PlutarchПлутарх

So true it is that, though disbelief in religion and contempt of things divine be a great evil, yet superstition is a still greater.

… οὕτως ἄρα δεινὸν μὲν ἡ ἀπιστία πρὸς τὰ θεῖα καὶ καταφρόνησις αὐτῶν, δεινὴ δὲ αὖθις ἡ δεισιδαιμονία, …

So, you see, while it is a dire thing to be incredulous towards indications of the divine will and to have contempt for them, superstition is likewise a dire thing, …

But what struggle for existence, or what goading madness has incited you to imbrue your hands in blood — you who have, we repeat, a superabundance of all the necessaries and comforts of existence ?

Why do you belie the Earth …

… as though it were unable to feed and nourish you ?

… ὑμᾶς δὲ τοὺς νῦν τίς λύσσα καὶ τίς οἶστρος ἄγει πρὸς μιαιφονίαν, οἷς τοσαῦτα περίεστι τῶν ἀναγκαίων; τί καταψεύδεσθε τῆς γῆς ὡς· τρέφειν μὴ δυναμένης;

But whence is it that a certain ravenousness and frenzy drives you in these happy days to pollute yourselves with blood, since you have such an abundance of things necessary for your subsistence? Why do you belie the earth as unable to maintain you?

You ask me upon what grounds Pythagoras abstained from feeding on the flesh of …

I, for my part, marvel of what sort of feeling, mind, or reason, that man was possessed who was the first to pollute his mouth with gore, and to allow his lips to touch the flesh of a murdered being : who spread his table with the mangled forms of dead bodies, aud claimed as his daily food what were but now beings endowed with movement, with perception, aud with voice.

… ἀλλὰ σὺ μὲν ἐρωτᾷς; τίνι λόγῳ Πυθαγόρας ἀπείχετο σαρκοφαγίας, ἐγὼ δὲ θαυμάζω καὶ τίνι πάθει καὶ ποίᾳ ψυχῇ ἢ λόγῳ ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος ἥψατο φόνου στόματι καὶ τεθνηκότος ζῴου χείλεσι προσήψατο σαρκός· καὶ νεκρῶν σωμάτων καὶ ἑώλων προθέμενος τραπέζας ὄψα καὶ τρυφὰς καὶ προσέτι εἰπεῖν τὰ μικρὸν ἔμπροσθεν βρυχώμενα μέρη καὶ φθεγγόμενα καὶ κινούμενα καὶ βλέποντα·

You ask of me then for what reason it was that Pythagoras abstained from eating of flesh. I for my part do much admire in what humor, with what soul or reason, the first man with his mouth touched slaughter, and reached to his lips the flesh of a dead animal, and having set before people courses of ghastly corpses and ghosts, could give those parts the names of meat and victuals, that but a little before lowed, cried, moved, and saw; …

For the wretches who first applied to flesh-eating may justly be alleged in excuse their utter resourcelessness and destitution, inasmuch as it was not to indulge in lawless desires, or amidst the superfluities of necessaries, …

… indulgence in unnatural luxuries that they [the primeval peoples] betook themselves to carnivorous habits.

… ἢ τοῖς μὲν πρώτοις ἐκείνοις ἐπιχειρήσασι σαρκοφαγεῖν τὴν αἰτίαν ἂν εἴποι τις πᾶσαν εἶναι τὴν ἀπορίαν· οὐ γὰρ ἐπιθυμίαις ἀνόμοις συνδιάγοντες οὐδʼ ἐν περιουσίᾳ τινὶ ἀναγκαίων ὑβρίσαντες εἰς ἡδονὰς παρὰ φύσιν ἀσυμφύλους ἐπὶ ταῦτʼ ἦλθον·

And truly, as for those people who first ventured upon eating of flesh, it is very probable that the whole reason of their so doing was scarcity and want of other food; for it is not likely that their living together in lawless and extravagant lusts, or their growing wanton and capricious through the excessive variety of provisions then among them, brought them to such unsociable pleasures as these, against Nature.