What’s the origin of the phrase ‘A dish fit for the gods’?
From Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, 1601:
BRUTUS:
Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,
To cut the head off and then hack the limbs,
Like wrath in death and envy afterwards;
For Antony is but a limb of Caesar:
Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood:
O, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit,
And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,
Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods…
In this speech Brutus expresses the view that, although the conspirators are resolved to kill Caesar, they aren’t mere butchers and should leave his body in a suitable state for the gods to view.
See other - phrases and sayings from Shakespeare.