Give every one a platter of meat with sauce, so that he may swallow it down, and this will warm the intestines and pleasantly wash and so soften the body.
Sim. Here, boy, give me at once some salted pork. Oh! most savoury leg of pork! It is a barrow-hog. If you can hear what I say, return the cabbage and bacon, to the cook, at this season of the year, or preserve it till the winter. Cut me a couple of bits off this sausage, so that the first cup of wine may taste the sweeter.
Crit. Let us follow the advice of physicians that wine be taken with pork. Pour out wine.
Wine
Scop. Now follows action after talk. Surely this is wisest at this time of the year. Look at the necessary preparations for our drinking wine. First of all the keeper of the sideboard (custos abaci) has set out the cups of brightest crystal glass with purest white wine; you would think it water by its mere appearance. It is San Martin wine and partly Rhein wine, but not mixed as they are accustomed to drink it in Belgium, but such as they drink in mid-Germany. The wine-seller to-day has tapped two casks, one of yellow Helvell from the neighbourhood of Paris, and one of blood-red Bordeaux. Others are in readiness kept cool, dark (fuscus) from Aquitaine and black from Saguntum. Let every one choose according to his liking.
Crit. What suggestion could be more delightful? as nothing is harder fortune than to perish of thirst. For myself I should prefer that you had set before us the best water. I would rather have heard such an announcement than that of the wines.
Scop. Nor shall that be lacking.
Sim. Lately when I was in Rome, I drank at a cardinal’s house, the noblest wines of every flavour; sweet, sharp, mild, fruity, and tart. I was indeed extremely friendly with the wine-cellarer.
Dem. I dearly like fiery wine.
Pol. So also do Belgian women. In some places in France they offer you the dregs of wine. They most delight in two and three year old vintage. But these are rather sampling of wine than real wine-drinking, and French wine especially bears neither the addition of water nor years. Therefore soon after it is racked off it is drunk. Indeed, in a year it begins to get worse, and becomes uncertain, then its flavour escapes and it becomes sour. Had it been kept longer it would become mouldy and flat. The Spanish and Italian wines, on the other hand, improve with age, and with the addition of water.
Dem. What do you mean by wine getting “flat”? The casks become shrunken, the wine is enclosed in cells, and the casing of the cask falls in, if need be.
Pol. Like as fruit gets uneatable through decay by age and does not keep, and, as we say commonly, goes bad. The opposite term is “still wine” (consistens).
Dem. Pour me first a half-cupful of water and then pour in the wine, after the old custom.
Crit. Nay, to-day’s custom is yet the same with many people, the French and Germans being exceptions.
Dem. The nations who drink water with wine pour wine to the water; those who will drink wine watered, pour water on to the wine.
Crit. And what do those drink who mix no water with their wine?
Dem. Pure, unmixed wine.
Crit. That is, if the wine-dealer did not first water it himself.
Pol. They call that baptising it, so that the wine should be Christian. This was in my time a fine, philosophical way of speaking.
Dem. They baptise the wine, and themselves are unbaptised (i.e., unwatered or unwashed).
Pol. They do worse to wine who add chalk, sulphur, honey, alum, and other more noisome things than which nothing is more pernicious to one’s body. Against such people the state ought to proceed as against robbers or assassins. For thence are incredible kinds of diseases and especially gout.
Crit. By conspiracy with physicians they can do this. Then both share the profit.
Dem. The cup you reach to me is too full. Empty it a little, I beg, so that there may be a space for water.
Drinking
Crit. Pour me wine in that chestnut-coloured cup. What is that?
Scop. A great Indian nut, surrounded with a silver edge. Won’t you drink out of that bowl of ebony wood? They say that this is the healthiest. But don’t give me too much water. Don’t you know the old proverb: “You spoil wine when you pour water into it”?
Dem. Yes, then you spoil both the water and the wine.
Pol. I would rather spoil both, than be spoiled by one of them.
Scop. Would it not be pleasant, according to the Greek custom, to drink out of the bowls and from the bigger beakers?
Pol. By no means. You reminded us just now of the old proverb. In my turn I remind you of the Pauline precept: “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess”; and that of our Saviour: “And take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness.”
Water
Crit. Whence is this cold water, so pure and pellucid?
Scop. Out of the spring near by here.
Crit. Rather than mixing of wine I prefer cistern water, if it is thoroughly pure.
Dem. What do you think of spring-drawn water?
Crit. It is more appropriate for washing purposes than for drinking.
Pol. Very many people commend flowing water.
Crit. And quite rightly if the streams flow through gold veins, as in Spain, and the water is peaceful and clear.
Beer
Sim. Bring me in that Samian phial some beer which, in this heat, should be very good for refreshing one’s body.
Scop. Which sort of beer will you have?
Sim. The lightest you have, for other kinds muddle the mind too much and make the body too fat.
Pol. Give me some also, but in the round glass.
Scop. Run to the kitchen and see what they are waiting for. Why don’t they send another course? You see that already no one further tastes of this. Bring young cocks cooked with lettuce, garden oxtongue, and endive; also mutton and calf’s flesh.
Crit. Add also a little mustard or rock-parsley in small dishes.
Dem. Mustard seems to me a strong (violenta) food.
Crit. It is not suitable for bilious people, but is not without its usefulness for those who abound in thick and cold humours.
Pol. Therefore are the countries of northern latitudes wise in using it, for whom it is of great service, especially with thick and hard food, e.g., with beef and salted fish.
Pottage
Scop. In this place, I think broth and rice come seasonably, also ash-coloured bread, fine wheaten bread, starch-food, rice, “little worms” (vermiculi). Let every one take according to his taste.
Dem. I have seen those who shuddered terribly at “little worms” because they believed they were out of the earth and from mud, and had previously been alive.
Crit. Such people deserve to have these “worms” come to life again in their stomachs. They say that rice is born in water and dies in wine. Give me, therefore, wine.
Dem. Drink not immediately after warm food. Eat first something cold and solid.
Crit. What?
Dem. A crust of bread, or a rissole or two of meat.
Fish
Sim. Bah! fish and meat at the same sitting! To mix earth and sea. This is forbidden by physicians.
Scop. Nay, rather physicians are pleased by it.
Sim. I think it is because it is profitable to them.
Scop. Why, then, do the physicians forbid it?
Sim. I have made a mistake. I ought to have said that it is prohibited by the art of medicine, not by physicians. But what sort of fish is this?
Scop. Place them in order. The first is roasted pike with vinegar and capers, then turbot cooked with the juice of pointed sorrel, fried soles, a fresh pike and a capito (large-headed fish)—the salted pike serve for yourself—fresh roasted and salted tunny-fish, fresh maenae (small sea fish) fried, pasties, in which are many bearded-fishes, murenae, and trout, with suitable relishes, fried gudgeon and boiled lobsters and crabs. Mingle with them dishes with garlic, pepper, mustard, pounded up.
Sim. I will indeed speak of the fish, but not eat of them.
Crit. If a philosopher begins to conduct a controversy on fish, i.e., on a most uncertain, debatable question, then let us have a bed set up, so that we can sleep here.
Scop. No one is worthy to even taste these dishes. Take them away.
Sim. And yet formerly banquets at Rome were most splendid and they were accustomed to say that sumptuous ones were given which consisted entirely of fish.
Crit. Thus have times changed, although this custom also lasts with some people.
Birds
Scop. Bring up roasted chickens, partridges, thrushes, ducklings, teal, wood-pigeons, rabbits, hares, calf’s flesh, kids, and sauce or flavours, vinegar, oil, fruit penetrating in its medical properties, also citrons, olives from the Balearic Islands, preserved, pressed, and kept in pickle.
Dem. Are no Bethica (district of Spain) olives there?
Scop. Those from the Balearic Islands taste better.
Crit. What will happen to those big animals there, the goose, the swan, the peacock?
Scop. Merely show them, and take them back to the kitchen.
Pol. See there a peacock! Where is Q. Hortensius who held a peacock for such a delicacy?76
Sim. Take the lamb-meat away.
Scop. Why?
Sim. Because it is unsound. They say it does not go out by any other way than that it entered.
Crit. I have seen someone who swallowed olive stones like an ostrich.
Scop. From what meat are those pasties made?
Crit. This here is stag’s flesh.
Scop. This is deer’s flesh; and that there, I believe, is boar’s flesh.
Crit. I prefer the condiments to meat itself.
Sim. And that is clearly right, for spice renders the sourest things sweet.
Crit. What is the spice of the whole of life?
Dem. An equable mind.
Crit. I can name something else, which is of larger scope and more august.
Dem. What can be more important than what I have named?
Crit. Pietas, under which equanimity is included. Moreover, “piety” is the most suitable and pleasant sauce for all things hard and easy, and those things which lie between these extremes.
Scop. Pour white Spanish wine in that beaker and bear it round to the guests.
Dem. What are you preparing to do? When dinner is finished, bring us some strong and generous wine. We can afterwards drink something more diluted, if we wish to take care of our health.
Sim. Thy counsel seems to me good, for it behoves us to have colder food at the end of a meal, which by its weight may thrust down the other food to the bottom of the stomach, and may restrain the vapours from escaping to the head.
III. Second Course
Scop. Take away those things; change the round and square plates, and lay the second table (dessert). For no one is anywhere further stretching forth his hand to the dishes.
Crit. I have eaten so heartily from the beginning that I have quite lost all further appetite.
Dem. I also have no more appetite, but I was led on by the desire of the fruit dishes here, and so have eaten to satiety.
Pol. I have eaten I don’t know how much fish. This has repulsed all my appetite.
Sim. And is there so much of splendid dainties and delicacies before us when there is no longer the desire of eating? Pears, apples, and cheese of many kinds! The most attractive to my palate is the horse-cheese.
Crit. I believe that it is not horse-cheese at all, but Phrygian cheese from asses’ milk, such as is brought from Sicily in the form of columns and squares. When one is broken, it cleaves into layers or, as it were, sheets (of paper).
Dem. This cheese is porous as if it were from England, and will not in my opinion be pleasing to you.
Crit. Nor will this spongy Dutch cheese. This from Parma is thicker and, as it seems, fairly fresh, and that Penasellian (Spanish) will easily vie with it.
Dem. This cheese is not from Parma but Placentia.
Crit. It also is pleasant. Commonly the cheese dearest to the Germans is old cheese, putrid, fried up and wormy.
Sim. He who eats such cheese is hunting for thirst and he eats in order to drink.
Scop. The pastry-cook delays too long with his sweets. Why does he not bring his tarts, his wine-cakes and cup-cakes and the fried cakes made of a concoction thrown into a vessel of boiling oil with honey poured over it?
Crit. Give me a few dates, both some to eat and some to keep by me. Perhaps I shall to-night eat nothing else.
Scop. Then take the whole of this branch of them. Will you have some pomegranates?
Pol. Here, boy, relieve me of these wild dates and give me something eatable.
Scop. I advise you to drink. Don’t you know that it was the opinion of Aristotle that the dessert was introduced into meals to invite us to drinking lest the food should be digested dry?
Crit. The discoverer must have been either a sailor or fish to be so much afraid of dryness.
Scop. Take away those things which are ordinarily called the seal of the stomach, because after them nothing more is to be eaten or drunk, biscuits, quince-cakes, coriander covered with sugar. But such food must be chewed, not eaten. What remains from the portion chewed must be spit out, for it is uneatable. Collect the bits and what remains over in baskets; bring scented waters, of rose, of the flowers of the healing apple (citron), and of musk-melon.
IV. End of the Banquet
Pol. Let us return thanks to Christ.
The Boy.
Agimus tibi gratias, Pater, qui tam multa ad hominum usus condidisti: annue, ut tuo favore ad coenam illam veniamus tuae beatitudinis.77
Pol. Now then let us return thanks to the host.
Crit. Well, you do it.
Pol. Nay, rather Democritus, who is strong on these points.
Dem. I cannot return thanks as in duty bound to thee, deserving well of the republic, for all has been confused by Bacchus, but I will recite what once Diogenes said to Dionysius; I have committed his speech to memory. If I have a lapse of memory or a faltering tongue you will forgive me after so great a soaking of drink.
Scop. Say what you will; it will be written in wine.
Dem. Thou hast, my Scopas, thyself, thy wife, thy man-servants and maid-servants, neighbours, cooks, and pastry-cooks, wearied thyself and themselves, so that we may become yet more wearied by eating and drinking. When Socrates had entered a very crowded market, he exclaimed wisely, “O immortal gods, how many things there are here which I don’t need.” Thou, on the contrary, mightest say, “What a small part is all this of that which I need.” The idea of moderation is pleasing to Nature. Thereon it is formed and supported. This supply of many and manifold things overwhelms Nature, as Pliny rightly observes. Manifoldness of food is injurious to man; yet more injurious is every sauce. We take hence to our homes bodies made heavy by these things, minds oppressed and sunk in food and drinks, so that we cannot duly perform any human duty. Do you yourself point out what thanks we owe you.
Scop. Are these the thanks you have for me? Thus you pay back so splendid a meal!
Pol. Clearly it is so—for what greater benefit is there than becoming wiser? You send us home evidently beasts. We wish to leave you at home a man, so that you may know how to consult your own health and that of others and to live conformably to the desires of Nature, not following fancies caught up from folly. Farewell and learn wisdom.
XVIII
EBRIETAS—Drunkenness
Asotus, Tricongius, Abstemius, Glaucia
In this dialogue Vives describes the causes and effects of drunkenness. The occasion of the dialogue is based on Horace, book i. Epist. 5, where firstly is described the desire to cast away care by a splendid feast, to drink the best wines freely and in quantities, for Horace says:
Then he adds the seven effects of drunkenness. It causes the disclosure of secrets, renders men confident, makes them bold, takes away anxiety, brings the fatuous impression of wisdom, makes men garrulous and loquacious, and in the depth of poverty renders men dissolute and lavish.
Here, again, names of interlocutors are aptly applied. Asotus (middle vowel long) is a man given up to luxuries of the palate. In Latin such is called heluo (glutton), nepos (spendthrift), decoctor (bankrupt). The Greek word comes from a privative particle, and σώζω; Latin, servo. See Cicero, book 2, de Finibus: “Nolim asotos, qui in mensam vomant, et qui de conviviis auferantur, crudique nostridie se rursus ingurgitent; qui solem (ut aiunt) nec occidentem unquam viderint, nec orientem: qui consumtis patrimoniis egeant. Nemo istius generis asotos jucunde putat vivere.”
Concerning Tricongius we have spoken in the dialogue “Garrientes.” Abstemius is one who does not drink wine, as if held back, i.e. from wine. There are two parts to the dialogue, the Exordium, which contains the occasion of the dialogue, and Narratio, the telling of the story.
I. Exordium
Asot. What do you say, Tricongius? How splendidly that Brabantian entertained us yesterday!
Tric. A curse on him, for I could not rest the whole night! I was sick, with all due respect to you let me say it (sit habitus honos vestris auribus), and then tossed myself about all over the bed, now on the inner, then on the outer, frame of the bed. It seemed to me as if I should vomit forth throat and stomach. Even now I cannot use my eyes or ears for headache. It is as if I had heavy bars of lead lying on my forehead and eyes.
Asot. Fasten a band round your forehead and temples, and you will seem to be a king.
Tric. Much rather like Bacchus himself, from whom the institution of diadems on kings was derived.
Asot. Go home, then, and sleep off the soaking.
Tric. Home, indeed! There is no place I should shun so much as my home. I should feel too much aversion to meet my shrieking wife. For if she were to see me now she would entertain me with longer homilies than Chrysostom.
Abstem. And this is what you call being treated splendidly!
Glauc. Clearly so; for your throat and stomach have been well washed!
Abstem. And the hands too?
Glauc. Not even once.
Asot. Nay, on the contrary, often with wine and milk, whilst we dipped our hands in one another’s bowls (pateras).
Glauc. What could be said more splendidly? Fancy the fingers sticking with the fat of meat and with sauces.
Abstem. By the gods, keep quiet! Who could listen without nausea to the unclean business, much less look upon it, or taste of such wine or milk.
Asot. By your faith, ye gods! are you so delicate a man, Abstemius, that you cannot swallow this even with your ears? What would you do with your palate, if you were like us? But listen to me, Tricongius, sweetest fellow-wine-bibber, let us send some boy to fetch us some of the same wine in that clay vessel. There is no surer antidote against this poison.
Tric. Has this been tried?
Asot. Why should it not be so? Don’t you remember the verses which Colax sings:—
Glauc. Tell us, I beg you, all about the banquet.
Abstem. Nay, don’t! unless you wish me to part with all I have in my stomach, and even the vitals themselves.
Glauc. Then go away for a short time.
Asot. I will tell you as frankly as possible, but so as nowhere to go beyond the limits of decency.
Glauc. Begin, I beseech you. Give your attention, Abstemius.
Asot. My dear Glaucia, before everything, I am of opinion that there is no class of men which can be likened to festive and liberal hosts at banquets. Some show knowledge of all kinds of things, i.e., of mere trifles; others show with pride, experience, and wisdom gathered from practice. And what of this? There are people who indeed have wealth, but, wretched that they are, they don’t dare to spend it. What they have, they take pleasure in storing up. A kindly host is everywhere of use, everywhere is welcome. The very sight of him is sufficient to heal the sadness of the mind and scatter it; and if a man has any wretchedness, the memory of the feast takes it away. So, too, does the hope and expectation of a coming feast. All the other so-called mental blessings I don’t care to look on; they are, to me, slight and unfruitful.
Abstem. I ask you, Asotus, who is the author of such a fine sentiment?
Asot. I and all like me, i.e., a host of people from Belgic France, from the Seine to the Rhine. There are only a few poor and very sparing men who think differently, who envy Abstemius his name, and wish to be called frugal, or else certain distinguished people who are puffed up with a great opinion of their own wisdom, i.e., an empty word, whom we (i.e., the greatest and chief part of mankind) simply laugh at.
Abstem. What do I hear?
Digression
Glauc. He is quite right, though he is drunk. For nowhere has scholarship less estimation than in Belgium. A distinguished man in scholarship is not otherwise esteemed than one who is occupied in shoe-making or in weaving.
Abstem. And yet there are many students here who make not altogether unsatisfactory progress.
Glauc. Yes. Little boys are led by their parents to the schools as to an operative shop, by which afterwards they can derive a living. The very teachers themselves, incredible to say, as little as the pupils, cherish the occupation they follow with such slight honour and with such meagre reward, so that illustrious teachers of the first rank can scarcely maintain themselves.
Asot. This has nothing to do with the subject of our conversation. Let us return to the banquet.
Glauc. Yes, I would rather hear about that, but dismiss this talk about studies, which are certainly unfruitful. I know not how you Italians think about scholarship. In my eyes, it seems to me not only useless but even pernicious (damnosa).
Abstem. So it seems to an ox and a pig, as it does to you. We, too, should think the same if we had not more intelligence than you.
II. The Exposition (Narratio)
Asot. If we let you go on, there would be no end. Therefore, listen. First, we all of us reclined, severe and serious. Grace was said, and everywhere was silence and quiet. Every one began to get his knife ready. We put on the appearance not of eagerness but of restraint (non invitatorum sed invitorum), so that you would have said that we were compelled to eat, and in the act of eating, did it as if reluctantly, for our mind had not as yet warmed with the ardour of spontaneity. Each one placed his napkin over his shoulders; some indeed in front of their chests. Others spread the tablecloth over their knees. One takes bread, looks at it, cleans it, if there is any coal or cinders lining it. All these things are done gently and lingeringly (cunctabunde).
Cause
Some began the meal by drinking; others, before they drank, took a little salad and salted beef to arouse their sleeping appetite and to stimulate their languor. The first cup was of beer, so that there might be a cold, firm foundation underlaid for the warmth of wine. Then that holy liquor was brought first in narrow and small cups, which should rather irritate than assuage thirst. The host was a very festive man, than whom there was none better in the whole neighbourhood, nor even his equal, i.e., in my opinion (which may be said without injury to any one). He then orders the largest of cups to be brought and a beginning was made of drinking liberally, after the Greek fashion, as a certain Philo-Greek said, who once had studied at Lyons. Then we began to talk, and then to get warm. Everywhere joviality and laughing became general. Oh, feasts and nights of the gods! We drank to one another’s health, and returned like for like, with great equity. It would have been unjust to gain a point over one’s companion, especially at such a time.
Abstem. Rightly, if it were merely a question of a chalice of wine, but it is one’s senses and intellect which are in question, the chief possessions of man. But if we are to talk over so copious and festive a subject, first I must ask of you whether you are drunk?
Asot. No, certainly not. This you can easily and truly see from the connectedness of my talk. Do you think, if I were drunk, that I could relate all this in such an orderly fashion?
Abstem. Then it is well, for otherwise I should be contending with an absent opponent, according to the verse of Mimus. But tell me now, first, why don’t you erect a temple in these parts to Bacchus, the discoverer of this celestial liquor?
Asot. This is your business; you, who have a temple at Rome of Sergius and Bacchus. It is sufficient for us daily to follow his rites, wherever we are. And perchance we should erect a temple for him if it were settled he was the discoverer, for I have heard certain students debate the question. There are some who think that Noah was the first who drank wine and was intoxicated by it.
Abstem. Let us leave that point! Tell us what wine you had.
Asot. What concerns us is what sort of wine it is and whence it came. Let it only have the name and colour of wine, that is sufficient for us. For these delicacies in wines let the Frenchman and the Italian seek.
Abstem. What enjoyment can there then be if you don’t at all taste what you are pouring into your body?
Tric. Perchance some taste something at the beginning with the palate whole. But when it becomes palled from so great a superfluity, things lose all their taste.
Abstem. If thirst has been quenched, no pleasure remains. For this consists only in the satisfaction of natural needs. So it is a kind of torment to go on drinking when there is no thirst, or to eat when there is no hunger.
Tric. Don’t you think, then, Abstemius, that we drink for pleasure or because it is pleasant?
Abstem. Then you are so much worse than beasts, who are controlled by natural desires, whilst reason does not govern you, nor nature exercise a control over you.
Tric. Good fellowship leads us to that point; and in spite of reason we get drunk little by little.
Abstem. How often have you been drunk? how often do you see others drunk?
Tric. Every day, very many.
Abstem. Don’t then so many experiments satisfy you so as to put you on your guard against so disgraceful an event? Even one such experience would suffice for an animal!
Glauc. But do you know also how dear our companions are, for whose sake men become beasts? Whilst drinking they would give their very hearts for them. When they meet afterwards, they hardly know them! Their very life and soul they would not redeem for the sum of a sesterce.
Abstem. Out of what sort of cups and how did you quaff the wine?
Asot. In the first place there were brought glass cups; a little time afterwards, on account of the danger, these were taken away and silver ones presented. In the wine at first we put herbs, which the season of the year provided, a little time afterwards, flesh-broth, milk, butter, and pap.
Abstem. Oh, filth, which would not be borne by animals!
Tric. How much more tragically (τραγικὼτερον) you would call out if you knew that they plunged their dirty hands into one another’s wine and cast in the shells of eggs, fruit and nuts, and the stones of olives and prunes.
Abstem. Cease from this description, if you don’t wish me to take myself off hence to some woods.
Tric. Listen to me, Glaucia. I will speak in your ear. Some people carry a hunting-bugle when taking a journey, which is full of dust, straws, fluff, and other dirty things. Out of this we drank.
Glauc. What?
Tric. What, indeed? wine?
Glauc. Nay, rather say your understanding.
Tric. Clearly it is so. And after we had drunk the understanding we took pots (matuli), not altogether clean, from off a stool and used them for cups.
Effects
Abstem. How ended the banquet—the story of which sounds like a fable?
Asot. The floors swam with wine. We were all drunk, especially the host, a strong man. Two or three were lying down under the table, overcome by a great victory.
Abstem. O glorious victory, and in a very beautiful and glorious conflict! But did wine overcome every one?
Asot. Even so.
Abstem. Wretched man, what do you think drunkenness is?
Asot. A fine thing! It is to give oneself up to one’s genius.
Abstem. Yes, but which genius, your good one or your bad one?
Glauc. If you will rightly look into all these matters, you will never find which genius they give themselves up to. For it is neither to the heart, nor to pleasure, nor any other cause for which others indulge, who follow vices and the depraved desires of the mind. To be drunk is different. It is to lose the power of the senses, to go away from the power of reasoning, of judgment; clearly, from being a man to become either cattle or, indeed, a stone. What follows afterwards I can easily imagine, had I never seen a drunkard; to speak, and not to know what you are saying; if any secret, of especial importance not to be divulged, is committed to you, to blab it out, and to say things which may lead into grave danger yourself, your people, and often your whole province and fatherland, to have no discrimination of friend and foe, of wife and mother—and it leads to quarrels, contentions, enmities, snares, wounds, maiming, killing!
Tric. Even without sword and blood, for not a few pass on from drunkenness to death.
Glauc. Who would not prefer to be shut up at home with a dog or a cat than with a drunkard? For those animals have more intellect in them than the drunkard.
Abstem. After the drunkenness follows indigestion, weakening of the nerves, paralysis, the tortures of gout, heaviness in the head and the whole body, dulness of all the senses; memory is extinguished; the sharpness of the intellect is stunned; thence there is a stupor in the whole mind which precludes intelligence, wisdom, and eloquence.
Asot. Now I begin to understand what a serious evil drunkenness is; henceforward, I will take the keenest pains to drink up to the point of cheerfulness, not to that of drunkenness.
Glauc. Joviality is the gate of drunkenness. No one comes to be drunk with the idea in his mind that he will get drunk; but he is exhilarated by drinking; then going on and on, drunkenness follows afterwards, for it is difficult to place the bounds of joviality and to remain in it. Slippery is the step from joviality to drunkenness!
Abstem. So long as thou hast the wine in the beaker, it is in thy power; when thou hast it in thy body, thou art in the power of the wine. Then you are held and do not hold. When you drink, you treat wine as you like. When you have drunk, it will treat you as it likes.
Asot. What then? Are we never to drink?
Abstem. When fools avoid their vices, they run into the opposite extremes. We must, indeed, quench thirst, but not be “drinkers.” Nature on this point teaches beasts alone. The same nature will not teach man, because he possesses reason. You eat when you are hungry; you drink when you are thirsty. Hunger and thirst will warn you how much, when, to what extent, we must eat and drink.
Asot. What if I am always thirsty, and if I cannot assuage my thirst except by getting drunk?
Abstem. Then drink what cannot possibly make you drunk.
Asot. The constitution of my body won’t permit that.
Abstem. If then you had such hunger that by no amount of food you could satisfy it unless you were to burst yourself, what then?
Asot. That indeed would not be hunger, but disease.
Abstem. There would surely be need of medicine, not meals, to take away that hunger, wouldn’t there?
Asot. Certainly.
Abstem. So needest thou for such a thirst a physician, not an inn-keeper, and a drug from the chemist, not one fetched from the providers of banquets. What you describe is not thirst but disease, and a perilous one, too!
XIX
REGIA—The King’s Palace
Agrius, Sophronius, Holocolax
In this dialogue, the Royal Dwelling or Palace and its parts, persons, and functions are described, as to which see Vincentius Lupanas, in his book de Magistratibus Francorum. For our Vives here chiefly describes the palace of a French king. The persons represented in the dialogue are fitly named from the Greek. For Agrius is with them a country rustic, unskilled in court-life. Sophronius is a prudent, modest, and cautious man. Holocolax is altogether a flatterer, and one who (as Terence says) has commanded himself to agree to everything, of which sort of men there is always so large an assembly in courts. There are two parts of the dialogue, the Exordium and Narratio.
I. Introduction (Exordium)
Agri. Why is it so many accompany the king in such varied styles of dress?
Soph. Nay, rather look on their countenances than on their finery. For their faces are more varied and diverse than their decorations and clothes.
Agri. What reason is there for this difference also of bearing?
Apparel—The Countenance
Soph. They are clothed differently according to their means; differently according to their rank or family, often even according to their ambitions or vanity. Many also use elegancy of dress as an angle and net for catching the favour of the king or of his chief officers, and, not rarely, for winning the maids of his court. But the expression of outward countenance follows the stirrings of the mind, and such outward expression is nearly always such as is prompted by the inner disposition of the mind.
Agri. But why do so many men meet here together?
Holo. Is it not fitting that very many people should come where the capital and government of the whole province are seated?
Soph. Quite so. But most people regard not so much the commonwealth as their private good. They follow the government, not because it has the country in its hand, but because it has fortunes to bestow.
Holo. Why not? Since all things are sold for money.
Soph. So they think who don’t possess any soul and mind, but whose health and gifts of body are only common.
Agri. What need is there in this tumult of the court to hold so great a philosophical speculation? I indeed should prefer to understand from you what sort of people these are in such great numbers, in such varied appearances and fashions.
Holo. I will tell you of them all, in their rank. For Sophronius, as far as I know, is not so well versed in royal matters. But I have been in royal company of all kinds; I have penetrated, inspected, and seen thoroughly their courts, and I have always been acceptable and pleasing to them all.
Soph. Thence I suppose it is that you have gained that name of yours, Holocolax.
II. Exposition (Narratio)—The King
Holo. You suppose rightly. But do you, Agrius, listen to me. He yonder, on whom every ear, eye, mind, is intent, is the king, the head of the kingdom.
Soph. Truly the head, and so the health when he is wise and honest, but the ruin when he is bad or rash (demens).
The Dauphin—Dignitaries—Prefects
Holo. The little boy who follows him is his son, his heir, whom in the Greek court they called despot, that is, lord (dominus). In Spain they call him prince, in France the dauphin. There with a neck-chain, like that of Torquatus, in clothes all of silk, or all of gold, are the leaders of the kingdom, with the decorations of names of military dignitaries, princes, dukes, lords of the marches, who are called marchiones, counts, men who are named barbarously, barons, knights. This one is the master of the horse, whom they call by the vulgar term of comes stabilis, a name taken from the Greek court, when the great Comestabulus (Constable) was, as it were, the prefect of the sea, the admiral. Further, he was supreme over the palace, and also was at the head of the guards. In the time of Romulus they named such an one praefectus celerum, and the guards themselves celeres.
Agri. Who are those in robes reaching to the ankles, and with faces of great severity?
Counsellors
Holo. They are the counsellors of the king.
Soph. Those whom the prince calls to his council. It behoves them to be the most prudent of men, of great experience, of the greatest weight and moderation in their discernment.
Agri. Why so?
Soph. Because they are the eyes and ears of the prince, and so of the whole kingdom, and so much the more if the king should be blind or deaf, enslaved by his senses, or by ignorance, or by enjoyment of pleasure.
Agri. Are that one-eyed man and that other deaf man eyes and ears of the king?
Soph. Worse still is blindness and deafness of the heart!
Secretaries
Holo. The secretaries follow the counsellors, nor are they few in number or of one rank; then those who deal in money matters for the king, or those who get it in, farmers of the taxes, treasury-tribunes, prefects, procurators, and advocates of the treasury.
Agri. Who are those luxuriously decked and festive young men who always follow the king and stand at his side, some laughing at him and others with open mouth, full of wonder at what he says?
Courtiers
Holo. These are a band of intimate friends, the delight and joy of the king.
Agri. Why are the two who are entering there followed by so many men full of grimaces?
Chancellor—Secretary—Litigants—Prefect of the Bed-chamber
Holo. Because the king has in them especial confidence. The one is the prefect of the sacred writings, or chief secretary; the other the keeper of the secret archives, amongst which are the official statistics (regni breviarium). He has to remind the king of everything. Therefore daily so many come to him, so that they may rub up and renew his memory, since that is the keeping of the memory of the prince. Those who draw in their countenances are litigants, who are prosecuting their suits. Their business never finds an end, through the long series of procrastinations which are kept up. Those two who keep walking up and down the hall are prefects, the one of the sleeping-chamber, the other of the royal stables. These have under them very many other chamber and stable attendants. But let us enter the royal dining-hall.
Agri. Ah, how great a crowd solicitous and stately in their pomp!
Soph. You would observe these with still greater amazement if you knew how small a matter they are attending to. It is, forsooth, this: it is how a sick man may suck up a single egg and drink a little wine.
Master of the Feast
Holo. That man is the master of the feast for this week. There he is with an Indian who has a plait of rushes on him. That young man is the cup-bearer. The carver has not yet entered.
Agri. Who are about to have their breakfast (pransuri) with the king?
Holo. You mean who is so lucky as to take part in this feast of the gods?
Soph. Formerly guests were invited to the royal table, sometimes experienced military commanders, sometimes men of high lineage, or sometimes those distinguished either by experience in affairs, or by their learning, by whose discourse the king would become better and wiser. But the pride of Goths and other barbarians has invaded this our custom.
Holo. The chief followers have their grown-up armour-bearers and their boy-followers, boys on foot and spurred boys. Amongst these are quite magnificent, rich people, who most of them take their meals in correct fashion, or if this seems to them wearisome, they send basketfuls to their friends. This latter custom is more useful to their poorer friends. But the correct fashion of feasting has more distinction in it.
Agri. I seem to see quite another sort of people in that eating-chamber.
Ladies’ Quarters
Holo. Those are the ladies’ quarters, where the queen lives with her matrons and girls. Look how they enter and go out from the hall (ex parthenone) like as bees from a hive—young lovers and slaves of Cupid!
Soph. Often old people have a second childhood.
Holo. There is no greater pleasure than to hear the keenly thought-out sayings, or poems, songs, early morning (antelucanus) melodies, and chat of these girls, to see their briskness, their walking in and out, varieties of colour in their dress, their clothing and shapes of garments. They have boys as amanuenses, through whom they send and return messages. With what zeal and what industry, what breeding, they announce and bring back messages, hither and thither. By the faith of the gods! with uncovered heads, with bent hams and bowed knees. Every day there is something new to be heard, seen, and pondered over; something which has been acutely or subtly thought out or said, or done with spirit, or dexterously, or without restraint.
Soph. Nay, rather in a négligé way.
Holo. What greater happiness? Who could tear himself away from such delight?
Soph. Colax, Colax, without being in love you are raving, and without wine, you are drunk. What foolishness could be greater than what has been described by you?
Holo. I don’t know how it happens that you see heaps of people depart from the schools quite young, but let them once enter the court, they become old in it.
Soph. So also those who drank from the cup of Circe would be unwilling to yield and return to their human nature and condition, having once lost their reason, and having degenerated into the nature of beasts!
Agri. But what do all these do when they go home, and with what actions do they occupy themselves to pass the time, at least?
Leisure Time—Flattery
Soph. The most of them do nothing more serious than what you now observe them doing, and then their leisure is for them the parent and nurse of many vices. Some play at dice, cards, the gaming-board, at disputations; others pass the afternoon hours in secret slander and artful calumny, that is to what they degenerate at home. Many also are wonderfully taken up with buffoons and jugglers, towards whom those who are at other times niggardly and sordid, to them they are most lavish. But the chief corruption of the court is the flattery of each to all the others, and, what is still worse, towards himself. This brings it about that no one ever hears salutary truths either from himself nor from his companions unless when at strife. And though he receives then all too little of truth, he takes it as insult.
Holo. This employment is now by far the most profitable. You may hunger and thirst after the love of speaking and truth. I have become rich by my smiling, blandishments, and by approving and praising everything.
Agri. Could not the kings alter these unsatisfactory matters?
Soph. Very easily, if they only wished to do so! But these fashions are pleasing; they are similar to their own. Others are precluded by their preoccupations, on account of which they never have leisure for doing anything which is right or thinking anything which is sane. There are also not lacking those who, with indulgent minds and careless themselves, don’t think the morality of their own homes, and that of their dependants, any concern of theirs. And those things trouble them less than the private home of each of us troubles any of us.
XX
PRINCEPS PUER—The Young Prince
Morobulus, Philippus, Sophobulus
This dialogue is entirely “political,” for Vives lays down the precepts to the boy prince, and teaches the art of good government. The names are aptly bestowed. Morobulus is a foolish counsellor, à μωρὸς, foolish, βουλὴ, counsel; Sophobulus, a prudent counsellor. There are two parts of the dialogue.
INSTITUTIO
| Morobuli de | { | Inutilitate studiorum Praeceptoribus |
||||
| Sophobuli de arte gubernandi |
{ | Quod principi sit necessaria: idque ostendit tribus similitudinibus | ||||
| Quomodo comparanda sit | { | Doctrina: ubi ostendit, quinam Consulendi Ocii fuga | { | Sint Non sint |
||
I. The Teaching of Morobulus—The Study of Literature
Morob. What has your highness in hand, Philip?
Phil. I read and learn with zeal, as you can see for yourself.
Morob. I see only too well, and am pained that you weary yourself, and that you are making that little body of yours quite lean!
Phil. What then should I do?
Morob. That which other nobles, princes, and rich men do—ride about, chat with the daughters of your august mother, dance, learn the art of bearing arms, play cards or ball, leap and run. Such, you see, are the studies in which young nobles most delight. If now people, who scarcely are worthy to be received in your family, enjoy these pleasant occupations, why is it suitable for you to do as you are doing, when you are the son and heir of so great a prince?
Phil. What! is the study of letters no good?
Morob. It is indeed of good, but rather for those who are initiated in holy affairs, i.e., priests, or for those who, by useful knowledge of their art, are about to earn their living, such as the shoemaker’s art, the weaving art, and the other arts necessary for money-making. Rise, I beg of you, put away your books from your hands. Let us go out for a walk, so that for some short time you may get fresh air!
Phil. I may not do so just now, because of Stunica and Siliceus.
Morob. Who are these Stunica and Siliceus? Are they not your subjects, over whom you have the command, not they over you?
Teachers
Phil. Stunica is my educator, while Siliceus is my literary tutor. Subjects of mine indeed they are, or to speak more exactly, of my father; but my father, to whom I am subject, placed them over me, and subjected me to them.
Morob. What then! Did your father give your highness into servitude to these men?
Phil. I don’t know.
Morob. Oh! most unworthy deed!
II. The Teaching of Sophobulus
Soph. By no means, my son! Certainly he made them thy servants; he wished them to stick close to thee, as eyes, ears, soul, and mind, to be always engaged on thy behalf, each of them to put aside his own affairs, and to make thy affairs his sole business, not so as to vex thee by imperiousness; but that those good and wise men should transform thy uncultivated manners into the virtue, glory, and excellence of a man; not so as to make thee a slave, but truly a free man and truly a prince. If thou dost not obey them, then wilt thou be a slave of the lowest order, worse than those here amongst us who are employed, bought and sold from Ethiopia or Africa.
Morob. Whose slave, then, would he be, if he did not mould his morals after his educators?
Soph. Not of men certainly, but of vices, which are more importunate masters, and more intolerable than a dishonest and wicked man!
Phil. I don’t quite understand what you say.
Soph. But did you understand Morobulus?
Phil. Most clearly, everything.
Soph. Oh, how happy men would be, if they had the sense and intelligence for good and satisfactory things which they have for frivolous and bad things! Now indeed, on the contrary, at your time of life, it happens that you understand with ease what is trifling, what is inept, nay, even what is insane, such things as those to which Morobulus has exhorted you, and then you regard what I would say on virtue, dignity, and every kind of praiseworthy thing, as if I were speaking Arabic or Gothic.
Phil. What, then, are you of opinion I ought to do?
Soph. You should at least suspend your judgment. Neither acquiesce in the opinions of Morobulus, nor in mine, until you are able to judge as to both.
The Act of Governing
Phil. Who will give me this power of judgment?
Soph. Ah! that will come with age, teaching, and experience.
Morob. Alas! that would require long weariness of waiting!
First Similitude
Soph. Morobulus advises well. Throw away your books. Let us go and play! Let us play a game in which one is elected king. He will prescribe to the others what should be done. The rest obey, according to the laws of the game. You shall be king.
Phil. How shall the game be? For if I don’t know the game, how shall I be able to take the part of king in it?
Second Similitude
Soph. What are you saying, sweetest little Philip, the darling of Spain? You would not dare to undertake to rule in a game, not knowing it, in a game and frivolous matters, in which a mistake brings no particular danger; and you are willing seriously to undertake to rule so many and so great kingdoms, ignorant of the condition of the people and of the laws of administration, although uninstructed in all prudence, and only knowing the ridiculous trivialities, which Morobulus here instils in your mind? Ah! my boy, tell the Master of the Horse to lead forth hither that Neapolitan horse, the most ferocious kicker, and the one given to throw his rider to the ground, and let Philip ride him!
Phil. By no means that one, but another and safer one. For I have not as yet learned the art of managing a refractory horse, and I have not the strength for it!
Third Similitude
Soph. Well, Philip, let me ask you whether you think that a lion is equally fierce as a horse; or that a horse will kick and be refractory, and less obedient to the bridle than people, and the host of men in a country who come together and congregate from every kind of vice, passion, crime, and evil deed; from agitations which have been fanned so as to be incensed, inflamed, burning into flame? You would not dare to mount a horse, while you demand that you should rule over a people, more difficult still to govern and manage than any horse! But let us dismiss this illustration. Do you see that boat on the river? The navigation is most pleasant and delightful between the meadows and the willow-plantings. Come, let us go down to it. You shall sit at the rudder and guide the boat.
Phil. Yes, indeed! and overturn you and plunge you into the water, as Pimentellulus lately did!
Soph. What! you are not willing to guide a boat, on a stream so even and so calm, because untrained, and yet you will commit yourself to that sea, to those waves and tides, to that tempest of the people, without knowledge and without experience? Evidently it has befallen you as it did Phaethon, who was ignorant of the art of charioteering, and yet, with youthful ardour, he requested that he might take the management of his father’s chariot! I think that story is known to you. Isocrates used to say excellently, that the two greatest offices in the life of men were those of the prince and the priest. No one, he said, should seek after them, unless he were worthy. No one should believe himself able rightly to rule, unless he were the most prudent man in the kingdom.
Phil. I see that nothing is so necessary for my person and station as the knowledge of the art and skill of ruling a kingdom.
Soph. Evidently you grasp the matter.
Phil. How can I pursue my duty?
How the Art of Governing is to be Acquired
Soph. Hast thou received the knowledge of governing at thy birth?
Phil. Indeed, no!
Soph. By what means, then, canst thou get to know except by learning?
Phil. There is no other way.
Soph. With what countenance, then, can Morobulus advise you, that you should throw away your studies, by which you may obtain experience in your art, as well as knowledge of other subjects of the greatest and most attractive kind?
Phil. From whom, then, can knowledge of these subjects be obtained?
Soph. From those who have reflected on them, and observed them as they have been manifested in the greatest minds, of whom some are dead, others living.
Phil. But how can we learn from the dead? Can the dead speak?
Soph. Have you never in conversation heard the names of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Livy, Plutarch?
1. Teachers no longer Living
Phil. These are great names! I have heard them spoken of often, and with great admiration and praise.
Soph. These very names and many others like them, already departed from this life, will talk with you as often and as much as you like.
Phil. How?
Soph. In books, which they have left behind for the benefit of posterity.
Phil. How is it that these are not already in my hand?
Soph. They shall be given to you soon, after you have learned that language, in which you will be able to understand what they say. Only wait a little, and go through with the short burden which must be endured in receiving the elementary basis of instruction; after that follow incredible delights. It is no wonder that without such a preparation the idea of literary studies is abhorrent. But those who have enjoyed them would sooner be plucked from life itself than be torn away from books and intellectual interests.
2. Living Teachers
Phil. But pray tell me, who are those living people from whom this wisdom and soundness of mind can be learned?
Soph. If you were about to undertake any journey, from whom would you earnestly inquire the road? Would it be from those who had never seen the road, or from those who had at some time accomplished the journey?