Plutarch's Symposiacs by Plutarch

1. We had always some difficulty started about κερασβόλος and ἀτεράμων, not what humor those words signified (for it is certain that some, thinking that those seeds which fall on the oxen's horns bear fruit which is very hard, did by a metaphor call a stiff untractable fellow by these names), but what was the cause that seeds falling on the oxen's horns should bear hard fruit. I had often desired my friends to search no farther, most of all fearing the discourse of Theophrastus, in which he has collected many of those particulars whose causes we cannot discover. Such are the hen's purifying herself with straw after she has laid, the seal's swallowing her rennet when she is caught, the deer's burying his cast horns, and the goat's stopping the whole herd by holding a branch of sea-holly in his mouth; and among the rest he reckoned this is a thing of which we are certain, but whose cause it is very difficult to find. But once at supper at Delphi, some of my companions-as if we were not only better counsellors when our bellies are full (as one hath it), but wine would make us brisker in our enquiries and bolder in our resolutions-desired me to speak somewhat to that problem.

2. I refused, though I had some excellent men on my side, namely, Euthydemus my fellow-priest, and Patrocles my relation, who brought several the like instances, which they had gathered both from husbandry and hunting; for instance, that those officers that are appointed to watch the coming of the hail avert the storm by offering a mole's blood or a woman's rags; that a wild fig being bound to a garden fig-tree will keep the fruit from falling, and promote their ripening; that deer when they are taken shed salt tears, and boars sweet. But if you have a mind to such questions, Euthydemus will presently desire you to give an account of smallage and cummin; one of the which, if trodden down as it springs, will grow the better, and the other men curse and blaspheme whilst they sow it.