that if a man begin at one and reckon on still numbring upright unto foure hee shall make up ten surpasse he once the quaternarie he is gone beyond the denarie as for example one and two make three three thereto arise to sixe put thereto foure and you have ten insomuch as number collected by unities resteth in ten but the force and puissance thereof 〈◊〉 in foure The Pythagoreans therefore were wont to sweare by the quaternarie or number of foure which they held to be the 〈◊〉 oath that they could take as appeereth by this Distichon I sweare by this quaternity That 〈◊〉 our soules fountaine Which of natures eternity Doth seed and root containe And our soule as he saith doth consist of the quaternary number for there is in it understanding science opinion and sence from whence proceedeth all manner of art and knowledge and whereupon we our selves are called reasonable as for understanding it is that unity for that it conceiveth and knoweth not but by unitie as for example There being many men they are not every one in particular subject to our senses but incomprehensible and infinit mary in our understanding we conceive and apprehend this one man alone unto whom none is like and so in our cogitation we consider one man onely but if they bee considered particularly apart they are infinit for all these genders and kindes are in unitie and therefore when the question is asked of a particular man what he is we yeeld a generall definition and say He is a reasonable creature apt to discourse by reason and so likewise of this or that horse wee must answer That hee is a living creature having a propertie to neigh. Thus you see how understanding is unity whereby we understand these things but the binary or number of two is by good right an indefinit science for all demonstration and proofe of any science yea and moreover all manner of syllogisme or argumentation doth collect a conclusion which was doubtfull of certeine premised propositions confessed as true whereby it sheweth easily another thing whereof the comprehension is science and so it appeereth that science by a likelihood is the binarie number but opinion by good reason may be said the ternary number by comprehension for that opinion is of many and the ternarie number implieth a pluralitie or multitude as we may see by the poet when he saith Thrice happy men Those Greeks were then And for this cause Pythagoras made no reckoning of three whose sect bare the name of Italique for that he not able to endure the tyrannicall dominion of Polycrates departed from Samos his native country and went to keepe his schoole in Italy HERACLYTUS and HIPPASUS the Metapontine were of opinion that Fire was the principle and beginning of all for of fire say they all things are made and in fire they shal have an end and when it is extrinct and quenched the universall world is in this manner engendred and framed for first and formost the grosest part thereof being condensate and thrust together into it selfe becommeth earth and afterwards when the same earth is resolved by fire it turneth to be water which when it doth evaporate is converted into aire againe the whole world and all the bodies therein conteined shall be one day consumed by fire in that generall conflagration and burning of all whereby hee concludeth that fire is the beginning of all things as that whereof all was made and the end likewise for that all things are resolved into it EPICURUS the Athenian sonne of Neocles following the philosophie of Democritus saith That the principles of all things be certeine Atomes that is to say little bodies indivisible and by reason onely perceptible the same solide and admitting no vacuitie not engendred immortall eternall incorruptible such as neither can be broken nor receive any forme of the parts ne yet be otherwise altered These quoth he being perceptible comprehended by reason moove notwithstanding in emptinesse and by emptinesse as the same voidnesse is infinite so the said bodies also be in number infinit howbeit these three qualities are incident unto them figure bignesse and waight for DIMOCRITUS allowed them but twaine to wit bignesse and figure but Epicurus added unto them a third namely poise or ponderositie For these bodies quoth he must of necessitie moove by the permission of the weight otherwise they could not possibly stirre the figures also of their bodies hee said were comprehensible and not infinit and these were neither hooked nor three-forked ne yet round in manner of a ring for such formes are apt to breake as for the Atomes themselves they be impassible and infrangible having certeine figures no otherwise perceptible but by reason and such a body is called Atomus not in this regard that it is the least of all but for that it cannot be divided as being impassible and admitting no vacuitie and therefore he that nameth an Atome saith as much as infrangible impassible and without vacuitie now that there is such an indivisible body called Atomus it is apparent for that there be elements eternall bodies void and an unitie EMPEDOCLES an Agrigentine the sonne of Meton saith There be foure elements fire aire water and earth also two principall faculties or powers namely 〈◊〉 and discord or amitie and enmitie of which the one hath puissance to unite the other to dissolve and these be his words Foure seeds and rootes of all things that you see Now listen first and hearken what they be Lord Jupiter with hisignipotence And lady Junoes vit all influence Rich Pluto and dame Nestis weeping ay Who with her teares our seed-sourse weets alway By Jupiter hee meaneth fierie heat and ardent skie by Juno giving life the aire by Pluto the earth by Nestis and this humane fountaine of naturall seed water SOCRATES the sonne of Sophroniscus and PLATO the sonne of Ariston both Athenians for the opinions of them both concerning the world and all things therein be the same have set downe three principles God Matter and Idea that is to say Forme God is an universall spirit or Minde Matter is the first and principall subject of generation and corruption Idea an incorporall substance resting in the thoughts and cogitations of God which God is the generall soule and intelligence of the world ARISTOTELES of Stagira the sonne of Nichomachus hath put downe for Principles these three to wit a certaine forme called Eutelectus Matter and Privation for elements foure and for a fifth Quintessence the heavenly bodie which is immutable ZENO the sonne of Mnaseas a Citican borne holdeth for two principles God and Mtater whereof the one is an active and efficient cause and the other passive and besides foure elements CHAP. IIII. How the the world was framed THis world then became composed formed in a round figure bending and coping after this manner those Atomes or indivisible bodies having an accidentarie and inconsiderate motion stirring continually and
none And if we will bring evill into the world without a precedent cause principle to beget it we shall run and fall into the difficult perplexities of the Stoicks for of those two principles which are it cannot be that either the good or that which is altogether without forme and quality whatsoever should give being or beginning to that which is naught Neither hath Plato done as some that came after him who for want of seeing and understanding a third principle and cause betweene God and matter have runne on end and tumbled into the most absurd and falsest reasons that is devising forsooth I wot not how that the nature of evill should come without forth casually and by accident or rather of the owne accord forasmuch as they will not graunt unto Epicurus that the least atome that is should turne never so little or decline a side saying that he bringeth in a rash and inconsiderate motion without any cause precedent whereas they themselves the meane-while affirme that sin vice wickednesse and ten thousand other deformities and imperfections of the body come by consequence without any cause efficient in the principles But Plato saith not so for he ridding matter from al different quality and remooving farre from God all cause of evill thus hath hee written as touching the world in his Politiques The world quoth he received al good things from the first author who created it but what evill thing soever there is what wickednesse what injustice in heaven the same it selfe hath from the exterior habitude which was before and the same it doth transmit give to the creatures beneath And a little after he proceedeth thus In tract of time quoth he as oblivion tooke holde and set sure footing the passion and imperfection of the old disorder came in place and got the upper hand more and more and great danger there is least growing to dissolution it be plunged againe into the vast gulfe and bottomlesse pit of confused dissimilitude But dissimilitude there can be none in matter by reason that it is without qualitie and void of all difference whereof Eudemus among others being ignorant mocked Plato for not putting that to be the cause source and first originall of evill things which in many places he calleth mother and nurse for Plato indeed tearmeth matter mother and nurse but he saith likewise That the cause of evill is the motive puissance resiant in the said matter which is in bodies become divisible to wit a reasonlesse and disorderly motion howbeit for all that not without soule which plainly and expresly in his books of lawes he tearmeth a soule contrary and repugnant to that which is the cause of all good for that the soule may well be the cause and principle of motion but understanding is the cause of order and harmony in motion for God made not the matter idle but hath kept it from being any any more 〈◊〉 troubled with a foolish and rash cause neither hath he given unto nature the beginnings and principles of mutations and passions but being as it was enwrapped and enfolded with all sorts of passions and inordinate mutations hee cleered it of all enormities disorders and errors whatsoever using as proper instruments to bring about all this numbers measures and proportions the effect whereof is not to give unto things by mooving and mutation the passions and differences of the other and of diversitie but rather to make them infallible firme and stable yea and like unto those things which are alwaies of one sort and evermore resemble themselves This is in my judgement the minde and sentence of Plato whereof my principall proofe and argument is this that by this interpretation is salved that contrariety which men say and seemeth indeed to be in his writings for a man would not attribute unto a drunken sophister much lesse than unto Plato so great unconstance and repugnance of words as to affirme one and the same nature to be created and uncreated and namely in his booke entituled Phaedrus that the soule is eternall and uncreated but in Timaeus that it was created and engendied Now as touching those words of his in the treatise Phaedrus they are well neere in every mans mouth verie rife whereby he prooveth that the soule can not perish because it was never engendred and semblably he prooveth that generation it had none because it mooveth it selfe Againe in the booke entituled Timaeus God quoth he hath not made the soule to be yoonger than the body according as now in this place we purpose to say that it commeth after it for never would he have permitted that the elder being coupled and linked with the yoonger should be commaunded by it But we standing much I wot not how upon inconsiderate rashnesse and vanity use to speake in some sort accordingly for certaine it is that God hath with the bodie joined the soule as precedent both in creation and also in power and vertue like as the dame or mistresse with her subject for to rule and commaund Againe when he had said that the soule being turned upon her selfe began to live a wise and eternall life The body of the heaven quoth he was made visible but the soule invisible participating the discourse of reason and of harmony engendred by the best of things intellectuall and eternall being likewise it selfe the best of things engendred and temporall Where it is to be noted that in this place expresly calling God the best of all eternall things and the soule the best of things created and temporall by this most evident antithesis and contrariety he taketh from the soule that eternity which is without beginning and procreation And what other solution or reconciliation is there of these contradictions but that which himself giveth to those who are willing to receive it for he pronounceth that soule to be ingenerable and not procreated which mooved all things rashly and disorderly before the constitution of the world but contrariwise he calleth that procreated and engendred which Godframed and composed of the first and of a parmanent eternall and perfect good substance namely by creating it wise and well ordered and by putting and conferring even from himselfe unto sense understanding and order unto motion which when he had thus made he ordained and appointed it to be the governor and regent of the whole world And even after the same maner he pronounceth that the body of the world is in one sort eternall to wit not created nor engendred and after another sort both created and engendred For when he saith that whatsoever is visible was never at rest but mooved rashly and without all order and that God tooke the same disposed and ranged it in good order as also when he saith that the fowre generall elements fire water earth and aire before the whole world was of them framed and ordered decently made a woonderfull trouble trembling as it were in the matter and were mightily shaken by
in him somewhat better and somewhat worse And verily by that meanes he that hath the worse part obedient to the better hath powre over himselfe yea and better than himselfe whereas he that suffreth the brutish and unreasonable part of his soule to command and go before so as the better and more noble part doth follow and is serviceable unto it he no doubt is worse than himselfe he is I say incontinent or rather impotent and hath no power over himselfe but disposed contrary to nature For according to the course and ordinance of nature meet and fit it is that reason being divine and heavenly should command and rule that which is sensuall and voide of reason which as it doth arise and spring out of the very bodie so it resembleth it as participating the properties and passions thereof yea and naturally is full of them as being deepely concorporate and throughly mixed therewith As it may appeere by all the motions which it hath tending to no other things but those that be materiall and corporall as receiving their augmentations and diminutions from thence or to say more properly being stretched out and let slacke more or lesse according to the mutations of the body Which is the cause that young persons are quicke prompt and audacious rash also for that they be full of bloud and the same hot their lusts and appetites are likewise firy violent and furious whereas contrariwise in old folke because the source of concupiscence seated about the liver is after a sort quenched yea and become weake and feeble reason is more vigorous and predominant in them as much as the sensuall and passionate part doth languish and decay together with the body And verily this is that which doth frame and dispose the nature of wilde beasts to divers passions For it is not long of any opinions good or bad which arise in them that some of them are strong venterous and fearelesse yea and ready to withstand any perils presented before them others againe be so surprised with feare and fright that they dare not stirre or do any thing but the force and power which lieth in the bloud in the spirits and in the whole bodie is that which causeth this diversitie of passions by reason that the passible part growing out of the flesh as from a roote doeth bud soorth and bring with it a qualitie and pronenesse semblable But in man that there is a sympathie and fellow mooving of the body together with the motions of the passions may be prooved by the pale colour the red flushing of the face the trembling of the joints and panting and leaping of the heart in feare and anger And againe on the contrary side by the dilations of the arteries heart and colour in hope and expectation of some pleasures But when as the divine spirit and understanding of man doeth moove of it selfe alone without any passion then the body is at repose and remaineth quiet not communicating nor participating any whit with the operation of the minde and intendement no more than it being disposed to studie upon any Mathematicall proposition or other science speculative it calleth for the helpe and assistance of the unreasonable part By which it is manifest that there be two distinct parts in us different in facultie and power one from another In summe Go through the universall world althings as they themselves affirme and evident experience doth convince are governed and ordred some by a certeine habitude others by nature some by sensuall and unreasonable soule others by that which hath reason and understanding Of all which man hath his part at once yea and was borne naturally with these differences above said For conteined he is by an habitude nourished by nature reason understanding he useth he hath his portion likewise of that which is unreasonable and inbred there is together with him the source and primitive cause of passions as a thing necessarie for him neither doth it enter into him from without in which regard it ought not to be extirped utterly but hath neede onely of ordering and government whereupon Reason dealeth not after the Thracian maner nor like king Lycurgus who commanded all vines without exception to be cut downe because wine caused drunkennes it rooteth not out I say all affections indifferently one with another the profitable as well as the hurtfull but like unto the good gods 〈◊〉 and Hemorides who teach us to order plants that they may fructifie and to make them gentle which were savage to cut away that which groweth wilde and ranke to save all the rest and so to order and manage the same that it may serve for good use For neither do they shed and spill their wine upon the floure who are afraid to be drunke but delay the same with water nor those who feare the violence of a passion do take it quite away but rather temper and qualifie the same like as folke use to breake horses and oxen from their flinging out with their heeles their stiffenes curstnes of the head stubburnes in receiving the bridle or the yoke but do not restreine them of other motions in going about their worke and doing their deed And even so verily reason maketh good use of these passions when they be well tamed and brought as it were to hand without over weakning or rooting out cleane that part of the soule which is made for to second reason and do it good service For as Pindarus saith The horse doth serve in chariot at the thill The oxe at plough doth labour hardin field Who list in chase the wild Bore for to kill The hardy hound he must provide with skill And I assure you the entertainment of these passions and their breed serve in farre better stead when they doe assist reason and give an edge as it were and vigour unto vertues than the beasts above named in their kind Thus moderate ire doth second valour and fortitude hatred of wicked persons helpeth the execution of Iustice and indignation is just and due unto those who without any merit or desert enjoie the felicitie of this life who also for that their heart is puffed up with foolish arrogancie and enflamed with disdainfull pride and insolence in regard of their prosperitie have need to be taken downe and cooled Neither is a man able by any meanes would he never so faine to separate from true friendship naturall indulgence and kind affection nor from humanitie commiseration and pitie ne yet from perfect benevolence and good will the fellowiship in joy and sorrow Now if it be true as it is indeed that they do grossely erre who would abolish all love because of foolish and wanton love surely they do amisse who for covertousnes sake and greedines of money do blame and condemne quite all other appetites and desires They do I say asmuch as those who would sorbid running altogether because a man may stumble and catch a fall as he runneth
lay hand as it were upō your person in the presence of so many men Whereupon Ptolomaeus being mooved at these suggestions sent unto the man a cup of poison with cōmandement that he should drinke it off Aristophanes also casteth this in Cleon his teeth For that when strangers were in place The towne with termes he did disgrace and thereby provoke the Athenians bring their high displeasure upon him And therfore this regard would be had especially above all others that when we would use our libertie of speech we do it not by way of ostentation in a vaine glorie to be popular and to get applause but onely with an intention to profit and do good yea and to cure some infirmitie thereby Over and besides that which Thucydides reporteth of the Corinthians how they gave out of themselves and not unfitly that it belonged unto them and meet men they were to reproove others the same ought they to have in them that will take upon them to be correctours of other persons For like as Lysander answered to a certeine Megarian who put himselfe forward in an assemblie of associates and allies to speake frankely for the libertie of Greece These words of yours my friend would beseeme to have beene spoken by some puissant State or citie even so it may be said to every one that will seeme freely to reprehend another that he had need himselfe to be in maners wel reformed And this most truly ought to be inferred upon all those that wil seeme to chastice and correct others namely to be wiser and of better government than the rest for thus Plato protested that he reformed Speusippus by example of his owne life and Xenocrates likewise casting but his eie upon Polemon who was come into his schoole like a Ruffian by his very looke onely reclaimed him from his loose life whereas on the contrary side if a light and lewd person one that is full of bad conditions himselfe would seeme to finde fault with others and be busie with his tongue he must be sure alwaies to heare this on both sides of his eares Himselfe all full of sores impure Will others seeme to heale and cure Howbeit forasmuch as oftentimes the case standeth so that by occasion of some affaires we be driven to chastice those with whom we converse when we our selves are culpable and no better than they the most cleanly least offensive way to do it is this To acknowledge in some sort that we be likewise faulty and to include and comprehend our owne persons together with them after which maner is that reproose in Homer Sir Diomede what aileth us how is it come about That we should thus forget to fight who earst were thought so stout Also in another place And now we all unwoorthy are With Hector onely to compare Thus Socrates mildly and gently would seeme to reproove yoong men making semblance as if himselfe were not void of ignorance but had need also to be instructed in vertue and professing that he had need with them to search for the knowledge of trueth for such commonly do win love and credit yea and sooner shall be beleeved who are thought subject to the same faults and seeme willing to correct their friends like as they do their owne selves whereas he who spreadeth and displaieth his owne wings in clapping other mens justifying himselfe as if he were pure sincere faultlesse and without all affections and infirmities unlesse he be much elder than we or in regard of some notable and aprooved vertue in farre higher place of authoritie and in greater reputation than our selves he shall gaine no profit nor do any good but be reputed a busie body and troublesome person And therefore it was not without just cause that good Phoenix in speaking to Achilles alledged his owne misfortunes and namely how in a fit of choler he had like one day to have killed his owne father but that sodeinly he bethought himselfe and changed his minde Least that among the Greekes I should be nam'd A parricide and ever after sham'd which he did no doubt to this end because he would not seeme in childing him to arrogate this praise unto himselfe that he was not subject to anger nor had ever done amisse by occasion of that infirmitie and passion Certes such admonitions as these enter and pierce more effectually into the heart for that they are thought to proceed from a tender compassion and more willing are we to yeeld unto such as seeme to have suffred the like than to those that despise and contemne us But forasmuch as neither the eie when it is inflamed can abide any cleere and shining light nor a passionate minde endure franke speech or a plaine and bare reprehension one of the best and most profitable helps in this case is to intermingle there with a little praise as wereade thus in Homer Now sure me thinks you do not well thus for to leave the field Who all are knowen for doughty knights and best with speare and shield A coward if I saw to slee him would I not reproove But such as you thus for to shrinke my heart doth greatly moove Likewise O Pandar where is now thy bowe where are thine arrowes flight Where is that honour in which none with thee dare strive in fight And verily such oblique reprehensions also as these are most effectuall and woonderfull in reclaming those that be ready to run on end and fall to some grosse enormities as for example What is become of wise Oedipus In riddles areeding who was so famous Also And Hercules who hath endur'd such paine Speakes he these words so foolish and so vaine For this kinde of dealing doth not onely asswage and mitigate the roughnesse and commanding power that is in a reprehension and rebuke but also breedeth in the partie in such sort reprooved a certeine emulation of himselfe causing him to be abashed and ashamed for any follies and dishonest pranks when he remembreth and calleth to minde his other good parts and commendable acts which by this meanes he setteth before his eies as examples and so taketh himselfe for a paterne and president of better things But when we make comparison betweene him and others to wit his equals in age his fellow-citizens or kinsefolks then his vice which in the owne nature is stubburne and opinionative enough becommeth by that meanes more froward and exasperate and often times he will not sticke in a sume and chase to fling away and grumble in this wise Why goe you not then to those that are so much better than I why can you not let me alone but thus trouble me as you do And therefore we must take heed especially that whiles we purpose to tel one plainly of his faults we do not praise others unlesse haply they be his parents as Agamemnon did unto Diomedes A sonne iwis sir Tideus left behinde Unlike himselfe and much growen out of kinde And ulysses in the Tragedie entituled
notwithstanding that they do reape commoditie find favour at their hands who prosper more than they yet they grieve and vexe thereat envying them still both for their good mind to benefit them and for their might and abilitie to performe the same for that the one proceedeth from vertue and the other from an happie estate both which are good things We may therefore conclude that envie is a passion farre different from hatred since it is so that wherewith the one is appeased and mollified the other is made more exasperate and greevous But let us consider a little in the end the scope and intention aswel of the one as the other Certes the man that is malicious purposeth fully to do him a mischiefe whom he hateth so that this passion is defined to be a disposition and forward will to spie out an occasion opportunitie to wait another a shrewd turne but surely this is not in envie for many there be who have an envious eie to their kinsfolke and companions whom they would not for all the good in the world see either to perish or to fall into any greevous calamitie onely they are greeved to see them in such prosperitie and would impeach what they can their power and ecclypse the brightnesse of their glorie mary they would not procure nor desire their utter overthrow nor any distresses remedilesse or extreame miseries but it would content and suffice them to take downe their height and as it were the upmost garret or turret of an high house which overlooketh them HOW A MAN MAY RECEIVE PROFIT BY HIS ENEMIES The Summarie AMong the dangerous effects of envie and hatred this is not the least nor one of the last that they shoot as it were from within our adversaries for to slide and enter into us and take possession in our hearts making us beleeve that we shall impeach one evill by another which is as much as to desire to cleanse one or dure by a new and to quench a great fire by putting into it plentie of oile As for hatred it hath another effect nothing lesse pernictous in that it maketh us blinde and causeth us that we can not tell at which end of turning to take our enemies nor know our selves how to reenter into the way of vertue Plutarch willing to cut off such effects by the helpe of morall Philosophie taketh occasion to begin this discourse with a sentence of Xenophon and prooveth in the first place by divers similitudes That a man may take profit by his enemies and this he laieth abroad in particulars shewing that their ambushes and inquisitions serve us in very great stead After this he teacheth us the true way how to be revenged of those that hate us and what we ought to consider in blaming another Now for asmuch as our life is subject to many injuries and calumniations he instructeth us a man may turne all to his owne commoditie which done he presenteth foure remedies and expedient meanes against their standerous language and how we should confound our enemies The first is To conteine our owne tongues without rendring evill for evill the second is To doe them good to love and praise their vertues the third To out-goe them in well doing and the last To provide that vertue remaine alwaies on our side in such sort that if our enemies be vicious yet we persist in doing good and if they cary some shew and apparence of goodnesse we endevour to be indeed and without all comparison better than they HOW A MAN MAY RECEIVE profit by his enemies I See that you have chosen by your selfe ô Cornelius Pulcher the meetest course that may be in the government of common-wealth wherein having a principall regard unto the weale-publike you shew your selfe most gracious and courteous in private to all those that have accesse and repaire unto you Now forasmuch as a man may well finde some countrey in the world wherein there is no venimous beast as it is written of Candie but the management and administration of State affaires was never knowen yet to this day cleere from envie jealousie emulation and contention passions of all other most apt to engender and breed enmities unto which it is subject for that if there were nothing els even amity friendship it selfe is enough to entangle and encomber us with enmities which wise Chilon the Sage knowing well enough demanded upon a time of one who vaunted that he had no enemies whether he had not a friend In regard hereof a man of State and policie in mine opinon among many other things wherein he ought to be well studied should also thorowly know what belongeth to the having of enemies and give good eare unto the saying of Xenophon namely That a man of wit and understanding is to make his profit and benefit by his enemies And therefore having gathered into a pretie Treatise that which came into my minde of late to discourse and dispute upon this matter I have sent unto you written and penned in the very same tearmes as they were delivered having this eie and regard as much as possible I could not to repeat any thing of that which heretofore I had written touching the politike precepts of governing the weale publike for that I see that you have that booke often in your hand Our fore-fathers in the olde world contented themselves in this That they might not be wounded or hurt by strange and savage beasts brought from forren countreys and this was the end of all those combats that they had against such wilde beasts but those who came after have learned moreover how to make use of them not onely take order to keepe themselves from receiving any harme or dammage by them but that which more is have the skill to draw some commoditie from them feeding of their flesh clothing their bodies with their wooll and haire curing and healing their maladies with their gall rennet arming themselves with their hides and skinnes insomuch as now from henceforth it is to be feared and not without good cause lest if beasts should faile and that there were none to be found of men their life should become brutish poore needie and savage And since it is so that whereas other men thinke it sufficient not to be offended or wronged by their enemies Xenophon writeth That the wise reape commodity by their adversaries we have no reason to derogate any thing from his credit but to beleeve him in so saying yea and we ought to search for the method art to attaine and reach unto that benefit as many of us at least-wise as can not possibly live in this world without enemies The husbandman is not able with all his skill to make all sort of trees to cast off their wilde nature and become gentle and domesticall The hunter can not with all his cunning make tame and tractable all the savage beasts of the forrest and therefore they have sought and devised other meanes and
mire confessing and declaring I wot not what sinnes and offenses that he hath committed to wit that he hath eaten or drunke this or that which his god would not permit that he hath walked or gone some whither against the will and leave of the divine power Now say he be of the best sort of these superstitious people and that he labour but of the milder superstition yet will he at leastwise sit within house having about him a number of all kindes of sacrifices and sacred aspersions yee shall have old witches come and bring all the charmes spels and sorceries they can come by and hang them about his necke or other parts of his bodie as it were upon a stake as Bion was woont to say It is reported that Tyribasus when he should have beene apprehended by the Persians drew his cemiter and as hee was a valiant man of his hands defended himselfe valiantly but so soone as they that came to lay hands on him cried out and protested that they were to attach him in the kings name by commission from his Majestie he laid downe his weapon aforesaid immediately and offred both his hands to be bound and pinnioned And is not this whereof we treat the semblable case whereas others withstand their adversitie repell and put backe their afflictions and worke all the meanes they can for to avoide escape and turne away that which they would not have to come upon them A superstitious person will heare no man but speake in this wise to himselfe Wretched man that thou art all this thou suffrest at the hands of God and this is befallen unto thee by his commandement and the divine providence all hope hee rejecteth he doth abandon and betray himselfe and looke whosoever come to succour and helpe him those he shunneth and repelleth from him Many crosses there be and calamities in the world otherwise moderate and tolerable which superstition maketh mischievous and incurable That ancient King Midas in old time being troubled and disquieted much in his minde as it should seeme with certaine dreames and visions in the end fell into such a melancholy and despaire that willingly he made himselfe away by drinking buls blood And Aristodemus king of Messenians in that warre which he waged against the Lacedaemonians when it hapned that the dogs yelled and houled like wolves and that there grew about the altar of his house the herbe called Dent de chien or Dogs grasse whereupon the wisards and soothsayers were afraid as of some tokens presaging evill conceived such an inward griefe tooke so deepe a thought that he fell into desperation and killed himselfe As for Nicias the Generall of the Athenian armie haply it had beene farre better that by the examples of Midas and Aristodemus he had beene delivered and rid from his superstition than for feare of the shadow occasioned by the eclipse of the moone to have sitten stil as he did and do nothing untill the enemies environed and enclosed him round about and after that fortie thousand of Athenians were either put to the sword or taken prisoners to come alive into the hands of his enemies and lose his life with shame and dishonor for in the darkenesse occasioned by the opposition of the earth just in the mids betweene the sunne and the moone whereby her body was shadowed and deprived of light there was nothing for him to feare and namely at such a time when there was cause for him to have stood upon his feet and served valiantly in the field but the darkenesse of blinde superstition was dangerous to trouble and confound the judgement of a man who was possessed therewith at the very instant when his occasions required most the use of his wit and understanding The sea already troubled is With billowes blew within the sound Up to the capes and clifs arise Thicke mistie clouds which gather round About their tops where they do seat Fore-shewing shortly tempests great A good and skilful pilot seeing this doth well to pray unto the gods for to escape the imminent danger and to invocate and call upon those saints for helpe which they after call Saviours but all the while that he is thus at his devout praiers he holdeth the helme hard he letteth downe the crosse saile-yard Thus having struck the maine saile downe the mast He scapes the sea with darknesse overcast Hesiodus giveth the husbandman a precept before he begin to drive the plough or sow his seede To Ceres chaste his vowes to make To Jove likewise god of his land Forgetting not the while to take The end of his plough-taile in hand And Homer bringeth in Ajax being at the point to enter into combat with Hector willing the Greeks to pray for him unto the gods but whiles they praied he forgat not to arme himselfe at all pieces Semblablie Agamemnon after he had given commandement to his souldiours who were to fight Ech one his launce and speare to whet His shield likewise fitly to set then and not before praieth unto Iupiter in this wise O Iupiter vouchsafe me of thy grace The stately hall of Priamus to race for God is the hope of vertue and valour not the pretense of sloth and cowardise But the Iewes were so superstitious that on their Sabbath sitting still even whiles the enemies reared their scaling ladders and gained the walles of their citie they never stirred foot nor rose for the matter but remained fast tied and inwrapped in their superstition as it were in a net Thus you see what superstition is in those occurrences of times and affaires which succeed not to our minde but contrary to our will that is to say in adversity and as for times and occasions of mirth when all things fall out to a mans desire it is no better than impietie or atheisme and nothing is so joyous unto man as the solemnitie of festivall holidaies great feasts and sacrifices before the temples of the gods the mysticall and sacred rites performed when wee are purified and cleansed from our sinnes the ceremoniall service of the gods when wee worship and adore them in which all a superstitious man is no better than the Atheist for marke an Atheist in all these he will laugh at them untill he be ready to go beside himselfe these toies will set him I say into a fit of Sardonian laughing when he shall see their vanities and other-whiles he will not sticke to say softly in the eare of some familiar friend about him What mad folke be these how are they out of their right wits and enraged who suppose that such things as these doe please the gods Setting this aside there is no harme at all in him As for the superstitious person willing he is but not able to joy and take pleasure for his heart is much like unto that city which Sophocles describeth in these verses Which at one time is full of incense sweet Resounding mirth with loud triumphant song And yet the
miserie WHAT PASSIONS AND MALAdies be worse those of the soule or those of the bodie HOmer having viewed and considered very well the sundry sorts of living creatures mortall compared also one kind with another as well in the continuance as the conversation and maner of their life concluded in the end with this exclamation Lo how of creatures all on earth which walke and draw their wind More miserable none there are nor wretched than mankind attributing unto man this unhappie soveraigntie that he hath the superioritie in all miseries whatsoever but we setting this downe for a supposition granted already that man carieth the victorie and surpasseth all others for his infortunitie and is already declared and pronounced the most unhappie wretch of all living creatures will set in hand to compare him with his owne selfe in a certeine conference of his proper calamities that follow him and that by dividing him not in vaine and unfruitfully but very pertinently and to good purpose into the soule and the bodie to the end that wee may learne and know thereby whether we live more miserablie in regard of our soules or our selves that is to say our bodies for a disease in our bodie is engendred by nature but vice and sinne in the soule is first an action but afterwards becommeth a passion thereof so that it is no small consolation but maketh much for the contentment of our minde to know that the worse is curable and the lighter is that which can not be avoided The fox in Aesope pleading upon a time against the leopard as touching the varietie of colours in their skins after that the leopard had shewed her bodie which to the eie and in outward apparence was well marked beset with faire spots whereas the foxes skin was tawny foule and ill-favoured to see to But you quoth he sir Judge if you looke within shall finde me more spotted and divers coloured than that leopard there meaning the craft and subtiltie which he had to turne and change himselfe in divers sorts as need required after the same maner let us say within our selves O man thy body breedeth and bringeth foorth many maladies and passions naturally of it selfe many also it receiveth and enterteineth comming from without but if thou wilt anatomize and open thy selfe thou shalt finde within a save an ambrie nay a store-house and treasurie as Democritus saith of many evils and maladies and those of divers and sundry sorts not entring and running in from abroad but having their originall sources springing out of the ground and home-bred the which vice abundant rich and plenteous in passions putteth forth Now whereas the diseases that possesse the body and the flesh are discovered and knowen by their inflamations and red colour by pulses also or beating of the arteries and namely when the visage is more red or pale than customably it is or when some extraordinarie heat or lassitude without apparent cause bewraieth them contrariwise the infirmities and maladies of the soule are hidden many times unto those that have them who never thinke that they be sicke and ill at ease and in this regard worse they be for that they deprive the patients of the sense and feeling of their sicknesse for the discourse of reason whiles it is sound and hole feeleth the maladies of the bodie but as for the diseases of the soule whiles reason herselfe is sicke she hath no judgement at all of that which she suffereth for the selfe same that should judge is diseased and we are to deeme and esteeme that the principall and greatest maladie of the soule is follie by reason whereof vice being remedilesse and incurable in many is cohabitant in them liveth and dieth with them for the first degree and very beginning of a cure is the knowledge of a disease which leadeth and directeth the patient to seeke for helpe but he who will not beleeve that he is amisse or sicke not knowing what he hath need of although a present remedie were offered unto him will refuse and reject the same And verily among those diseases which afflict the bodie those are counted worst which take a man with a privation of sense as lethargies intolerable head-ach or phrensies epilepsies or falling-evils apoplexies and feavers-ardent for these burning agues many times augment their heat so much that they bring a man to the losse of his right wits and so trouble the senses as it were in a musicall instrument that They stirre the strings at secret root of hart Which touched should not be but lie apart which is the reason that practitioners in physicke desire and wish in the first place that a man were not sicke at all but if hee be sicke that hee be not ignorant and senselesse altogether of his disease a thing that ordinarily befalleth to all those who be sicke in minde for neither witlesse fooles nor dissolute and loose persons ne yet those who be unjust and deale wrongfully thinke that they do amisse and sinne nay some of them are perswaded that they do right well Never was there man yet who esteemed an ague to be health nor the phthisicke or consumption to be a good plight and habit of the bodie nor that the gout in the feet was good footmanship ne yet that to be ruddy and pale or yellow was all one yet you shall have many who are diseased in minde to call hastines and choler valiance wanton love amitie envie emulation and cowardise warie prudence Moreover they that be bodily sicke send for the physicians because they know whereof they stand in need for to heale their diseases whereas the other avoid and shun the sage philosophers for they thinke verily that they do well when they fault most Upon this reason we holde that the ophthalmie that is to say the inflamation of bloud-shotten eies is a lesse maladie than Mania that is to say rage and furious madnesse and that the gout in the feet is nothing so bad as the phrensie which is an inflamation or impostume bred in the braine for the one of these patients finding himselfe diseased crieth out for paine calleth for the physician and no sooner is he come but he sheweth him his diseased eie for to dresse and anoint he holdeth forth his veine for to be opened yeeldeth unto him his head for to be cured whereas you shall heare ladie Agave in the Tragaedios so farre transported out of all sense and understanding by reason of her raging fit that shee knew not those persons which were most deare and entire unto her for thus she saith This little one here newly kild And cut in pieces in the field From hilles we bring to dwelling place How happy ô hath beene our chace As for him who is sicke in bodie presently he yeeldeth thereto he laies him downe upon his pallet or taketh his naked bed he easeth himselfe all that he can and is content and quiet all the while that the physician hath
services and sacrifices be acceptable which a woman will seeme to celebrate by stealth and without the knowledge and privitie of her husband 18 Plato writeth that the citie is blessed and happie wherein a man shall never heare these words This is mine and This is not mine for that the inhabitants thereof have all things there especially if they be of any woorth and importance as neere as possibly they can common among them but these words ought rather to be banished out of the state of matrimonie unlesse it be as the Physicians holde that the blowes or woundes which are given on the left side of the body are felt on the right even so a wife ought to have a fellow-feeling by way of sympathie and compassion of her husbands calamities and the husband of his wives much more to the end that like as those knots are much more fast and strong when the ends of the cords are knit and interlaced one within another even so the bond of marriage is more firme and sure when both parties the one aswell as the other bring with them a mutuall affection and reciprocall benevolence whereby the fellowship and communion betweene them is mainteined jointly by them both for nature herselfe hath made a mixture of us of two bodies to the end that by taking part of one and part of another and mixing all together she might make that which commeth thereof common to both in such sort as neither of the twaine can discerne and distinguish what is proper to the one or peculiar to the other This communion of goods especially ought principally to be among those who are linked in wedlocke for that they should put in common and have all their havorie incorporate into one substance in such wise as they repute not this part proper to one and that part peculiar to another but the whole proper to themselves and nothing to another and like as in one cuppe where there is more water than wine yet we say neverthelesse that the whole is wine even so the goods and the house ought to beare the name of the husband although peradventure the wife brought with her the bigger portion 19 Helene was covetous and Paris lascivious contrariwise Ulysses was reputed wise and Penelope chaste and therefore the mariage of these last named was blessed happie and beloved but the conjunction of those two before infortunate bringing upon the Greeks and Barbarians both a whole Iliad that is to say an infinite masse of miseries and calamities 20 A gentleman of Rome who espoused an honest rich faire and yoong ladie put her away and was divorced from her whereupon being reprooved and sharply rebuked by all his friends he put forth his foot unto them and shewed them his shoo What finde you quoth he in this shoo of mine amisse new it is and faire to see to howbeit there is not one of you all knoweth where it wringeth me but I wot well where the fault is and feele the inconvenience thereof A wife therefore is not to stand so much upon her goods and the dowrie shee brings nor in the nobilitie of her race and parentage ne yet in her beautie as in those points which touch her husband most and come neerest to his heart namely her conversation and fellowship her maners her carrage demeanor in all respects so disposed that they be all not harsh nor troublesome from day to day unto her husband but pleasant lovely obsequious and agreeable to his humor for like as Physicians feare those feavers which are engendred of secret and hidden causes within the bodie gathering in long continuance of time by little and little more than such as proceed from evident and apparent causes without even so there fall out otherwhiles petie jarres daily and continuall quarels betweene man and wife which they see and know full little that be abroad and these they be which breed separation and cause them to part sooner than any thing els these marre the pleasure of their cohabitation more than any other cause whatsoever 21 King Philip was enamoured upon a certaine Thessalian woman who was supposed and charged by her sorceries and charmes to have enchanted him to love her whereupon queene Olympias his wife wrought so that she got the woman into her hands now when she had well viewed her person and considered her beautifull visage her amiable favour her comely grace and how her speech shewed well that she was a woman of some noble house and had good bringing up Out upon these standerous surmises quoth she and false imputations for I see well that the charmes and sorceries which thou usest are in thy selfe In like maner we must thinke that an espoused and legitimate wife is as one would say a fort inexpugnable namely such an one as in her selfe reposing and placing all these things to wit her dowrie nobilitie charmes and love-drinks yea and the very tissue or girdle of Venus by her study and endevour by her gentle behavior her good grace and vertue is able to win the affectionate love of her husband for ever 22 Another time the same queene Olympias hearing that a certaine yoong gentleman of the Court had married a ladie who though she were faire and well-favoured yet had not altogether the best name This man quoth shee hath no wit at all in his head for otherwise hee would never have married according to the counsell and appetite of his eies only And in trueth we ought not to goe about for to contract marriage by the eie or the fingers as some doe who count with their fingers how much money or what goods a wife bringeth with her never casting and making computation of her demeanour and conditions whether she be so well qualified as that they may have a good life with her 23 Socrates was woont to counsell yoong men who used to see their faces and looke upon themselves in mirrours if they were foule or ill-favoured to correct that deformitie by vertue if they were faire not to soile and staine their beautie with vice semblably it were very well that the mistresse of an house having in her hand a looking glasse should say thus unto her selfe if she be foule and deformed What a one should I be if I nought or leawd withall if faire and well-favoured How highly shall I be esteemed if I be honest and wise besides for if an hard-favoured woman be loved for her faire and gentle conditions she hath more honor thereby than if she wan love by beautie onely 24 The tyrant of Sicily Dionysius sent upon a time unto the daughters of Lysander certeine rich robes costly wreathes and precious jewels as presents but Lysander would not receive these gifts saying These presents would bring more shame than honour to my daughters And the Poet Sophocles before Lysanders time wrote to the like effect in these verses This will ô wretch to thee none honour bring But may be thought a foule and shamefull
and wives of the towne fearing lest the enemies would search and rifle their husbands as they went forth of the gates and not once touch and meddle with them tooke unto them short curtelasses or skeines hid them under their clothes and so went forth together with their husbands When they were all out of the towne Annibal having set a guard of Mafaesylians to attend them staied them at the end of the suburbs meane while the rest of his armie without all order put themselves within the citie and fell to the spoile and sackage of it which when the Masaesylians perceived they grew out of all patience could not containe themselves nor looke wel unto their prisoners but were woonderous angrie and in the end meant for to have as good a part and share as the rest of the spoile hereupon the women tooke up a crie and gave unto their husbands the swords which they had brought with them yea some of them fel upon the guard or garrison insomuch as one of them was so bold as to take from Banon the Truchman or interpretor the speare which he had and thrust at him with it but he had on a good corps of a cuirace which saved him but their husbands having wounded some of them and put the rest to flight escaped by this meanes away together in a troupe with their wives which when Annibal understood he set out immediately after them and surprised those who were left behind whiles the rest got away and saved themselves for the present by recovering the mountaines adjoining but after they sent unto Annibal and craved pardon who graciously granted it yea and permitted them to returne in safetie and reinhabit their owne citie THE MILESIAN WOMEN THE Milesian maidens upon a time were surprized with a verie strong passionate fit of a fearfull melancholicke humour without any apparant cause that could be rendred thereof unlesse it were as men most conjectured that the aire was infected and empoisoned which might cause that alienation of the mind and worke a distimperature in their braines to the overthrow of their right wits for all on a sudden every one had a great desire to die and namely in a furious rage would needs hang themselves and in truth many of them secretly knit their neeks in haltars and so were strangled no reasons and remonstrances no teares of father and mother no perswasions and comfortable speeches of their friends would serve the turne but looke what keepers soever they had and how carefully soever they looked unto them they could find meanes of evasion to avoide and goe beyond all their devices and inventions in such sort that it was thought to be some plague and punishment sent from the gods above and such as no humaine provision could remedie untill such time as by the advice of a sage and wise citizen there went foorth a certaine edict and the same enacted by the counsell of the citie That if any one more hapned to hang herselfe she should be carried starke naked as ever she was borne throw the market place in the view of the whole world this proclamation being thus ratified by the common-counsell of the citie did not onely represse for a while but also staied for altother this furious rage of the maidens and their inordinate desire to make themselves away Thus we may see that the fear of dishonor shame infamy is a great signe infallible token of good nature and vertue considering that they feared neither death nor paine which are the most horrible accidents that men can endure howbeit they could not abide the imagination of vilannie shame and dishonor though it hapned not unto them untill they were dead and gone THE WOMEN OF CIO THe maner and custome was for the yoong virgins of Cio to goe altogether unto their publick temples and churches and so to passe the time al the long day there one with another where their lovers who wooed them for marriage might behold them disport and daunce and in the evening they went home to each of their houses in order where they waited upō their fathers and mothers yea and the brethren one of another even to the very washing of their feet Now it hapned sometimes that many yoong men were enamoured of one and the same maide but their love was so modest good and honest that so soone as a maiden was affianced and betrothed unto one all the rest would give over sute so cease to make any more love unto her In summe the good order and cariage of these women of Cio might be knowen in this that in the space of seven hundred yeeres it was never knowen nor appeered upon record that anie wife committed adulterie nor maiden unmaried lost her virgnitie THE WOMEN OF PHOCIS THe tyrants of Phocis surprized upon a time and seized the citie of Delphos by occasion whereof the Thebans made that warre upon them which was called the Holy warre at which time it so befell that the religious women consecrated unto Bacchus named Thyades being bestraught and out of their right wits ranne wandring like vargrants up and downe in the night and knew not whither untill ere they were aware they ranne unto the citie Amphissa where being wearie but yet not come againe to their senses they lay along in the mids of the market place and couched themselves scattering heere and there to take their sleepe the wives of Amphissa being advertised heereof and fearing lest their bodies should be abused by the soldiers of the tyrants whereof there lay a garrison within the citie for that Amphissa was of the league and confederate with the Phocaeans ranne all thither to the place standing round about them with silence and not saying one word and so long as they slept troubled them not but soone as they wakened of themselves and were gotten up they tooke the charge of them gave them meat and each of them looked to one yea and afterwards having gotten leave of their husbands they conveighed and accompanied them in safetie so farre as to the mountains and marches of their owne territorie VALERIA and CLOELIA THe outrage committed upon the person of a Roman ladie named Lucretia and her vertue together were the cause that Tarquinius Superbus the seventh king of the Romanes after Romulus was deprived of his roiall estate and driven out of Rome This dame being married unto a great personage descended of the bloud roiall was abused and forced by one of the sons of the said king Tarquin who was enterteined and friendly lodged in her house by occasion of which villanous fact she called all her kinsfolke and friends together about her unto whom after she had delcared and given them to understand the shamefull dishonour that he had done upon her body she stabbed herselfe in the place before them and Tarquin the father for this cause being deposed from his princely dignitie and chased out of his kingdome levied manie warres against the
before you were acquainted therewith have ordained mine owne sonnes to be judges namely for Asia two Minos and Rhadamanthus and one for Europe to wit Aeacus These therefore after they be dead shall sit in judgement within a meddow at a quarrefour or crosse-way whereof the one leadeth to the fortunate isles the other to hell Rhadamanthus shall determine of them in Asia Aeacus of those in Europe and as for Minos I wil grant unto him a preeminence in judgement above the rest in case there happen some matter unknowen to one of the other two and escape their censure he may upon weighing and examining their opinions give his definitive sentence and so it shall be determined by a most sincere and just doome whether way each one shall goe This is that O Callicles which I have heard and beleeve to be most true whereout I gather this conclusion in the end that death is no other thing than the separation of the soule from the body Thus you see ô Apollonius my most deere friend what I have collected with great care and diligence to compose for you sake a consolatorie oration or discourse which I take to be most necessarie for you as well to asswage and rid away your present griefe to appease likewise and cause to cease this heavinesse and mourning that you make which of all things is most unpleasant and troublesome as also to comprise within it that praise and honour which me thought I owed as due unto the memoriall of your sonne Apollonius of all others exceedingly beloved of the gods which honour in my conceit is a thing most convenient and acceptable unto those who by happie memorie and everlasting glorie are consecrated to immortalitie You shall doe your part therefore and verie wisely if you obey those reasons which are therein conteined you shall gratifie your sonne likewise and doe him a great pleasure in case you take up in time and returne from this vaine affliction wherewith you punish and undoe both bodie and mind unto your accustomed ordinarie and naturall course of life for like as whiles he lived with us he was nothing well appaied and tooke no contentment to see either father or mother sadde and desolate even so now when he converseth and so laceth himselfe in all joy with the gods doubtlesse he cannot like well of this state wherein you are Therefore plucke up your heart and take courage like a man of woorth of magnanimitie and one that loveth his children well release your selfe first and then the mother of the yoong gentleman together with his kinsfolke and friends from this kind of miserie and take to a more quiet peaceable maner of life which will be both to your sonne departed and to all of us who have regard of your person as it becommeth us more agreeable A CONSOLOTARIE LETTER OR DISCOURSE SENT UNTO HIS OWNE WIFE AS TOUCHING THE DEATH OF HER AND HIS DAUGHTER The Summarie PLutarch being from home and farre absent received newes concerning the death of a little daughter of his a girle about two yeeres old named Timoxene a childe of a gentle nature and of great hope but fearing that his wife would apprehend such a lesse too neere unto her heart he comforteth her in this letter and by giving testimonie unto her of vertue and constancie 〈◊〉 at the death of other children of hers more forward in age than she was he exhorteth her likewise to patience and moderation in this newe occurrence and triall of hers condemning by sundry reasons the excessive sorrow and unwoorthy fashion of many fond mothers 〈◊〉 withall the inconveniences that such excessive heavinesse draweth after it Then continuing his consolation of her he declareth with what eie we ought to regard infants and children aswell before as during and after life how happie they be who can content themselves and rest in the will and pleasure of God that the blessings past ought to dulce and mitigate the calamities present to stay us also that we proceed not to that degree and height of infortunitie as to make account onely of the misadventures and discommodities hapning in this our life Which done he answereth to certeine objections which his wife might propose and set on foot and therewith delivereth his owne advice as touching the incorruption and immortalitie of mans soule after he had made a medly of divers opinions which the ancient Philosophers held as touching that point and in the end concludeth That it is better and more expedient to die betimes than late which position of his he confirmeth by an ordinance precisely observed in his owne countrey which expresly for bad to mourne and lament for those who departed this life in their childhood A CONSOLATORIE LETTER or Discourse sent unto his owne wife as touching the death of her and his daughter PLUTARCH unto his wife Greeting THe messenger whom you sent of purpose to bring me word as touching the death of our little daughter went out of his way as I suppose and so missed of me as he journeyed toward Athens howbeit when I was arrived at Tanagra I heard that she had changed this life Now as concerning the funerals and enterring of her I am verily perswaded that you have already taken sufficient order so as that the thing is not to doe and I pray God that you have performed that duetie in such sort that neither for the present not the time to come it worke you any grievance displeasure but if haply you have put off any such complements which you were willing enough of your selfe to accomplish untill you knew my minde and pleasure thinking that in so doing you should with better will and more patiently beare this adverse accident then I pray you let the same be performed without all curiositie and superstition and yet I must needs say you are as little given that way as any woman that I know this onely I would admonish you deare heart that in this case you shew both in regard of your selfe and also of me a constancie and tranquillitie of minde for mine owne part I conceive and measure in mine owne heart this losse according to the nature and greatnesse thereof and so I esteeme of it accordingly but if I should finde that you tooke it impatiently this would be much more grievous unto me and wound my heart more than the 〈◊〉 it selfe that causeth it and yet am not I begotten and borne either of an oake or a rocke whereof you can beare me good witnesse knowing that wee both together have reard many of our children at home in house even with our owne hands and how I loved this girle most tenderly both for that you were very desirous after foure sonnes one after another in a row to beare a daughter as also for that in regard of that fancie I tooke occasion to give her your name now besides that naturall fatherly affection which men cōmonly have toward little babes there was one
Philosophie But I pray you my very good friend quoth I unto him forbeare this vehement and accusatorie humour of yours and be not angry if haply you see that some because they be borne of leud and wicked parents are punished or else doe not rejoice so much nor be ready to praise in case you see nobilitie also of birth to be so highly honored for if we stand upon this point and dare avow that recompence of vertue ought by right and reason to continue in the line and posteritie we are by good consequence to make this account that punishment likewise should not stay and cease together with misdeeds committed but reciprocally fall upon those that are descended of misdoers and malefactors for he who willingly seeth the progenie of Cimon honoured at Athens and contrariwise is offended and displeased in his heart to see the race of Lachares or Ariston banished driven out of the citie he I say seemeth to be too soft tender and passing effeminate or rather to speake more properly over-contentious and quarrelsome even against the gods complaining and murmuring of the one side if the children childrens children of an impious wicked person do prosper in the world and contrariwise is no lesse given to blame and find fault if he doe see the posterity of wicked and ungracious men to be held under plagued or altogether destroied from the face of the earth accusing the gods if the children of a naughtie man be afflicted even as much as if they had honest persons to their parents But as for these reasons alledged make you this reckoning that they be bulwarks and rampars for you opposed against such bitter sharpe accusers as these be But now taking in hand again the end as it were of a clew of thread or a bottom of yearne to direct us as in a darke place and where there be many cranks turnings and windings to and fro I meane the matter of gods secret judgements let us conduct and guide our selves gently and warily according to that which is most likely probable considering that even of those things which we daily manage and doe our selves we are not able to set downe an undoubted certaintie as for example who can yeeld a sound reason wherefore we cause and bid the children of those parents who died either of the phthisick and consumption of the lungs or of the dropsie to sit with their feet drenched in water until the dead corps be fully burned in the funeral fire For an opiniō there is that by this meanes the said maladies shall not passe unto them as hereditarie nor take hold of their bodies as also what the cause should be that if a goat hold in her mouth the herbe called Eryngites that is to say Sea-holly the whole flocke will stand still untill such time as the goat-herd come and take the said herbe out of her mouth Other hidden properties there be which by secret influences and passages from one to another worke strange effects and incredible as well speedily as in longer tract of time and in very truth we woonder more at the intermission and stay of time betweene than we doe of the distance of place and yet there is greater occasion to marvell thereat as namely that a pestilent maladie which began in Aethiopia should raigne in the citie of Athens and fill every street and corner thereof in such sort as Pericles died and Thucydides was sicke thereof than that when the Phocaeans and Sybarits had committed some hainous sins the punishment therefore should fall upon their children go through their posteritie For surely these powers and hidden properties have certaine relations and correspondences from the last to the first the cause whereof although it be unknowen to us yet it ceaseth not secretly to bring foorth her proper effects But there seemeth to be verie apparent reason of justice that publicke vengeance from above should fall upon cities many a yeere after for that a citie is one entire thing and a continued body as it were like unto a living creature which goeth not beside or out of it selfe for any mutations of ages nor in tract and continuance of time changing first into one and then into another by succession but is alwaies uniforme and like it selfe receiving evermore and taking upon it all the thanke for well doing or the blame for misdeeds of whatsoever it doth or hath done in common so long as the societie that linketh holdeth it together maintaineth her unitie for to make many yea innumerable cities of one by dividing it according to space of time were as much as to go about to make of one man many because he is now become old who before was a yong youth in times past also a very stripling or springall or else to speake more properly this resembleth the devises of Epicharmus wherupon was invented that maner of Sophisters arguing which they cal the Croissant argument for thus they reason He that long since borrowed or tooke up mony now oweth it not because he is no more himselfe but become another he that yesterday was invited to a feast cōmeth this day as an unbidden guest cōsidering that he is now another man And verily divers ages make greater difference in ech one of us than they do commonly in cities and States for he that had seene the citie of Athens thirtie yeeres agoe and came to visit it at this day would know it to be altogether the very same that then it was insomuch as the maners customes motions games pastimes serious affaires favours of the people their pleasures displeasures and anger at this present resemble wholly those in ancient time whereas if a man be any long time out of sight hardly his very familiar friend shall be able to know him his countenance will be so much changed and as touching his maners and behaviour which alter and change so soone upon every occasion by reason of all sorts of labour travell accidents and lawes there is such varietie and so great alteration that even he who is ordinarily acquainted and conversant with him would marvell to see the strangenesse and noveltie thereof and yet the man is held and reputed still the same from his nativitie unto his dying day and in like case a citie remaineth alwaies one and the selfe same in which respect we deeme it great reason that it should participate aswell the blame and reproch of ancestours as enjoy their glorie and puissance unlesse we make no care to cast all things in the river of Heraclitus into which by report no one thing entreth twise for that it hath a propertie to alter all things and change their nature Now if it be so that a citie is an united and continued thing in it selfe we are to thinke no lesse of a race and progenie which dependeth upon one and the same stocke producing and bringing foorth a certeine power and communication of qualities and the same doth
properly to a bodie that is solid and able to resist but the onely way and true manner of chastising and punishing those who have lived badly in this world is infamie ignorance an entire abolition and totall reducement to nothing which bringeth them from the river Lethe that is to say Oblivion into another mournfull river where there is no mirth no joy nor cheerefulnesse from thence plungeth them into a vast sea which hath neither shore nor bottom even idlenesse and unaptnesse to all good which can doe nought else but draw after it a generall forgetfulnesse and buriall as it were in all ignorance and infamous obscuritie RVLES AND PRECEPTS OF HEALTH IN MANER OF A DIALOGUE The Summarie THe conjunction of the soule with the bodie being so straight as every man knowes it is I can not see how it is possible that the one should commit any disorder or excesse but the other must needs be grieved there with immediatly And if there be any thing that ought to be deplored and lamented it is the losse of time especially and above all when the same is occasioned by our own intemperance for that at such a time when as we should attend upon our dutie we become and continue unprofitable hurting many times both our selves and many others Now for that the study of good literature requireth a soule well composed and governed in a sound heathfull and vigorous bodie it is not without good cause that Plutarch in termingleth among philosophicall discourses certeine rules precepts as touching health For in truth a vaine endevor enterprise this were and hardly could a man have his mind disposed to good things in case the bodie be ill affected and misgoverned But fearing lest it would be thought that he who made profession of philosophie onely proceeded farther than in reason hee ought and brake the limits and bounds of sciences in medling with physick heere Before that he entreth into the Dialogue when he had touched the occasion of this conference and talke he sheweth that the studie of physick is agreeable to philosophie which done he representeth certeine questions proposed by a third person which serve in stead of a preface to those precepts and lessons by him set downe afterwards not following heerein any exact or exquisit method but making choise of that which he thought to be most meet for the time and suting best to those persons for whose sake this Dialogue was written He speaketh first therefore of the use of meats especially such as are sweet and pleasing to the tooth also what a man is to take heed of in this behalfe Then he treateth of the pleasures of the bodie declaring what measure therein we ought to keepe and discovering by a certeine similitude the pernicious indiscretion of those who love to keepe good cheere and mainteine dainty fare Consequently heereupon he forbiddeth us to use bodily pleasures unlesse we be in good and perfect health condemneth fulnesse and overmuch repletion which is the cause of most diseases that are incident to mans body and this he enricheth and amplifieth by another proper similitude He is desirous also that maladies were foreseene and prevented setting downe a speciall remedie therefore and prooving that the body cannot enjoy any delight whatsoever either in eating or drinking in case it be not healthy From this he proceedeth to make mention of diet and of the prognostikes of diseases breeding and roward Item how and wherewith the maladies of our friends ought to serve and stead us adding thus much moreover that for the better maintenance and preservation of health a man is not to feed to satietie that he ought to travell and not spare himselfe also that he is to save his naturall seed upon this he discourseth of the exercise and nouxishment of students and scholars desciphring particularly whatsoever in this point is most woorth the noting and observation and so cleereth this question namely Whether it be holsome for the body to dispute either at the table or presently upon meat After all this he treateth of walking of sleepe of vomiting of purgations of the belly of diets over exquisit and precise condemning expresly idlenesse as a thing contrary to the good disposition of the body Furthermore he sheweth when a man ought to be at quiet and rest as also the time that he may give himselfe to pleasure but above all he requireth of every man that he learne to know his owne nature and inclination as also the meats and drinks that be agreeable unto his stomack exhorting in the end all students to spare their bodies to looke unto them and make much of them that they may have the better meanes to proceed and goe forward in the knowledge of good letters whereby they might another day be profitable members of the common-wealth and doe more good to the societie of men RULES AND PRECEPTS OF health in maner of a dialogue The personages speaking in this dialogue MOSCHION and ZEUXIPPUS MOSCHION ANd did you then indeed my friend Zexippus turne away Glaucus the physician yesterday who was desirous to conferre with us in philosophie ZEUXIPPUS No iwis good Moschion neither did I put him away desirous was he to doe as you say But this was it that I avoided and feared namely To give him any advantage or occasion to fasten upon me and take hold on me knowing him as I doe to be litigious and quarrelsome for in physick if I may use the words of Homer He may well stand for many a one Although he be but one alone As for philosophie he is not wel affected thereto but alwaies provided of some shrewd bitter tearmes against her in all his disputations and as then especially for I observed how he came directly against us crying out upon us a farre off with a loud voice charging us that we had to enterprise a great matter and the same not very civill honest and in that we had broken the bounds and pluckt up as a man would say the very limit-marks of sciences laying all cōmon and making a confusion of them in disputing as we did of holsome diet and of the maner how to live in good health For the confines and frontiers quoth he of Physicians and Philosophers are as we use to say in the vulgar proverbe as touching Mysians and Phrygians farre different and remooved a sunder Moreover he had readily in his mouth certeine speeches and sentences of ours which we delivered by way of pastime onely and yet for all that were not impertinent or unprofitable and those he would seeme to controule reproove and scorne MOSCHION But I for my part ô Zeuxippus could be very well content yea and most desirous to heare even those speeches that mocked as others beside which yee had concerning this matter if so be it might stand with your pleasure to rehearse the same ZEUXIPPUS I thinke no lesse ô Moschion for that you are enclined naturally to philosophie and
a very hard matter it is in such assemblies and feasts of great lords or deere friends for a man to stay himselfe in a meane and mainteine his accustomed sobrietie but he shall be thought uncivill unmanerly insociable too austere and odious to all the company To the end therefore that we should not put fire to fire as they say lay gorge upon gorge surset upon surset and wine and wine good it were to imitate and follow in good earnest that which was sometime merily done by king Philip and that was this A certaine man invited him upon a time to a supper into the countrey thinking that hee would come with a small company about him but seeing that he brought a great traine and retinue with him and knowing wel that he had prepared no more then would serve for a few guests he was woonderfully troubled Philip perceiving it sent underhand to every one of his friends that came with him this word That they should keepe a roome in their stomacks for a deintie tart or cate that was comming they beleeving this message in good sadnesse made spare of other viands that stood before them looking evermore when this deintie should be served up in such sort as that the meat provided was sufficient for the whole compaine even so we ought before-hand to be prepared against the time that we are to be at such great feasts and meetings aforesaid where we shall be put to it perforce to drinke round in our turne and to answer every ones chalenge to reserue I say a place in our bodies both for meats and also for fine cates and junketting dishes yea and beleeve me if need be for drunkennesse and thither to bring an appetitie fresh and readie for such things But if peradventure such constreints and compulsions surprise us upon a sudden when we are either full and heavie or ill at ease for that we have a little before over-eaten and drunk our selves in case I say some great lords be come to us or in place unexpected or haply a friend or stranger take us at unawares and unprovided so that we be forced for shame to keepe others company who are well enough disposed in body and prepared for to drinke and make merty then must we be especially well armed against foolish bashfulnesse and to meet with such bad shamefastnesse is the cause of so many evils among men and namely by alledging and saying these verses of king Creon in a tragedie of Euripides Better it were for me you to displease My friend than at this time for your contnent To give my selfe to pleasure and mine ease But after with great sorrow to repent For to cast a mans selfe into a pleurisie or phrensie for feare to be held and reputed rustical and uncivill is the part of a rude clowne in deed and of one who hath neither wit nor judgement ne yet any skill or speech to enterteine and keepe companie with men unlesse they may be drunken and engorge themselves like gluttons for the very refusall it selfe of eating and drinking if it be handled with dexteritie and a good grace will be no lesse acceptable to the companie than drinking square and carrowsing round And if the man who maketh a feast absteine himselfe though he sit at the table as the maner is at a sacrifice whereof he tasteth not enterteining his guests with a cheerefull countenance and a friendly welcome and whiles the cups and trenchers walke about him be disposed to mirth and cast out some pretie jests of himselfe he shall no lesse content and please his guests than he that will seeme to be drunken for companie and cram his bellie with them till it be readie to cracke To this purpose he made mention of certeine ancient examples and namely among other of Alexander the Great who after he had drunke well and liberally was abashed and ashamed to denie the challenge of Medius one of his captaines who had invited him to supper and thereupon falling againe to drinke wine afresh died thereof And of those who lived in our daies he spake of one Riglis a notable Pancratiast or champion at all feats of activitie whom Titus Caesar the emperour sent for one day betimes in the morning to come and bathe with him who came indeed and after he had bathed and had drunke a great draught was by report surprised with an Apoplexie whereupon he died immediatly All these matters our Physician Glaucy mocked and reprooved calling them discourses of schoolemasters to children their scholars and as he was not very willing to heare more so were not we greatly discourse to relate and discourse farther unto him for that he had no mind to consider ech thing accordingly that was delivered Socrates verily who was the first that debarred us from eating those meats which drew us on to eat more still when we were not hungry nor had a stomacke thereto and from drinking such drinks which caused us to drinke although we were not drie and thirstie forbad us not simply to use meats and drinks but taught us rather to use them onely when we had need of them joining the pleasure of them with their necessitie like as they do who employ the publicke money of cities which before was wont to be spent at Theaters in exhibiting plaies and shewes about the charges of mainteining souldiers for the warres for that which is sweet so long as it is a part of our nourishment we hold to be proper and familiar to nature and we ought all the whiles that we be hungry to use and enjoy necessarie nourishment as sweet and pleasant but otherwise not to stirre and provoke other new and extraordinarie appetites apart after that we are delivered from those that be common and ordinarie for like as unto Socrates himselfe dancing was no unpleasant exercise even so he who maketh his whole supper or meale of junkets and banketting dishes catcheth lesse harme thereby but when a man hath taken alreadie as much as is sufficient to content nature and wherewith he is well satisfied he ought to beware as much as in any thing els how he putteth forth his hands to any such dainties And we are to flie and avoid in these things follie and ambition no lesse than friandise or gluttonie for these two vices induce us likewise often times to eat some thing when we are not hungrie and to drinke also when we be not athirst yea and they suggest and minister unto us certeine base and extravagant imaginations to wit that it were great simplicitie and a very absurd thing not to feed liberally of a rare deere and geason dish if it may be had as for example That which is made of a sowes pappes when she is newly farrowed Italian mushroomes Samian cakes or snow out of Aegypt for these toies and imaginations smelling somewhat of vain-glorie as the sent of meat comming out of a kitchin maine times set our teeth a watering and our stomacke on edge
voiages or pastimes as they deprive us of our pleasures yea and marre them quite and therefore they who love their delights and pleasures most had least need of any men in the world to neglect their health For many there be who for all they be sicke have meanes to studie philosophy and discourse thereof neither doth their sicknesse greatly hinder them but that they may be generals in the sield to leade armies yea and kings beleeve me to governe whole realmes But of bodily pleasures and fleshly delights some there be which during a maladie will never breed and such as are bred already yeeld but a small joy and short contentment which is proper and naturall unto them and the same not pure and sincere but confused depraved and corrupted with much strange stuffe yea and disguised and blemished as it were with some storme and tempest for the act of Venus is not to any purpose performed upon gourmandise and a full belly but rather when the bodie is calme and the flesh in great tranquillity for that the end of Venus is pleasure like as of eating also and of drinking and health unto pleasures is as much as their faire weather and kinde season which giveth them secure and gentle breeding much like as the calme time in winter affoords the sea-fowles called Alcyones a safe cooving sitting and hatching of their egges Prodicus is commended for this pretie speech That sire was the best sauce and a man may most truely say That health is of all sauces must divine heavenly and pleasant for our viands how delicate soever they be boiled rosted baked or stewed doe no pleasure at all unto us so long as wee are diseased drunken full of surfet or queasie stomacked as they be who are sea-sicke whereas a pure and cleane appetite causeth all things to be sweet pleasant and agreeable unto sound bodies yea and such as they will be ready to snatch at as Homer saith But like as Demades the oratour seeing the Athenians without all reason desirous of armes and warre said unto them That they never treated and agreed of peace but in their blacke robes after the losse of kinsfolke and friends even so wee never remember to keepe a spary and sober diet but when we come to be cauterized or to have cataplasmes and plasters about us we are no sooner fallen to those extremities but then we are ready to condemne our faults calling to minde what errours we have committed in times past for untill then we blame one while the aire as most men doe another while the region or countrey as unsound and unholsome we finde fault that we are out of our native soile and are woonderfull loth to accuse our owne intemperance and disordinate appetites And as king Lisymachus being constreined and enforced within the country of the Getes for very thirst to yeeld himselfe prisoner and al his armie captivate unto his enemies after he had taken a draught of cold water said Good God what a great felicitie have I forgone and lost for a momentarie and transitory pleasure even so we may make use thereof and apply the same unto our selves when wee are sicke saying thus How many delights have we marred quite how many good actions have we fore-let what honest pastimes have we lost and all by our drinking of cold water or bathing unseasonably or else for that we have over-drunke our selves for good fellowship for the bite sting of such thoughts as these toucheth our remēbrance to the quicke in such sort as the scarre remaineth still behind after that we are recovered and maketh us in time of our health more staied circumspect and sober in our diet for a bodie that is exceeding sound and healthy never bringeth foorth vehement desires and disordinate appetites hardly to be tamed or with stood but we ought to make head against them when they beginne to breake soorth and 〈◊〉 out for to enjoy the pleasures which they are affected unto for such lusts some complaine pule and crie for a little as wanton children doe and no sooner is the table taken awaie but they be quiet and still neither finde they fault and make complaint of any wrong or injurie offred unto them but contrariwise they be pure jocund and lightsome not continuing heavie nor readie to heave and cast the next day to an end like as by report captaine Timotheus having upon a time beene at a sober and frugall scholars supper in the academie with Plato said That they who supped with Plato were merry and well appaied the next day after It is reported also that king Alexander the Great when he turned backe those cooks which queene 〈◊〉 sent unto him said That he had about him all the yeere long better of his owne namely for his breakfast or dinner rising betimes and marching before day light and for his supper eating little at dinner I am not ignorant that men otherwhiles are very apt to fall into an ague upon extreme travell upon excessive heats also and colds but like as the odors and sents of 〈◊〉 he weak seeble of themselves whereas if they be mixed with some oile they take force 〈◊〉 even so fulnesse and repletion is the ground which giveth as a man would say bodie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the outward causes and occasions of maladies and of a great quantity of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 humours there is no danger because all such indispositions and crudities are soone 〈◊〉 dissipated and dissolved when some fine or subtill bloud when some pure spirit I 〈◊〉 their motion but where there is a great repletion indeed and abundance of 〈◊〉 as it were a deepe and mirie puddle all troubled and stirred then there arise from 〈◊〉 many maligne accidents such as be dangerous and hard to cure and therefore we are 〈◊〉 to doe like some good masters of ships who never thinke their vessels bee fully fraught and charged throughly and when they have taken in all that ever they can doe nothing else but worke at the pumpe void the sinke and cast out the sea water which is gotten in even so when we have well filled and stuffed our bodies fall to purge and cleanse them with medicines and 〈◊〉 but we ought rather to keepe the bodie alwaies neat nimble and light to the end that if it chaunce otherwise at any time to be pressed and held downe it might be seene above for lightnesse like unto a piece of corke floting aloft upon the water but principally we are to beware of the very 〈◊〉 indispositions which are forerunners of maladies for all diseases walke not as Hesicdus saith in silence and say nothing when they come As whom wise Jupiter hath berest Of voice and toong to them none left But the most part of thē have their vant-curreurs as it were their messengers trumpets namely crudities of stomack wearinesse and heavinesse over all the bodie According to the 〈◊〉 of Hippocrates lassitudes and laborious heavinesse of the bodie comming
delights and pleasures as in travels and paines yea and generally in every action enterprising nothing assuredly and with confidence whereas we ought to deale by our body as with the saile of ship that is to say neither to draw it in keepe it down too straight in time of calme faire 〈◊〉 nor to spred and let it out over slacke and negligently when there is presented some 〈◊〉 of a tempest but as occasion shall require to spare it and give some ease and remission that afterwards it may be fresh and lightsome as hath beene said already and not to slacke the time and stay untill we sensibly feele crudities laskes inflamations or contrariwise stupidities and mortifications of members by which signes being as it were messengers and ushers going before a feaver which is hard at the dore hardly wil some be so much moved as to keepe in and restraine themselves no not when the very accesse and fit is readie to surprise them but rather long before to be provident and to prevent a tempest So soone as from some rocke we finde The puffing gales of northern winde For absurd it is and to no purpose to give such carefull heed unto the crying wide throates of crowes or to the craing and cackling of hennes or to swine when in a rage they tosse and fling straw about them as Democritus saith thereby to gather presages prognostications of wind raine and stormes and in the meane time not to observe the motions troubles and fiering indispositions of our bodie nor prevent the same ne yet to gather undoubted signes of a tempest ready to rise and grow even out thereof And therefore we ought not onely to have an eie unto the bodie for meat and drinke and for bodily exercises in observing whether we fall unto them more lazily and unwillingly than our manner was before time or contrariwise whether our hunger and thirst be more than ordinary but also wee are to suspect and feare if our sleeps be not milde and continued but broken interrupted we must besides regard our very dreames namely whether they be strange and unusuall for if there be represented extraordinarie fansies and imaginations they testifie and shew a repletion of grosse viscuous or slimy humours and a great perturbation of the spirits within Otherwhiles also it hapneth that the motions of the soule it selfe doe fore-signifie unto us that the body is in some neere danger of disease for many times men are surprised with timorous fittes of melancholy and heartlesse distrusts without any reason or evident cause the which suddenly extinguish all their hopes you shall have some upon every small occasion apt to fall into cholerick passions of anger they become eager and hastie troubled pensive and offended with a little thing insomuch as they will be ready to weepe and runne all to teares yea and languish for griefe and sorrow And all this commeth when evill vapours sowre and bitter fumes ingendred within doe arise and steeme up and so as Plato saith be intermingled in the waies and passages of the soule Those persons therefore who are subject to such things ought to thinke and consider with themselves that if there be no spirituall cause thereof it cannot chuse but some corporall matter had need either of evacution alteration or suppression Expedient also it is and very profitable for us when we visit our friends that be sicke to enquire diligently the causes of their maladies not upon a cavilling curiosity or vaine ostentation to dispute sophistically and discourse thereof only or to make a shew of our eloquence in talking of the instances the insults the intercidences communities of diseases and all to shew what books we have read that we know the words tearmes of physick but to make search and enquirie in good earnest and not slightly or by the way as touching these slight common and vulgar points namely whether the sicke partie be full or emptie whether he overtravelled himselfe before or no and whether he slept well or ill but principally what diet he kept and what order of life he followed when he fell for examples sake into the ague then according as Plato was woont to say unto himselfe whensoever he returned from hearing and seeing the faults that other men committed Am not I also such an one so you must compose and frame your selfe to learne by the harmes and errours of neighbours about you for to looke well unto your owne health and by calling them to mind to be so wary provident that you fall not into the same inconveniences and forced to keepe your bed and there extol commend health wishing desiring when it is too late for to enjoy so pretious a treasure but rather seeing another to have caught a disease to marke and consider well yea and to enterteine this deepe impression in your heart how deere the said health ought to be unto us how carefull we should be to preserve and chary to spare the same Moreover it would not be amisse for a man afterwards to compare his owne life with that of the foresaid patient for if it fall out so that notwithstanding we have used over-liberall diet both in drinks and meats or laboured extreamly or otherwise committed errour in any excesse and disorder our bodies minister unto nature no suspition nor threaten any signe of sicknesse toward yet ought we neverthelesse to take heed and prevent the harme that may ensue namely if we have committed any disorder in the pleasures of Venus and love-delights or otherwise bene over-travelled to repose our selves and take our quiet rest after drunkennesse or carrowsing wine round for good fellowship to make amends and recompense with drinking as much colde water for a time but especially upon a surfeit taken with eating heavie and grosse meats and namely of flesh or els feeding upon sundry and divers dishes to fast or use a sparie diet so as there be left no superfluitie in the bodie for even these things as of themselves alone if there were no more be enough to breed diseases so unto other causes they adde matter and minister more strength Full wisely therefore was it said by our ancients in old time that for to mainteine our health these three points were most expedient To feed without satietie To labour with alacritie and To preserve and make spare of naturall seed For surely lascivious intemperance in venerie of all things most decaieth and enfeebleth the strength of that naturall heat whereby our meat and food which we receive is concocted and so consequently is the cause of many excrements and superfluities engendred whereupon corrupt humours are engendered and gathered within the body To begin therefore to speake againe of every of these points let us consider first the exercises meet and agreeable to students or men of learning for like as he who first said That he wrot nothing of Teeth to those that inhabited the sea coasts taught them in so
Moreover there be other sorts of pleasant talke besides these and namely to heare and recite fables devised for mirth and pleasure discourses of playing upon the flute harpe or lute which many times give more contentment and delight than to heare the flute harpe or lute it selfe plaied upon Now the very precise time measured as it were and marked out to be most proper and meet for such recreations is when we feele that our meat is gently gone downe and setled quietly in the bottome of the stomacke shewing some signe of concoction and that naturall heat is strong and hath gotten the upper hand Now forasmuch as Aristotle is of opinion that walking after supper doth stirre up and kindle as one would say our naturall heat and to sleepe immediately after a man hath supped doth dull and quench it considering also that others be of a contrary minde and hold that rest and repose is better for concoction that motion so soone after troubleth and impeacheth the digestion and distribution of the meats which is the cause that some use to walke after supper others sit still and take their ease me thinks a man may reconcile and satisfie verie well after a sort these two opinions who cherishing and keeping his bodie close and still after supper setteth his mind a walking awakeneth it suffering it not to be heavie idle at once by and by but sharpneth and quickneth his spirits as is before said by little and little in discoursing or hearing discourses of pleasant matters and delectable such as be not biting in any wise nor offensive and odious Moreover as touching vomits or purgations of the bellie by laxative medicines which are the cursed and detestable easements and remedies of fulnesse and repletion surely they would never be used but upon right great and urgent necessitie a contrary course to many men who fill their gorges and bodies with an intent to void them soone after or otherwise who purge and emptie the same for to fill them againe even against nature who are no lesse troubled nay much more offended ordinarily by being fedde and full than fasting and emptie insomuch as such repletion is an hinderance to the contentment and satisfying of their appetites and lusts by occasion whereof they take order alwaies that their bodie may be evermore emptied as if this voidance were the proper place and seat of their pleasures But the hurt and dammage that may grow upon these ordinary purgations and vomits is very evident for that both the one and the other put the body to exceeding great straines and violent disturbances As for vomiting it bringeth with it one inconvenience by it selfe more than the former in that it procureth augmenteth an unsatiable greedinesse to meat for ingendered there is by that meanes a violent turbulent hunger like as when the course or stream of a river hath bene for a while stopped staid snatching or greedy at meat which is evermore offensive not a kind appetite indeed when as nature hath need of meat but resembling rather the inflammations occasioned by medicines or cataplasmes Hereupon it is that the pleasures proceeding from thence paste and slippe away incontinently as abortive and unperfect accompanied with inordinate pantings and beatings of the pulse great wrings in the enjoying of them and afterwards ensue dolorous tensions violent oppressions or stoppings of the conduits pores the reliques or retensions of ventosities which staie not for naturall ejections and evacuations but runne up and downe all over our bodies like as if they were shippes surcharged having more need to bee eased of their burden than still to be loden with more excrements As for the troublesome motions of the belly and guts occasioned by purgative drougues they corrupt spill and resolve the natural strength of the solide parts so that they engender more superfluties within than they thrust out and expel And this is for al the world like as if a man being discontented to see within his native citie a multitude of naturall Greekes inhabitants should for to drive them out fill the same with Scythians or Arabian strangers For even so some there be who greatly miscounting and deceiving themselves for to send foorth of their bodies the superfluous humors which are in some sort domesticall and familiar unto them put into them I wot not what Guidian graines Scammoni and other strange drougues fet from farre countries such as have no familiar reference to the bodie but are meere wilde and savage and in truth have more need to be purged and chaced out of the body themselves than power and vertue to void away and expell that wherewith nature is choked and overcharged The best way therefore is by sobrietie and regular diet to keepe the bodie alwaies in that moderate measure of evacuation and repletion that it may be able by proportionable temperature to maintaine it selfe without any outward helpe But if it fall out otherwhiles that there be some necessitie of the one or the other vomits would be provoked without the helpe of strange physicall drogues and not with much adoo and curiositie that they disquiet trouble no parts within but onely for to avoid cruditie and indigestion reject and cast up that gentlie which is too much and cannot be prepared and made meet for concoction For like as linnen clothes that bee scoured and made cleane with sopes ashes lees and other abstersive matters weare more and fret out sooner than such as be washed simply in faire water even so vomites provoked by medicines offend the body much more and marre the complexion But say the belly bee bound and costive there is not a drougue that easeth it so mildly or provoketh it to the siege so easily as doe certaine meats whereof the experience is familiar unto us and the use nothing dolorous and offensive Now in case the body be so heard that such kinde viands will not worke and cause it to be sollible then a man ought for many daies together to drinke thinne and cold water or use to fast or else take some clister rather than purgative medicines such as disquiet the body and overthrow the temperature thereof And yet many there be who ever and anon are ready to run unto them much like unto those lewd and light wanton women who use certeine inedicines to cause abortion or to send away the fruit which they have newly conceived to the end that they might conceive soone againe and have more pleasure in that fleshly action Now is it time to say no more but to let them goe that perswade such evacuations As for those on the contrarie side who interject certaine exact precise and criticall fastings observed too straightly according to just periods and circuits of daies surely they teach nature wherin they doe not well to use astriction before it have need and acquaint her with a necessarie abstinence of food which in it selfe is not necessarie even at a prefixed time which
calleth for that then whereto it is accustomed Better yet it were for a man to use these chasticements of his body freely and at his owne liberty without any foreknowledge of suspition and as for other diet as hath beene said before to order it so that it may frame and be obsequent to all manner of occurrences changes that shall come betweene and not to be tied and bound to one forme and manner of life exactly to keepe certaine daies just numbers and set circuits without failing or missing in any jot For this course is neither sure nor easie it is not civill nor yet agreeable to humanitie it resembleth rather the life of an oister or some stocke of a tree to captivate himselfe and be so subject and thrall that he cannot change or alter his viands he may not once varie in his fastings and abstinencies in his motions or repose but continue alwaies close and covert in a shadie kinde of life idle private to himselfe without conversing with friends without participation of honors farre remote from the administration of weale publicke which were to shut himselfe up as it were a close prisoner a life I assure you which I cannot like nor allow for wee cannot buie our health with idlenesse and doing naught which two are the principall inconveniences incident unto diseases and all one this were as if a man would thinke to preserve his eies by not employing them to see or his voice by speaking not at all thus to be perswaded that for the preservation of health it were necessarie to have continuall repose without doing ought for a man in health cannot doe better for to mainteine the same than to be emploied in many good duties and commendable offices of humanitie An absurd error therefore it is to thinke idlenesse to be either healthy or holsome considering that it destroieth the very end of health which is emploiment neither is it true that the lesse men doe the more healthfull they be For Xenocrates had not his health better than Phocion nor Theophrastus than Demetrius and as for Epicurus and all the crew of his sectaries they had no benefit at all for the atteining of that contentment and tranquillitie of the bodie which they make so great reckoning of and praise so highly by flying and avoiding all State affaires and medling in no publicke and honorable office Other meanes therefore and provision would be made to enterteine and keepe that disposion and habitude of the bodie which is according to nature for this is certeine that all sorts of life be capable as well of sicknesse as of health Howbeit polititians quoth he and States-men are to be admonished to doe cleane contrarie unto that which Plato advertised his yoong scholars to doe For Plato ever as he went out of the schoole was woont thus to say unto them Goe to my sonnes see you employ that leasure which you have in some honest sports and pastimes But we may exhort and put in minde those who deale in the administration of common-wealth to bestow their labour and travell in honest and necessarie things and not to overtoile and spend their bodies in small matters of little or no consequence as the manner is of most men who trouble and torment themselves about just nothing overwatching running to and fro heere and there up and downe about things which many times are neither good nor honest but onely because they would disgrace and shame others either upon envie that they beare unto them or upon obstinate and wilfull selfe-conceit or else to pursue and maintaine some vaine and foolish opinions that they have taken For I thinke verily it was in regard of such persons especially that Democritus said If the body should call the soule judicially into question upon an action of injurie or wrong done and for to make satisfaction of losse and damage she were not able to answer it but must needs confesse the action and be condemned And Theophrastus peradventure said well and truely when speaking by a metaphor or allegorie he affirmed that the soule paid a deere rent for her dwelling within the body For I assure you the bodie may thanke the soule for many harmes that it sustaineth when as she useth it not with reason nor intreateth it according as it is meet and convenient and looke when she hath any proper and peculiar passions of her owne or some enterprises and actions to be performed she maketh no spare of the poore bodie As for the tyrant Jason hee was wont I wot not upon what reason or ground to say That he ought to deale unjustly in small matters who would be just in the greatest affaires and even so wee may well advise a man of State and government to make no reckoning of trifling things but disport play and solace himselfe in repose with them if he would not have his bodie over-spent dull or lazie against the time that he should emploie it in great and important causes much like to an old shippe which hath beene drawen up to land for to be newly calked and trimmed after hath rested a time is fit to doe new service at sea for even so the bodie upon repose and ease whensoever the soule shall put it to any affaires will be ready to follow And runne with her as sucking fole doth go Hard by the damme and never parts her fro And therefore when occasions will permit and give leave wee are to refresh and recreat our selves not envying the bodies naturall sleepe or usuall repose and refection of dinner ne yet easement and recreation which is of a middle nature betweene pleasure and paine nor observing a strict rule which many men doe keepe and in keeping it spill and spend the bodie by sudden mutations like as iron that is often made hot and quenched againe for whensoever the body is foiled and tired with travels then they will even melt and dissolve it in excessive and unmeasurable pleasures and all upon the sudden againe when it is weakned enfeebled with the delights of Venus or by drinking out of course they will draw and drive it presently to the serious travels of the common hall or the court to the solliciting and following of some affaires of great importance which requireth earnest attendance and hot pursute Heraclitus the philosopher being fallen into a dropsie willed his physician to make drought of great raine But most men ordinarily doe fault heerein exceeding much now when they be wearied toiled and foiled with painfull labours and wants yeeld their bodies to be melted and spent quite with voluptuous pleasures and afterwards againe wrest and straine them as it were upon the teinters immediately upon the fruition of some pleasures For nature verily neither liketh nor requireth these alterations and sudden changes by turnes but it is the incontinencie and illiberall Iasciviousnesse of the soule and nothing else that abandoneth her-selfe inordinately unto pleasures and delights so soone as it is out of laborious
no insolencie some delight or disport profitable and procure laughter not accompanied with wanton reproofe and scornefull reproch but such as carieth a grace and pleasure with it for this is it wherein most part of feasts suffer shipwracke namely when they are misgoverned or not ordered as they ought to be But the part it is of a wise and prudent man to know how to avoid enmity and anger in the market-place gotten by avarice in the publicke halles of bodily exercises by contention and emulation in bearing offices and suing for them by ambition and vain-glory and last of all in feasts and banquets by such plaies and pastimes THE FIFTH QUESTION What is meant by this common proverbe Love teacheth musicke and poetrie THe question was mooved one day in Sossius Sesnerius house after certeine verses of Sappho were chanted how this saying of Euripides should be understood Love teacheth musicke marke when you will Tough one before thereof had no skill considering that the poet Philoxenus reporteth how Cyclops Polyphemus the giant cured his love by the sweet tongued muses Whereupon it was alledged that Love is of great power to moove a man for to be bold hardy and adventurous yea and ministreth a readinesse to attempt all novelties according as Plato named it the enterpriser of all things for it maketh him talkative and full of words who before was silent it causeth the bashfull and modest person to court it and put himselfe forward in all maner of service it is the meanes that an idle carelesse lubber and a negligent becommeth diligent and industrious and that which a man would most marvell at a miching hard-head and mechanicall penifather if he fall once to love doth relent and waxe soft as iron in the fire and so prooveth more liberall courteous and kinde than ever before so that this pleasant and merry proverbe seemeth not to be altogether ridiculous impertinent namely that Loves purse is tied knit up with a leeke or porret blade Moreover it was there spoken That Love resembled drunkennesse for that the one aswell as the other doth set folke in a heat it maketh them cheerfull merry and jocund and when as men be come once to that they fall soone to sing to rime and make verses And it is said that the poet Aeschylus composed his tragedies when he had well drunken and was heat with wine I had a grandfather also my selfe named Lamprias who seemed alwaies more learned witty and fuller of inventions yea and to surpasse himselfe in that kinde when he had taken his cups liberally and he was wont to say That at such a time he was like unto incense which being set on fire rendereth the sweet odour that it hath Moreover they that take exceeding great pleasure to see their loves are no lesse affected with joy when they do praise them than in looking upon them for love as it is in every thing a great pratler and full of words so especially and most of all in praises insomuch as lovers would willingly perswade others to that wherein they are themselves perswaded first namely that they love nothing but that which is perfect in goodnesse and beautie and others they would have to be witnesses with them of it This was it that induced the Lydian king Candaules to draw and traine Giges into his bed-chamber for to see the beautie of his wife naked for why such are willing to have the restimonie of others Loe what the reason is that if they write the praises of that which they love they embelish and adorne the same with verses songs and meeter like as images with golde to the end that the said praises might be heard more willingly and remembred better by more people for if they bestow a fighting-cocke an horse or any other thing whatsoever upon those whom they love their minde is principally that this their present should be faire and beautifull in it selfe afterwards that it be most gallantly and in best maner set out but above all in case they be disposed to flatter them in words or writings their chiefe care is that the same run roundly and pleasantly that they be also glorious and beautified with fine figures such as is ordinarily the stile of poets Then Sossius approving well of these reasons said moreover That it were well if some would take in hand to draw and gather arguments out of that which Theophrastus left in writing as touching musicke For long it is not quoth he since I read over that booke wherein he delivereth thus much after a divine maner That three principall causes or roots there be of musicke to wit paine or griefe pleasure or joy and the ravishment of the spirit of which three every one doth bend and turne the voice a little out of the ordinary tune for griefs and sorrowes usually bring with them moanes and plaints which quickly run into song which is the reason that we see oratours in the perorations or conclusions of their speeches the actours also in tragedies when they come to make their dolefull lamentations bring their voices downe gently to a kinde of melodie and by little and little tune them as it were thereto Also the great and vehement joies of the minde do lift up all the body of them especially who are any thing lightsome by nature yea and provoke the same to leape skip and clappe their hands observing a kinde of motion according to number and measure if they can not dance And otherwise in furious sort Like frantike folke they do disport They shake they wag they set out throat And send out many a foolish note according as Pindarus saith But in case they be somewhat more grave and staied than others when they finde themselves moved with such a passion of joy they let their voice onely go at liberty speaking aloud and singing sonnets But above all the ravishment of the spirit or that divine inspiration which is called Enthusiasmus casteth bodie mind voice and all far beyond the ordinary habit which is the cause that the furious and raging priests of Bacchus called Bacchae use rime meeter those also who by a propheticall spirit give answeres by oracle deliver the same in verse and few persons shall a man see starke mad but among their raving speeches they sing and say some verses This being so if you would now display love and view it well being unfolded and laied open abroad hardly shall you meet with another passion which hath either sharper dolours or joies more violent or greater exstasies and ravishments of the spirit lying as it were in a trance so that a man may discover in amorous persons a soule much like unto that city which Sophocles describeth Full of songs and incense sweet Of sighs and groanes in every street No marvell is it therefore nor a strange thing if love conteining comprehending in it selfe all those primitive causes of musicke to wit dolour joy and ravishment of spirit be
there is I say that bitter almonds should have power to withstand the strength of meere wine considering they drie the body within and will not permit the veines to bee full upon the tention and commotion whereof they say drunkennesse doth proceed and for evident proofe of this there may be a good argument gathered from that which befalleth foxes who having eaten bitter almonds is they drinke not presently upon them die therewith by reason that all their humors suddenly are spent and consumed THE SEVENTH QUESTION What is the cause that old folke take greater delight in pure and strong wine than others THere arose a question about old persons what the reason might be that they loved better to drink wine without water or at the leastwise delaied but a little Some alledged the habit of their bodies being cold and hard to be set into an heat in regard whereof the strength of wine was meet and agreeable to their temperature a reason very common and ready at hand but surely neither sufficient for to bee the cause of such an effect nor yet simply true for the same hapueth to their other sences as being hard to be mooved and affected yea and nothing easie to be stirred for to apprehend the qualities thereto belonging unlesse the same be passing strong and vehement whereof the true cause indeed is this that their temperature being weake dull and feeble loveth to be put in minde by knocking upon and this is the cause that for their taste they delight in such sapours as be biting their smelling likewise standeth even so to odors that be strong for affected it is with more pleasure in such as be not tempered nor delaied as for the sense of touching they feele no great paine of ulcers and sores and if it happen that they be wounded their hurt and harme is not so great the same befalleth to their hearing for their eares be in manner deafe and heereupon it is that musicians as they grow in yeeres and waxe aged straine and raise their voice in singing so much the higher and lowder as if they stirred up the organs of hearing by the vehement force of the sound for looke what is steele to the edge and temper of iron for cutting the same is spirit to the bodie for sense and feeling and when it beginnes once to slacke faile and decay the sense likewise and the instruments thereof become dull heavie and earthly having need of some such quicke thing to pricke it in good earnest as strong wine is THE EIGHTH QUESTION How it comes to passe that olde folke reade better afarre off than neere at hand AGainst those reasons which wee devised and alledged upon the subject matter and point in hand it seemed that there might be opposed the eie-sight for that elder persons for to reade any thing the better remoove the letters farther from their eies and in trueth can not well reade neere at hand which the poet Aeschylus seemeth covertly to implie and shew unto us in these verses Know him thou canst not if neere he stand to thee A good olde scribe thou maist much sooner be And Sophocles more plainly testifieth as much when he writeth of old folke in this wise The voice to them arrives not readily And hardly thorow their eares the way can finde Their eies do see farre off confusedly But neere at hand they all be very blinde If then it be so that the senses of aged persons and the instruments serving thereto are not willingly obeisant to their proper objects unlesse the same be strong and vehement what should the cause be that in reading they can not endure the reverberation of the light from letters if they be neere but setting the booke farther off from their eies they do by that meanes enfeeble as it were that light for that it is spread and dissipate in the aire like as the strength of wine when it is tempered with water To this probleme some answered thus That they remoove books and letters farre from their eie-sight not because they would make the saide light more milde or lesse radiant but contrariwise for that they are desirous to catch and gather more splendor and to fill the meane intervall which is betweene the eie and the letter with lightsome and shining aire Others accorded with those who holde that the eies do send out of them certeine raies for by reason that aswell from the one eie as the other a pyramidal beame doth issue the point whereof is in the sight of the eie and the basis doth comprehend the object that is seene probable it is that both these pyramides goe forward apart one from the other a good space and distance but after they be a great way off and come to encounter one another and be confounded together they make but one entire light and this is the reason that albeit the eies are twaine yet every thing that we see appeareth one and not two for that in trueth the meeting and shining together of those two pyramides in common do make of two sights but one This being presupposed and set downe olde men approching neere to letters comprehend the same more feebly in regard that the pyramidall beames of their eies are not yet joined and met together but ech of them reach to the objects apart but if they be farther off so that the said pyramides may be intermingled they see more perfectly much like to them who with both hands can claspe and hold that which they are not able to do with one alone Then my brother Lamprias opposed himselfe against all this and as one who had not read the booke of Hieronymus but even upon the pregnancy and quickenesse of his wit seemed to render another reason namely That we see by the meanes of certeine images arising from the objects or visible things which at the first be big and for that cause trouble the sight of old folke when they regard them neere and hard-by being indeed but hard and slow of motion but when the said images be advanced and spread farther into the aire and have gained some good distance the grosse and terrestriall parts of them breake and fall downe but the more subtill portions reach as farre as to the eies without any paine or offence unto them and do insinuate and accommodate themselves equally and smoothly into their concavities so that the eies being lesse troubled apprehend and receive them better And even so it is with the odours of flowers which are very sweet to smell unto a good way off whereas if a man come over-neere unto them they yeeld nothing so kinde and pleasant a sent the reason is because that together with the savour there goeth from the flower much earthly matter grosse and thicke which corrupteth and marreth the fragrant sweetnesse of the odour if it be smelled to very neere but in case the same be a prety way off that terrestriall vaparation is dispersed round about and so falleth
birth taking himselfe immediately with the maner But why say I so for we quoth he are come of no better seeds made the party and all the company to laugh heartily Semblably there was a minstrell or professed musician who kindly and with a very good grace repressed the presumptuous curiositie and unskilfulnesse of king Philip who forgat himselfe so much that hee would needs reade a lecture as it were unto the said minstrell how he should finger and strike finding fault with him in certeine accords of musicke Ah God forbid quoth he my good leege lord that it should go so heard with your grace as to be more skiful in this art than my selfe for thus whiles he seemed to mocke himselfe he told the king of his fault without offence and this seemeth to be a device that comicall poets otherwhiles practise to allay the bitter gall of their quips taunts namely to scoffe at themselves as Aristophanes used to make sport with his own bald pate and Cratinus noted himselfe that he loved wine so well in that comedie which he intituled Pytine that is to say a bottle or flagon of wine but above all this regard and consideration would be had that all such scoffes and merrie jestes come from a man extempore and readily either by way of answer to a present demaund or occasioned upon some other sudden scoffe and in no wise to seeme farre fetcht as a thing premeditate studied on before for like as men beare and endure with more patience the anger and debates among themselves arising now and then at the table whiles they be in the middes of their cups but if another stranger should come in place and offer abuse to any of the guests and so trouble the company hee should be reputed an enemie and for very hatred they would thrust him out of the dores by head shoulders even so we can find in our harts easily to pardon a scoffe a frump or broad jest if it proceed from some matter at the present deliverie or seeme to come naturally unforced and without all art but in case it be not occasioned presently nor respective to the purpose but drawen as one would say violently by the haire of the head from elswhere then it resembleth some ambush fore-laied afarre off for to wrong and do injurie to one person or other like to that jest of Timagenes which he discharged upon the husband of a woman who was wont ordinarily to cast up her gorge in this maner With musicke bad you doe begin Thus vomiting to bring her in As also the demand proposed unto the philosopher Athenodorus whether the love of parents to their children be musicall For surely such unseasonable cuts and taunts as these not accommodate to time and place nor fitted to the present occasion doe bewray a malicious minde and a deliberate purpose to offer wrong and abuse and therefore such persons as delight in these biting girds many times for a word which is the lightest thing in the world as Plato saith have paied a most heavie and grievous price whereas contrariwise they that know how to place their words in due time in meet place and aptly to the purpose do verifie the testimonie of the same Plato who saith That it is an assured signe of a mans good bringing up and the point of liberall nurture and instruction to know how to jest with a decent grace and without the offence of any person THE SECOND QUESTION Why men be more hungrie and eat better in Autumne than in any other quarter of the yeere IN the borough Eleusine after the ceremonies of sacred mysteries were performed whē as the solemnitie celebrated with so frequent concourse of people was at the highest we were feasted by Glaucias the oratour in his house where when others had made an end of supper Xenocles his brother began after his maner to cavill and scoffe at my brother Lamprias twitting him with his large feeding and indeed hitting in his teeth and reproching him with the voracitie of the Boeotians who are taken to be good trencher-men whereupon I in the defence of my brother and to be revenged of Xenocles tooke occasion out of the doctrine of Epicurus and said unto him What good fir all men do not define and determine the utmost point and perfection of pleasure to be indolence or the privation of paine as your good master Epicurus doth and besides my brother Lamprias who honoureth and esteemeth more the walking galleries of the Peripateticks and the schoole of the Stoicks called Lyceum than he doth the garden of Epicurus must of necessitie and in effect beare witnesse to Aristotle who affirmeth That there is no man but he eateth more in Autumne than in any other season of the yeere and a reason he giveth thereof although it be now out of my head So much the better quoth Glaucias for we our selves will see if we can finde it out after supper is done Now when the tables were taken away Glaucias and Xenocles both imputed the cause thereof to the sundry fruits of that season and that after a divers sort For one said that new fruits do make the bellie soluble and so by evacuation of the bodie engender alwaies fresh appetites to meat The other to wit Xenocles affirmed that these fruits for the most part carrie with them a certeine piercing and mordicant quallitie yet pleasant withall whereby they provoke and quicken the stomacke to appetite more than any viands or sauces whatsoever insomuch as those who be sickly and have lost their stomacks recover the same many times by eating some of those fruits new gathered But Lamprias alledged that our familiar and naturall heat by which we are nourished in Summer time is dispersed and becommeth more feeble and resolved but contrariwise upon the entrance of Autumne it gathereth it selfe together inwardly againe and is fortified by the meanes of the colde ambient aire which knitteth constreineth and closeth up the pores of the bodie Then I because it should not be thought that I would be one to participate in this conference without contributing somewhat of mine owne when my course came to speake declard that in Summer time by reason of the excessive heat of the weather we are more thirstie and in regard of the same heat and drought take in more moisture and liquid nourishment Now therefore nature quoth I by reason of the change of the aire and the season seeking as her maner is for the contrary causeth us to be more hungry in Autumne than at other times and for the temperature of the bodie tendereth unto it as much drie food as it had taken moisture in Summer time and yet a man can not well say that the cause of this effect dependeth nothing at all of the viands which we eat consisting much of new and fresh fruits not onely thicke gruels and pottage but also of pulset wheat-bread and flesh reared the same yeere which being
bodies THE THIRD QUESTION What the cause is that women hardly are made drunke but olde men very soone FLorus one day seemed to marvell that Aristotle having in his treatise of drunkennesse set downe this position That olde men are soone surprized and overseene with wine but contrariwise women hardly and very seldome rendred no reason thereof considering that his maner otherwise is not to propose any such difficulties but hee doth decide and cleere the same And when he had made this overture he mooved the companie to inquire into the cause thereof and a supper it was where familiar friends were met together Then Sylla said That the one was declared by the other for if we comprehend the cause aright as touching women it were no hard matter to finde our a reason for old men considering that their natures and constitutions be most opposit and contrary in regard of moisture and drinesse roughnesse and smoothnesse softnesse and hardnesse for first and formost suppose this of women undoubtedly that their naturall temperature is very moist which causeth their flesh to be so tender soft smooth slieke and shining to say nothing of their naturall purgations every moneth when as therefore wine meeteth with so great humiditie being overcome by the predominancy thereof it loseth the edge and tincture as it were together with the force that it had so as it becommeth dull every way discoloured and waterish And verily to this purpose somewhat may be gathered out of the words of Aristotle for he saith That those who make no long draught when they take their wine nor drinke leasurely but powre it downe at once which manner of drinking they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are not so subject to drunkennesse as others for that the wine maketh no long stay within their bodies but being forcibly thrust foorth soone passeth thorow and ordinarilie we may observe that women drinke in this manner and very probable it is that their bodies by reason of continual attraction of humours downward to the nether parts for their monethly termes is full of many conduits and passages as if they were divided into chanels pipes and trenches to draw foorth the said humours into which the wine no sooner falleth but away it passeth apace that it cannot settle nor rest upon the noble and principall parts which if they bee once troubled and possessed drunkennesse doth soone ensue Contrariwise that old men want naturall humiditie their very name in Greeke seemeth to implie sufficiently for called they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not because they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say inclining and stouping downward to the earth but because they are already in their habitude of bodie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say earthly Moreover their stiffenesse and unpliable disposition the roughnesse also of their skinne argueth their dry nature and complexion it standeth therefore to good reason that when they liberally take their wine their bodies which are rare and spungious within by occasion of that drinesse quickly catcheth and sucketh up the same and then by long staying there it worketh up into the head causeth the braine to beat and breedeth heavinesse there like as land-flouds gently glide over those fields which be solide hard washing them onely aloft and making no mire dirt but if the ground be light and hollow they enter and soke farther in even so wine being soone caught and drawne by the drinesse of old mens bodies staieth there the longer time and were not this so yet we may observe that the verie nature of old men admitteth the same symptomes and accidents which drunkennesse maketh Now these accidents occasioned by drunkennesse are very apparent to wit the trembling and shaking of their limbes faltering in their toong and speaking double immoderate and lavish speech pettishnesse and aptnesse to choler forgetfulnesse and alienation of the minde and understanding the most part whereof being incident to old men even when they are best in health and in most sober a little thing God wot will set them cleane out and any small agitation whatsoever will doe the deed so that drunkennesse in an old man engendreth not new accidents but setteth on foot and augmenteth those which be already common and ordinary with them To conclude there is not a more evident argument to proove and consirme the same than this that nothing in the world resembleth an old man more than a yoong man when hee is drunke THE FOURTH QUESTION Whether women by their naturall complexion be colder or hotter than men WHen Sylla had delivered his minde to that effect Apollonides an expert professour and well seene in raunging a battel in array seemed by his words to approove well of that which had bene alledged as touching old men but he thought that in the discourse of women the onely course was left out and overslipt to wit the coldnesse of their constitution by meanes whereof the hottest wine is quenched and forgoeth that fierie flame which flieth up to the head and troubleth the braines and this was received as a very probable and sufficient reason by all the company there in place But Athryilatus the physician a Thasian borne interjected some staie of farther searching into this cause For that quoth hee some are of opinion that women are not cold but hotter than men yea and others there be and that is a greater matter who hold that wine is not hotte at all but cold Florus woondering and amazed heereat This discourse and disputation quoth he as touching wine I reser to him there and with that pointed at me for that not many daies before wee had disputed together about that argument But as for women quoth Athryilatus that they bee rather hot than cold they argue thus First and formost they are smooth and not hairie on their face and bodie which testifieth their heat which spendeth and consumeth the excrement and so erfluitie that engendreth haire Secondly they proove it by their abundance of bloud which seemeth to be the fountaine of heat in the body and of bloud women have such store that they are ready to be inflamed yea to srie and burne withall if they have not many purgations and those quickly returning in their course to discharge and deliver them thereof Thirdly they bring in the experience observed at funerals which sheweth evidently that womens bodies be farre hotter than mens for they that have the charge of burning and enterring of dead corses doe ordinarily put into the funerall fire one dead body of a woman to tenne of men For that one corps say they helpeth to burne and consume the rest by reason that a womans flesh conteineth in it I wot not what unctuositie or oileous matter which quickly taketh fire and will burne as light as a torch so that it serveth in stead of drie sticks to kindle the sire and set all a burning Moreover if this be admitted for a
truth that whatsoever is more frutefull and apter for generation is also more hot certeine it is that yoong maidens be ripe betimes readier for marriage yea and their flesh pricketh sooner to the act of generation than boies of their age neither is this a small and feeble argument of their heat but for a greater and more pregnant proofe thereof marke how they endure very well any chilling cold and the injurie of winter season for the most part of them lesse quake for cold than men doe and generally need not so many clothes to weare Heereat Florus began to argue against him and said In my conceit these very arguments will serve well to confute the said opinion for to beginne with the last first the reason why they withstand cold better than men is because every thing is lesse offended with the like besides their seed is not apt for generation in regard of their coldnesse but serveth in stead of matter onely and yeeldeth nourishment unto the naturall seed of man Moreover women sooner give over to conceive and cease child-bearing than men to beget children and as for the burning of their dead bodies they catch fire sooner I confesse but that is by reason that commonly they be fatter than men and who knoweth not that fatte and grease is the coldest part of the bodie which is the cause that yoongmen and those that use much bodily exercise are least fatte of all others neither is their monthly sicknesse voidance of bloud a signe of the great quantity and abundance but rather of the corrupt qualitie and badnesse thereof for the crude and unconcocted part of their bloud being superfluous and finding no place to settle and rest nor to gather consistence within the bodie by reason of weaknesse passeth away as being heavy and troubled altogether for default and imbecillitie of heat to overcome it and this appeereth manisestly by this that ordinarily when their monthly sicknesse is upon them they are very chill shake for cold for that the bloud which then is stirred and in motion ready to be discharged out of the bodie is so raw and cold To come now unto the smoothnesse of their skinne and that it is not hairie who would ever say that this were an effect of heat considering that we see the hottest parts of mans bodie to be covered with haire for surely all superfluities and excrements are sent out by heat which also maketh way boring as it were holes through the skinne and opening the passages in the superficies thereof But contrariwise wee may reason that the sliecknesse of womens skinne is occasioned by coldnesse whilch doth constipate and close the pores thereof Now that womens skinne is more fast and close than mens you may learne and understand by them friend Athryilatus who use to lie in bedde with women that annoint their bodies with sweet oiles or odoriferous compositions for even with sleeping in the same bed with them although they came not so neere as to touch the women they finde themselves all perfumed by reason that their owne bodies which be hot rare and open doe draw the said ointments or oiles into them Well by this meanes quoth he this question as touching women hath beene debated pro contrà by opposit arguments right manfully THE FIFTH QUESTION Whether wine be naturally cold of operation But I would now gladly know quoth Florus still whereupon your conjecture and suspicion should arise that wine is cold of nature why And doe you thinke quoth I that this in an opinion of mine Whose then quoth the other I remember quoth I that not of late but long agoe I light upon a discourse of Aristotle as touching this probleme and Epicurus himselfe in his Symposium or banquet hath discussed the question at large the summe of which disputation as I take it is thus much For he saith that wine is not simplie of it selfe hot but that it conteineth in it certeine atomies or indivisible motes causing heat and others likewise that engender cold of which some it casteth off and loseth when it is entred into the bodie others it taketh unto it from the very bodie it selfe wherein it is according as the same petie bodies be of nature and temperature fitted and agreeable unto us in such sort as some when they be drunke with wine are well heat others againe contrariwise be as cold These reasons replied Florus directly bring us by Protagoras into the campe of Pyrrho where we shall meet with nothing but incertitude and be still to seeke and as wise as we were before for plaine it is that in speaking of oile milke honie and likewise of all other things we shall never grow to any particular resolution of them what nature they bee of but still have some evasion or other saying That they become such according as ech of them is mixed and tempered one with another But what be the arguments that your selfe alledge to prove that wine is cold Thus I see well quoth I that there be two of you at once who presse and urge mee to deliver my mind extempore and of a sudden the first reason then that commeth into my head is this which I see ordinarily practised by physicians upon those who have weake stomacks for when they are to corroborate and sortifie that part they perscribe not any thing that is hot but if they give them wine they have present ease and helpe thereby semblablie they represse fluxes of the belly yea and when the bodie runneth all to diaphoreticall sweats which they effect by the meanes of wine no lesse nay much more than by applying snow confirming and strengthening thereby the habit of the bodie which otherwise was ready to melt away and resolve now if it had a nature and facultie to heat it were all one to applie unto the region of the heart as fire unto snow furthermore most physicians do hold that sleepe is procured by cooling and the most part of soporiferous medicines which provoke sleepe be cold as for example Mandragoras and poppie Juice but these I must needs confesse with great force and violence doe compresse and as it were congeale the braine to worke that effect whereas wine cooling the same gently with ease and pleasure represeth and staieth the motion thereof so that the difference onely betweene it and the other is but in degree according to more and lesse Over and besides whatsoever is hot is also generative and apt to ingender seed for howsoever humiditie giveth it an aptitude to run and flow it is spirit by the meanes of heat that endueth it with vigor strength yea and an appetite to generation now they that drinke much wine especially if it be pure of it selfe and not delaied are more dull and slow to the act of generation and the seed which they sow is not effectuall nor of any force and vigor to ingender their medling also and conjunction with women is vaine and doth no
did rest or settele upon them Much more probable it is that when these waters and raines together with their ventosities heats occasioned by thunders lightnings come to pierce deepe into the earth it turneth and rolleth round and by that meanes are ingendred therein such like nodosities and knobs soft and apt to crumble which we call Mushromes like as in our bodies there breed and arise certeine flatuous tumors named Kirnels or Glandules formed by occasion of I wot not what bloudy humors and heats withal for a Mushrome seemeth not to be a plant neither without rain moisture doth it breed having no root at all nor any sprout springing from it it is wholly entire of selfe round about and holding upon nothing as having the consistence onely of the earth which hath bene a litle altered changed And if you thinke this reason to be but slender I say unto you more that the most part of those accidents which follow upon thunder and lightning are of the like sort and therefore it is especially that in these effects there is thought to bee a certeine divinitie Then Dorotheus the oratour who was in the companie Truth it is quoth he that you say for not onely the vulgar sort of simple and ignorant people are of that opinion but some also of the philosophers and for mine owne part I know as much by experience that the lightning which of late fell upon our house wrought many strange and woonderfull things for it emptied our sellers of wine and never did hurt unto the earthen vessell wherein it was and whereas there lay a man a sleepe it flew over him yea and flashed upon him without any harme at all to his person or sienging so much as his clothes but having a certeine belt or pouch wherein were certeine pieces of brasse money it melted and defaced them all so confusedly that a man could not know by the forme or impression one from another the man went thereupon to a certeine Pythagorian philosopher who as happe was so journed there and demaunded of him what the reason might bee thereof and what it did presage But the philosopher when hee had cleered and assoiled his minde of scrupulous feare and religion willed him to ponder and consider of the matter apart by himselfe and to pray unto the gods I heare say also that not long since there was a souldiour at Rome who keeping the Centinell upon one of the temples of the citie chaunced to have a flash of lightning to fall very neere unto him which did him no hurt in the world in his body but onely burnt the latchets of his shoes and whereas there were certeine small boxes and cruets of silver within wooden cases the silver within was found all melted into a masse in the bottome and the wood had no injurie at all but continued still entire and sound But these things a man may chuse whether he will beleeve or no. Howbeit this passeth all other miracles which we all I suppose doe know very well namely that the dead bodies of those who have beene killed by lightning continue above ground and putrifie not for many there be who will neither burne nor enterre such corses but cast a trench or banke about and so let them lie as within a rampar so as such dead bodies are to be seene alwaies above ground uncorrupt convincing Clymene in Eurypides of untruth who speaking of Phaethon said thus Beloved mine but see where dead he lies In vale below and there with putrifies And heereupon it is as I take it that brimstone taketh the name in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the resemblance of that smell which those things yeeld that have beene smitten with lightning which no doubt have a fierie and piercing sent and this may bee the reason likewise in my conceit that dogges and fowles of the aire forbeare to touch any dead bodies which in this sort are striken from heaven Thus farre foorth have I laid the first stone for a ground-worke of this cause as also of the Bay-tree Now let us intreat him heere to finish and make out the rest for that he is well acquainted with Mushromes lest haply that befall unto us which sometimes to the painter Androcydes did for whē he painted the gulfe Scylla he portraied more naturally to the life the fishes all about than any thing else besides whereby men judged that hee shewed more affection therein than cunning of his art for that naturally he loved to feed upon good fishes and even so some one might say that we have discoursed so much of Mushromes the breeding and generation whereof is so doubtfull as you see for the pleasure and delight that we take in eating of them Considering now that in these points our discourse seemed to carrie some probabilitie and that everie man was perswaded well enough that the cause and reason thereof was cleere and withall my selfe began to speake and advise that it was now time as the manner was in comedies to set up those engins devised for to counterfet thunder so to inferre a disputation at the table of lightning to which motion all the company condescended but passing over all other points very desirous and earnest they were to heare a discourse as touching this one What the reason might be that men a sleepe be never smitten or blasted with lightning Now albeit I saw well enough that I should gaine no great praise in touching a cause whereof the reason was common yet I beganne to set to it and said That the fire of lightning was fine and subtill as that which tooke the originall and beginning from a most pure liquid and sacred substance which if there had beene in it any moisture or terrestriall grosenesse mingled among the celeritie of motion is such that it would have purged and cast it foorth Nothing is smitten with lightning quoth Democritus that cannot resist the fire from heaven and therefore solide bodies as iron brasle silver and gold be corrupted and melted therewith by reason that they hold out and withstand it contrariwise such as bee rare full of holes spungious soft and lux lightning quickly pierceth through and doth them no harme as for example clothes or garments and drie wood for such as is greene will burne because the moisture within maketh resistance and so catcheth fire withall If then it be true that those who lie a sleepe be never stricken dead with thunder and lightning surely wee must search heere for the cause and never goe farther for the bodies of men awake are stronger more firme and compact yea and able to make more resistance as having all their parts full of spirits by which ruling turning and welding the naturall senses and holding them together as it were with an engine the living creature becommeth strong fast knit and uniforme whereas in sleepe it is slacke loose rare unequall soft and as it were all resolved by reason that the
thus punished **** The end of this discourse is wanting as also the discussing and deciding of the other five questions proposed in the forefront of this fourth booke THE FIFTH BOOKE OF SYMPOSIAQUES OR TABLE-QUESTIONS The Contents or Summarie 1 WHerefore we willingly heare and see them who counterfeit those that be either angry or sorowfull but such as be wroth or heavie inded we love not either to heare or see 2 That there was an ancient game of prize performed in Poetrie 3 Why the Pitch-tree is consecrated to Neptune and Bacchus also that in the beginning men used to crowne with brances of the said tree those who wan the prize at Isthmicke solemnitie of sacred games afterwards with a garland of smallach and now againe they begin to take up the crowning of them with Pitch-tree 4 What is the meaning of these words in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 5 Of those that invite many to supper 6 What is the cause of sitting pent and with streight roome at the beginning of supper but at large afterward toward the end 7 Of those who are said to eie-bite or to bewitch 8 What is the reason that the poet called an Apple-tree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and why Empedocles named Apples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9 What is the reason that a Fig-tree being it selfe in taste most sharpe and biting bringeth foorth a fruit exceeding sweet 10 Who are they that are said in the common proverbe to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE FIFTH BOOKE OF Symposiaques or table-questions The Proëme WHat your opinion is at this present ô Sossius Sinecio as touching the pleasures of the soule and bodie I wot not For that now many a mountaine high And shady forest stand betweene The roaring seas likewise do lie So as to part us barres they beene for you seemed not greatly long agoe to approove and allow their sentence who holde That there is nothing properly and particularly delightsome nothing pleasant unto the soule nothing at all that it desireth or joieth in of it selfe but that it liveth onely according to the life of the bodie laughing as it were and sporting with it in the pleasant affections thereof and contrariwise mourning at the heavie passions afflicting it as if the soule were no other thing but a very matter apt to take the impression of sundry formes or a mirror to receive the images and resemblances of those objects which are presented unto the flesh and body for as by many reasons a man may easily refute the blind and illiberall falsitie of this opinion so by this especially that after the table is taken away and supper done men of learning and knowledge incontinently fall to discourse and devise together as it were at a banquet delighting and solacing one another with pleasant talke wherein the bodie hath no part at all unlesse it be very little and a farre off which experience beareth witnesse that this is the provision of daintie cates and delicate pleasures laid up peculiarly for the soule and that these be the onely delights indeed of the minde whereas those other be but bastards and strangers infected with the societie of the bodie like as therefore nurses whiles they give pappes and panades unto their little babes have some small pleasure in feeding them by tasting the same in their owne mouthes before but after they have filled their infants bellies and brought them a sleepe so as they crie no more then they goe themselves to their owne refection meet for them they eate and drinke and make good cheere even so the soule doth participate with the desires and appetites of the bodie in manner of a nurse attending upon it serving it and framing herselfe in some sort to do it pleasure and satisfie the necessities thereof but after that the body is sufficiently served laied at rest and repose then being delivered of her obsequious service and businesse about the bodie she betaketh herselfe from thenceforward unto her owne pleasures and delights making her repast and taking her solace in discourses of learning in good letters in sciences and histories and in seeking to heare somewhat and know more still of that which is singular What should a man say any more of this considering and seeing as he doth that even base mechanicall and unlettered fellowes after supper ordinarily withdraw their minds and employ the same upon other pleasures and recreations farre remooved from the body proposing darke riddles aenigmaticall questions and intricate propositions of names comprised under notes of certeine numbers hardly to be assoiled or gessed at and after all this come in banquets which make way unto plaiers jesters counterfet pleasants giving roome to Menander and the actours of his comedies all which sports and pastimes are not devised for to ease and take away any paine of the body ne yet to procure some gentle motion and kinde contentment in the flesh but onely for that the speculative and studious part of the minde which naturally is in every one of us doth demaund call for some particular pleasure and recreation of her owne when wee are once discharged of the businesse and offices whereabout we are emploied for the body THE FIRST QUESTION What is the cause that willingly we heare and see those who counterfet them that be angrie or sorrowfull but love not to heare or see the parties themselves in those passions OF such matters there passed many discourses when you were present with us at Athens at what time as the comedian actor Strato flourished for hee was then in so great name and reputation that there was no talke but of him But one time above the rest wee were invited and feasted by Boëthus the Epicurean and with us there supped many more of that sect now after supper the fresh remembrance of the comedie which we had seene acted gave occasion unto us being students and lovers of learning to fall into a discourse and question about the cause why we cannot abide but are greatly discōtented to heare the voices of those who are angrie sorrowful timorous or affrighted and contrariwise what the reason is that they who counterfet these passions and represent their words their jestures and behaviour doe much delight and please us And verily all in manner there in place opined the same and were in one song for they gave this reason and said Inasmuch as he who counterfeiteth those pastimes is better than he who suffereth them indeed in regard that he who is not affected himselfe excelleth the other we knowing so much take pleasure and are delighted but I albeit that I set foot as men say in the daunce of another said thus much That we being naturally framed for to discourse by reason and to love things that savour of wit and be artificially done affect and esteeme those who have a dexteritie therein if a thing succeed accordingly for like as the Bee delighting in sweetnesse flieth from flower to flower seeking busily
reason to induce us thereunto for men are wont to attribute a kinde of divinty unto things which are passing common and the commoditie whereof reacheth farre as for example to water light the seasons of the yeere as for the earth her above the rest they repute not onely divine but also to be a goddesse there is none of all these things rehearsed that salt giveth place unto one jot in regard of use and profit being as it is a fortification to our meats within the bodie and that which commendeth them unto our appetite but yet consider moreover if this be not a divine propertie that it hath namely to preserve and keepe dead bodies free from putrifaction a long while and by that meanes to resist death in some sort for that it suffereth not a mortall bodie wholly to perish and come to nothing but like as the soule being the most divine part of us is that which mainteineth all the rest alive and suffereth not the masse and substance of the bodie to be dissolved and suffer colliquation even so the nature of salt taking hold of dead bodies and imitating heerein the action of the soule preserveth the same holding and staying them that they runne not headlong to corruption giving unto all the parts an amitie accord agreement one with the other and therefore it was elegantly said by some of the Stoicks That the flesh of an hogge was even from the beginning no better than a dead carion but that life being diffused within it as if salt were strewed throughout kept it sweet and so preserved it for to last long Moreover you see that wee esteeme lightning or the fire that commeth by thunder celestiall and divine for that those bodies which have beene smitten therewith are observed by us to continue a great while unputrified and without corruption What marvell is it then if our auncients have esteemed salt divine having the same vertue and nature that this divine and celestiall fire hath Heere I staied my speech and kept silence With that Philinus followed on and pursued the same argument And what thinke you quoth he is not that to be held divine which is generative and hath power to ingender considering that God is thought to be the originall authour creatour and father of all things I avowed no lesse and said it was so And it is quoth he an opinion generally received that salt availeth not a little in the matter of generation as you your selfe touched ere-while speaking of Aegyptian priests they also who keepe and nourish dogs for the race when they see them dull to performe that act and to doe their kinde do excite and awaken their lust and vertue generative that lieth as it were asleepe by giving them aswell as other hot meats salt flesh and fish both that have lien in bring pickle also those ships vessels at sea which ordinarily are fraight with salt breed commonly an infinit number of mice and rats for that as some hold the females or does of that kinde by licking of salt onely will conceive and be bagged without the company of the males or bucks but more probable it is that saltnesse doth procure a certeine itching in the naturall parts of living creatures and by that means provokeht males females both to couple together and peradventure this may be the reason that the beauty of a woman which is not dull and unlovely but full of favor attractive and able to move concupiscence men use to name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say saltish or well seasoned And I suppose that the poets have fained Venus to have beene engendred of the sea not without some reason and that this tale that she should come of salt was devised for the nonce to signifie and make knowen under those covert tearmes that there is in salt a generative power certes this is an ordinarie and generall thing among those poets to make all the sea-gods fathers of many children and very full of issue To conclude you shall not finde any land creature finde any land-creature or flying fowle for fruitfulnesse comparable to any kinde of fishes bred in the sea which no doubt this verse of Empedocles had respect unto Leading a troupe which senselesse were and rude Even of sea-fish a breeding multitude THE SIXTH BOOKE OF SYMPOSIAQUES OR BANQUET-QUESTIONS The Summarie 1 WHat is the reason that men fasting be more at hirst than hungrie 2 Whether it be want of food that causeth hunger and thirst or the transformation and change of the pores and conduit of the bodie be the cause thereof 3 How commeth it that they who be hungrie if they drinke are eased of their hunger but contrariwise those who are thir stie if they eat be more thirstic 4 What is the reason that pit-water when it is drawen if it be left all night within the same aire of the pit becommeth more cold 5 What is the cause that little stones and plates or pellets of lead if they be cast into water cause it to be the colder 6 Why snowe is preserved by covering it with straw chaffe or garments 7 Whether wine is to run throw a strainer 8 What is the cause of extraordinarie hunger or appetites to meat 9 Why the poet Homer when he spcaketh of other liquors useth proper epithits onely oile he calleth moist 10 What is the cause that the flesh of beasts flaine for sacrifiece if they be hanged upon a fig-tree quickly become tender THE SIXTH BOOKE OF Symposiaques or banquet-questions The Proeme PLato being minded to draw Timotheus the sonne of Canon ô Sossius Senecio from sumptuous feasts and superfluous banquets which great captaines commonly make invited him one day to a supper in the Academie which was philosophicall indeed and frugall where the table was not furnished with those viands which might distemper the bodie with feaverous heats and inflamations as Iōn the poet was wont to say but such a supper I say upon which ordinarily there follow kinde and quiet sleeps such fansies also and imaginations as ingender few dreames and those short and in one word where the sleeps do testifie a great calmnesse and tranquillitie of the bodie The morrow after Timotheus perceiving the difference betweene these suppers and the other said That they who supped with Plato over-night found the pleasure and comfort therof the next day and to say a trueth a great helpe and ready meanes to a pleasant and blessed life is the good temperature of the body not drenched in wine nor loaden with viands but light nimble and ready without any feare or distrust to performe all actions and functions of the day-time But there was another commodity no lesse than this which they had who supped with Plato namely the discussing and handling of good and learned questions which were held at the table in supper time for the remembrance of the pleasures in eating and drinking is illiberall and unbeseeming men of worth
transitorie besides and soone at an end like unto the odor of a perfume and sweet ointment or the smell of rost in a kitchin a day after whereas discourses philosophicall and disputations of learning when they be remembred afterwards yeeld alwaies new pleasure and fresh delight unto those that were at them yea and cause them who were absent and left out in hearing the relation thereof to have no lesse part of learning and erudition than they who were present for thus we see that even at this day students and prosessours of learning have the fruition and enjoy the benefit of Socrates his banquets no lesse than they themselves who were personally present and had their reall part of them at the time and verily if corporall matter as dainty dishes and exquisit fare had so greatly affected and delighted their minds with pleasure Plato and Xenophon should have put downe in writing and left unto us the memoriall not of the discourses there held nor of the talke which then passed but rather of the furniture of the table have made a note of the delicate viands pastrie works comfitures and junkets served up in Callias or Agathus houses whereas now of all such matters there is no mention at all as if they were of no account nor worth the naming notwithstanding very like it is there was no want of provision no spare of cost nor defect of diligence in that behalfe but on the otherside penned they have most exactly and with great diligence the discourses of good letters and philosophy which then and there passed merrily and those they have commended unto posterities to give us example that we ought not onely to devise and reason together when we are at the boord but also to call to minde afterwards what good talke had passed and to keepe the same in memorie THE FIRST QUESTION What is the reason that those who be fasting are more thirsty than hungry NOw send I unto you Sossius Senecio this sixth booke of banquet discourses whereof the first question is Why those who be long fasting are more thirstie than hungry for it may seeme contrary unto all reason that thirst rather than hunger should ensue much fasting for that the want of dry food would seeme by course of nature to require a supplie of nutriment by the like Then began I in this manner to argue before the companie there in place That of all things within us and whereof we consist our naturall heat either alone or principally had need of nouriture and maintenance for thus verily wee doe observe in outward elements that neither aire water nor earth desire nutriment neither doe they consume whatsoever is neere unto them but it is fire onely that requireth the one and doth the other which is the reason that all yoong folke doe eat more than elder persons for that they be hotter yea and old men and women can endure to fast better because their naturall heat is already decaied and feeble in them like as it is in those living creatures which have but little bloud for small need have they of nouriture for default of naturall heat Moreover thus much we may observe in everie one of our selves that our bodily exercises our loud outcries and such like matters as by motion doe augment heat make us to take more pleasure in our meat and to have a better appetite to eat now the principall most familiar and naturall food of heat in mine opinion is moisture as we may see by daily experience that burning flames of fire increase by powring oile thereto of all things in the world ashes are the driest because the whole humiditie is burnt up and consumed but the terrestriall substance destitute of all liquor remaineth alone semblably the natures of fire is to separate and divide bodies by taking away the moisture which held them sodered and bound together when as therefore wee fast long our naturall heat draweth forcibly unto it first all the humours out of the reliques of our nourishment which done the inslammation thereof passeth farther and setteth upon the very radical humour within our flesh searching every corner for moisture to feed and nourish it there being caused therefore a woonderfull drinesse our bodie like as in earth or clay that is parched with heat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by consequence commeth to stand more in need of drinke than of meat untill such time as we have taken a good draught by meanes whereof our heat being well refreshed and 〈◊〉 worketh and procureth appetite to solide and dry nourishment THE SECOND QUESTION Whether it be want of food that causeth hunger and thirst or rather the transformation and change of the conduits and passages within our bodies THis discourse being thus ended Philo the physician went about to impugne and overthrow the first position mainteining that thirst proceeded not from default of any nourishment but was to be imputed unto the change of the forme in certaine passages of the body and for demonstration heereof hee alledged of the one side this experience That they who be a thirst in the night if they sleepe upon it lose their thirstinesse although they drinke never a drop on the other side that they who have the ague if their fit decline or be off them or in case the feaver be cleane past and gone presently they are eased of their drought likewise there be many who after they have beene bathed yea and beleeve me others when they have vomited are ridde of thirstinesse and yet they get moisture neither by the one nor the other but they are the pores and petie conduits of the body that suffer mutation because they be altered and transformed into another state and disposition and this appeereth more evidently in hunger for many sicke folke there be who at one time have need of nourishment and yet want appetite to their meat some there are againe who let them eat and fill themselves never so much have never the lesse appetite to meat nay their greedie hunger encreaseth the more semblablie you shall have many of those who lothed their meat to recover their stomacke and appetite quickly by tasting a few olives or capres condite with salt pickle whereby it appeareth plainly that hunger is not occasioned by default of nourishment but through the said alteration or passion of the pores and conduits of the body for surely such meats as those although they diminish the want of nourishment by addition of more food yet neverthelesse cause hunger and even so the poinant acrimonie of these salt viands contenting the taste and pleasant to the mouth by knitting binding and strengthening the stomacke or contrariwise by relaxing or opening the same do procure unto it and breed therein a certeine gnawing and a disposition to the liking of their meat which we call appetite The reason of these arguments seemed unto me very wittily devised and framed pretily for to carrie a good shew of probabilitie howbeit to be contrary unto the
and so maketh an equall distribution and supply thorowout But this transformation and change of the pores from which it is said that hunger and thirst doth proceed what kinde of thing is it I would gladly know For mine owne part none other differences see I but of more and lese and according as they be either stopped or opened when they bee obstructed or stopped receive they cannot either drinke or meat when they be opened and unstopped they make a voide and free place and surely that is nothing els but the want of that which is proper and naturall For the reason my good friend Philo why clothes which are to be died be dipped first in alome water is because that such water hath a piercing scouring and abstersive vertue by meanes whereof when all the superfluous filth in them is consumed and rid away the pores being opened reteine more surely the tincture which is given unto the clothes onely because they receive the same better by reason of the emptinesse occasioned by want THE THIRD QUESTION What is the cause that when men be hungry if they drinke are delivered from their hunger but contrariwise when they be athirst if they eate are more thirsty than before WHen those discourses were thus passed he who invited us to supper began in this wise It seemeth unto me my masters that this reason as touching the voidance and repletion of pores carieth with it a great apparence of truth and namely in the solution of another question besides to wit Why in them who be hungry if they drinke their hunger ceaseth immediately and contrariwise they who are a thirst if they eat are still more thirstie I am of opinion quoth he that those who alledge and urge these pores and their effects doe render the reason and cause of this accident very easilie and with exceeding great probabilitie however in many points they enforce the same not so much as probably for whereas all bodies have pores some of one measure and symmetry others of another those which be larger than the rest receive food solid as well as liquid both together such as bee narrower and more streight admit drinke the avoidance and evacuation of which causeth thirst like as of the other hunger and therefore if they who be a thirst doe eat they finde no succour and benefit thereby because the pores by reason of their streightnesse are not able to receive drie and solid nutriment but continue still indigent and destitute of that which is their due and fit for them whereas they who be hungry in case they drinke finde comfort thereby for that the liquid nouriture entring into those large pores and filling those concavities of theirs doe slake and diminish mightily the force of their hunger As touching the event and effect quoth I true it is as I thinke but I cannot accord and give my consent to the supposition of the cause pretended For if quoth I a man should hold that with these pores and conduits upon which some stand so much so greatly embrace and mainteine so stoutly the flesh is pierced and by meanes thereof full of holes surely he would make it very loose quavering flaggie and so rotten that it would not hang together moreover to say that the same parts of the body doe not receive meat and drinke together but that they doe passe and runne as it were thorough a streiner or canvase bolter some one way and some another me thinks is a very strange position a meere devised fiction for this verie mixture of humiditie tempering and making tender the meats received together with the cooperative helpe of the inward naturall heat and the spirits doth cut subtiliate and mince the foode with all manner of incisions shreddings and divisions no tooles no knives nor instruments in the world so fine and small insomuch as every part and parcell of the said nourishment is familiar meet convenient for ech part member of the bodie not applied fitted as it were to certeine vessels and holes to be filled thereby but united perfectly concorporate to the whole and every part thereof but if this were not so yet the maine point of the question is not assoiled for all that for they who eat unlesse they also drinke to it are so farre off from allaying their thirst that contrariwise they increase the same and to this point there is not yet a word said Consider now said I whether the positions reasons which we set downe are not probable apparent first we suppose that moisture being consumed by drinesse is cleane perished gone that drinesse being tempered susteined by moisture hath certeine diffusions exhalations secondly we hold that neither hunger is a general universal want of dry food nor thirst of moisture but a certeine scantnesse and defect of the one and the other when there is not enough and sufficient for those who altogether doe want the same bee neither hungrie nor thirstie but die presently Let these supposals be laid for grounds it will not be from hencefoorth hard to know the cause of that which is in question for thirst increaseth upon them that eat because meats by their drinesse doe gather together sucke and drinke up the humidity dispersed and which is left but small and feeble in all the bodie causing the same to evaporate away like as we may observe without our bodies how dry earth and dust do quickly snatch dispatch and consume quite the liquor or moisture that is mingled therewith contrariwise drinke necessarily slaketh hunger for by reason that moisture drenching and soking that little meat which it findeth dry and hard raiseth from it certeine vapors and moist exhalations and those it doth elevate and carrie up into all the body applying the same to the parts that stand in need and therefore Erasistratus not unproperly tearmed moisture the wagon of the viands for being mixed and tempered with such things as otherwise of themselves by reason of their drinesse or other evill disposition be idle and heavy it raiseth and lifteth up and heereupon it commeth that many men who have beene exceeding hungry onely by bathing or washing themselves without any drinke at all have woonderfully aswaged and allaied their hunger for the moisture from without entring into the body causeth them to be more succulent and in better plight for that it doth enlarge the parts within so that it doth mitigate the fell mood and appease the crhell rage of hunger To conclude this is the reason that they who are determined to pine themselves to death by utter abstinence from all solid meats live and continue a long time if they receive but water onely even untill the time that all be quite evaporate spent and dried up which might nourish and be united unto the bodie THE FOURTH QUESTION What is the cause that pit or well-water being drawen if it be left all night within the aire of the pit becommeth colder than it
what is that namely to carie the leaves firme and fast so as they never fall off for we do not see that either the lawrell or olive tree nor the myrtle nor any other trees which are said to shed no leafe keepe alwaies the same leaves still but as the first fall others put foorth and by this meanes they continue alwaies fresh and greene living evermore as cities and great townes doe whereas the date tree never loseth any of those leaves which once came foorth but continueth still clad with the same leaves and this is that vigour as I take it which men dedicate and appropriat especially to the force or strength of victorie When Sospis had made an end of this speech Protogenes the Grammarian calling by name unto Praxitelis the discourser and historian Shall wee suffer these oratours and rhetoricians quoth he after their usuall maner and profession to argue thus by conjectures and likely probabilities and can we alledge nothing out of histories pertinent directly unto this matter and verily for mine owne part if my memorie faile me not I have not read long since in the Attique annales that Theseus who first set out games of prize in the isle Delos brake plucked from the sacred date tree a branch which thereupon was called Spadis and Praxitelis said as much But some men quoth he might aske of Theseus himselfe what reason induced him when he proposed the prize of victorie to pull a branch from the date tree rather than from the laurell or olive tree and what will you say if this be a Pythicke prize for that the Amphyctiones honored first at Delphos the victours with a branch of date tree and laurell in honour of Pythius Apollo considering that the maner was not to consecrate unto that God the laurell or olive onely but also the date tree like as Nictas did when in the name of the Athenians he defraied the charges of games in Delos and the Athenians at Delphi and before them Cypselus the Corinthian for otherwise this God of ours hath evermore loved those games of prize yea and was desirous to win the victorie having strove personally himselfe in playing upon the harpe in singing and flinging the coit of brasse yea and as some some say at hurl-bats and fist-fight favouring men also and taking their part at such combats as Homer seemeth to testifie when he bringeth in Achilles speaking in this wise Two chumpions now who simply are of all the armie best My pleasure is shall forth advance and looke who is so blest And favoured at buffet-fight by god Apolloes grace As for to win the victorie and honour in that place Also when he speaketh of archers he saith expresly that one of them who invocated upon Apollo and praied unto him for helpe had good successe and carried away the best prize but the other who was so proud and would not call upon the god for his aid missed the marke scope whereat he shot Neither is it likely or credible that the Athenians dedicated their publicke place of exercise unto Apollo for nothing and without good cause but surely thus they thought that the same God unto whom we are beholden for our health giveth us also the force and strong disposition of bodie to performe such games and feats of activitie But whereas some combats there be sleight and easie others hard and grievous we finde in writing that the Delphians sacrificed unto Apollo by the name of Pyctes that is to say the champion at firstfight but the Candians and Lacedaemonians offered sacrifice unto the same God surnamed the Runner And seeing as we do that the maner is to present in his temple within the citie of Delphos the primices or dedications of the spoiles and bootie gained from the enemies in war as also to consecrate unto him the Trophees is not this a great argument and testimonie that in this God it lieth most to give the victorie and conquest And as he went forward and was minded to say more Cephisus the sonne of Theon interrupted his speech saying These allegations beleeve me savour not of histories nor of Cosmographicall books but being fetched immediatly out of the minds of those Peripateticall discourses are handled and argued probably to the purpose and besides whiles you take up the fabricke or engine after the maner of tragedian plaiers you intend as it should seeme to afright by intimating the name of Apollo those that contradict and gainsay your opinions and yet as well beseemeth his goodnesse and bountie he is indifferent and alike affected unto all in clemencie and benignitie but we following the tracts steps of Sospis who hath led us the way very well keepe our selves to the date tree which afoordeth us sufficient matter to discourse thereof againe for the Babylonians doe chaunt and sing the praises of this tree namely that it bringeth unto them three hundred and threescore sorts of sundrie commodities but we that are Greeks have little or no profit thereby howbeit good philosophie may be drawen out of it for the better instruction of champions and such as are to performe combats of prize in that it beareth no fruit with us for being a right goodly faire and very great tree by reason of the good habit and disposition thereof yet is it not here among us fruitfull but by this strong constitution that it hath it imploieth and spendeth all nouriture to feed and fortifie the bodie after the maner of champions by their exercise so as there remaineth but a little behinde and the same not effectuall for seed over and above all this one qualitie it hath proper and peculiar to it selfe alone and that which agreeth not to any other tree the which I intend to shew unto you For the woodie substance of this date tree aloft if a man seeme to weigh and presse downe with any heavie burden it yeeldeth not nor stoupeth under the poise but curbeth upward archwise as withstanding that wherwith it is charged and pressed and even so it is with those combatants in sacred games for such as through feeblenesse of bodie or faintnesse of heart seeme to yeeld those the said exercises doe bend and keepe under but as many as stoutly abide not onely with their strong bodies but also with magnanimous courage these be they that are raised up on high and mount unto honour THE FIFTH QUESTION What is the cause that they who saile upon the river Nilus draw up water for their use before day-light ONe there was who demanded upon a time the reason why the water-men who saile and row upon the river Nilus provided themselves of that water which they drinke in the night and not by day Some said it was because they feared the sunne which by enchafing and heating the water maketh it more subject to corruption and putrifaction for whatsoever is warmed or made hot the same is alwaies more ready and disposed to mutation and doth soone alter by relaxation
and daintie feeding which without any just or lawfull cause troubleth disquieteth the seas and descendeth into the very bottome of the deepe for we have no reason at any time to call the red sea-barbell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say corne devourer nor the guilt-head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say vine waster or grape eater nor yet any mullets lubins or sea-pikes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say seed gatherers as we name divers land beasts noting them thereby for the harme and annoiance they doe unto us neither can we impute unto the greatest fish in the sea the least wrong or shrewd turne wherewith wee charge in our exceeding neerenesse and parsimonie some cat or wezill a mouse or rat which haunt our houses in which regard they precisely contemning themselves not for feare of law onely to doe wrong unto men but also by the very instinct of nature to offer no injurie unto any thing in the world that doth them no harme nor displeasure used to feed on fish lesse than on any other meat admit there were no injustice in the thing all busie curiositie of men in this point being so needlesse as it is bewraieth great intemperance and wastfull gluttony and therefore Homer in his poeme deviseth this that not onely the Greeks encamping upon the streight of Hellespont absteined wholy from eating fish but also that the delicate and daintie toothed Phaeacians the wanton and licorous woers likewise of lady Penelope dissolute though they were otherwise and all islanders were never served at their tables with any viands or cates from the sea no nor the companions of Ulysses in that grear and long voiage of theirs which they had at sea ever laid hooke leape or wee le or cast net into the sea for fish so long as they had a bit of bread or handfull of meale left But when their ship had vittailes none But all therein was spent and gone even a little before that they laid hands upon the kowes of the sunne then began they to fish not iwis for any deintie dishes but even for necessary food With bended hookes for now their maw Great hunger bit and guts did gnaw So that for extreme need they were forced to eat fish and to kill the sunnes kine whereby wee may perceive that it was a point of sanctimonie and chastitie not onely among the Aegyptians and Syrians but the Greeks also to forbeare feeding upon fish for that beside the injustice of the thing they abhorred as I thinke the superfluous curiositie of such food Heereupon Nestor tooke occasion to speake And why quoth he is there no reckoning made of my countrey-men and fellow-citizens no more than of the Megarians and yet you have heard me to say often times that the priests of Neptune whom we call Hieromnemones never eat fish for this god is surnamed Phytalmios that is to say the President of breeding and generation in the sea and the race descending from that ancient Hellen sacrificed unto Neptune by the name and addition of Patrogeneios that is to say the stock-father and principall Progenitour being of opinion that man came of a moist and liquid substance as also be the Syrians which is the very cause that they worship and adore a fish as being of the same kinde generation and nouriture with themselves philosophizing and arguing in this point with more apparence and shew of reason than Anaximander did who affirmed not that men and fishes were bred both in the same places but avouched that men were first engendred within fishes themselves and there nourished like their yoong frie but afterward when they became sufficient and able to shift and helpe them they were cast foorth and so tooke land like as therefore the fire eateth the wood whereby it was kindled and set a burning though it were father and mother both unto it according as he said who inserted the marriage of Ceyx among the works of Hesiodus even so Anaximander in pronouncing that fish was both father and mother unto men taxeth and condemneth the feeding thereupon THE NINTH QUESTION Whether it be possible that new diseases may be engendred by our meats PHilo the physician constantly affirmed that the leprosie called Elephantiasis was a disease not knowen long since for that none of the ancient physicians made any mention of this maladie whereas they travelled and busied their braines to treat of other small trifling matters I wot not what and yet such subtilties as the common sort could hardly comprehend But I produced and alledged unto him for a witnesse out of philosophie Athenodorus who in the first booke of his Epidemiall or popular diseases writeth that not onely the said leprosie but also Hydrophobie that is to say the feare of water occasioned by the biting of a mad dogge were first discovered in the daies of Asclepiades now as the companie there present marvelled that these maladies should newly then begin and take their consistence in nature so they wondered as much on the other side how so great and grievous diseases could be hidden so long and unknowen to men howbeit the greater part inclined rather to this second later opinion as being more respective and favourable to man for that they could not be perswaded that nature in such cases should in mans bodie as it were in some citie studie novelties and be evermore inventing and working new matters As for Diogenianus he said that the passions and maladies of the soule held on their common course and went the accustomed way still of their predecessours And yet quoth he wickednesse is very manifold in sundry sorts and exceeding audacious to enterprise any thing and the mind is a mistresse of herselfe and at her owne command having puissance to turne and change easily as she thinketh good and yet that disordinate confusion of hers hath some order in it keeping a measure in her passions and conteining herselfe within certeine bounds like as the sea in the flowings and tides in such sort as that she bringeth forth no new kinde of vice such as hath not bene knowen unto those in olde time and of which they have not written for there being many different sorts of lusts and desires infinite motions of feare as many kinds of paine and no fewer formes of pleasure which would require great labour to reckon up and not to give over These neither now nor yesterday Began but all have liveday And no man knowes nor can say well Since when they first to men befell nor yet whereupon any new maladie or moderne passion hath arisen in our body considering it hath not of it selfe the beginning of motion properly as the soule hath but is knit and conjoined with nature by common causes and composed with a certeine temperature the infinite varietie whereof wandereth notwithstanding within the pourprise of set bounds and limits like unto a vessell which lying at anchor in the sea neverthelesse doth wave and
thereof untill such time as we come to quench and allay the same thus inflamed and boiling as they doe There is no need therefore ô Diogenianus quoth I offorren and farre fetched causes from without neither of those new worlds and intervals betweene for to goe no further than to our selves the very change onely of the fashion of our diet is a sufficient meanes both to breed and also to abolish and cause to ease any maladie in us THE TENTH QUESTIOIN What is the reason that we take least heed of dreames in the end of Autumne and give small credit unto them FLorus lighting upon physicall problemes or naturall questions of Aristotle which were brought to Thermopylae for to passe the time away filled both himselfe with many doubts as ordinarily men do who are by nature studious and also put as many into the heads of others giving testimony heerein to Aristotle who saith That much knowledge breedeth many occasions of doubt as for other questions they afforded unto us no unpleasant pastime and recreation in the day time as we walked in the galleries abroad but that probleme concerning dreams namely that they be uncertein lying false especially during those moneths whē trees shed their leaves was set on foot again I wot no thow after supper by Phavorinus when he had done with other discourses As for your familiar companions my children they were of opinion that Aristotle himselfe had sufficiently solved the question there needed no farther enquirie into the matter nor any speech more to be made thereof but even to attribute the cause as he did to the new gathered fruits of that season for being as they were fresh and greene still in their strength and full of vigour they engendred in our bodies many ventosities and bred much trouble and agitation in the humours for likely it is not that new wine alone doth worke boile and chaufe nor that oile onely being new drawen and pressed yeeldeth a noise as it burneth in lampes by occasion that the heat causeth the windinesse and spirit thereof to evaporate and walme out but we see that corne also newly inned all fruits of trees presently upon their gathering are plumpe full and swelled againe untill such time as they have exhaled foorth all that is flatuous and breathed out the crudities thereof now that there be certeine meates that cause troublesome dreames and engender turbulent visions and fansies in our sleepe they brought in and alledged for their testimony the instance of beanes and the head of the pulpe or pour-cuttle fish which they are bidden to absteine from who would divine and foreshew things that come by dreames As for Phavorinus howsoever he was himselfe at all times wonderfully affected addicted to Aristotle and one who attributed unto the Peripateticks schole this singular commendation that their doctrine caried more probabilitie and resemblance of the truth than other philosophers whatsoever yet at this present he came out with an old rustie reason of Democritus taken out of the smoake where it had gathered a deale of thicke soot for to furbish scoure and make it bright againe for this was the vulgar opinion which Democritus put downe for a supposition That certeine images doe enter and pierce deepe into our bodies thorough the pores which as they rise againe from the bottome cause those visions which appeare unto us as we sleepe that these came out of al parts wandering as presented from utensils habillements plants but principally from living creatures for that they moove stir much and besides are hot having not onely the expresse similitudes and sundry formes of bodies imprinted in them as Epicurus thinketh who thus farre foorth followeth Democritus and leaveth him there but also drawing therewith the apparences of the motions of the minde of counsel of usuall milde affections as also of vehement passions wherewith they entring in doe speake as if they were living things and distinctly carie unto those that receive the same the opinions the words the discourses and affections of such as transmit the same if in their entrance they reteine still the expresse figures and nothing confused which they doe especially all while that their way and passage thorough the aire cleere and united is speedy quicke and not empeached by any hinderance considering than that the aire of the Autumnall quarter in the end when as trees doe cast their leaves hath much asperitie and inequalitie it turneth aside and putteth by diversly those images causing their evidence to be feeble and transitorie as being darkened by the tardity and slownesse of their pace in the way whereas contrariwise when they runne foorth in great number and swiftly out of those things that swell with fulnesse and burne as it were with desire to be delivered of them then as they passe they yeeld their resemblances all fresh and very significant After this casting his eie upon Autohulus and smiling withall Me thinks quoth he that I perceive you and those about you to addresse your selves alredy for to maintaine a kinde of fight against these images that you meane to fasten with your hands and catch hold of this old opinion as if it were some rotten picture to doe it some violence Goe to quoth Autobulus will you never leave these fashions to play with us in this manner for wee know well enough iwis that you hold and approove the opinion of Aristotle and that for to give a lustre thereunto you have set this of Democritus by it as a shadow and foile that conceit therefore of Democritus we will turne over and put by and take in hand for to impugne this reason of Aristotles which imputeth all to these new fruits and unjustly without al all reason blaming discrediting that which we all love so well for both Summer Autumne will beare witnesse that when we eat these fruits more fresh and greene even at such time as they are most succulent and verdant as Antimachus said our dreames are lesse lying and deceitfull but these moneths which we name the Fall of the leafe pitching their tents as it were and taking up their standings close to the Winter have reduced already both corne of the field and also the fruits of trees which remaine uneaten by their perfect concoction to this passe that they looke slender and in some sort riveled as having lost by this time that violent heady and furious force which was in them As touching new wine they that drinke it soonest doe it in the moneth Anthisteron that is to say Februarie presently after winter and that day upon which they begin to taste it we in our countrey call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the day of good fortune but the Athenians name it of opening their tunnes or wine vessels Pithaegia but so long as the Must or new wine is working still and in the heat we see that all men even the very artificers and labourers are affraid to taste
a little troubled at this chalenge but after he had paused and thought upon the matter a while in the end he spake to this effect It is an ordinary thing quoth he with Plato to play with us many times merrily by certeine devised names that hee useth but whensoever hee inserteth some fable in any treatise of the soule he doth it right soberly and hath a deepe meaning and profound sense therein for the intelligent nature of heaven he calleth a Chariot volant to wit the harmonicall motion and revolution of the world and heere in this place whereof we are now in question to wit in the end of the tenth booke of his Common-wealth he bringeth in a messenger from hell to relate newes of that which he had there himselfe seene and calleth him by the name of Era a Pamphylian borne and the sonne of Armonius giving us covertly by an aenigmaticall conveiance thus much to understand That our soules are engendred by harmonie and so joined to our bodies but when they be disjoined and separate from them they runne together all into aire from every side and so returne againe from thence unto second generations what should hinder then but this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was put downe by him not to shew a truth whereof he spake but rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a probable speech and conjecturall fiction or else a thing spoken as it should seeme to a dead bodie and so uttered vainly and at a venture in the aire for Plato alwaies toucheth three causes as being the philosopher who either first knew or principally understood how fatall destiny is mingled with fortune and againe how our freewill is woont to bee joined with either of them or is complicate with both and now in this place before cited hee sheweth excellently well what power each of these causes hath in our humane affaires attributing the choice and election of our life unto free will for vertue and vice be free and at the commaund of no lord and tying to the necessitie of fatall destinie a religious life to God-ward in them who have made a good choise and contrariwise in those who have made a choise of the woorst but the cadences or chaunces of lots which being cast at a venture and lighting heere and there without order befall to every one of us bring in fortune and preoccupate or prevent much of that which is ours by the sundry educations or governments of common-weale wherein it hapneth each of us to live for this I would have every one of you to consider whether it bee not meere folly and without all reason to seeke for a cause of that which is done by fortune and casually for if lot should seeme to come by reason there were to be imputed no more to fortune or adventure but all to some fatall destinie or providence Whiles Lamprias delivered this speech Marcus the Grammarian seemed to count and number I wot not what upon his fingers to himselfe apart but when he had made an end the said Marcus named aloud all those soules or spirits which are called out in Homers Necya Among which quoth he the ghost onely of Elpenor wandering still in the middle confines is not reckoned with those beneath in another world for that his bodie as yet is not interred and committed to the earth as for the soule of Tiresias also it seemeth not to bee numbred with the rest To whom now dead Proserpina above the rest did give This gift alone right wise to be although he did not live as also the power to speake with the living and to understand their state and affaires even before he had drunke the bloud of sacrificed beasts If then quoth hee ô Lamprias you subtract these two and count the rest you shall finde that the soule of Ajax was just the twentieth of those which presented themselves to Ulysses and heereto alluded Plato as it should seeme by way of mirth joining his fable together with that evocation of spirits otherwise called Necyra in Homers Odyssea THE SIXTH QUESTION What is covertly meant by the fable wherein Neptune is feigned to have beene vanquished as also why the Athenians take out the second day of the moneth August NOw when the whole company were growen to a certeine uprore Menephyllus a Peripateticke philosopher calling unto Hylas by name You see quoth he now that this question was not propounded by way of mockerie and contumelious flouting but you my good friend leaving this froward and mal-contented Ajax whose name as Sophocles saith is ominous and of ill presage betake your selfe unto Neptune and side with him a while who is wont to recount unto us himselfe how he hath beene oftentimes overcome to wit in this city by Minerva at Delphi by Apollo in Argos by Juno in Aegina by Jupiter and in Naxus by Bacchus and yet in all his repulses disfavors and infortunities he bare himselfe alwaies mild and gentle carying no ranckor or malice in his heart for proofe heereof there is even in this city a temple common to him and Minerva in which there standeth also an altar dedicated to Oblivion Then Hylas who seemed by this time more pleasantly disposed But you have forgotten quoth he ô Menephyllus that we have abolished the second day of the moneth August not in regard of the moone but because it was thought to be the day upon which Neptune and Minerva pleaded for the scignorie of this territorie of Attica Now I assure you quoth Lamprias Neptune was every way much more civill and reasonable than Thrasibulus in case being not a winner as the other but a loser he could forget all grudge and malice A great breach and defect there is in the Greeke originall wherein wanteth the farther handling of this question as also 5. questions entier following and a part of the 6. to wit 7 Why the accords in musicke are devided into three 8 Wherein differ the intervals or spaces melodious from those that be accordant 9 What cause is it that maketh accord and what is the reason that when one toucheth two strings accordant together the melody is ascribed to the base 10 What is the cause that the eclipticke revolutions of sunne and moone being in number equall yet we see the moone oftner ecclipsed than the sunne 11 That we continue not alwaies one and the same in regard of the daily deflux of our substance 12 Whether of the twaine is more probable that the number of starres is even or odde Of this twelfth question thus much remaineth as followeth Lysander was wont to say That children are to be deceived with cockall bones but men with othes Then Glaucias I have heard quoth he that this speech was used against Polycrates the tyrant but it may be that it was spoken also to others But whereby do you demaund this of me Because verily quoth Sospis I see that children snatch at such bones the Academiques catch at words for it
calling one Atropos another Lachesis and a third Clotho for as touching the motions and revolutions of the eight heavenly Sphaeres hee hath attributed as presidents unto them so many Syrenes in number and not Muses Then Menephylus the Peripateticke comming in with his speech There is quoth hee some reason and probabilitie in the Delphians saying but surely the opinion of Plato is absurd in that unto those divine and eternall