Dogged

Sir Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Snyders, Pythagoras Advocating Vegetarianism (1628–30), Royal Collection Trust, United Kingdom

They say that, passing a belabored whelp,

He, full of pity, spake these words of dole:

“Stay, smite not! ’Tis a friend, a human soul;

I knew him straight when I heard him yelp!”

—Xenophanes on his contemporary Pythagoras, who claimed to remember his past lives

Xenophanes, castigator of Hesiod and Homer,

sold into slavery but manumitted

by Pythagoreans, lived to a great age and buried his sons with his own hands.

He believed that God is spherical and nothing like a man;

that worlds are numberless but keep different times;

that it’s impossible to find a wise man—

since it takes one to recognize one;

and that those who are not wise are mad.

A sporadic poet and philosopher, he flourished during the 60^th Olympiad—

which was around 540 BCE to you and me.

Source: Roughly based on Diogenes Laertius, "Xenophanes," translated by A. Robert Caponigri

Tuesday, January 20, 2026