QUESTION VIII.

Why Homer Calls the Apple-Tree [Greek Omitted], And Empedocles Calls Apples [GREEK OMITTED].

PLUTARCH, TRYPHO, CERTAIN GRAMMARIANS, LAMPRIAS THE ELDER.

As we were at supper in Chaeronea, and had all sorts of fruit at the table, one of the company chanced to speak these verses,

The fig-trees sweet, the apple-trees that bear Fair fruit, and olives green through all the year. ("Odyssey," vii. 115.)

Upon this there arose a question, why the poet calls apple-trees particularly [Greek omitted], BEARING FAIR FRUIT. Trypho the physician said that this epithet was given comparatively in respect of the tree, because, it being small and no goodly tree to look upon, bears fair and large fruit. Somebody else said, that the particular excellencies scattered amongst all other fruits are united in this alone. As to the touch, it is smooth and polished, so that it makes the hand that toucheth it odorous without defiling it; it is sweet to the taste, and to the smell and sight very pleasing; and therefore there is reason that it should be duly praised, as being that which congregates and allures all the senses together.

This discourse pleased us indifferently well. But whereas Empedocles has thus written,

Why pomegranates so late do thrive, And apples give a lovely show [Greek omitted];

I guess the epithet to be given to pomegranates, because that at the end of autumn, and when the heats begin to decrease, they ripen the fruit; for the sun will not suffer the weak and thin moisture to thicken into a consistence until the air begins to wax colder; therefore, says Theophrastus, this only tree ripens its fruit best and soonest in the shade. But in what sense the philosopher gives the epithet [Greek omitted], to apples, I much question, since it is not his custom to try to adorn his verses with varieties of epithets, as with gay and florid colors. But in every verse he gives some description of the substance and virtue of the subject which he treats; as when he calls the body encircling the soul the mortal-surrounding earth; as also when he calls the air cloud-gathering, and the liver much blooded.

When now I had said these things myself, certain grammarians affirmed, that those apples were called [Greek omitted] by reason of their vigor and florid manner of growing; for to blossom and flourish after an extraordinary manner is by the poets expressed by the word [Greek omitted]. In this sense, Antimachus calls the city of Cadmeans flourishing with fruit; and Aratus, speaking of the dog-star Sirius, says that he

To some gave strength, but others did ruin, Their bloom;

calling the greenness of the trees and the blossoming of the fruit by the name of [Greek omitted]. Nay, there are some of the Greeks also who sacrifice to Bacchus surnamed [Greek omitted]. And therefore, seeing the verdure and floridness chiefly recommend this fruit, philosophers call it [Greek omitted]. But Lamprias our grandfather used to say that the word [Greek omitted] did not only denote excess and vehemency, but external and supernal; thus we call the upper frame of a door [Greek omitted], and the upper portion of the house [Greek omitted]; and the poet calls the outward parts of the victim the upper-flesh, as he calls the entrails the inner-flesh. Let us see therefore, says he, whether Empedocles did not make use of this epithet in this sense, seeing that other fruits are encompassed with an outward rind and with certain coatings and membranes, but the only cortex rind that the apple has is a glutinous and smooth tunic (or core) containing the seed, so that the part which can be eaten, and lies without, was properly called [Greek omitted], that IS OVER or OUTSIDE OF THE HUSK.