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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
[p. 263]
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.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 1.
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