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Quote of the Day: Pythagoras on Beans
“Abstain from beans.” — Pythagoras of Samos
Pythagoras has a reputation as having been a somewhat odd dude. Perhaps a charlatan, perhaps a thaumaturge. One thing that many sources say is that he urged his followers to abstain from beans. About a thousand years ago when I was in school, it was explained to me that he did this because the Ancients believed that beans gathered spirits of the dead, and this is why they created gas, because the spirit was the breath.
A much more interesting explanation I ran across much later was that voting was done with beans, so by saying “Abstain from beans,” what Pythagoras meant was, “Stay away from politics.” Well, who could argue with that?
Published in History
Also the prototypical western anti-materialist philosopher.
No, it wasn’t Plato.
Plato got his anti-materialism from Pythagoras.
Also, mathematical realism is a cool theory!
Evil spirits, eh?
They only smelled that way.
It would explain the brimstone.
Fun post! I have a cookbook from the fantastic artist Nava Atlas that has illustrations, folklore and quotes.
Here’s a snapshot of the page on Pythagoras:
Apparently Plutarch said the thing about beans and voting in 95 AD:
Nearly 150 years previous, Cicero had commented on the Pythagoreans avoidance of beans as follows:
This is my favorite bean story, and I’ll quote it here:
Here’s a song about haying and beans that I love:
Whole mountains of philosophical lore I knew not of.
Wot wot, Old Bean?
@cbtoderakamamatoad, I had no idea how beanophilic you were.
My sister is nicknamed Been (not Bean) and her husband is Frank.
Frank’s and Been’s…
This conversation is a real gas.
I contain multitudes.
Glad you’re several states away and the prevailing weather patterns go the other way.
Thaumaturge. Definition: “magician, conjurer.” I looked it up. Good word, Arahant. Glad to know Pythagoras was an early environmentalist focused on clean air.
(Can I just share this here without hijacking? The woman who wrote that cookbook pictured above is Nava Atlas. She had an art exhibit at my library recently that was simply fantastic. I took a picture of this one which I think people here might appreciate, which quotes D. Rivera: “Stop living vicariously through Frida Kahlo’s pain and suffering and experience your own.”)
The problems of little people don’t amount to a pile of garbanzos in this crazy world.
– Pythagoras
Thanks, @arahant. I always wondered, what was Pythagoras’s angle? Now I know it was right.
We called my youngest sister Beanie her whole life.
Thanks for doing the heavy lifting.
The fellow had some rather odd ideas, and seems to have been obsessed with diet, he and his followers being known as some of the first who chose vegetarianism as a way of life (maybe something to do with ideas about the transmigration of the soul, and that one’s soul might come back in an animal of some sort. I suppose coming back as a cow or a sheep, only to realize that in a previous life one had eaten cousin Mabel, or uncle Harold, would be devastating).
But I can’t help feeling that the prohibition on beans, considering the close quarters in which most of those folks lived, was more in self-defense than anything else. This post reminded me of “Beans, Beans, The Musical Fruit,” as Mr. She’s kids used to sing it when they were young. Haven’t thought about that for decades. Thanks for the memory.
If Pythagoras had wanted them to eschew politics, wouldn’t he have told them to steer clear of potsherds too?
I have nothing else to add to this conversation.
But beans are high in protein. Without beans there never would have been agricultural surplus and therefore cities. And if you are a vegetarian, where will you get your protein if not from beans?
And guess what…. They’re just as dead as carnivores.
That is a counter-argument I thought of.
But that is a fine addition, especially the “What in the Wide World of Sports is going on here?!?” The thread has definitely gone there.
Arahant,
After digesting this post, I felt great pressure to comment, but it’s passed now and I feel great relief.
But I will just mention the namecalling thing: My whole life–even in kindergarten– it has been my practice never to call anyone a thaumaturge.