Advice About Keeping Well (14)

ZEUXIPPUS. For it is absurd to give careful heed to the croaking of ravens, the clucking of hens, and swine m their wild excitement over bedding,b as Democritusc put it, making signs of winds and rains out of these, and at the same time not to forestall nor take precaution against the stirrings, the ups and downs, and the premonitory symptoms in the body, and not to hold these to be signs of a storm that is going to take place in one’s self, and is just about to break. Wherefore not merely in the matter of food and exercise do we need to keep watch of our body, to see whether, contrary to its habits, it takes to these reluctantly and without zest, or at another time is thirsty and hungry in an unnatural way, but also, in the matter of sleep, to beware of lack of continuity and of evenness, marked by irregularities and sharp interruptions, and to beware also of the abnormal in dreams, which, if so be that our visions are improper or unwonted, argues an over-abundance or concretion of humours, or a disturbance of spirit within us. And also the emotions of the soul have often given warning that the body is perilously near disease. For instance, irrational discouragements and fears take possession of people oftentimes from no apparent cause, and suddenly extinguish their hopes; in temper they become irascible, sharp, and pained at trifles, and they are tearful and dismayed whenever bad vapours and bitter exhalations encounter and unite with the rotations of the soul, as Plato [*] has it. Therefore those to whom such things happen have need to consider and to remember that, if the cause is not one which concerns the spirit, it is one which concerns the body, and that it needs reducing or toning down.