“Men could not be contented to take the Oracle just as it came piping hot from the Mouth of their God. But perhaps, when they had come a great way for it, they thought it would look silly to carry home an Oracle in Prose.”

— Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle

The History of Oracles, and the Cheats of the Pagan Priests (1688)
Context: So that at length the Priests of Delphos being quite baffled with the railleries of those learned Wits, renounced all Verses, at least as to the speaking them from the Tripos; for there were still some Poets maintain'd in the Temple, who at leisure turned into Verse, what the Divine fury had inspired the Pythian Priestess withal in Prose. It was very pretty, that Men could not be contented to take the Oracle just as it came piping hot from the Mouth of their God. But perhaps, when they had come a great way for it, they thought it would look silly to carry home an Oracle in Prose.<!--pp. 221-222

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Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle13

French writer, satirist and philosopher of enlightenment 1657–1757

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