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We also, perhaps, ought to have this frame of mind. But as it is, we act as if we were anxious and fearful lest the place here lose the repute of its three thousand years, and some few persons should cease to come here, contemning the oracle as if it were the lecturing of some popular speaker; and we offer a plea in defence and invent reasons and arguments for matters which we do not understand, and which it is not fitting that we should understand. We try to appease and win over the man who complains, instead of bidding him take his leave for all time, Since for himself first of all it will prove to be more distressing,Adapted from Homer, Od. ii. 190. if the opinion which he holds about the god is such that he can accept and admire the maxims Cf. Moralia, 164 b, 385 d, 511 a. of the Wise Men inscribed here, Know thyself and Avoid extremes, because of their conciseness especially, since this very conciseness contains in small compass a compact and firmly=forged sentiment, and yet he can impeach the oracles because they give nearly all their communications in brief, simple, and straightforward language. Now such sayings as these of the Wise Men are in the same case with streams forced into a narrow channel, for they do not keep the transparency or translucence of the sentiment, but if you will investigate what has been written and said about them by men desirous of learning fully the why and wherefore of each, you will not easily find more extensive writings on any other subject. And as for the language of the prophetic priestess, just as the mathematicians call the shortest of lines between two points a straight line, so her language makes no bend nor curve nor doubling nor equivocation, but is straight in relation to the truth; yet, in relation to men’s confidence in it, it is insecure and subject to scrutiny, but as yet it has afforded no proof of its being wrong. On the contrary, it has filled the oracular shrine with votive offerings and gifts from barbarians and Greeks, and has adorned it with beautiful buildings and embellishments provided by the Amphictyonic Council. You yourselves, of course, see many additions in the form of buildings not here before and many restored that were dilapidated and in ruins. As beside flourishing trees others spring up, so also does PylaeaA suburb of Delphi, presumably on the road to the Crisa, meeting-place of the Amphictyonic Council. grow in vigour along with Delphi and derives its sustenance from the same source; because of the affluence here it is acquiring a pattern and form and an adornment of shrines and meeting-places and supplies of water such as it has not acquired in the last thousand years.
