyage they came across the reef known as Mesogeum, they should then and|B|there throw a bull into the water as an offering to Poseidon, and a live virgin to Amphitrite and the Nereids. There were seven chiefs, all of whom were kings, Echelaus—whom the Pythian oracle had assigned as leader of the colony—making an eighth. Echelaus was still a bachelor. When as many of the seven as had unmarried girls cast lots, the lot fell upon the daughter of Smintheus. Upon getting near the place, they decked her in fine clothes and gold ornaments, and, after offering prayer, were on the point of lowering her into the water. Now it happened that one of the party on the ship—assuredly a gallant young man—was in love with her. His name has been preserved to us as Enalus. This youth, in the passion of the|C|moment, seized by an eager but utterly hopeless desire to succour the girl, darted forward at the right instant and, throwing his arms about her, cast himself along with her into the sea. Now from the first there was spread among the contingent a rumour, lacking certainty, but nevertheless widely believed, that they were safe and had been rescued; and at a later date, it is said, Enalus appeared in Lesbos and told how they had been carried by dolphins through the sea and cast ashore without harm upon the mainland. He had other still more miraculous experiences to tell, which held the crowd spellbound with amazement, but for all of which he gave actual evidence. For when an enormous wave was rushing sheer round|D|the island and people were terrified, he alone ventured to face it.|*|On its retiring, a number of polypi followed him to the temple of Poseidon. From the largest of these he took a stone which it was carrying, and offered it as a dedication. That stone we call Enalus.

‘Speaking generally, the man who knows the difference between impossible and unfamiliar, between unreasonable and unexpected, will be most a man after your own heart, Chilon; he will neither believe nor disbelieve without discrimination, but will carefully observe your own rule of “nothing in excess”.’

Anacharsis next made the remark that, as Thales believed|E|all the greatest and most important components of the universe to contain soul, there was no reason to wonder if the most splendid actions were brought to pass by the will of God. ‘For the body is the instrument of the soul, and soul is the instrument of God. And as, though many of the motions of the body proceed from itself, the most and the finest are produced by the soul, so again is it with the soul. While it performs many actions on its own motion, in other cases it is but lending itself, as the aptest of all instruments, to the use of God, for Him to direct and apply it as He chooses. It would,’ said he, ‘be|F|a very strange thing if, while fire, wind, water, clouds, and rain are God’s instruments, by which He often preserves and nourishes and often kills and destroys, He has never on any occasion at all used animals as His agents. On the contrary, it is natural that, in their dependence upon the divine power, they should lend themselves more responsively to motions from God than does the bow to the Scythian or the lyre and flute to the Greek.’

After this the poet Chersias mentioned, among other cases of persons rescued in hopeless situations, that of Cypselus, Periander’s father. When he was a newborn babe, the men who had been sent to make away with him were turned from theirpurpose because he smiled at them. When they changed their minds and came back to look for him, he was not to be found, his mother having hidden him in a chest. ‘It is for this reason|164|that Cypselus built the house at Delphi, believing that the god had then stopped him from crying so that he might elude the search.’

At this Pittacus, addressing Periander, observed, ‘I have to thank Chersias, Periander, for mentioning that house; for I have often wanted to ask you the meaning of those frogs which are carved in such large size at the base of the palm-tree. What reference have they to the god or to the dedication?’ Periander having bidden him ask Chersias, who knew the reason and was present when Cypselus consecrated the house, Chersias said with|B|a smile, ‘No: I will give no information until these gentlemen have told me the meaning of theirNothing in excessandKnow thyself, and of those words which have kept many people from marrying, made many distrustful, and reduced some to positive dumbness—the wordsGive a pledge, and Mischief is nigh.’ ‘Why do you need us to tell you that,’ said Pittacus, ‘seeing that you have so long admired the stories in which Aesop practically deals with each of those maxims?’ ‘Nay,’ replied Aesop, ‘he does need it, when he is joking at me. But when he is in earnest, he proves that Homer was their inventor. He says that Hector “knew himself”, inasmuch as, though|C|he attacked the rest,

Ajax, Telamon’s son, he would not fight, but he shunned him,

and that Odysseus recommends “nothing in excess” since he urges Diomede

Nay, prithee, Tydeus’ son; nor praise me much nor reprove me.

As for a pledge, not only is it the general opinion that he is reprobating it as a misguided and futile thing when he says

Sorry, I trow, to take are the pledges that sorry folk offer,

but our friend Chersias here tells us how “Mischief” was hurled from heaven by Zeus because she was present when he was tripped|D|up through pledging his word in connexion with the birth of Heracles.’

Here Solon interposed. ‘Well, Homer was a very wise man, and we should do well to take his advice:

Already the night is here; night bids, and ’tis good to obey her.

Let us therefore pour an offering to the Muses and to Poseidon and Amphitrite, and then—with your permission—break up the party.’

This, Nicarchus, terminated the party on that occasion.

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