but the most of them have ill digestion and a kind of a laziness,
which are the forerunners and harbingers that give us warning. Sudden
heaviness and weariness tell us a distemper is not far off, as
Hippocrates affirms, by reason (it seems) of that fulness which doth
oppress and load the spirit in the nerves. Some men, when their bodies
all but contradict them and invite them to a couch and repose, through
gluttony and love of pleasure throw themselves into a bath or make
haste to some drinking meeting, as if they were laying in for a siege;
being mightily in fear lest the fever should seize them before they
have dined. Those who pretend to more elegance are not caught in this
manner, but foolishly enough; for, being ashamed to own their qualms
and debauch or to keep house all day, when others call them to go with
them to the gymnasium, they arise and pull off their clothes with them,
doing the same things which they do that are in health. Intemperance
and effeminacy make many fly for patronage to the proverb, Wine is
best after wine, and one debauch is the way to drive out another. This
excites their hopes, and persuades and urges them to rise from their
beds and rashly to fall to their wonted excesses. Against which hope
he ought to set that prudent advice of Cato, when he says that great
things ought to be made less, and the lesser to be quite left off;
and that it is better to abstain to no purpose and be at quiet, than
to run ourselves into hazard by forcing ourselves either to bath or
dinner. For if there be any ill in it, it is an injury to us that we
did not watch over ourselves and refrain; but if there be none, it is
no inconvenience to your body to have abstained and be made more pure
by it. He is but a child who is afraid lest his friends and servants
should perceive that he is sick either of a surfeit or a debauch. He
that is ashamed to confess the crudity of his stomach to-day will
to-morrow with shame confess that he has either a diarrhoea, a fever,
or the griping in the guts. You think it is a disgrace to want, but it
is a greater disgrace to bear the crudity, heaviness, and fulness of
your body, when it has to be carried into the bath, like a rotten and
leaky boat into the sea. As some seamen are ashamed to live on shore
when there is a storm at sea, yet when they are at sea lie shamefully
crying and retching to vomit; so in any suspicion or tendency of the
body to any disease, they think it an indecorum to keep their bed one
day and not to have their table spread, yet most shamefully for many
days together are forced to be purged and plastered, flattering and
obeying their physicians, asking for wine or cold water, being forced
to do and say many unseasonable and absurd things, by reason of the
pain and fear they are in. Those therefore who cannot govern themselves
on account of pleasures, but yield to their lusts and are carried away
by them, may opportunely be taught and put in mind that they receive
the greatest share of their pleasures from their bodies.
12. And as the Spartans gave the cook vinegar and salt, and bade him
look for the rest in the victim, so in our bodies, the best sauce to
whatsoever is brought before us is that our bodies are pure and in
health. For any thing that is sweet or costly is so in its own nature
and apart from any thing else; but it becomes sweet to the taste only
when it is in a body which is delighted with it and which is disposed
as nature doth require. But in those bodies which are foul, surfeited,
and not pleased with it, it loses its beauty and convenience.
Wherefore we need not be concerned whether fish be fresh or bread fine,
or whether the bath be warm or your she-friend a beauty; but whether
you are not squeamish and foul, whether you are not disturbed and do
not feel the dregs of yesterday’s debauch. Otherwise it will be as when
some drunken revellers break into a house where they are mourning,
bringing neither mirth nor pleasure with them, but increasing the
lamentation. So Venus, meats, baths, and wines, in a body that is crazy
and out of order, mingled with what is vitiated and corrupted, stir
up phlegm and choler, and create great trouble; neither do they bring
any pleasure that is answerable to their expectations, or worth either
enjoying or speaking of.
13. A diet which is very exact and precisely according to rule puts
one’s body both in fear and danger; it hinders the gallantry of our
soul itself, makes it suspicious of every thing or of having to do
with any thing, no less in pleasures than in labors; so that it dares
not undertake any thing boldly and courageously. We ought to do by our
body as by the sail of a ship in fair and clear weather:—we must not
contract it and draw it in too much, nor be too remiss or negligent
about it when we have any suspicion upon us, but give it some allowance
and make it pliable (as we have said), and not wait for crudities and
diarrhoeas, or heat or drowsiness, by which some, as by messengers and
apparitors, are frighted and moderate themselves when a fever is at
hand; but we must long beforehand guard against the storm, as if the
north wind blew at sea.
14. It is absurd, as Democritus says, by the croaking of ravens, the
crowing of a cock, or the wallowing of a sow in the mire, carefully to
observe the signs of windy or rainy weather, and not to prevent and
guard ourselves against the motions and fluctuations of our bodies or
the indication of a distemper, nor to understand the signs of a storm
which is just ready to break forth within ourselves. So that we are
not only to observe our bodies as to meat and exercise, whether they
use them more sluggishly or unwillingly than they were wont; or whether
we be more thirsty and hungry than we use to be; but we are also to
take care as to our sleep, whether it be continued and easy, or whether
it be irregular and convulsive. For absurd dreams and irregular and
unusual fantasies show either abundance or thickness of humors, or
else a disturbance of the spirits within. For the motions of the soul
show that the body is nigh a distemper. For there are despondencies of
mind and fears that are without reason or any apparent cause, which
extinguish our hopes on a sudden. Some there are that are sharp and
prone to anger, whom a little thing makes sad; and these cry and are
in great trouble when ill vapors and fumes meet together and (as Plato
says) are intermingled in the ways and passages of the soul. Wherefore
those to whom such things happen must consider and remember, that even
if there be nothing spiritual, there is some bodily cause which needs
to be brought away and purged.
15. Besides, it is profitable for him who visits his friends in their
sickness to enquire after the causes of it. Let us not sophistically
or impertinently discourse about lodgements, irruptions of blood,
and commonplaces, merely to show our skill in the terms of art which
are used in medicine. But when we have with diligence heard such
trivial and common things discoursed of as fulness or emptiness,
weariness, lack of sleep, and (above all) the diet which the patient
kept before he fell sick, then,—as Plato used to ask himself, after
the miscarriage of other men he had been with, Am not I also such a
one?—so ought we to take care by our neighbor’s misfortunes, and
diligently to beware that we do not fall into them, and afterwards cry
out upon our sick-bed, How precious above all other things is health!
When another is in sickness, let it teach us how valuable a treasure
health is, which we ought to keep and preserve with all possible care.
Neither will it be amiss for every man to look into his own diet. If
therefore we have been eating, drinking, laboring, or doing any thing
to excess, and our bodies give us no suspicion or hint of a distemper,
yet ought we nevertheless to stand upon our guard and take care of
ourselves,—if it be after venery and labor, by giving of ourselves
rest and quiet; if after drinking of wine and feasting, by drinking of
water; but especially, after we have fed on flesh or solid meats or
eaten divers things, by abstinence, that we may leave no superfluity
in our bodies; for these very things, as they are the cause of many
diseases, likewise administer matter and force to other causes.
Wherefore it was very well said, that to eat—but not to satiety, to
labor—but not to weariness, and to keep in nature, are of all things
the most healthful. For intemperance in venery takes away that by which
vigor our nourishment is elaborated, and causes more superfluity and
redundance.
16. But we shall begin and treat of each of these, and first we shall
discourse of those exercises which are proper for a scholar. And as
he that said he should prescribe nothing for the teeth to them that
dwelt by the seaside taught them the benefit of the sea-water, so one
would think that there was no need of writing to scholars concerning
exercise. For it is wonderful what an exercise the daily use of speech
is, not only as to health but even to strength. I mean not fleshly and
athletic health, or such as makes one’s external parts firm, like the
outside of a house, but such as gives a right tone and inward vigor to
the vital and noble parts. And that the vital spirit increases strength
is made plain by them who anointed the wrestlers, who commanded them,
when their limbs were rubbed, to withstand such frictions in some sort,
in holding their wind, observing carefully those parts of the body
which were smeared and rubbed.[122] Now the voice, being a motion of
the spirit, not superficially but firmly seated in the bowels, as it
were in a fountain, increases the heat, thins the blood, purges every
vein, opens all the arteries, neither does it permit the coagulation or
condensation of any superfluous humor, which would settle like dregs
in those vessels which receive and work our nourishment. Wherefore we
ought by much speaking to accustom ourselves to this exercise, and
make it familiar to us; and if we suspect that our bodies are weaker
or more tired than ordinary, by reading or reciting. For what riding
in a coach is compared with bodily exercise, that is reading compared
with disputing, if you carry your voice softly and low, as it were
in the chariot of another man’s words. For disputes bring with them
a vehemence and contention, adding the labor of the mind to that of
the body. All passionate noise, and such as would force our lungs,
ought to be avoided; for irregular and violent strains of our voice
may break something within us, or bring us into convulsions. But when
a student has either read or disputed, before he walks abroad, he
ought to make use of a gentle and tepid friction, to open the pores
of his body, as much as is possible, even to his very bowels, that so
his spirits may gently and quietly diffuse themselves to the extreme
parts of his body. The bounds that this friction ought not to exceed
are, that it be done no longer than it is pleasant to our sense and
without pain. For he that so allays the disturbance which is within
himself and the agitation of his spirits will not be troubled by that
superfluity which remains in him; and if it be unseasonable for to
walk, or if his business hinder him, it is no great matter; for nature
has already received satisfaction. Whether one be at sea or in a public
inn, it is not necessary that he should be silent, though all the
company laugh at him. For where it is no shame to eat, it is certainly
no shame to exercise yourself; but it is worse to stand in awe of and
be troubled with seamen, carriers, and innkeepers, that laugh at you
not because you play at ball or fight a shadow, but because in your
discourse you exercise yourself by teaching others, or by enquiring
and learning something yourself, or else by calling to mind something.
For Socrates said, he that uses the exercise of dancing had need
have a room big enough to hold seven beds; but he that makes either
singing or discourse his exercise may do it either standing or lying
in any place. But this one thing we must observe, that when we are
conscious to ourselves that we are too full, or have been concerned
with Venus, or labored hard, we do not too much strain our voice, as
so many rhetoricians and readers in philosophy do, some of whom out
of glory and ambition, some for reward or private contentions, have
forced themselves beyond what has been convenient. Our Niger, when he
was teaching philosophy in Galatia, by chance swallowed the bone of
a fish; but a stranger coming to teach in his place, Niger, fearing
he might run away with his repute, continued to read his lectures,
though the bone still stuck in his throat; from whence a great and hard
inflammation arising, he, being unable to undergo the pain, permitted
a deep incision to be made, by which wound the bone was taken out; but
the wound growing worse, and rheum falling upon it, it killed him. But
this may be mentioned hereafter in its proper place.
17. After exercise to use a cold bath is boyish, and has more
ostentation in it than health; for though it may seem to harden our
bodies and make them not so subject to outward accidents, yet it
does more prejudice to the inward parts, by hindering transpiration,
fixing the humors, and condensing those vapors which love freedom and
transpiration. Besides, necessity will force those who use cold baths
into that exact and accurate way of diet they would so much avoid, and
make them take care they be not in the least extravagant, for every
such error is sure to receive a bitter reproof. But a warm bath is much
more pardonable, for it does not so much destroy our natural vigor
and strength as it does conduce to our health, laying a soft and easy
foundation for concoction, preparing those things for digestion which
are not easily digested without any pain (if they be not very crude
and deep lodged), and freeing us from all inward weariness. But when
we do sensibly perceive our bodies to be indifferent well, or as they
ought to be, we should omit bathing, and anoint ourselves by the fire;
which is better if the body stand in need of heat, for it dispenses a
warmth throughout. But we should make use of the sun more or less, as
the temper of the air permits. So much may suffice to have been said
concerning exercises.
18. As for what has been said of diet before, if any part of it be
profitable in instructing us how we should allay and bring down our
appetites, there yet remains one thing more to be advised: that if
it be troublesome to treat one’s belly like one broke loose, and to
contend with it though it has no ears (as Cato said), then ought we
to take care that the quality of what we eat may make the quantity
more light; and we should eat cautiously of such food as is solid and
most nourishing (for it is hard always to refuse it), such as flesh,
cheese, dried figs, and boiled eggs; but more freely of those things
which are thin and light, such as moist herbs, fowl, and fish if it
be not too fat; for he that eats such things as these may gratify his
appetite, and yet not oppress his body. But ill digestion is chiefly to
be feared after flesh, for it presently very much clogs us and leaves
ill relics behind it. It would be best to accustom one’s self to eat
no flesh at all, for the earth affords plenty enough of things fit not
only for nourishment, but for delight and enjoyment; some of which you
may eat without much preparation, and others you may make pleasant by
adding divers other things to them. But since custom is almost a second
nature, we may eat flesh, but not to the cloying of our appetites, like
wolves or lions, but only to lay as it were a foundation and bulwark
for our nourishment,—and then come to other meats and sauces which
are more agreeable to the nature of our bodies and do less dull our
rational soul, which seems to be enlivened by a light and brisk diet.
19. As for liquids, we should never make milk our drink, but rather
take it as food, it yielding much solid nourishment. As for wine, we
must say to it what Euripides said to Venus:—
Thy joys with moderation I would have,
And that I ne’er may want them humbly crave.
For wine is the most beneficial of all drinks, the pleasantest
medicine in the world, and of all dainties the least cloying to the
appetite, provided more regard be given to the opportunity of the
time of drinking it than even to its being properly mixed with water.
Water, not only when it is mixed with wine, but also if it be drunk by
itself between mixed wine and water, makes the mingled wine the less
hurtful. We should accustom ourselves therefore in our daily diet to
drink two or three glasses of water, which will allay the strength of
the wine, and make drinking of water familiar to our body, that so
in a case of necessity it may not be looked on as a stranger, and we
be offended at it. It so falls out, that some have then the greatest
inclination for wine when there is most need they should drink water;
for such men, when they have been exposed to great heat of the sun, or
have fallen into a chill, or have been speaking vehemently, or have
been more than ordinarily thoughtful about any thing, or after any
fatigue or labor, are of the opinion that they ought to drink wine,
as if nature required some repose for the body and some diversion
after its labors. But nature requires no such repose (if you will
call pleasure repose), but desires only such an alteration as shall
be between pleasure and pain; in which case we ought to abate of our
diet, and either wholly abstain from wine, or drink it allayed with
very much mixture of water. For wine, being sharp and fiery, increases
the disturbances of the body, exasperates them, and wounds the parts
affected; which stand more in need of being comforted and smoothed,
which water does the best of any thing. If, when we are not thirsty,
we drink warm water after labor, exercise, or heat, we find our inward
parts loosened and smoothed by it; for the moisture of water is gentle
and not violent, but that of wine carries a great force in it, which is
no ways agreeable in the fore-mentioned cases. And if any one should
be afraid that abstinence would bring upon the body that acrimony and
bitterness which some say it will, he is like those children who think
themselves much wronged because they may not eat just before the fit
of a fever. The best mean between both these is drinking of water. We
oftentimes sacrifice to Bacchus himself without wine, doing very well
in accustoming ourselves not to be always desirous of wine. Minos made
the pipe and the crown be laid aside at the sacrifice when there was
mourning. And yet we know an afflicted mind is not at all affected by
either the pipe or crown; but there is no body so strong, to which, in
commotion or a fever, wine does not do a great deal of injury.
20. The Lydians are reported in a famine to have spent one day in
eating, and the next in sports and drollery. But a lover of learning
and a friend to the Muses, when at any time he is forced to sup later
than ordinary, will not be so much a slave to his belly as to lay
aside a geographical scheme when it is before him, or his book, or his
lyre; but strenuously turning himself, and taking his mind off from
eating, he will in the Muses’ name drive away all such desires, as so
many Harpies, from his table. Will not the Scythian in the midst of his
cups oftentimes handle his bow and twang the string, thereby rousing up
himself from that drunkenness in which he was immersed? Will a Greek be
afraid, because he is laughed at, by books and letters gently to loosen
and unbend any blind and obstinate desire? The young men in Menander,
when they were drinking, were trepanned by a bawd, which brought in to
them a company of handsome and richly attired women; but every one, as
he said,