Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3 · Plutarch
MENEPHYLUS, HYLAS, LAMPRIAS.
While all were making a disturbance, Menephylus, a Peripatetic philosopher, addressing Hylas: You see, he said, how this investigation is no foolery nor insolence. But leave now, my dear fellow, that obstinate Ajax, whose name is ill-omened, as Sophocles says, and side with Poseidon, whom you yourself are wont to tell has often been overcome, once by Athene here, in Delphi by Apollo, in Argos by Here, in Aegina by Zeus, in Naxos by Bacchus, yet in his misfortunes has always been mild and amiable. Here at least he shares a temple in common with Athene, in which there is an altar dedicated to Lethe. And Hylas, as if he had become better tempered: One thing has escaped you, Menephylus, that we have given up the second day of September, not on account of the moon, but because on that day the gods seemed to have contended for the country. By all means, said Lamprias, by as much as Poseidon was more civilized than Thrasybulus, since not like him a winner but a loser.... (The rest of this book to Question XIII is lost; with the exception of the titles that follow, and the fragment of Question XII.) QUESTION VII. WHY THE ACCORDS IN MUSIC ARE SEPARATED INTO THREE. QUESTION VIII. WHEREIN THE INTERVALS MELODIOUS DIFFER FROM THOSE THAT ARE HARMONIC. QUESTION IX. WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF ACCORD? AND ALSO, WHY, WHEN TWO ACCORDANT STRINGS ARE TOUCHED TOGETHER, IS THE MELODY ASCRIBED TO THE BASE? QUESTION X. WHY, WHEN THE ECLIPTIC PERIODS OF THE SUN AND THE MOON ARE EQUAL IN NUMBER, THE MOON APPEARS OFTENER ECLIPSED THAN THE SUN. QUESTION XI. THAT WE CONTINUE NOT ALWAYS THE SAME, IN REGARD OF THE DEFLUX OF OUR SUBSTANCE.
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