chalice of wine, but it is one’s senses and intellect
which are in question, the chief possessions of man. But
if we are to talk over so copious and festive a subject,
first I must ask of you whether you are drunk?
_Asot._ No, certainly not. This you can easily and truly
see from the connectedness of my talk. Do you think, if
I were drunk, that I could relate all this in such an
orderly fashion?
_Abstem._ Then it is well, for otherwise I should be
contending with an absent opponent, according to the
verse of Mimus. But tell me now, first, why don’t you
erect a temple in these parts to Bacchus, the discoverer
of this celestial liquor?
_Asot._ This is your business; you, who have a temple
at Rome of Sergius and Bacchus. It is sufficient for us
daily to follow his rites, wherever we are. And perchance
we should erect a temple for him if it were settled he
was the discoverer, for I have heard certain students
debate the question. There are some who think that Noah
was the first who drank wine and was intoxicated by it.
_Abstem._ Let us leave that point! Tell us what wine you
had.
_Asot._ What concerns us is what sort of wine it is and
whence it came. Let it only have the name and colour of
wine, that is sufficient for us. For these delicacies in
wines let the Frenchman and the Italian seek.
_Abstem._ What enjoyment can there then be if you don’t
at all taste what you are pouring into your body?
_Tric._ Perchance some taste something at the beginning
with the palate whole. But when it becomes palled from so
great a superfluity, things lose all their taste.
_Abstem._ If thirst has been quenched, no pleasure
remains. For this consists only in the satisfaction
of natural needs. So it is a kind of torment to go on
drinking when there is no thirst, or to eat when there is
no hunger.
_Tric._ Don’t you think, then, Abstemius, that we drink
for pleasure or because it is pleasant?
_Abstem._ Then you are so much worse than beasts, who are
controlled by natural desires, whilst reason does not
govern you, nor nature exercise a control over you.
_Tric._ Good fellowship leads us to that point; and in
spite of reason we get drunk little by little.
_Abstem._ How often have you been drunk? how often do you
see others drunk?
_Tric._ Every day, very many.
_Abstem._ Don’t then so many experiments satisfy you so
as to put you on your guard against so disgraceful an
event? Even one such experience would suffice for an
animal!
_Glauc._ But do you know also how dear our companions
are, for whose sake men become beasts? Whilst drinking
they would give their very hearts for them. When they
meet afterwards, they hardly know them! Their very life
and soul they would not redeem for the sum of a sesterce.
_Abstem._ Out of what sort of cups and how did you quaff
the wine?
_Asot._ In the first place there were brought glass cups;
a little time afterwards, on account of the danger,
these were taken away and silver ones presented. In the
wine at first we put herbs, which the season of the year
provided, a little time afterwards, flesh-broth, milk,
butter, and pap.
_Abstem._ Oh, filth, which would not be borne by animals!
_Tric._ How much more tragically (τραγικὼτερον) you would
call out if you knew that they plunged their dirty hands
into one another’s wine and cast in the shells of eggs,
fruit and nuts, and the stones of olives and prunes.
_Abstem._ Cease from this description, if you don’t wish
me to take myself off hence to some woods.
_Tric._ Listen to me, Glaucia. I will speak in your ear.
Some people carry a hunting-bugle when taking a journey,
which is full of dust, straws, fluff, and other dirty
things. Out of this we drank.
_Glauc._ What?
_Tric._ What, indeed? wine?
_Glauc._ Nay, rather say your understanding.
_Tric._ Clearly it is so. And after we had drunk the
understanding we took pots (_matuli_), not altogether
clean, from off a stool and used them for cups.
_Effects_
_Abstem._ How ended the banquet—the story of which sounds
like a fable?
_Asot._ The floors swam with wine. We were all drunk,
especially the host, a strong man. Two or three were
lying down under the table, overcome by a great victory.
_Abstem._ O glorious victory, and in a very beautiful and
glorious conflict! But did wine overcome every one?
_Asot._ Even so.
_Abstem._ Wretched man, what do you think drunkenness is?
_Asot._ A fine thing! It is to give oneself up to one’s
genius.
_Abstem._ Yes, but which genius, your good one or your
bad one?
_Glauc._ If you will rightly look into all these matters,
you will never find which genius they give themselves up
to. For it is neither to the heart, nor to pleasure,
nor any other cause for which others indulge, who follow
vices and the depraved desires of the mind. To be drunk
is different. It is to lose the power of the senses,
to go away from the power of reasoning, of judgment;
clearly, from being a man to become either cattle or,
indeed, a stone. What follows afterwards I can easily
imagine, had I never seen a drunkard; to speak, and not
to know what you are saying; if any secret, of especial
importance not to be divulged, is committed to you,
to blab it out, and to say things which may lead into
grave danger yourself, your people, and often your whole
province and fatherland, to have no discrimination of
friend and foe, of wife and mother—and it leads to
quarrels, contentions, enmities, snares, wounds, maiming,
killing!
_Tric._ Even without sword and blood, for not a few pass
on from drunkenness to death.
_Glauc._ Who would not prefer to be shut up at home with
a dog or a cat than with a drunkard? For those animals
have more intellect in them than the drunkard.
_Abstem._ After the drunkenness follows indigestion,
weakening of the nerves, paralysis, the tortures of gout,
heaviness in the head and the whole body, dulness of all
the senses; memory is extinguished; the sharpness of the
intellect is stunned; thence there is a stupor in the
whole mind which precludes intelligence, wisdom, and
eloquence.
_Asot._ Now I begin to understand what a serious evil
drunkenness is; henceforward, I will take the keenest
pains to drink up to the point of cheerfulness, not to
that of drunkenness.
_Glauc._ Joviality is the gate of drunkenness. No one
comes to be drunk with the idea in his mind that he will
get drunk; but he is exhilarated by drinking; then going
on and on, drunkenness follows afterwards, for it is
difficult to place the bounds of joviality and to remain
in it. Slippery is the step from joviality to drunkenness!
_Abstem._ So long as thou hast the wine in the beaker, it
is in thy power; when thou hast it in thy body, thou art
in the power of the wine. Then you are held and do not
hold. When you drink, you treat wine as you like. When
you have drunk, it will treat you as it likes.
_Asot._ What then? Are we never to drink?
_Abstem._ When fools avoid their vices, they run into the
opposite extremes. We must, indeed, quench thirst, but
not be “drinkers.” Nature on this point teaches beasts
alone. The same nature will not teach man, because he
possesses reason. You eat when you are hungry; you drink
when you are thirsty. Hunger and thirst will warn you how
much, when, to what extent, we must eat and drink.
_Asot._ What if I am always thirsty, and if I cannot
assuage my thirst except by getting drunk?
_Abstem._ Then drink what cannot possibly make you drunk.
_Asot._ The constitution of my body won’t permit that.
_Abstem._ If then you had such hunger that by no amount
of food you could satisfy it unless you were to burst
yourself, what then?
_Asot._ That indeed would not be hunger, but disease.
_Abstem._ There would surely be need of medicine, not
meals, to take away that hunger, wouldn’t there?
_Asot._ Certainly.
_Abstem._ So needest thou for such a thirst a physician,
not an inn-keeper, and a drug from the chemist, not one
fetched from the providers of banquets. What you describe
is not thirst but disease, and a perilous one, too!
XIX
REGIA—_The King’s Palace_
AGRIUS, SOPHRONIUS, HOLOCOLAX
In this dialogue, the Royal Dwelling or Palace and its
parts, persons, and functions are described, as to which
see Vincentius Lupanas, in his book _de Magistratibus
Francorum_. For our Vives here chiefly describes the
palace of a French king. The persons represented in the
dialogue are fitly named from the Greek. For Agrius is
with them a country rustic, unskilled in court-life.
Sophronius is a prudent, modest, and cautious man.
Holocolax is altogether a flatterer, and one who (as
Terence says) has commanded himself to agree to
everything, of which sort of men there is always so
large an assembly in courts. There are two parts of the
dialogue, the Exordium and Narratio.
I. _Introduction (Exordium)_
_Agri._ Why is it so many accompany the king in such
varied styles of dress?
_Soph._ Nay, rather look on their countenances than on
their finery. For their faces are more varied and diverse
than their decorations and clothes.
_Agri._ What reason is there for this difference also of
bearing?
_Apparel—The Countenance_
_Soph._ They are clothed differently according to their
means; differently according to their rank or family,
often even according to their ambitions or vanity.
Many also use elegancy of dress as an angle and net
for catching the favour of the king or of his chief
officers, and, not rarely, for winning the maids of his
court. But the expression of outward countenance follows
the stirrings of the mind, and such outward expression
is nearly always such as is prompted by the inner
disposition of the mind.
_Agri._ But why do so many men meet here together?
_Holo._ Is it not fitting that very many people should
come where the capital and government of the whole
province are seated?
_Soph._ Quite so. But most people regard not so much
the commonwealth as their private good. They follow the
government, not because it has the country in its hand,
but because it has fortunes to bestow.
_Holo._ Why not? Since all things are sold for money.
_Soph._ So they think who don’t possess any soul and
mind, but whose health and gifts of body are only common.
_Agri._ What need is there in this tumult of the court
to hold so great a philosophical speculation? I indeed
should prefer to understand from you what sort of
people these are in such great numbers, in such varied
appearances and fashions.
_Holo._ I will tell you of them all, in their rank. For
Sophronius, as far as I know, is not so well versed in
royal matters. But I have been in royal company of all
kinds; I have penetrated, inspected, and seen thoroughly
their courts, and I have always been acceptable and
pleasing to them all.
_Soph._ Thence I suppose it is that you have gained that
name of yours, Holocolax.
II. _Exposition (Narratio)—The King_
_Holo._ You suppose rightly. But do you, Agrius, listen
to me. He yonder, on whom every ear, eye, mind, is
intent, is the king, the head of the kingdom.
_Soph._ Truly the head, and so the health when he is
wise and honest, but the ruin when he is bad or rash
(_demens_).
_The Dauphin—Dignitaries—Prefects_
_Holo._ The little boy who follows him is his son, his
heir, whom in the Greek court they called despot, that
is, lord (_dominus_). In Spain they call him prince, in
France the dauphin. There with a neck-chain, like that
of Torquatus, in clothes all of silk, or all of gold,
are the leaders of the kingdom, with the decorations of
names of military dignitaries, princes, dukes, lords of
the marches, who are called _marchiones_, counts, men who
are named barbarously, barons, knights. This one is the
master of the horse, whom they call by the vulgar term
of _comes stabilis_, a name taken from the Greek court,
when the great Comestabulus (Constable) was, as it were,
the prefect of the sea, the admiral. Further, he was
supreme over the palace, and also was at the head of the
guards. In the time of Romulus they named such an one
_praefectus celerum_, and the guards themselves _celeres_.
_Agri._ Who are those in robes reaching to the ankles,
and with faces of great severity?
_Counsellors_
_Holo._ They are the counsellors of the king.
_Soph._ Those whom the prince calls to his council. It
behoves them to be the most prudent of men, of great
experience, of the greatest weight and moderation in
their discernment.
_Agri._ Why so?
_Soph._ Because they are the eyes and ears of the prince,
and so of the whole kingdom, and so much the more if the
king should be blind or deaf, enslaved by his senses, or
by ignorance, or by enjoyment of pleasure.
_Agri._ Are that one-eyed man and that other deaf man
eyes and ears of the king?
_Soph._ Worse still is blindness and deafness of the
heart!
_Secretaries_
_Holo._ The secretaries follow the counsellors, nor
are they few in number or of one rank; then those who
deal in money matters for the king, or those who get it
in, farmers of the taxes, treasury-tribunes, prefects,
procurators, and advocates of the treasury.
_Agri._ Who are those luxuriously decked and festive
young men who always follow the king and stand at his
side, some laughing at him and others with open mouth,
full of wonder at what he says?
_Courtiers_
_Holo._ These are a band of intimate friends, the delight
and joy of the king.
_Agri._ Why are the two who are entering there followed
by so many men full of grimaces?
_Chancellor—Secretary—Litigants—Prefect of the Bed-chamber_
_Holo._ Because the king has in them especial confidence.
The one is the prefect of the sacred writings, or chief
secretary; the other the keeper of the secret archives,
amongst which are the official statistics (_regni
breviarium_). He has to remind the king of everything.
Therefore daily so many come to him, so that they may
rub up and renew his memory, since that is the keeping
of the memory of the prince. Those who draw in their
countenances are litigants, who are prosecuting their
suits. Their business never finds an end, through the
long series of procrastinations which are kept up. Those
two who keep walking up and down the hall are prefects,
the one of the sleeping-chamber, the other of the royal
stables. These have under them very many other chamber
and stable attendants. But let us enter the royal
dining-hall.
_Agri._ Ah, how great a crowd solicitous and stately in
their pomp!
_Soph._ You would observe these with still greater
amazement if you knew how small a matter they are
attending to. It is, forsooth, this: it is how a sick man
may suck up a single egg and drink a little wine.
_Master of the Feast_
_Holo._ That man is the master of the feast for this
week. There he is with an Indian who has a plait of
rushes on him. That young man is the cup-bearer. The
carver has not yet entered.
_Agri._ Who are about to have their breakfast
(_pransuri_) with the king?
_Holo._ You mean who is so lucky as to take part in this
feast of the gods?
_Soph._ Formerly guests were invited to the royal table,
sometimes experienced military commanders, sometimes men
of high lineage, or sometimes those distinguished either
by experience in affairs, or by their learning, by whose
discourse the king would become better and wiser. But the
pride of Goths and other barbarians has invaded this our
custom.
_Holo._ The chief followers have their grown-up
armour-bearers and their boy-followers, boys on foot and
spurred boys. Amongst these are quite magnificent, rich
people, who most of them take their meals in correct
fashion, or if this seems to them wearisome, they send
basketfuls to their friends. This latter custom is more
useful to their poorer friends. But the correct fashion
of feasting has more distinction in it.
_Agri._ I seem to see quite another sort of people in
that eating-chamber.
_Ladies’ Quarters_
_Holo._ Those are the ladies’ quarters, where the queen
lives with her matrons and girls. Look how they enter and
go out from the hall (_ex parthenone_) like as bees from
a hive—young lovers and slaves of Cupid!
_Soph._ Often old people have a second childhood.
_Holo._ There is no greater pleasure than to hear the
keenly thought-out sayings, or poems, songs, early
morning (_antelucanus_) melodies, and chat of these
girls, to see their briskness, their walking in and out,
varieties of colour in their dress, their clothing and
shapes of garments. They have boys as amanuenses, through
whom they send and return messages. With what zeal and
what industry, what breeding, they announce and bring
back messages, hither and thither. By the faith of the
gods! with uncovered heads, with bent hams and bowed
knees. Every day there is something new to be heard,
seen, and pondered over; something which has been acutely
or subtly thought out or said, or done with spirit, or
dexterously, or without restraint.
_Soph._ Nay, rather in a négligé way.
_Holo._ What greater happiness? Who could tear himself
away from such delight?
_Soph._ Colax, Colax, without being in love you
are raving, and without wine, you are drunk. What
foolishness could be greater than what has been described
by you?
_Holo._ I don’t know how it happens that you see heaps of
people depart from the schools quite young, but let them
once enter the court, they become old in it.
_Soph._ So also those who drank from the cup of Circe
would be unwilling to yield and return to their human
nature and condition, having once lost their reason, and
having degenerated into the nature of beasts!
_Agri._ But what do all these do when they go home, and
with what actions do they occupy themselves to pass the
time, at least?
_Leisure Time—Flattery_
_Soph._ The most of them do nothing more serious than
what you now observe them doing, and then their leisure
is for them the parent and nurse of many vices. Some play
at dice, cards, the gaming-board, at disputations; others
pass the afternoon hours in secret slander and artful
calumny, that is to what they degenerate at home. Many
also are wonderfully taken up with buffoons and jugglers,
towards whom those who are at other times niggardly and
sordid, to them they are most lavish. But the chief
corruption of the court is the flattery of each to all
the others, and, what is still worse, towards himself.
This brings it about that no one ever hears salutary
truths either from himself nor from his companions unless
when at strife. And though he receives then all too
little of truth, he takes it as insult.
_Holo._ This employment is now by far the most
profitable. _You_ may hunger and thirst after the love of
speaking and truth. _I_ have become rich by my smiling,
blandishments, and by approving and praising everything.
_Agri._ Could not the kings alter these unsatisfactory
matters?
_Soph._ Very easily, if they only wished to do so! But
these fashions are pleasing; they are similar to their
own. Others are precluded by their preoccupations, on
account of which they never have leisure for doing
anything which is right or thinking anything which
is sane. There are also not lacking those who, with
indulgent minds and careless themselves, don’t think
the morality of their own homes, and that of their
dependants, any concern of theirs. And those things
trouble them less than the private home of each of us
troubles any of us.
XX
PRINCEPS PUER—_The Young Prince_
MOROBULUS, PHILIPPUS, SOPHOBULUS
This dialogue is entirely “political,” for Vives lays
down the precepts to the boy prince, and teaches the
art of good government. The names are aptly bestowed.
Morobulus is a foolish counsellor, _à_ μωρὸς, foolish,
βουλὴ, counsel; Sophobulus, a prudent counsellor. There
are two parts of the dialogue.
INSTITUTIO
_Morobuli de_ { Inutilitate studiorum
{ Praeceptoribus
{ Quod principi sit necessaria: idque ostendit
{ tribus similitudinibus
_Sophobuli_ {
_de arte_ { Quomodo { Doctrina: ubi { Sint
_gubernandi_ { comparanda { ostendit, quinam {
{ sit { Consulendi { Non
{ Ocii fuga { sint
I. _The Teaching of Morobulus—The Study of Literature_
_Morob._ What has your highness in hand, Philip?
_Phil._ I read and learn with zeal, as you can see for
yourself.
_Morob._ I see only too well, and am pained that you
weary yourself, and that you are making that little body
of yours quite lean!
_Phil._ What then should I do?
_Morob._ That which other nobles, princes, and rich men
do—ride about, chat with the daughters of your august
mother, dance, learn the art of bearing arms, play cards
or ball, leap and run. Such, you see, are the studies
in which young nobles most delight. If now people, who
scarcely are worthy to be received in your family, enjoy
these pleasant occupations, why is it suitable for you to
do as you are doing, when you are the son and heir of so
great a prince?
_Phil._ What! is the study of letters no good?
_Morob._ It is indeed of good, but rather for those
who are initiated in holy affairs, _i.e._, priests, or
for those who, by useful knowledge of their art, are
about to earn their living, such as the shoemaker’s
art, the weaving art, and the other arts necessary for
money-making. Rise, I beg of you, put away your books
from your hands. Let us go out for a walk, so that for
some short time you may get fresh air!
_Phil._ I may not do so just now, because of Stunica and
Siliceus.
_Morob._ Who are these Stunica and Siliceus? Are they not
your subjects, over whom you have the command, not they
over you?
_Teachers_
_Phil._ Stunica is my educator, while Siliceus is my
literary tutor. Subjects of mine indeed they are, or to
speak more exactly, of my father; but my father, to whom
I am subject, placed them over me, and subjected me to
them.
_Morob._ What then! Did your father give your highness
into servitude to these men?
_Phil._ I don’t know.
_Morob._ Oh! most unworthy deed!
II. _The Teaching of Sophobulus_
_Soph._ By no means, my son! Certainly he made them thy
servants; he wished them to stick close to thee, as eyes,
ears, soul, and mind, to be always engaged on thy behalf,
each of them to put aside his own affairs, and to make
thy affairs his sole business, not so as to vex thee by
imperiousness; but that those good and wise men should
transform thy uncultivated manners into the virtue,
glory, and excellence of a man; not so as to make thee a
slave, but truly a free man and truly a prince. If thou
dost not obey them, then wilt thou be a slave of the
lowest order, worse than those here amongst us who are
employed, bought and sold from Ethiopia or Africa.
_Morob._ Whose slave, then, would he be, if he did not
mould his morals after his educators?
_Soph._ Not of men certainly, but of vices, which are
more importunate masters, and more intolerable than a
dishonest and wicked man!
_Phil._ I don’t quite understand what you say.
_Soph._ But did you understand Morobulus?
_Phil._ Most clearly, everything.
_Soph._ Oh, how happy men would be, if they had the sense
and intelligence for good and satisfactory things which
they have for frivolous and bad things! Now indeed,
on the contrary, at your time of life, it happens that
you understand with ease what is trifling, what is
inept, nay, even what is insane, such things as those to
which Morobulus has exhorted you, and then you regard
what I would say on virtue, dignity, and every kind of
praiseworthy thing, as if I were speaking Arabic or
Gothic.
_Phil._ What, then, are you of opinion I ought to do?
_Soph._ You should at least suspend your judgment.
Neither acquiesce in the opinions of Morobulus, nor in
mine, until you are able to judge as to both.
_The Act of Governing_
_Phil._ Who will give me this power of judgment?
_Soph._ Ah! that will come with age, teaching, and
experience.
_Morob._ Alas! that would require long weariness of
waiting!
_First Similitude_
_Soph._ Morobulus advises well. Throw away your books.
Let us go and play! Let us play a game in which one is
elected king. He will prescribe to the others what should
be done. The rest obey, according to the laws of the
game. You shall be king.
_Phil._ How shall the game be? For if I don’t know the
game, how shall I be able to take the part of king in it?
_Second Similitude_