[11]
1
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.
ZEUXIPPUS.
We ought chiefly to be careful in all predispositions and forewarnings of sickness. For all distempers do not invade us, as Hesiod expresses it, —In silence, — for the Gods have struck them dumb;
De tuenda sanitate praecepta. Plutarch. ed. William W. Goodwin. Boston. 1874.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.