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Odysseus. So now, Gryllus, you are transformed.
[p. 531]
Do you attribute reason even to the sheep
and the ass ?
Gryllus. From even these, dearest Odysseus, it
is perfectly possible to gather that animals have a
natural endowment of reason and intellect. For just
as one tree is not more nor less inanimate than
another, but they are all in the same state of insensibility, since none is endowed with soul, in the
same way one animal would not be thought to be
more sluggish or indocile mentally than another if
they did not all possess reason and intellect to some
degree - though some have a greater or less proportion than others. Please note that cases of dullness
and stupidity in some animals are demonstrated by
the cleverness and sharpness of others - as when you
compare an ass and a sheep with a fox or a wolf or a
bee. It is like comparing Polyphemus to you or that
dunce Coroebus1 to your grandfather Autolycus.2 I
scarcely believe that there is such a spread between
one animal and another as there is between man and
man in the matter of judgement and reasoning and
memory.
Odysseus. But consider, Gryllus : is it not a fearful
piece of violence to grant reason to creatures that
have no inherent knowledge of God?
[p. 533]
Gryllus. Then shall we deny, Odysseus, that so
wise and remarkable a man as you had Sisyphus for
a father?3
1 For Haupt's fine correction (Hermes, vi, p. 4 = Opuscula, iii, p. 552) cf. Leutsch and Schneidewin, Paroemiographi Graeci, i. 101 (Zenobius, iv. 58); Lucian, Philopseudis, 3. Coroebus was proverbially so stupid that he tried to count the waves of the sea.
2 Odyssey, xix. 394 ff.: Autolycus surpassed all men ‘in thefts and perjury,’ a gift of Hermes.
3 Most critics (and very emphatically Ziegler) believe that the end, perhaps quite a long continuation, is lost; but Reiske ingeniously supposes Gryllus' final answer to mean: ‘If those who do not know God cannot possess reason, then you, wise Odysseus, can scarcely be descended from such a notorious atheist as Sisyphus.’ (For Sisyphus' famous assertion that ‘the gods are only a utilitarian invention’ see Critias, Sisyphus, frag. 1: Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. pp. 771 f.).
There would, then, be no further point in prolonging the discussion; and no doubt by this time Odysseus has changed his mind about the desirability of any further metamorphosis of his interlocutor, since the last argument touches him nearly. Sisyphus was said by some to be his real father (Mor. 301 d). Others, however, believe that some discussion of further virtues, such as natural piety, must have followed; and perhaps the account closed with a consideration of justice. But would Odysseus have been convinced (cf. 986 b)? Or is this as good a place as any to end? Plutarch used no stage directions, so that, as in the classical Platonic dialogues, when the characters stop speaking, the discussion is over and we are left to draw our own conclusions. The undoubted fact, however, that the work is mutilated in several other places allows us to leave the question open.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Harold Cherniss and William C. Helmbold. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1957. 12.
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