The body moulded by the clime, indures Th’ Equator heats, or Hyperborean frost: Except by habits foreign to its turn, 285 Unwise, you counteract its forming pow’r. Rude at the first, the winter shocks you less By long acquaintance: Study then your sky, Form to its manners your obsequious frame, And learn to suffer what you cannot shun. 290 Against the rigors of a damp cold heav’n To fortify their bodies, some frequent The gelid cistern; and, where nought forbids, I praise their dauntless heart. A frame so steel’d Dreads not the cough, nor those ungenial blasts, 295 That breathe the Tertian or fell Rheumatism; The nerves so temper’d never quit their tone, No chronic languors haunt such hardy breasts. But all things have their bounds: And he who makes By daily use the kindest regimen 300 Essential to his health, should never mix With human kind, nor art nor trade pursue. He not the safe vicissitudes of life Without some shock endures; ill-fitted he To want the known, or bear unusual things. 305 Besides, the powerful remedies of pain (Since pain in spite of all our care will come) Should never with your prosperous days of health Grow too familiar: For by frequent use The strongest medicines lose their healing power, 310 And even the surest poisons theirs to kill. Let those who from the frozen Arctos reach Parch’d Mauritania, or the sultry West, Or the wide flood that waters Indostan, Plunge thrice a day, and in the tepid wave 315 Untwist their stubborn pores; that full and free Th’ evaporation thro’ the softned skin May bear proportion to the swelling blood. So shall they ’scape the fever’s rapid flames; So feel untainted the hot breath of hell. 320 With us, the man of no complaint demands The warm ablution, just enough to clear The sluices of the skin, enough to keep The body sacred from indecent soil. Still to be pure, even did it not conduce 325 (As much it does) to health, were greatly worth Your daily pains. ’Tis this adorns the rich; The want of this is poverty’s worst woe: With this external virtue, age maintains A decent grace; without it, youth and charms 330 Are loathsome. This the skilful virgin knows: So doubtless do your wives. For married sires, As well as lovers, still pretend to taste; Nor is it less (all prudent wives can tell) To lose a husband’s, than a lover’s heart. 335