“The more you cry, the less you piss,”—a vulgar saying of considerable antiquity. This saying is founded upon a correct physiological observation; an excess of one secretion results in a proportionate diminution of others. The great Greek scholar, Porson, indulged his wit by transliterating into Hellenic characters the above homely saw, and thereby mystified the learned pundits who were called upon to read it.[70] “If love demands weeping, oh, why should I spare Those floods which, of course, must be lavished elsewhere?” “And midst their bawling and their hissing, They cried, to keep themselves from p⸺g. Finding their water would come out, They thought it best, without dispute, Rather than wet both breeks and thighs, To let it bubble through their eyes.” (Homer Burlesqued, book xii.) “I must call, from between thy thighs, The urine back into thine eyes, And make thee, when my tale thou hearest, Channel thy cheeks with launt reversed.” (Musarum Deliciæ, i. p. 110.) “Launt” is an obsolete word, meaning urine. See Cotgrave’s Dictionary. “What if she whine, shed tears, and frown? Laugh at her folly, she’ll have done; Never dry up her tears with kisses, The more she cries, the less she p⸺s.” (Reflections, Moral, Critical, and Cosmical, part iii. p. 23, A.D. 1707.) This expression is to be found also in old French,—perhaps is derived from it: “Pleurez donc, et chiez bien des yeux, vous en pissez moins.”—(“Moyen de Parvenir,” A.D. 1610.) “Juletta, how loath she was to talk, too, how she feared me! I could now piss mine eyes out for mere anger.” (“The Pilgrim,” iii. 4, Beaumont and Fletcher.) The converse of the adage is illustrated in the following epigram on a lady who shed her water at seeing the tragedy of “Cato:” “Whilst maudlin chiefs deplore their Cato’s fate, Still, with dry eyes, the Tory Celia sate; But, though her pride forbade her eyes to flow, The gushing waters found a vent below. Tho ’n secret, yet with copious streams she mourns, Like twenty river-gods, with all their urns. Let others screw on hypocritic face, She shows her grief in a sincerer place; Here Nature reigns, and passion, void of art, For this road leads directly to the heart.” (Nick Rowe.) “But Sandwich, though with vast surprise, He saw the monarch’s weeping eyes, Told him it would not be amiss,— The more he cryed, the less he pissed.” (From “The New Foundling Hospital of Wit,” vol. lv. p. 204.)