The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 20

I pray you tell 'em, if you know at least.

_B._ At first they all stood silent for a while, And gazed upon the ground and knit their brows In profound solemn meditation: Then on a sudden, while the a.s.sembled youths Were stooping still considering the matter, One said a gourd was a round vegetable; But others said it was a kind of gra.s.s; While others cla.s.s'd it as a sort of tree.

On hearing this, a certain old physician Coming from Sicily interrupted them As but a pack of triflers. They were furious, Greatly enraged, and all most loudly cried With one accord, that he insulted them; For that such sudden interruptions To philosophical discussion Were ill-bred and extremely unbecoming.

And then the youths thought no more of the gourd.

But Plato, who was present, mildly said, Not being at all excited by what pa.s.s'd, That the best thing that they could do would be The question to resume of the gourd's nature.

They would not hear him, and adjourn'd the meeting.

55. Alexis, that most witty poet, sets an entire course of p??p?a before those who can understand him--

I came without perceiving it on a place Which was exceedingly convenient.

Water was given me; and then a servant Entered, and bore a table for my use; On which was laid, not cheese, or tawny olives, Or any dainty side-dishes and nonsense, Which fill the room with scent, but have no substance; But there was set before me a huge dish Redolent of the Seasons and the joyful Hours-- A sort of hemisphere of the whole globe.

Everything there was beautiful and good: Fish, goats' flesh, and a scorpion between them; Then there were eggs in half, looking like stars.

On them we quickly laid our hands, and then Speaking to me, and giving me a nod, The host began to follow our example; So we'd a race, and never did I stop Till the whole dish was empty as a sieve.

56. With respect to Mushrooms.--Aristias says

The stony soil produced no mushrooms.

And Poliochus has the following pa.s.sage--

Each of us twice a day received to eat Some small dark maize well winnow'd from the chaff, And carefully ground; and also some small figs.

Meantime some of the party would begin And roast some mushrooms; and perhaps would catch Some delicate snails if 'twas a dewy morning, And vegetables which spontaneous grew.

Then, too, we'd pounded olives; also wine Of no great strength, and no very famous vintage.

And Antiphanes says--

Our supper is but maize well fenced round With chaff, so as not to o'erstep the bounds Of well-devised economy. An onion, A few side-dishes, and a sow-thistle, A mushroom, or what wild and tasteless roots The place affords us in our poverty.

Such is our life, not much exposed to fevers; For no one, when there's meat, will eat of thyme, Not even the pupils of Pythagoras.

And a few lines afterwards he goes on--

For which of us can know the future, or The fate that shall our various friends befal?

Take now these mushrooms and for dinner roast them, Which I've just picked beneath the maple shade.

Cephisodorus, the pupil of Isocrates, in the treatise which he wrote against Aristotle (and there are four books of it), reproaches the philosopher for not having thought it worth his while to collect proverbs, though Antiphanes had made an entire play which was called Proverbs: from which play he produces these lines--

For I, if I eat any of your dishes, Seem as if I was on raw mushrooms feeding, Or unripe apples, fit to choke a man.

57. Mushrooms are produced by the earth itself. But there are not many sorts of them which are good to eat; for the greater part of them produce a sensation of choking: on which account Epicharmus, when jesting, said--

You will be choked, like those who waste away By eating mushrooms, very heating food.

And Nicander, in his Georgics, gives a list of which species are poisonous; and says--

Terrible evils oftentimes arise From eating olives, or pomegranates, or from the trees Of maple, or of oak; but worst of all Are the swelling sticky lumps of mushrooms.

And he says in another place--

Bury a fig-tree trunk deep in the ground, Then cover it with dung, and moisten it With water from an everflowing brook, Then there will grow at bottom harmless mushrooms; Select of them what's good for food, and not Deserving of contempt, and cut the root off.

But all the rest of that pa.s.sage is in a mutilated state. The same Nicander in the same play writes--

And there, too, you may roast the mushrooms, Of the kind which we call ????ta?.

And Ephippus says--

That I may choke you as a mushroom would.

Eparchides says that Euripides the poet was once staying on a visit at Icarus, and that, when it had happened that a certain woman being with her children in the fields, two of them being full-grown sons and the other being an unmarried daughter, eat some poisonous mushrooms, and died with her children in consequence, he made this epigram upon them:--

O Sun, whose path is through th' undying heaven, Have you e'er before seen a misery such as this?

A mother, a maiden daughter, and two sons, All dying on one day by pitiless fate?

Diocles the Carystian, in the first book of his treatise on the Wholesomes, says, "The following things which grow wild should be boiled,--beetroot, mallow, sorrel, nettles, spinach, onions, leeks, orach, and mushrooms.

58. Then there is a plant called sium. And Speusippus, in the second book of his treatise on Things Similar, says that its leaf resembles the marsh parsley; on which account Ptolemy the Second, surnamed Euergetes, who was king of Egypt, insists upon it that the line in Homer ought to be written thus--

And around were soft meadows of _sium_ or parsley;

for that it is s?a which are usually found in company with parsley, and not ?a (_violets_).

59. Diphilus says that mushrooms are good for the stomach, and pa.s.s easily through the bowels, and are very nutritious, but still that they are not very digestible, and that they are apt to produce flatulence.

And that especially those from the island of Ceos have this character.

"Many are even poisonous to a fatal degree. But those which seem to be wholesome are those with the smoothest rinds, which are tender and easily crushed: such as grow close to elms and pine-trees. But those which are unwholesome are of a dark colour, or livid, or covered with hard coats; and those too which get hard after being boiled and placed on the table; for such are deadly to eat. But the best remedy for them when eaten unawares is drinking honey-water, and fresh mead, and vinegar. And after such a drink the patient should vomit. On which account, too, it is especially desirable to dress mushrooms with vinegar, or honey and vinegar, or honey, or salt: for by these means their choking properties are taken away. But Theophrastus, in his treatise about Plants, writes thus--"But plants of this kind grow both under the ground and on the ground, like those things which some people call fungi, which grow in company with mushrooms; for they too grow without having any roots; but the real mushrooms have, as the beginning by which they adhere to the ground, a stalk of some length, and they put forth fibres from that stalk." He says also that in the sea which is around the Pillars of Hercules, when there is a high tide, mushrooms grow on the sh.o.r.e close to high-water mark, which they say are left there by the sun. And Phaenias says, in his first book about Plants--"But these things neither put forth any bloom, nor any trace of seminal germination; as, for instance, the mushroom, the truffle, groundivy, and fern." And in another place he says, "?te??? (fern), which some people call ??????." But Theophrastus, in his book on Plants, says--"Plants with smooth rinds, as the truffle, the mushroom, the fungus, the geranium."

60. Now with respect to Truffles.--They too spring of their own accord out of the ground; especially in sandy places. And Theophrastus says of them--"The truffle, which some people call the geranium, and all other such plants which grow beneath the earth." And in another place he says--"The generation and production of these things which seed beneath the earth; as, for instance, of the truffle, and of a plant which grows around Cyrene, which they call _misy_. And it appears to be exceedingly sweet, and to have a smell like that of meat; and so, too, has a plant called _itum_, which grows in Thrace. And a peculiarity is mentioned as incidental to these things; for men say that they appear when there is heavy rain in autumn and violent thunder; especially when there is thunder, as that is a more stimulating cause of them: however, they do not last more than a year, as they are only annuals; they are in the greatest perfection in the spring, when they are most plentiful. Not but what there are people who believe that they are or can be raised from seed. At all events, they say that they never appeared on the sh.o.r.e of the Mitylenaeans, until after a heavy shower some seed was brought from Tiarae; and that is the place where they are in the greatest numbers. But they are princ.i.p.ally found on the sea-sh.o.r.e, and wherever the ground is sandy; and that is the character of the place called Tiarae. They are also found near Lampsacus, and also in Acarnania, and Alopeconnesus, and in the district of the Eleans. Lynceus the Samian says--"The sea produces nettles, and the land produces truffles;" and Matron, the man who wrote parodies, says in his "Supper"--

And he brought oysters, the truffles of Thetis the Nereid.

Diphilus says that truffles are by nature indigestible, but that they are full of wholesome juice, and have lenitive qualities, and are very easily evacuated; though, like mushrooms, some of them are apt to produce suffocation. And Hegesander the Delphian says that no truffles are found in the h.e.l.lespont, and no fish of the kind called ??a???s???, and no thyme. On which account Nausiclides said of the country, that it had no spring and no friends. But Pamphilus says, in his "Languages," that there is a plant called ?d??f?????, being a species of gra.s.s which grows on the top of the truffles, by which the truffle is discovered.

61. With respect to Nettles--??a??f? is the name given by the Attic writers to a plant which is herbaceous and which produces itching.

Aristophanes says, in his Phnissae, "that pot-herbs were the first things which grew out of the earth; and after them the rough stinging-nettles."

62. The next thing to be considered is Asparagus--which is divided into mountain asparagus and marsh asparagus; the best kinds of which are not raised from seed; but they are remedies for every kind of internal disorder. But those which are raised from seed grow to an immense size.

And they say that in Libya, among the Gaetuli, they grow of the thickness of a Cyprian reed, and twelve feet long; but that on the mountain land and on land near the sea they grow to the thickness of large canes, and twenty cubits long. But Cratinus writes the word, not ?sp??a???, but ?sf??a???, with a f. And Theopompus says--

And then seeing the aspharagus in a thicket.

And Ameipsias says--

No squills, no aspharagus, no branches of bay-tree.

But Diphilus says, that of all greens, that sort of asparagus which is especially called the bursting asparagus, is better for the stomach, and is more easily digested; but that it is not very good for the eyes: and it is harsh-flavoured and diuretic, and injurious to the kidneys and bladder. But it is the Athenians who give it the name of bursting; and they also give the flowering cabbage, or cauliflower, the same name.

Sophocles says, in The Huntsmen--

Then it puts forth a stalk, and never ceases The germination;

because it is continually bursting out and putting forth shoots.