ORPHIC FRAGMENT 291
OTTO KERN
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For links to many more fragments: The Orphic Fragments of Otto Kern.
SUMMARY: This fragment consists of many quotations concerning the prohibition to eat beans advocated by the Orphics and the Pythagoreans.
291. (262. 263) Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικός ? (Hermann Diels Doxographi Graeci p. 150 note 2; p. 557, line 23) in Περὶ τῶν μηνῶν Ἰωάννου Λαυρεντίου τοῦ Λυδού (De Mensibus) Book 4 section 42 p. 99, 17 W.:
ὁ δὲ Ποντικὸς Ἡρακλείδης (Περὶ τῶν Πυθαγορείων? ) φησίν, ὡς εἴ τις τὸν κύαμον ἐν καινῆι θήκηι ἐμβαλὼν ἀποκρύψει τῆι κόπρωι ἐπὶ τεσσαράκοντα πάσας ἡμέρας, εἰς ὄψιν ἀνθρώπου σεσαρκωμένου μεταβαλόντα τὸν κύαμον εὑρήσει, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὸν ποιητὴν φάναι·
ἶσόν τοι κυάμους τε φαγεῖν κεφαλάς τε τοκήων.
“But Irakleidîs Pondikós (Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικός) says that if someone, having thrown a bean in a newly-made chest, will conceal it in dung for forty full days, he will find the bean transformed into the appearance of an incarnate man, and because of this the poet says:
‘It is the same to eat beans as (to eat) the heads of one’s parents.’ ”
(trans. by the author)
Ἠθικὰ Πλουτάρχου· 49. Συμποσιακά (Table Talk) 2.3.1 p. 635 e. f:
ὑπόνοιαν μέντοι παρέσχον, ἑστιῶντος ἡμᾶς Σοσσίου Σενεκίωνος, ἐνέχεσθαι δόγμασιν Ὀρφικοῖς ἢ Πυθαγορικοῖς, καὶ τὸ ὠιόν, ὥσπερ ἔνιοι καρδίαν καὶ ἐγκέφαλον, ἀρχὴν ἡγούμενος γενέσεως ἀφοσιοῦσθαι· καὶ προὔφερεν Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Ἐπικούρειος ἐπὶ γέλωτι τό·
« ἶσόν τοι κυάμους ἔσθειν (ἐσθίειν codd. praeter ἑστίειν E; τρώγειν Athen. Clem. v. infra) κεφαλάς τε τοκήων »
ὡς δὴ κυάμους τὰ ὠιὰ διὰ τὴν κύησιν αἰνιττομένων τῶν ἀνδρῶν, διαφέρειν δὲ μηδὲν οἰομένων τὸ ἐσθίειν ὠιὰ τοῦ χρῆσθαι τοῖς τίκτουσι τὰ ὠιὰ ζώιοις.
“Some at Sossius Senecio's table suspected that I was tainted with Orpheus's or Pythagoras's opinions, and refused to cat an egg (as some do the heart and brain) imagining it to be the principle of generation. And Alexander the Epicurean ridiculingly repeated,—
‘To feed on beans and parents' heads is equal sin;’
“as if the Pythagoreans covertly meant eggs by the word κύαμοι (beans), deriving it from κύω or κυέω (to conceive), and thought it as unlawful to feed on eggs as on the animals that lay them.”
(Translated by several scholars. Corrected and revised by William W. Goodwin, 1874)
Dídymos (Δίδυμος, “σοφώτατος”) [Fehrle Στοιχεῖα III 42] in Γεωπονικά II 35, 8 (Cassianus Bassus De re rustica eclogae ed. Beckh p. 73, 14):
πρῶτος δὲ ἀπέσχετο κυάμων Ἀμφιάραος, διὰ τὴν δι’ ὀνείρων μαντείαν. φέρεται δὲ καὶ Ὀρφέως τοιάδε ἔπη·
« Δειλοὶ <πάνδειλοι>, κυάμων ἄπο χεῖρας ἔχεσθε »
καὶ·
« ἶσόν τοι κυάμους φαγεεῖν κεφαλάς τε τοκήων. »
“Amphiaraus was the first that abstained from beans on account of the foretelling of events by dreams. The following words are likewise ascribed to Orpheus:
‘You sons of misery, from beans refrain.’
“and:
‘Your hands a parent’s blood as well might stain.’ ”
(trans. by the Rev. T. Owen, 1805)
The first verse is Empedocles (see below).
See Λόγος Στρώματα Κλήμεντος του Ἀλεξανδρέως III 3, 24, 2 (II 206, 22 Staeh.) on the Pythagoreans:
ταύτηι μυστικῶς ἀπαγορεύουσι κυάμοις χρῆσθαι, οὐχ ὅτι πνευματοποιὸν καὶ δύσπεπτον καὶ τοὺς ὀνείρους τεταραγμένους ποιεῖ τὸ ὄσπριον, οὐδὲ μὴν ὅτι ἀνθρώπου κεφαλῆι ἀπείκασται κύαμος κατὰ τὸ ἐπύλλιον ἐκεῖνο·
« ἶσόν τοι κυάμους τρώγειν (see verse below Athen.) κεφαλάς τε τοκήων. »
“Thus they mystically forbid them to use beans, not because they produce flatulence, are hard to digest, and that pulse produces troubled dreams, nor because the bean resembles the head of a man, in accordance with that verse:
‘It is the same to eat beans and the heads of one’s parents.’ ”
(trans. by the author)
Compare on the use of the words ἐσθίειν (“to eat”) and τρώγειν (“to nibble”) in the New Testament Haußleiterum Archiv für lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik mit Einschluß des älteren Mittelalters IX 1896, 300.
Δειπνοσοφισταί Ἀθηναίον Ναυκρατίου II 65 f:
ἐγκέφαλοι χοίρειοι· τούτων ἡμᾶς ἐσθίειν οὐκ εἴων οἱ φιλόσοφοι φάσκοντες [τοὺς αὐτῶν μεταλαμβάνοντας del. Wilamowitz ap. Kaibel] « ἶσον καὶ κυάμων τρώγειν κεφαλῶν τέ » οὐ « τοκήων » μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων βεβήλων (ἀβεβήλων coniec. Kaibel)
“Pig’s Brains.—The wise would not allow us to eat these, quoting, of those who partake of them, that ‘to eat beans amounts to the same thing as eating’ not merely the ‘heads of one’s parents,’ but the heads of anything else that is unhallowed.’ ”
(trans. Charles Burton Gulick, 1927)
Πυῤῥώνειοι ὑποτυπώσεις τοῦ Σέξτου Ἐμπειρικοῦ III 224 (I 193, 32 Hermann Mutschmann):
ἔνιοι δὲ θάττον ἂν τὰς κεφαλὰς φαγεῖν φασι τῶν πατέρων ἢ κυάμους.
“But some say they would sooner eat the heads of their fathers than (eat) broad beans.”
(trans. by the author)
Compare to Όνειρος ή Αλεκτρυών Λουκιανοὺ 4:
τὸν σοφιστὴν λέγεις, τὸν ἀλαζόνα, ὃς ἐνομοθέτει μήτε κρεῶν γεύεσθαι μήτε κυάμους ἐσθίειν, ἥδιστον ἐμοὶ γοῦν ὄψον ἐκτράπεζον ἀποφαίνων, ἔτι δὲ πείθων τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐς πέντε ἔτη μὴ διαλέγεσθαι
“What, that sophist quack (ed. Pythagoras), who forbade the eating of meat, and would have banished beans from our tables (no beans, indeed! my favorite food!), and who wanted people to go for five years without speaking?”
(trans. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, 1905)
And a little later in the same section:
τὸ ἴσον ἠσεβηκέναι κυάμους φαγόντα ὡς ἂν εἰ τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ πατρὸς βεβρώκεις
“In eating those beans, you have as good as bolted your own father’s head.”
(trans. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, 1905)
Γρηγόριος ὁ Ναζιανζηνός Oration XXIII 535 c (translator: I do not find this quotation in Oration XXIII, but, rather in Θεολογικός Ά, Προς Ευνομιανούς προδιάλεξις, perhaps due to different numbering systems?):
βάλλε μοι Πυθαγόρου τὴν σιωπὴν καὶ κυάμους τοὺς Ὀρφικούς.
“For me, throw out the silence of Pythagoras and the beans of the Orphics.”
(trans. by the author)
Herm. XXX vs. 5; Christian Lobeck Aglaophamus I 251; S. Reinach Archiv für Religionswissenschaft IX 1906, p. 318 s.; see also Orphic Critical Testimony no. 219.
Καθαρμοὶ τοῦ Ἐμπεδοκλέους fragment 141 Diels-Kranz numbering (Hermann Diels Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker I3 p. 277, 6; this fragment is numbered 132 by Brad Inwood):
δειλοί, πάνδειλοι, κυάμων ἄπο χεῖρας ἔχεσθαι
“Miserable ones, you totally miserable ones, keep your hands away from beans!”
(trans. by the author)
Θηρία τοῦ Κράτους τμῆμα 17 (Kock FCA I 135), τμῆμα 128 τοῦ Καλλιμάχου Schn. v. p. 786 (Hermann Diels Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker I3 31, 9):
καὶ κυάμων ἄπο χεῖρας ἔχειν, ἀνιῶντος ἐδεστοῦ, κἀγώ, Πυθαγόρας ὡς ἐκέλευε, λέγω.
“Keep your hands away from beans, from afflicted food, so Pythagoras urged, and for myself, I say so (as well).”
(trans. by the author)
The story of the birth of the Gods: Orphic Theogony.
We know the various qualities and characteristics of the Gods based on metaphorical stories: Mythology.
Dictionary of terms related to ancient Greek mythology: Glossary of Hellenic Mythology.
Introduction to the Thæí (the Gods): The Nature of the Gods.
How do we know there are Gods? Experiencing Gods.
