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Question 72. Why would they have the lanthorns of
the soothsaying priests (which formerly they called Auspices, and now Augures) to be always open at top, and no
cover to be put upon them?
Solution. Is it as the Pythagoreans do, who make little
things symbols of great matters,—as forbidding to sit down
upon a bushel and to stir up the fire with a sword,—so
that the ancients used many enigmatical ceremonies, especially about their priests, and such was this of the lanthorn?
For the lanthorn is like the body encompassing the soul,
the soul being the light withinside, and the understanding
and judgment ought to be always open and quick-sighted,
and never to be shut up or blown out. And when the
winds blow, the birds are unsettled and do not afford sound
prognostics, by reason of their wandering and irregularity
in flying; by this usage therefore they teach that their
soothsayers must not prognosticate when there are high
winds, but in still and calm weather, when they can use
their open lanthorns.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 2.
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