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Even if the authorship is accepted without hesitation, there is little else that is certain except that the Stoics are constantly under attack, though rather less directly than in the preceding dialogue. There is grave doubt about the title: is it no. 127 or no. 135 in the Lamprias Catalogue? Or, as it has become popular to call it, is it really the Gryllus?Ziegler (RE, s.v. Plutarchos, 743) says that Gryllus is impossible in spite of the Platonic examples, but appears to admit Ammonius (no. 84 in the Lamprias Catalogue). There are a number of troublesome lacunae; the work, as it stands, ends suddenly with a gay witticism instead of being continued to a more conventional termination.See the last note on 992 e infra. It is only too likely that the more mature Plutarch would have gone on and on; but what would the clever young man who concocted this conceit have done?Curiously enough, Xenophon is the most famous son of the historical Gryllus and he is said to have been once a prisoner in Boeotia (Philostratus, Vit. Soph. 12).
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For once, there is a good translation, or paraphrase, the German one of Bruno Snell in his Plutarch (Zürich, 1948), though this version gives almost too exciting an impression of vivacity and wit by omitting the more tiresome sections.
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Those interested in Gryllus’ remarks on the indecent ways in which men pervert animals to their taste will find a sympathetic exposition in E. G. Boulenger’s Animal Mysteries (London, 1927).
(The speakers in the dialogue are Odysseus, Circe, and Gryllus.)
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ODYSSEUS. These facts,For the beginning cf. Horace, Sat. ii. 5. 1: Haec quoque, Teresia, praeter narrata, a form which is assumed to go back to Menippus. Circe, I believe I have learned and shall not forget them; yet I should be happy to learn from you further whether there are any Greeks among those whom you have changed from the shape of men into wolves and lions.
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CIRCE. Quite a few, beloved Odysseus. But what is your reason for asking this question?
