The following is a penultimate step in a treatment for female infertility
“During the final vapor bath, at that moment when she is about to stop the treatment, cut open the youngest puppy you can find, pound down every kind of fragrant and dry aromatic spices. After you have removed the puppy’s innards, fill it as much as you can with the aromatics and pack them in. Put wood underneath, put the puppy in the pot and add in some extremely fragrant wine before you raise the temperature through the pipe.
As much as her strength will allow, have the woman stay in the vapor bath the entire day, continuing the heating and asking her whether she thinks that the smell of the herbs is coming through her mouth. For this is no small sign that the woman being treated has conceived.”
“So I was speaking, but [the Kyklops] did not answer me because of his pitiless heart.
But then he leapt up, shot out his hands at my companions,
Grabbed two together, and struck them against the ground
Like puppies. Brains were flowing out from them and they dyed the ground.
After tearing them limb from limb, he prepared himself a meal.
He ate them like a mountain-born lion and left nothing behind,
The innards, the meat, and the marrow-filled bones.”
My perplexity over this passage provides a good example of how Twitter can be used for good. Last year, I asked a question about killing puppies got some great responses. One found a later passage that deals with puppies and has some interesting thematic resonance with Odysseus’ development:
I think that all of these ideas are essential to a full interpretation of this passage. But, I do wonder if, in addition, we should consider ancient Greek practices of puppy sacrifice. I know that the following accounts are later, but what if we imagine the simile used here as evoking ideas of purification through sacrifice?
I'm not certain about puppies, but there are dog bones in the Heroon at Lefkandi… I will think about whether I know of any other early examples of possible puppy sacrifices (although I'm not myself convinced that there's anything in that passage besides pathos/a familiar image)
“Nearly all the Greeks made use of the dog in sacrifice and some still do today, for cleansing rituals. They also bring puppies for Hekate along with other purification materials; and they rub down people who need cleansing with the puppies.”
“The Greeks in their purification bring out the puppies and in many places use them in the practice called periskulakismos [‘carrying puppies around’]”
“Here, each of these groups of youths sacrifice a puppy to Enyalius, god of war, because they believe that it is best to make this most valiant of the domesticated animals to the bravest of the gods. I don’t know any other Greeks who believe it is right to sacrifice puppies to the gods except for the Kolophonians. For the Kolophonians sacrifice a black female puppy to the goddess of the Crossroad. The sacrifices of both the Kolophonians and the Spartan youths take place at night.”
“Indeed, the ancients did not consider this animal to be clean either: it was never sacrificed to one of the Olympian goes, but when it is given to Hekate at the cross-roads, it functions as part of the sacrifices that turn away and cleanse evil. In Sparta, they sacrifice dogs to the bloodiest of the gods, Enyalios. In Boiotia, it is the public cleansing ritual to walk between the parts of a dog that has been cut in half. The Romans themselves, during the Wolf-Festival which they call the Lupercalia, they sacrifice a dog in the month of purification.”
The following is a penultimate step in a treatment for female infertility
“During the final vapor bath, at that moment when she is about to stop the treatment, cut open the youngest puppy you can find, pound down every kind of fragrant and dry aromatic spices. After you have removed the puppy’s innards, fill it as much as you can with the aromatics and pack them in. Put wood underneath, put the puppy in the pot and add in some extremely fragrant wine before you raise the temperature through the pipe.
As much as her strength will allow, have the woman stay in the vapor bath the entire day, continuing the heating and asking her whether she thinks that the smell of the herbs is coming through her mouth. For this is no small sign that the woman being treated has conceived.”
“Therefore, it is that same Chrysippos, who, by furnishing images, teaches that everything is better in its perfect and mature form, that a horse is better than a foal, a dog better than a puppy, a man better than a boy, etc. He also shows that what is best in the whole world ought to be found in that same perfect and complete creature and that there is, moreover, nothing more perfect in the whole world, nothing better than virtue. Because of this, virtue is a fundamental element of the world. Now, the nature of a human being is not perfect, but virtue may still emerge in a person.”
Bene igitur idem Chrysippus, qui similitudines adiungens omnia in perfectis et maturis docet esse meliora, ut in equo quam in eculeo, in cane quam in catulo, in viro quam in puero; item quod in omni mundo optimum sit id in perfecto aliquo atque absoluto esse debere; est autem nihil mundo perfectius, nihil virtute melius; igitur mundi est propria virtus. Nec vero hominis natura perfecta est, et efficitur tamen in homine virtus
But, perhaps we should be forgiving of dear Tully’s inability to recognize the perfection of nature in a puppy’s cuteness. Roman approaches to dogs present some interesting challenges to modern readers:
Pliny, Natural History 29.14
“I have mentioned the glory earned by geese when the incursion of the Gauls onto the Capitoline hill was uncovered. For the very same reason, dogs hang in an annual punishment between the temple of Juventas and that of Summanus, crucified while still alive on a cross of elder wood.
The traditions of our ancestors demand that many things be said about this animal. They used to believe that puppies who were still nursing were such pure food for appeasing the gods that they even used to offer them in place of sacrificial victims. The divine rite of Genita Mana is performed with a puppy and at dinners for the gods even today puppy-meat is set out on the table.
The plays of Plautus provide a good indication that puppy meat was a proper dish in special banquets. It was also believed that nothing was a better remedy for poisonous arrows than puppy’s blood and this creature also seems to have shown human beings the use of emetics…”
XIV. De anserum honore quem meruere Gallorum in Capitolium ascensu deprehenso diximus. eadem de causa supplicia annua canes pendunt inter aedem Iuventatis et Summani vivi in furca sabucea armo fixi. sed plura de hoc animali dici cogunt priscorum mores. catulos lactentes adeo puros existimabant ad cibum ut etiam placandis numinibus hostiarum vice uterentur iis. Genitae Manae catulo res divina fit et in cenis deum etiamnunc ponitur catulina. aditialibus quidem epulis celebrem fuisse Plauti fabulae indicio sunt. sanguine canino contra toxica nihil praestantius putatur, vomitiones quoque hoc animal monstrasse homini videtur, et alios usus ex eo mire laudatos referemus suis locis. nunc ad statutum ordinem pergemus.
“For, just as people who are drowning in water are no more capable of breathing if they are far from its surface than if they are just about to break free, or if they are already clinging to the bottom, and just as a puppy who is almost ready to open his eyes can see no more than one who was just born, so too a person who has made some progress in the pursuit of virtue is in no less misery than one who has made no process at all.”
Ut enim qui demersi sunt in aqua nihilo magis respirare possunt si non longe absunt a summo, ut iam iamque possint emergere, quam si etiam tum essent in profundo, nec catulus ille qui iam appropinquat ut videat plus cernit quam is qui modo est natus, item qui processit aliquantum ad virtutis habitum nihilo minus in miseria est quam ille qui nihil processit.
“What [Xenophanes] says about Pythagoras goes like this:
People say that one day, when he was passing by as a puppy was being beaten, he pitied him and uttered this line: ‘Stop, don’t beat him, in truth, his is a soul of a dear friend of mine, one I recognized when I heard him cry.”
The following is a penultimate step in a treatment for female infertility
“During the final vapor bath, at that moment when she is about to stop the treatment, cut open the youngest puppy you can find, pound down every kind of fragrant and dry aromatic spices. After you have removed the puppy’s innards, fill it as much as you can with the aromatics and pack them in. Put wood underneath, put the puppy in the pot and add in some extremely fragrant wine before you raise the temperature through the pipe.
As much as her strength will allow, have the woman stay in the vapor bath the entire day, continuing the heating and asking her whether she thinks that the smell of the herbs is coming through her mouth. For this is no small sign that the woman being treated has conceived.”
“On each of the bridges there is a sculpture: one has Herakles, the other an image of Lykourgos. Lykourgos established laws for the rest of the state and also for the fighting of youths. There are other things done by the Spartan youths too. They sacrifice in the temple to Apollo before battle. The Phoibaion is outside the city and not too far from Therapne. There, each group of young men sacrifice a puppy to Enyalios, because they believe that the bravest of the tame animals is a sacrifice to the liking of the bravest of the gods.
I don’t know any other Greeks who are in the habit of sacrificing puppies except for the Colophonians. They sacrifice a black female pup to the Goddess of the Wayside. This sacrifice and that of the Spartan youths are performed at night. During the sacrifice, the youths have trained boars fight one another. Whichever group’s boar wins, that group ends up winning the battle when they fight with strength in the Plane-tree Grove. These are the things they do in the Phobaion.”
“Therefore, it is that same Chrysippos, who, by furnishing images, teaches that everything is better in its perfect and mature form, that a horse is better than a foal, a dog better than a puppy, a man better than a boy, etc. He also shows that what is best in the whole world ought to be found in that same perfect and complete creature and that there is, moreover, nothing more perfect in the whole world, nothing better than virtue. Because of this, virtue is a fundamental element of the world. Now, the nature of a human being is not perfect, but virtue may still emerge in a person.”
Bene igitur idem Chrysippus, qui similitudines adiungens omnia in perfectis et maturis docet esse meliora, ut in equo quam in eculeo, in cane quam in catulo, in viro quam in puero; item quod in omni mundo optimum sit id in perfecto aliquo atque absoluto esse debere; est autem nihil mundo perfectius, nihil virtute melius; igitur mundi est propria virtus. Nec vero hominis natura perfecta est, et efficitur tamen in homine virtus
But, perhaps we should be forgiving of dear Tully’s inability to recognize the perfection of nature in a puppy’s cuteness. Roman approaches to dogs present some interesting challenges to modern readers:
Pliny, Natural History 29.14
“I have mentioned the glory earned by geese when the incursion of the Gauls onto the Capitoline hill was uncovered. For the very same reason, dogs hang in an annual punishment between the temple of Juventas and that of Summanus, crucified while still alive on a cross of elder wood.
The traditions of our ancestors demand that many things be said about this animal. They used to believe that puppies who were still nursing were such pure food for appeasing the gods that they even used to offer them in place of sacrificial victims. The divine rite of Genita Mana is performed with a puppy and at dinners for the gods even today puppy-meat is set out on the table.
The plays of Plautus provide a good indication that puppy meat was a proper dish in special banquets. It was also believed that nothing was a better remedy for poisonous arrows than puppy’s blood and this creature also seems to have shown human beings the use of emetics…”
XIV. De anserum honore quem meruere Gallorum in Capitolium ascensu deprehenso diximus. eadem de causa supplicia annua canes pendunt inter aedem Iuventatis et Summani vivi in furca sabucea armo fixi. sed plura de hoc animali dici cogunt priscorum mores. catulos lactentes adeo puros existimabant ad cibum ut etiam placandis numinibus hostiarum vice uterentur iis. Genitae Manae catulo res divina fit et in cenis deum etiamnunc ponitur catulina. aditialibus quidem epulis celebrem fuisse Plauti fabulae indicio sunt. sanguine canino contra toxica nihil praestantius putatur, vomitiones quoque hoc animal monstrasse homini videtur, et alios usus ex eo mire laudatos referemus suis locis. nunc ad statutum ordinem pergemus.
“So I was speaking, but [the Kyklops] did not answer me because of his pitiless heart.
But then he leapt up, shot out his hands at my companions,
Grabbed two together, and struck them against the ground
Like puppies. Brains were flowing out from them and they dyed the ground.
After tearing them limb from limb, he prepared himself a meal.
He ate them like a mountain-born lion and left nothing behind,
The innards, the meat, and the marrow-filled bones.”
My perplexity over this passage provides a good example of how Twitter can be used for good. Last year, I asked a question about killing puppies got some great responses. One found a later passage that deals with puppies and has some interesting thematic resonance with Odysseus’ development:
I think that all of these ideas are essential to a full interpretation of this passage. But, I do wonder if, in addition, we should consider ancient Greek practices of puppy sacrifice. I know that the following accounts are later, but what if we imagine the simile used here as evoking ideas of purification through sacrifice?
I'm not certain about puppies, but there are dog bones in the Heroon at Lefkandi… I will think about whether I know of any other early examples of possible puppy sacrifices (although I'm not myself convinced that there's anything in that passage besides pathos/a familiar image)
“Nearly all the Greeks made use of the dog in sacrifice and some still do today, for cleansing rituals. They also bring puppies for Hekate along with other purification materials; and they rub down people who need cleansing with the puppies.”
“The Greeks in their purification bring out the puppies and in many places use them in the practice called periskulakismos [‘carrying puppies around’]”
“Here, each of these groups of youths sacrifice a puppy to Enyalius, god of war, because they believe that it is best to make this most valiant of the domesticated animals to the bravest of the gods. I don’t know any other Greeks who believe it is right to sacrifice puppies to the gods except for the Kolophonians. For the Kolophonians sacrifice a black female puppy to the goddess of the Crossroad. The sacrifices of both the Kolophonians and the Spartan youths take place at night.”
“Indeed, the ancients did not consider this animal to be clean either: it was never sacrificed to one of the Olympian goes, but when it is given to Hekate at the cross-roads, it functions as part of the sacrifices that turn away and cleanse evil. In Sparta, they sacrifice dogs to the bloodiest of the gods, Enyalios. In Boiotia, it is the public cleansing ritual to walk between the parts of a dog that has been cut in half. The Romans themselves, during the Wolf-Festival which they call the Lupercalia, they sacrifice a dog in the month of purification.”
