should perceive that he is sick either of a surfeit or a debauch. He that is ashamed to confess the crudity of his stomach to-day will to-morrow with shame confess that he has either a diarrhoea, a fever, or the griping in the guts. You think it is a disgrace to want, but it is a greater disgrace to bear the crudity, heaviness, and fulness of your body, when it has to be carried into the bath, like a rotten and leaky boat into the sea. As some seamen are ashamed to live on shore when there is a storm at sea, yet when they are at sea lie shamefully crying and retching to vomit; so in any suspicion or tendency of the body to any disease, they think it an indecorum to keep their bed one day and not to have their table spread, yet most shamefully for many days together are forced to be purged and plastered, flattering and obeying their physicians, asking for wine or cold water, being forced to do and say many unseasonable and absurd things, by reason of the pain and fear they are in. Those therefore who cannot govern themselves on account of pleasures, but yield to their lusts and are carried away by them, may opportunely be taught and put in mind that they receive the greatest share of their pleasures from their bodies. 12. And as the Spartans gave the cook vinegar and salt, and bade him look for the rest in the victim, so in our bodies, the best sauce to whatsoever is brought before us is that our bodies are pure and in health. For any thing that is sweet or costly is so in its own nature and apart from any thing else; but it becomes sweet to the taste only when it is in a body which is delighted with it and which is disposed as nature doth require. But in those bodies which are foul, surfeited, and not pleased with it, it loses its beauty and convenience. Wherefore we need not be concerned whether fish be fresh or bread fine, or whether the bath be warm or your she-friend a beauty; but whether you are not squeamish and foul, whether you are not disturbed and do not feel the dregs of yesterday’s debauch. Otherwise it will be as when some drunken revellers break into a house where they are mourning, bringing neither mirth nor pleasure with them, but increasing the lamentation. So Venus, meats, baths, and wines, in a body that is crazy and out of order, mingled with what is vitiated and corrupted, stir up phlegm and choler, and create great trouble; neither do they bring any pleasure that is answerable to their expectations, or worth either enjoying or speaking of.