Advice About Keeping Well (25-27)

ZEUXIPPUS. Therefore, when circumstances afford us opportunity, we should give ourselves a chance to recuperate, and to this end we should not grudge to our body either sleep or luncheon or ease, which is the mean between indulgence and discomfort,[*] nor observe the sort of limit that most people observe whereby they wear out their body, like steel that is being tempered, by the changes to which they subject it; whenever the body has been strained and oppressed by much hard work, it is once more softened and relaxed immoderately in pleasures, and again, as the next step, while it is still flaccid and relaxed from venery and wine, it is coerced into going to the Forum or to Court or into some business requiring fervent and intense application. Heracleitus, suffering from dropsy, bade his physician to bring on a drought to follow the wet spell;[*] but most people are completely in error, inasmuch as, when they are in the midst of exertions, labours, and deprivations, they are most inclined to surrender their bodies to pleasures to be made languid and relaxed, and then, after their pleasures, bending them, as it were, into place, and stretching them tight again. For Nature does not require any such form of compensation in the case of the body. But, on the other hand, in the soul the licentious and unmannerly element, immediately after undergoing hardships, is carried away, as sailors are, by wantonness to pleasures and enjoyments, and, after the pleasures, it is again coerced to tasks and business; and the result is that it does not allow Nature to attain the composure and calm which she needs most, but deranges and disturbs her because of this irregularity. But people who have sense are least given to proffering pleasures to the body when it is busied with labours. For they have absolutely no need, nor even recollection, of such things, inasmuch as they are keeping their thoughts intent on the good to be accomplished by their activity; and by the joy or earnestness in their souls they completely dwarf their other desires. There is a jocose remark attributed to Epameinondas in regard to a good man who fell ill and died about the time of the battle of Leuctra: Great Heavens! How did he find time to die when there was so much going on? This may be repeated with truth in the case of a man who has in hand some public activity or philosophic meditation: What time has this man now for indigestion or drunkenness or carnal desires? But when such men find themselves again at leisure following upon their activities, they compose and rest their bodies, guarding against and avoiding useless toils, and more especially unnecessary pleasures, on the ground that they are inimical to Nature.

ZEUXIPPUS. I have heard that Tiberius Caesar once said that a man over sixty who holds out his hand to a physician is ridiculous.[*] To me that seems a pretty strong statement, but this does seem to be true, that each person ought neither to be unacquainted with the peculiarities of his own pulse (for there are many individual diversities), nor ignorant of any idiosyncrasy which his body has in regard to temperature and dryness,[*] and what things in actual practice have proved to be beneficial or detrimental to it. For the man has no perception regarding himself, and is but a blind and deaf tenant in his own body, who gets his knowledge of these matters from another, and must inquire of his physician whether his health is better in summer or winter, whether he can more easily tolerate liquid or solid foods, and whether his pulse is naturally fast or slow. For it is useful and easy for us to know things of this sort, since we have daily experience and association with them.

ZEUXIPPUS. In regard to food and drink it is expedient to note what kinds are wholesome rather than what are pleasant, and to be better acquainted with those that are good in the stomach rather than in the mouth, and those that do not disturb the digestion rather than those that greatly tickle the palate. For to inquire of a physician what is hard or easy for oneself to digest, and what is constipating or laxative, is no less disgraceful than to inquire what is sweet and what is bitter and what is sour. But nowadays people correct the chefs, being expert at detecting what dish has in it more sweetening or salt or sourness than is proper; but they do not themselves know what, when taken into their own bodies, will be light and painless and beneficial. Therefore, a mistake is not often made in seasoning a soup at their houses, but by their vile and pernicious seasoning of themselves every day they provide a plentiful business for the physicians. Now such persons do not regard the sweetest soup as the best, but they mix in also bitter and pungent flavourings; on the other hand, they inject into the body numerous cloying pleasures, partly from ignorance, and partly because they do not remember that to whatever is healthful and beneficial nature adds a pleasure which causes neither pain nor repentance. But we must keep in mind both those things that are congenial and suitable to the body, and, conversely, as changes attendant on the season occur and different circumstances arise, we should, in full knowledge of the facts, suitably adjust our mode of living to each.

ZEUXIPPUS. Now as to various difficulties, due to observance of petty detail and to lack of freedom, which most men encounter — men who are engaged in the toilsome business of harvesting and caring for their crops and by sleepless nights and running hither and thither bring to light the latent infirmities of their bodies — there is no good reason to fear that such will be experienced by scholars and men in public life, with reference to whom our discussion has taken its present form; but these must guard against another and more subtle kind of pettiness that inheres in letters and learning, an influence which compels them to be unsparing and careless of their body, so that they oftentimes, when the body is ready to succumb, will not surrender, but will force the mortal to be partner with the immortal, and the earth-born with the celestial, in rivalry and achievement. Then later, to quote the words of the ox to his fellow-servant the camel, who was unwilling to lighten his burden: Well, before long you will be carrying me as well as all this load (as actually resulted when the ox fell dead).[*]And this is just what happens to the mind: if it is unwilling to relax a little and give up to the body in distress and need, a little later a fever or a vertigo attacks it, and it is compelled to give up its books and discussions and studies, and share with the body its sickness and weariness. Plato [*] was right, therefore, in advising that there should be no movement of the body without the mind or of the mind without the body, but that we should preserve, as it were, the even balance of a well-matched team; when the body shares most in the work and weariness of the mind we should repay it by giving it the most care and attention, and we should feel that of the good gifts which fair and lovely Health bestows the fairest is the unhampered opportunity to get and to use virtue both in words and in deeds.