Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 · Plutarch
MOSCHIO, ZEUXIPPUS.
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, 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 Xystum 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. 21. Aristotle is of opinion that to walk after supper stirs up our natural heat; but to sleep, if it be soon after, chokes it. Others again say that rest aids digestion, and that motion disturbs it. Hence some walk immediately after supper; others choose rather to keep themselves still. But that man seems to obtain the design of both, who cherishes and keeps his body quiet, not immediately suffering his mind to become heavy and idle, but (as has been said) gently distributing and lightening his spirits by either hearing or speaking some pleasant thing, such as will neither molest nor oppress him.
22. Medicinal vomits and purges, which are the bitter reliefs of gluttony, are not to be attempted without great necessity. The manner of many is to fill themselves because they are empty, and again, because they are full, to empty themselves contrary to nature, being no less tormented with being full than being empty; or rather, they are troubled at their fulness, as being a hindrance of their appetite, and are always emptying themselves, that they may make room for new enjoyment. The damage in these cases is evident; for the body is disordered and torn by both these. It is an inconvenience that always attends a vomit, that it increases and gives nourishment to this insatiable humor. For it engenders hunger, as violent and turbulent as a roaring torrent, which continually annoys a man, and forces him to his meat, not like a natural appetite that calls for food, but rather like inflammation that calls for plasters and physic. Wherefore his pleasures are short and imperfect, and in the enjoyment are very furious and unquiet; upon which there come distentions, and affections of the pores, and retentions of the spirits, which will not wait for the natural evacuations, but run over the surface of the body, so that it is like an overloaded ship, where it is more necessary to throw something overboard than to take any thing more in. Those disturbances in our bellies which are caused by physic corrupt and consume our inward parts, and do rather increase our superfluous humors than bring them away; which is as if one that was troubled at the number of Greeks that inhabited the city, should call in the Arabians and Scythians.
Some are so much mistaken that, in order that they may void their customary and natural superfluities, they take Cnidian-berries or scammony, or some other harsh and incongruous physic, which is more fit to be carried away by purge than it is able to purge us. It is best therefore by a moderate and regular diet to keep our body in order, so that it may command itself as to fulness or emptiness. If at any time there be a necessity, we may take a vomit, but without physic or much tampering, and such a one as will not cause any great disturbance, only enough to save us from indigestion by casting up gently what is superfluous. For as linen cloths, when they are washed with soap and nitre, are more worn out than when they are washed with water only, so physical vomits corrupt and destroy the body. If at any time we are costive, there is no medicine better than some sort of food which will purge you gently and with ease, the trial of which is familiar to all, and the use without any pain. But if it will not yield to those, we may drink water for some days, or fast, or take a clyster, rather than take any troublesome purging physic; which most men are inclined to do, like that sort of women which take things on purpose to miscarry, that they may be empty and begin afresh.
23. But to be done with these, there are some on the other side who are too exact in enjoining themselves to periodical and set fasts, doing amiss in teaching nature to want coercion when there is no occasion for it, and making that abstinence necessary which is not so, and all this at times when nature requires her accustomed way of living. It is better to use those injunctions we lay upon our bodies with more freedom, even when we have no ill symptom or suspicion upon us; and so to order our diet (as has been said), that our bodies may be always obedient to any change, and not be enslaved or tied up to one manner of living, nor so exact in regarding the times, numbers, and periods of our actions. For it is a life neither safe, easy, politic, nor like a man, but more like the life of an oyster or the trunk of a tree, to live so without any variety, and in restraint as to our meat, abstinence, motion, and rest; casting ourselves into a gloomy, idle, solitary, unsociable, and inglorious way of living, far remote from the administration of the state,—at least (I may say) in my opinion.
24. For health is not to be purchased by sloth and idleness, for those are chief inconveniences of sickness; and there is no difference between him who thinks to enjoy his health by idleness and quiet, and him who thinks to preserve his eyes by not using them, and his voice by not speaking. For such a man’s health will not be any advantage to him in the performance of many things he is obliged to do as a man. Idleness can never be said to conduce to health, for it destroys the very end of it. Nor is it true that they are the most healthful that do least. For Xenocrates was not more healthful than Phocion, or Theophrastus than Demetrius. It signified nothing to Epicurus or his followers, as to that so much talked of good habit of body, that they declined all business, though it were never so honorable. We ought to preserve the natural constitution of our bodies by other means, knowing every part of our life is capable of sickness and health.
The contrary advice to that which Plato gave his scholars is to be given to those who are concerned in public business. For he was wont to say, whenever he left his school; Go to, my boys, see that you employ your leisure in some honest sport and pastime. Now to those that are in public office our advice is, that they bestow their labor on honest and necessary things, not tiring their bodies with small or inconsiderable things. For most men upon accident torment themselves with watchings, journeyings, and running up and down, for no advantage and with no good design, but only that they may do others an injury, or because they envy them or are competitors with them, or because they hunt after unprofitable and empty glory. To such as these I think Democritus chiefly spoke, when he said, that if the body should summon the soul before a court on an action for ill-treatment, the soul would lose the case. And perhaps on the other hand Theophrastus spoke well, when he said metaphorically, that the soul pays a dear house-rent to its landlord the body. But still the body is very much more inconvenienced by the soul, when it is used beyond reason and there is not care enough taken of it. For when it is in passion, action, or any concern, it does not at all consider the body. Jason, being some-what out of humor, said, that in little things we ought not to stand upon justice, so that in greater things we may be sure to do it. We, and that in reason, advise any public man to trifle and play with little things, and in such cases to indulge himself, so that in worthy and great concerns he may not bring a dull, tired, and weary body, but one that is the better for having lain still, like a ship in the dock, that when the soul has occasion again to call it into business, “it may run with her, like a sucking colt with the mare.”
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