may be, they are no way concerned; but on Phryne or Lais they bestow their money, inciting an infirm and unfit body, and provoking it to intemperate pleasures, and all this out of a vain-glorious humor. Phryne herself said in her old age, that she sold her lees and dregs the dearer because she had been in such repute when she was young. 7. It is indeed a great and miraculous thing that, if we allow the body all the pleasures which nature needs and can bear,—or rather, if we struggle against its appetites on most occasions and put it off, and are at last brought with difficulty to yield to its necessities, or (as Plato saith) give way when it bites and strains itself,—after all we should come off without harm. But, on the other hand, those desires which descend from the mind into the body, and urge and force it to obey and accompany them in all their motions and affections, must of necessity leave behind them the greatest and severest ills, as the effects of such infirm and dark delights. The desire of our mind ought no ways to incite our bodies to any pleasure, for the beginning of this is against nature. And as the tickling of one’s armpits forces a laughter, which is neither moderate nor merry, nor indeed properly a laughter, but rather troublesome and like convulsions; so those pleasures which the molested and disturbed body receives from the mind are furious, troublesome, and wholly strangers to nature. Therefore when any rare or noble dish is before you, you will get more honor by refraining from it than partaking of it. Remember what Simonides said, that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken; so we shall not repent that we have refused a good dish or drunk water instead of Falernian, but the contrary. We are not only to commit no violence on Nature; but when any of those things are offered to her, even if she has a desire for them, we ought oftentimes to direct the appetite to a more innocent and accustomed diet, that she may be used to it and acquainted with it; for as the Theban said (though not over honestly), If the law must be violated, it looks best when it is done for an empire.[119] But we say better, if we are to take pride in any such thing, it is best when it is in that moderation which conduces to our health. But a narrowness of soul and a stingy humor compel some men to keep under and defraud their genius at home, who, when they enjoy the costly fare of another man’s table, do cram themselves as eagerly as if it were all plunder; then they are taken ill, go home, and the next day find the crudity of their stomachs the reward of their unsatiableness. Wherefore Crates, supposing that luxury and prodigality were the chief cause of seditions and insurrections in a city, in a droll advises that we should never go beyond a lentil in our meals, lest we bring ourselves into sedition. But let every one exhort himself not to increase his meal beyond a