Advice About Keeping Well (7)

ZEUXIPPUS. It is a great marvel if we get off unscathed, when we concede to the body only as much of pleasures as Nature in her need finds a place for, but still more so when we battle with it vigorously to thwart its appetites, and keep putting them off, and finally consent to some negotiation with such as will not be denied, or, as Plato [*] says, yield when the body bites and strains. But when the case is reversed, and the desires descend from the mind to the body and force it to be subservient to the mind’s emotions, and to join in their excitements, there is no way to prevent their leaving as a residue the most violent and serious injuries as the aftermath of feeble and evanescent pleasures. Least of all ought the body to be stirred to pleasures by the mind’s desire, since such an origin is unnatural. Just as tickling the arm-pits so affects the mind as to produce laughter which is not natural, or even mild or happy, but convulsive and harsh, so whatsoever pleasures the body achieves through being prodded and disturbed by the mind are deranging and disturbing and foreign to Nature. Whenever, then, someone of those rare and notorious means of enjoyment is afforded us, we ought to take more pride in abstinence than in enjoyment, remembering that just as Simonides [*] used to say that he had never been sorry for having kept silent, but many a time for having spoken, so we have never been sorry either for having put a dainty to one side, or for having drunk water instead of Falernian wine, but the opposite; not only ought Nature not to be forced, but if anything of this sort is offered her even when she has need of it, the appetite ought to be often diverted from it towards the plain and familiar food for the sake of habituation and training.

If one must needs do wrong,

are the words of the Theban,[*] who is not correct in saying, far best it were

To do it for a kingdom’s sake.

But we can improve on this by saying that if we must needs seek repute in such matters as food and drink, far best it were by continence for the sake of health. Nevertheless stinginess and greediness constrain some persons, who repress and reduce their desires in their own homes, to stuff themselves and enjoy themselves with expensive things at others’ houses as though they were engaged in ruthless foraging in an enemy’s country; then they go away much indisposed, and for the next day they have an attack of indigestion to pay for their insatiable appetite. So Crates,[*] thinking that luxury and extravagance were as much to blame as anything for the growth of civil discords and the rule of despots in states, humorously advised:

Do not, by always making our fare more ample than lentils, Throw us all into discord.

And let everybody exhort himself not to make his fare always more ample than lentils, and by all means not to proceed beyond cress and olives to croquettes and fish, and by overeating throw his body into discord, that is to say, into derangements and diarrhoeas. For the inexpensive things keep the appetite to its natural limits of moderation, but the arts of the chefs and their trained helpers, and, in the words of the comic poet,[*]

These knavish dainties and these complex foods,

are constantly advancing and enlarging the bounds of enjoyment, and altering our ideas of what is good for us. I do not know how it is that, while we loathe and detest women who contrive philters and magic to use upon their husbands, we entrust our food and provisions to hirelings and slaves to be all but bewitched and drugged. If the saying of Arcesilaus [*] addressed to the adulterous and licentious appears too bitter, to the effect that it makes no difference whether a man practises lewdness in the front parlour or in the back hall, yet it is not without its application to our subject. For in very truth, what difference does it make whether a man employ aphrodisiacs to stir and excite licentiousness for the purposes of pleasure, or whether he stimulate his taste by odours and sauces to require, like the itch, continual scratchings and ticklings?