Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
2. By all which it is most manifest, that it is not for nourishment,
or want, or any necessity, but for mere gluttony, wantonness, and
expensiveness, that they make a pleasure of villany. Just as it happens
in persons who cannot satiate their intemperance upon women, and having
made trial of every thing else and falling into vagaries, at last
attempt things not to be mentioned; even so inordinateness in feeding,
when it hath once passed the bounds of nature and necessity, studies at
last to diversify the lusts of its intemperate appetite by cruelty and
villany. For the senses, when they once quit their natural measures,
sympathize with each other in their distempers, and are enticed by each
other to the same consent and intemperance. Thus a distempered ear
first debauched music, the soft and effeminate notes of which provoke
immodest touches and lascivious tickling. These things first taught
the eye not to delight in Pyrrhic dances, gesticulations of hands, or
elegant pantomimes, nor in statues and fine paintings; but to reckon
the slaughtering and death of mankind and wounds and duels the most
sumptuous of shows and spectacles. Thus unlawful tables are accompanied
with intemperate copulations, with unmusician-like balls, and theatres
become monstrous through shameful songs and rehearsals; and barbarous
and brutish shows are again accompanied with an unrelenting temper and
savage cruelty towards mankind. Hence it was that the divine Lycurgus
in his Three Books of Laws gave orders that the doors and ridges of
men’s houses should be made with a saw and an axe, and that no other
instrument should so much as be brought to any house. Not that he
did hereby intend to declare war against augers and planes and other
instruments of finer work; but because he very well knew that with such
tools as these you will never bring into your house a gilded couch,
and that you will never attempt to bring into a slender cottage either
silver tables, purple carpets, or costly stones; but that a plain
supper and a homely dinner must accompany such a house, couch, table,
and cup. The beginning of a vicious diet is presently followed by all
sorts of luxury and expensiveness,
Ev’n as a mare is by her thirsty colt.
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