Kitap 4
11
Aristoxenus also relates that Pythagoras ate very young pigs and tender kids. This fact he seems to have learned from his intimate friend Xenophilus the Pythagorean and from some other older men, who lived not long after the time of Pythagoras. And the same information about animal food is given by the poet Alexis, in the comedy entitled The Pythagorean Bluestocking. Fr. 199, Kock. Furthermore, the reason for the mistaken idea about abstaining from beans seems to be, that in a poem of Empedocles, who was a follower of Pythagoras, this line is found: Fr. 141, Diehls. O wretches, utter wretches, from beans withhold your hands. For most men thought that kua/mous meant the vegetable, according to the common use of the word. But those who have studied the poems of Empedocles with greater care and knowledge say that here kua/mous refers to the testicles, and that after the Pythagorean manner they were called in a covert and symbolic way ku/amoi, because they are the cause of pregnancy and furnish the power for human generation: Associating ku/amos with kuei=n to conceive. and that therefore Empedocles in that verse desired to keep men, not from eating beans, but from excess in venery.
