De tuenda sanitate praecepta

ZEUXIPPUS. 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: —

1. Thy joys with moderation I would have,
2. 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 bodythat 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.

ZEUXIPPUS. 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,

1. Cast down his eyes and fell to junketing, —

not one daring to look upon them. Lovers of learning have many fair and pleasant diversions, if they can no other way keep in their canine and brutish appetites when they see the table spread. The bawling of such fellows as anoint wrestlers, and the opinion of pedagogues that it hinders our nourishment and dulls one’s head to discourse of learning at table, are indeed of some force then, when we are called upon to solve a fallacy like the Indus or to dispute about the Kyrieuon at a feast. For though the pith of the palm-tree is very sweet, yet they say it will cause the headache. To discourse of logic at meals is not indeed a very delicious banquet, is rather troublesome, and pains one’s head; but if there be any who will not give us leave to discourse philosophically or ask any question or read any thing at table, though it be of those things which are not only decent and profitable but also pleasantly merry, we will desire them not to trouble us, but to talk in this style to the athletes in the Xvstum and the Palaestra, who have laid aside their books and are wont to spend their whole time in jeers and scurrilous jests, being, as Aristo wittily expresses it, smooth and hard, like the pillars in the gymnasium. But we must obey our physicians, who advise us to keep some interval between supper and sleep, and not to heap up together a great deal of victuals in our stomachs and so shorten our breath (lest we presently by crude and fermenting aliment overcharge our digestion), but rather to take some space and breathing-time before we sleep. As those who have a mind to exercise themselves after supper do not do it by running or wrestling, but rather by gentle exercise, such as walking or dancing; so when we intend to exercise our minds after supper, we are not to do it with any thing of business or care, or with those sophistical disputes which bring us into a vain-glorious and violent contention. But there are many questions in natural philosophy which are easy to discuss and to decide; there are many disquisitions which relate to manners, which please the mind (as Homer expresses it) and do no way discompose it. Questions in history and poetry have been by some ingeniously called a second course to a learned man and a scholar. There are discourses which are no way troublesome; and, besides, fables may be told. Nay, it is easier to discourse of the pipe and lyre, or hear them discoursed of, than it is to hear either of them played on. The quantity of time allowed for this exercise is till our meat be gently settled within us, so that our digestion may have power enough to master it.