SUPERSTITION is merely cowardice in regard to the supernatural
The superstitious man will wash his hands in the morning, sprinkle himself from the vessels in the temple, place a laurel leaf in his mouth, and thus go about all day
If a weasel runs across his path, he will not go on until someone has crossed the road, or he has thrown three stones across it.
When he notices a snake in the house, if it is a brown one he calls on Sabazios, if it is a sacred one he sets up an enclosure on the spot.
He pours oil from his flask on the smooth stones at the crossways, and having knelt down and worshipped them, goes on.
If a mouse eats through a meal sack, off he goes to the interpreter of omens to ask what he is to do, and if he gets the answer ‘Give it to the shoemaker and get it sewn up again,’ he pays no attention, but goes away and tries to expiat the omen by sacrifice. He will purify his house perpetually, saying that Hekate has been brought into it by witchcraft. If an owl screeches as he passes be cries out in alarm ‘May Athene avert the omen,’ and goes on.
He will not touch a tomb with his foot or come near a corpse or a woman with child, saying he must guard against being defiled.
On the fourth and twenty-fourth of each month he commands his servants to mix wine, and goes out and purchases myrtle, frankincense, and cakes, and returning, pours libations, makes sacrifices, and crowns the Hermaphrodites all the rest of the day.
When he has had a dream he visits the interpreters of dreams, the soothsayers, the augurs, to ask to what God or Goddess he should pray, and will he initiated into the Orphic mysteries.
He will of a certainty be one of those people who sprinkle themselves with sea water on the shore, going off for that purpose every month with his wife, or if she has not the time, with the nurse and children. If ever he sees anyone feasting on the garlic left for Hekate at the crossroads he runs away, pours water over his head and gets the priestess to carry a squill or a puppy round him to purify him. And if he sees a madman or an epileptic he straightway shivers and spits into his own bosom.
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