Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
78.
_What is the cause that in observing bird-flight, that which is presented on the [144]left hand is reputed lucky and prosperous?_ IS not this altogether untrue, and are not many men in an errour by ignorance of the equivocation of the word _Sinistrum_, & their maner of Dialect; for that which we in Greeke call ἀριστερον, that is to say, on the auke or left hand, they say in Latin, _Sinistrum_; and that which signifieth to permit, or let be, they expresse by the verbe _Sinere_, and when they will a man to let a thing alone, they say unto him, _Sine_; whereupon it may seeme that this word _Sinistrum_ is derived. That presaging bird then, which permitteth and suffreth an action to be done, being as it were _Sinisterion_; the vulgar sort suppose (though not aright) to be _Sinistrum_, that is to say, on the left hand, and so they tearme it. Or may it not be rather as _Dionysius_ saith, for that when _Ascanius_ the sonne of _Aeneas_ wanne a field against _Mezentius_ as the two armies stood arranged one affronting the other in battel ray, it thundred on his left hand; and because thereupon he obteined the victory, they deemed even then, that this thunder was a token presaging good, and for that cause observed it, ever after so to fall out. Others thinke that this presage and foretoken of good lucke hapned unto _Aeneas_: and verily at the battell of _Leuctres_, the Thebanes began to breake the ranks of their enemies, and to discomfit them with the left wing of their battel, and thereby in the end atchieved a brave victorie; whereupon ever after in all their conflicts, they gave preference and the honour of leading and giving the first charge, to the left wing.
Or rather, is it not as _Juba_ writeth, because that when we looke toward the sunne rising, the North side is on our left hand, and some will say, that the North is the right side and upper part of the whole world. But consider I pray you, whether the left hand being the weaker of the twaine, the presages comming on that side, doe not fortifie and support the defect of puissance which it hath, and so make it as it were even and equall to the other? Or rather considering that earthly and mortall things they supposing to be opposite unto those that be heavenly and immortall, did not imagine consequently, that whatsoever was on the left in regard of us, the gods sent from their right side.
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