Advice About Keeping Well (12)

ZEUXIPPUS. and as the Spartans give to the cook vinegar and salt only, bidding him seek whatever else he needs in the slaughtered animal itself,[*] so in the body are the best of sauces for whatever is served, if so be that it is served to a body which is healthy and clean. For everything of this sort is sweet or costly irrespectively of the user and by itself, but Nature decrees that it becomes pleasant only in and in connexion with the person that is pleased and is in harmony with Nature; but in those who are captious or suffering from a debauch, or are in a bad way, all things lose their intrinsic agreeableness and freshness. Therefore there is no need to look to see whether the fish be fresh, the bread white, the bath warm, or the girl shapely, but a man should look to himself to see whether he be not nauseated, feculent, stale, or in any way upset. Otherwise, just as drunken revellers who force their way into a house of mourning provide no cheerfulness or pleasure, but only cause weeping and wailing, so in a body that is in a bad condition and out of harmony with Nature, the pleasures of love, elaborate food, baths and wine, when combined with such elements in the body as are unsettled and tainted, set up phlegm and bile and bring on an upset, besides being unduly exciting, while they yield no pleasure to speak of, nor any enjoyment like what we expected.