their pleasantness of taste.
_Meats_
_Scop._ Do you remember the verse of Cato?
Pauca voluptati debentur; plura saluti.[75]
Give every one a platter of meat with sauce, so that he
may swallow it down, and this will warm the intestines
and pleasantly wash and so soften the body.
_Sim._ Here, boy, give me at once some salted pork. Oh!
most savoury leg of pork! It is a barrow-hog. If you can
hear what I say, return the cabbage and bacon, to the
cook, at this season of the year, or preserve it till the
winter. Cut me a couple of bits off this sausage, so that
the first cup of wine may taste the sweeter.
_Crit._ Let us follow the advice of physicians that wine
be taken with pork. Pour out wine.
_Wine_
_Scop._ Now follows action after talk. Surely this is
wisest at this time of the year. Look at the necessary
preparations for our drinking wine. First of all the
keeper of the sideboard (_custos abaci_) has set out
the cups of brightest crystal glass with purest white
wine; you would think it water by its mere appearance. It
is San Martin wine and partly Rhein wine, but not mixed
as they are accustomed to drink it in Belgium, but such
as they drink in mid-Germany. The wine-seller to-day
has tapped two casks, one of yellow Helvell from the
neighbourhood of Paris, and one of blood-red Bordeaux.
Others are in readiness kept cool, dark (_fuscus_) from
Aquitaine and black from Saguntum. Let every one choose
according to his liking.
_Crit._ What suggestion could be more delightful? as
nothing is harder fortune than to perish of thirst.
For myself I should prefer that you had set before
us the best water. I would rather have heard such an
announcement than that of the wines.
_Scop._ Nor shall that be lacking.
_Sim._ Lately when I was in Rome, I drank at a cardinal’s
house, the noblest wines of every flavour; sweet, sharp,
mild, fruity, and tart. I was indeed extremely friendly
with the wine-cellarer.
_Dem._ I dearly like fiery wine.
_Pol._ So also do Belgian women. In some places in France
they offer you the dregs of wine. They most delight in
two and three year old vintage. But these are rather
sampling of wine than real wine-drinking, and French
wine especially bears neither the addition of water nor
years. Therefore soon after it is racked off it is drunk.
Indeed, in a year it begins to get worse, and becomes
uncertain, then its flavour escapes and it becomes sour.
Had it been kept longer it would become mouldy and flat.
The Spanish and Italian wines, on the other hand, improve
with age, and with the addition of water.
_Dem._ What do you mean by wine getting “flat”? The casks
become shrunken, the wine is enclosed in cells, and the
casing of the cask falls in, if need be.
_Pol._ Like as fruit gets uneatable through decay by age
and does not keep, and, as we say commonly, goes bad. The
opposite term is “still wine” (_consistens_).
_Dem._ Pour me first a half-cupful of water and then pour
in the wine, after the old custom.
_Crit._ Nay, to-day’s custom is yet the same with many
people, the French and Germans being exceptions.
_Dem._ The nations who drink water with wine pour wine to
the water; those who will drink wine watered, pour water
on to the wine.
_Crit._ And what do those drink who mix no water with
their wine?
_Dem._ Pure, unmixed wine.
_Crit._ That is, if the wine-dealer did not first water
it himself.
_Pol._ They call that baptising it, so that the wine
should be Christian. This was in my time a fine,
philosophical way of speaking.
_Dem._ They baptise the wine, and themselves are
unbaptised (_i.e._, unwatered or unwashed).
_Pol._ They do worse to wine who add chalk, sulphur,
honey, alum, and other more noisome things than which
nothing is more pernicious to one’s body. Against such
people the state ought to proceed as against robbers or
assassins. For thence are incredible kinds of diseases
and especially gout.
_Crit._ By conspiracy with physicians they can do this.
Then both share the profit.
_Dem._ The cup you reach to me is too full. Empty it a
little, I beg, so that there may be a space for water.
_Drinking_
_Crit._ Pour me wine in that chestnut-coloured cup. What
is that?
_Scop._ A great Indian nut, surrounded with a silver
edge. Won’t you drink out of that bowl of ebony wood?
They say that this is the healthiest. But don’t give me
too much water. Don’t you know the old proverb: “You
spoil wine when you pour water into it”?
_Dem._ Yes, then you spoil both the water and the wine.
_Pol._ I would rather spoil both, than be spoiled by one
of them.
_Scop._ Would it not be pleasant, according to the Greek
custom, to drink out of the bowls and from the bigger
beakers?
_Pol._ By no means. You reminded us just now of the old
proverb. In my turn I remind you of the Pauline precept:
“Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess”; and that
of our Saviour: “And take heed to yourselves lest at
any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and
drunkenness.”
_Water_
_Crit._ Whence is this cold water, so pure and pellucid?
_Scop._ Out of the spring near by here.
_Crit._ Rather than mixing of wine I prefer cistern
water, if it is thoroughly pure.
_Dem._ What do you think of spring-drawn water?
_Crit._ It is more appropriate for washing purposes than
for drinking.
_Pol._ Very many people commend flowing water.
_Crit._ And quite rightly if the streams flow through
gold veins, as in Spain, and the water is peaceful and
clear.
_Beer_
_Sim._ Bring me in that Samian phial some beer which, in
this heat, should be very good for refreshing one’s body.
_Scop._ Which sort of beer will you have?
_Sim._ The lightest you have, for other kinds muddle the
mind too much and make the body too fat.
_Pol._ Give me some also, but in the round glass.
_Scop._ Run to the kitchen and see what they are waiting
for. Why don’t they send another course? You see that
already no one further tastes of this. Bring young cocks
cooked with lettuce, garden oxtongue, and endive; also
mutton and calf’s flesh.
_Crit._ Add also a little mustard or rock-parsley in
small dishes.
_Dem._ Mustard seems to me a strong (_violenta_) food.
_Crit._ It is not suitable for bilious people, but is not
without its usefulness for those who abound in thick and
cold humours.
_Pol._ Therefore are the countries of northern latitudes
wise in using it, for whom it is of great service,
especially with thick and hard food, _e.g._, with beef
and salted fish.
_Pottage_
_Scop._ In this place, I think broth and rice come
seasonably, also ash-coloured bread, fine wheaten bread,
starch-food, rice, “little worms” (_vermiculi_). Let
every one take according to his taste.
_Dem._ I have seen those who shuddered terribly at
“little worms” because they believed they were out of the
earth and from mud, and had previously been alive.
_Crit._ Such people deserve to have these “worms” come to
life again in their stomachs. They say that rice is born
in water and dies in wine. Give me, therefore, wine.
_Dem._ Drink not immediately after warm food. Eat first
something cold and solid.
_Crit._ What?
_Dem._ A crust of bread, or a rissole or two of meat.
_Fish_
_Sim._ Bah! fish and meat at the same sitting! To mix
earth and sea. This is forbidden by physicians.
_Scop._ Nay, rather physicians are pleased by it.
_Sim._ I think it is because it is profitable to them.
_Scop._ Why, then, do the physicians forbid it?
_Sim._ I have made a mistake. I ought to have said
that it is prohibited by the art of medicine, not by
physicians. But what sort of fish is this?
_Scop._ Place them in order. The first is roasted pike
with vinegar and capers, then turbot cooked with the
juice of pointed sorrel, fried soles, a fresh pike and
a _capito_ (large-headed fish)—the salted pike serve
for yourself—fresh roasted and salted tunny-fish, fresh
_maenae_ (small sea fish) fried, pasties, in which are
many bearded-fishes, _murenae_, and trout, with suitable
relishes, fried gudgeon and boiled lobsters and crabs.
Mingle with them dishes with garlic, pepper, mustard,
pounded up.
_Sim._ I will indeed speak of the fish, but not eat of
them.
_Crit._ If a philosopher begins to conduct a controversy
on fish, _i.e._, on a most uncertain, debatable question,
then let us have a bed set up, so that we can sleep here.
_Scop._ No one is worthy to even taste these dishes. Take
them away.
_Sim._ And yet formerly banquets at Rome were most
splendid and they were accustomed to say that sumptuous
ones were given which consisted entirely of fish.
_Crit._ Thus have times changed, although this custom
also lasts with some people.
_Birds_
_Scop._ Bring up roasted chickens, partridges, thrushes,
ducklings, teal, wood-pigeons, rabbits, hares, calf’s
flesh, kids, and sauce or flavours, vinegar, oil, fruit
penetrating in its medical properties, also citrons,
olives from the Balearic Islands, preserved, pressed, and
kept in pickle.
_Dem._ Are no Bethica (district of Spain) olives there?
_Scop._ Those from the Balearic Islands taste better.
_Crit._ What will happen to those big animals there, the
goose, the swan, the peacock?
_Scop._ Merely show them, and take them back to the
kitchen.
_Pol._ See there a peacock! Where is Q. Hortensius who
held a peacock for such a delicacy?[76]
_Sim._ Take the lamb-meat away.
_Scop._ Why?
_Sim._ Because it is unsound. They say it does not go out
by any other way than that it entered.
_Crit._ I have seen someone who swallowed olive stones
like an ostrich.
_Scop._ From what meat are those pasties made?
_Crit._ This here is stag’s flesh.
_Scop._ This is deer’s flesh; and that there, I believe,
is boar’s flesh.
_Crit._ I prefer the condiments to meat itself.
_Sim._ And that is clearly right, for spice renders the
sourest things sweet.
_Crit._ What is the spice of the whole of life?
_Dem._ An equable mind.
_Crit._ I can name something else, which is of larger
scope and more august.
_Dem._ What can be more important than what I have named?
_Crit._ _Pietas_, under which equanimity is included.
Moreover, “piety” is the most suitable and pleasant sauce
for all things hard and easy, and those things which lie
between these extremes.
_Scop._ Pour white Spanish wine in that beaker and bear
it round to the guests.
_Dem._ What are you preparing to do? When dinner is
finished, bring us some strong and generous wine. We can
afterwards drink something more diluted, if we wish to
take care of our health.
_Sim._ Thy counsel seems to me good, for it behoves us
to have colder food at the end of a meal, which by its
weight may thrust down the other food to the bottom of
the stomach, and may restrain the vapours from escaping
to the head.
III. _Second Course_
_Scop._ Take away those things; change the round and
square plates, and lay the second table (dessert). For
no one is anywhere further stretching forth his hand to
the dishes.
_Crit._ I have eaten so heartily from the beginning that
I have quite lost all further appetite.
_Dem._ I also have no more appetite, but I was led on by
the desire of the fruit dishes here, and so have eaten to
satiety.
_Pol._ I have eaten I don’t know how much fish. This has
repulsed all my appetite.
_Sim._ And is there so much of splendid dainties and
delicacies before us when there is no longer the desire
of eating? Pears, apples, and cheese of many kinds! The
most attractive to my palate is the horse-cheese.
_Crit._ I believe that it is not horse-cheese at all, but
Phrygian cheese from asses’ milk, such as is brought from
Sicily in the form of columns and squares. When one is
broken, it cleaves into layers or, as it were, sheets (of
paper).
_Dem._ This cheese is porous as if it were from England,
and will not in my opinion be pleasing to you.
_Crit._ Nor will this spongy Dutch cheese. This from
Parma is thicker and, as it seems, fairly fresh, and that
Penasellian (Spanish) will easily vie with it.
_Dem._ This cheese is not from Parma but Placentia.
_Crit._ It also is pleasant. Commonly the cheese dearest
to the Germans is old cheese, putrid, fried up and wormy.
_Sim._ He who eats such cheese is hunting for thirst and
he eats in order to drink.
_Scop._ The pastry-cook delays too long with his sweets.
Why does he not bring his tarts, his wine-cakes and
cup-cakes and the fried cakes made of a concoction thrown
into a vessel of boiling oil with honey poured over it?
_Crit._ Give me a few dates, both some to eat and some to
keep by me. Perhaps I shall to-night eat nothing else.
_Scop._ Then take the whole of this branch of them. Will
you have some pomegranates?
_Pol._ Here, boy, relieve me of these wild dates and give
me something eatable.
_Scop._ I advise you to drink. Don’t you know that it was
the opinion of Aristotle that the dessert was introduced
into meals to invite us to drinking lest the food should
be digested dry?
_Crit._ The discoverer must have been either a sailor or
fish to be so much afraid of dryness.
_Scop._ Take away those things which are ordinarily
called the seal of the stomach, because after them
nothing more is to be eaten or drunk, biscuits,
quince-cakes, coriander covered with sugar. But such food
must be chewed, not eaten. What remains from the portion
chewed must be spit out, for it is uneatable. Collect
the bits and what remains over in baskets; bring scented
waters, of rose, of the flowers of the healing apple
(citron), and of musk-melon.
IV. _End of the Banquet_
_Pol._ Let us return thanks to Christ.
_The Boy._
Agimus tibi gratias, Pater, qui tam multa ad hominum usus
condidisti: annue, ut tuo favore ad coenam illam veniamus
tuae beatitudinis.[77]
_Pol._ Now then let us return thanks to the host.
_Crit._ Well, you do it.
_Pol._ Nay, rather Democritus, who is strong on these points.
_Dem._ I cannot return thanks as in duty bound to thee, deserving well
of the republic, for all has been confused by Bacchus, but I will
recite what once Diogenes said to Dionysius; I have committed his
speech to memory. If I have a lapse of memory or a faltering tongue you
will forgive me after so great a soaking of drink.
_Scop._ Say what you will; it will be written in wine.
_Dem._ Thou hast, my Scopas, thyself, thy wife, thy man-servants and
maid-servants, neighbours, cooks, and pastry-cooks, wearied thyself
and themselves, so that we may become yet more wearied by eating and
drinking. When Socrates had entered a very crowded market, he exclaimed
wisely, “O immortal gods, how many things there are here which I don’t
need.” Thou, on the contrary, mightest say, “What a small part is
all this of that which I need.” The idea of moderation is pleasing
to Nature. Thereon it is formed and supported. This supply of many
and manifold things overwhelms Nature, as Pliny rightly observes.
Manifoldness of food is injurious to man; yet more injurious is every
sauce. We take hence to our homes bodies made heavy by these things,
minds oppressed and sunk in food and drinks, so that we cannot duly
perform any human duty. Do you yourself point out what thanks we owe
you.
_Scop._ Are these the thanks you have for me? Thus you pay back so
splendid a meal!
_Pol._ Clearly it is so—for what greater benefit is there than becoming
wiser? You send us home evidently beasts. We wish to leave you at home
a man, so that you may know how to consult your own health and that of
others and to live conformably to the desires of Nature, not following
fancies caught up from folly. Farewell and learn wisdom.
XVIII
EBRIETAS—_Drunkenness_
ASOTUS, TRICONGIUS, ABSTEMIUS, GLAUCIA
In this dialogue Vives describes the causes and effects of drunkenness.
The occasion of the dialogue is based on Horace, book i. Epist. 5,
where firstly is described the desire to cast away care by a splendid
feast, to drink the best wines freely and in quantities, for Horace
says:
Potare et spargere flores
Incipiam patiarque vel inconsultus haberi.
Then he adds the seven effects of drunkenness. It causes the disclosure
of secrets, renders men confident, makes them bold, takes away anxiety,
brings the fatuous impression of wisdom, makes men garrulous and
loquacious, and in the depth of poverty renders men dissolute and
lavish.
Quid non ebrietas designat? operta recludit:
Spes jubet esse ratas, in praelia trudit inermem.
Sollicitis animis onus eximit, addocet artes.
Foecundi calices quem non fecêre disertum?
Contractâ quem non in paupertate solutum?
Here, again, names of interlocutors are aptly applied. Asotus (middle
vowel long) is a man given up to luxuries of the palate. In Latin
such is called _heluo_ (glutton), _nepos_ (spendthrift), _decoctor_
(bankrupt). The Greek word comes from a privative particle, and σώζω;
Latin, _servo_. _See_ Cicero, book 2, _de Finibus_: “Nolim asotos, qui
in mensam vomant, et qui de conviviis auferantur, crudique nostridie
se rursus ingurgitent; qui solem (ut aiunt) nec occidentem unquam
viderint, nec orientem: qui consumtis patrimoniis egeant. Nemo istius
generis asotos jucunde putat vivere.”
Concerning Tricongius we have spoken in the dialogue “Garrientes.”
Abstemius is one who does not drink wine, as if held back, _i.e._ from
wine. There are two parts to the dialogue, the Exordium, which contains
the occasion of the dialogue, and Narratio, the telling of the story.
I. _Exordium_
_Asot._ What do you say, Tricongius? How splendidly that
Brabantian entertained us yesterday!
_Tric._ A curse on him, for I could not rest the whole
night! I was sick, with all due respect to you let me say
it (_sit habitus honos vestris auribus_), and then tossed
myself about all over the bed, now on the inner, then
on the outer, frame of the bed. It seemed to me as if I
should vomit forth throat and stomach. Even now I cannot
use my eyes or ears for headache. It is as if I had heavy
bars of lead lying on my forehead and eyes.
_Asot._ Fasten a band round your forehead and temples,
and you will seem to be a king.
_Tric._ Much rather like Bacchus himself, from whom the
institution of diadems on kings was derived.
_Asot._ Go home, then, and sleep off the soaking.
_Tric._ Home, indeed! There is no place I should shun
so much as my home. I should feel too much aversion to
meet my shrieking wife. For if she were to see me now she
would entertain me with longer homilies than Chrysostom.
_Abstem._ And this is what you call being treated
splendidly!
_Glauc._ Clearly so; for your throat and stomach have
been well washed!
_Abstem._ And the hands too?
_Glauc._ Not even once.
_Asot._ Nay, on the contrary, often with wine and milk,
whilst we dipped our hands in one another’s bowls
(_pateras_).
_Glauc._ What could be said more splendidly? Fancy the
fingers sticking with the fat of meat and with sauces.
_Abstem._ By the gods, keep quiet! Who could listen
without nausea to the unclean business, much less look
upon it, or taste of such wine or milk.
_Asot._ By your faith, ye gods! are you so delicate a
man, Abstemius, that you cannot swallow this even with
your ears? What would you do with your palate, if you
were like us? But listen to me, Tricongius, sweetest
fellow-wine-bibber, let us send some boy to fetch us
some of the same wine in that clay vessel. There is no
surer antidote against this poison.
_Tric._ Has this been tried?
_Asot._ Why should it not be so? Don’t you remember the
verses which Colax sings:—
Ad sanandum morsum canis nocturni,
Sume ex pilis eiusdem canis.[78]
PLAUTUS.
_Glauc._ Tell us, I beg you, all about the banquet.
_Abstem._ Nay, don’t! unless you wish me to part with all
I have in my stomach, and even the vitals themselves.
_Glauc._ Then go away for a short time.
_Asot._ I will tell you as frankly as possible, but so as
nowhere to go beyond the limits of decency.
_Glauc._ Begin, I beseech you. Give your attention,
Abstemius.
_Asot._ My dear Glaucia, before everything, I am of
opinion that there is no class of men which can be
likened to festive and liberal hosts at banquets. Some
show knowledge of all kinds of things, _i.e._, of mere
trifles; others show with pride, experience, and wisdom
gathered from practice. And what of this? There are
people who indeed have wealth, but, wretched that they
are, they don’t dare to spend it. What they have, they
take pleasure in storing up. A kindly host is everywhere
of use, everywhere is welcome. The very sight of him is
sufficient to heal the sadness of the mind and scatter
it; and if a man has any wretchedness, the memory of
the feast takes it away. So, too, does the hope and
expectation of a coming feast. All the other so-called
mental blessings I don’t care to look on; they are, to
me, slight and unfruitful.
_Abstem._ I ask you, Asotus, who is the author of such a
fine sentiment?
_Asot._ I and all like me, _i.e._, a host of people
from Belgic France, from the Seine to the Rhine. There
are only a few poor and very sparing men who think
differently, who envy Abstemius his name, and wish to be
called frugal, or else certain distinguished people who
are puffed up with a great opinion of their own wisdom,
_i.e._, an empty word, whom we (_i.e._, the greatest and
chief part of mankind) simply laugh at.
_Abstem._ What do I hear?
_Digression_
_Glauc._ He is quite right, though he is drunk. For
nowhere has scholarship less estimation than in Belgium.
A distinguished man in scholarship is not otherwise
esteemed than one who is occupied in shoe-making or in
weaving.
_Abstem._ And yet there are many students here who make
not altogether unsatisfactory progress.
_Glauc._ Yes. Little boys are led by their parents to
the schools as to an operative shop, by which afterwards
they can derive a living. The very teachers themselves,
incredible to say, as little as the pupils, cherish the
occupation they follow with such slight honour and with
such meagre reward, so that illustrious teachers of the
first rank can scarcely maintain themselves.
_Asot._ This has nothing to do with the subject of our
conversation. Let us return to the banquet.
_Glauc._ Yes, I would rather hear about that, but dismiss
this talk about studies, which are certainly unfruitful.
I know not how you Italians think about scholarship.
In my eyes, it seems to me not only useless but even
pernicious (_damnosa_).
_Abstem._ So it seems to an ox and a pig, as it does to
you. We, too, should think the same if we had not more
intelligence than you.
II. _The Exposition (Narratio)_
_Asot._ If we let you go on, there would be no end.
Therefore, listen. First, we all of us reclined, severe
and serious. Grace was said, and everywhere was silence
and quiet. Every one began to get his knife ready. We put
on the appearance not of eagerness but of restraint (_non
invitatorum sed invitorum_), so that you would have said
that we were compelled to eat, and in the act of eating,
did it as if reluctantly, for our mind had not as yet
warmed with the ardour of spontaneity. Each one placed
his napkin over his shoulders; some indeed in front of
their chests. Others spread the tablecloth over their
knees. One takes bread, looks at it, cleans it, if there
is any coal or cinders lining it. All these things are
done gently and lingeringly (_cunctabunde_).
_Cause_
Some began the meal by drinking; others, before they
drank, took a little salad and salted beef to arouse
their sleeping appetite and to stimulate their languor.
The first cup was of beer, so that there might be a cold,
firm foundation underlaid for the warmth of wine. Then
that holy liquor was brought first in narrow and small
cups, which should rather irritate than assuage thirst.
The host was a very festive man, than whom there was none
better in the whole neighbourhood, nor even his equal,
_i.e._, in my opinion (which may be said without injury
to any one). He then orders the largest of cups to be
brought and a beginning was made of drinking liberally,
after the Greek fashion, as a certain Philo-Greek said,
who once had studied at Lyons. Then we began to talk,
and then to get warm. Everywhere joviality and laughing
became general. Oh, feasts and nights of the gods! We
drank to one another’s health, and returned like for
like, with great equity. It would have been unjust to
gain a point over one’s companion, especially at such a
time.