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This was the reply I made Boethus, and the same
answer I gave him touching the Sibyl's verses; for when
we drew near that part of the rock which joins to the
senate-house, which by common fame was the seat of
the first Sibyl that came to Delphi from Helicon, where
she was bred by the Muses (though others affirm that she
fixed herself at Maleo, and that she was the daughter of
Lamia, the daughter of Neptune), Serapio made mention
of certain verses of hers, wherein she had extolled herself
as one that should never cease to prophesy even after her
death; for that after her decease she should make her
abode in the orb of the moon, being metamorphosed into
the face of that planet; that her voice and prognostications
should be always heard in the air, intermixed with the
winds and by them driven about from place to place; and
that from her body should spring various plants, herbs,
and fruits to feed the sacred victims, which should have
sundry forms and qualities in their entrails, whereby men
would be able to foretell all manner of events to come.
At this Boethus laughed outright; but the stranger replied that, though the Sibyl's vain-glory seemed altogether
fabulous, yet the subversions of several Grecian cities,
transmigrations of the inhabitants, several invasions of
barbarian armies, the destructions of kingdoms and principalities,
[p. 78]
testified the truth of ancient prophecies and
predictions. And were not those accidents that fell out
not many years ago in our memories at Cumae and Puteoli, said he, long before that time the predictions and
promises of the Sibyl, which Time, as a debtor, afterwards
discharged and paid? Such were the breaking forth of
kindled fire from the sulphuric wombs of mountains, boiling of the sea, cities so swallowed up as not to leave behind the least footsteps of the ruins where they stood;
things hard to be believed, much harder to be foretold,
unless by Divine foresight.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 3.
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