XXIII

RIDICULING EPIGRAMS

Now Pythagoras, according to Heraclides, the son of Serapion, died when he was eighty years of age, according to his own account; by that of others, he was over ninety. On him we have written a sportive epigram, as follows:

"You are not the only man who has abstained
From living food; for so have we;
And who, I'd like to know, did ever taste
Food while alive, most sage Pythagoras?
When meat is boiled, or roasted well and salted,
I do not think it well can be called living.
Which, without scruple therefore then we eat it
And call it no more living flesh, but meat."

Another, which runs thus:

"Pythagoras was, so wise a man, that he
Never ate meat himself, and called it sin.
Yet gave the good joints of beef to others;
So that I marvel at his principles;
Who others wronged, by teaching them to do
What he believed unholy for himself."

Another, which follows:

"Should you Pythagoras's doctrine wish to know,
Look on the centre of Euphorbus's shield
For he asserts there lived a man of old,
And when he had no longer an existence,
He still could say that he had been alive,
Or else he would not still be living now."

Another one follows:

"Alas! Alas! Why did Pythagoras hold
Beans in such wondrous honor? Why, besides
Did he thus die among his choice companions?
There was a field of beans; and so the sage,
Died in the common road of Agrigentum,
Rather than trample down his favorite beans."