_A._ What good can e'er arise, where every quality Is jumbled with its opposite in kind, How different soever both may be? Now to discern these things is art and skill, Not to wash dishes nor to smell of smoke. For I do never enter a strange cook-shop, But sit within such a distance as enables My eyes to comprehend what is within. My friends, too, do the same; I tell them all The causes and results. This bit is sour, Away with it; the man is not a cook, Though he perhaps may be a music master: Put in some fire; keep an equal heat. The first dish scarcely suits the rest. Do you Not see the form of th' art? _B._ O, great Apollo! _A._ What does this seem to you? _B._ Pure skill; high art. _A._ Then I no dishes place before my guests At random; but while all things correspond I regulate the whole, and will divide The whole as best may suit, in fours, or fives; And will consult each separate division-- And satisfy each party. Then again, I stand afar off and directions give; Whence bring you that? what shall you mix with this? See how discordant those two dishes are! Take care and shun such blunders. That will do. Thus Epicurus did arrange his pleasures. Thus wisely did he eat. He, only wise, Saw what was good and what its nature was. The Stoics seek in vain for such discoveries, And know not good nor what the nature may be Of good; and so they have it not; nor know How to impart it to their friends and guests. Enough of this. Do'st not agree with me? _B._ Indeed I do, all things are plain to me. 61. Plato, too, in his Joint Deceiver, introduces the father of a young man in great indignation, on the ground that his son's principles and way of living have been injured by his tutor; and he says-- _A._ You now have been the ruin of my son, You wretch, you have persuaded him t' embark In a course of life quite foreign to his habits And former inclinations. You have taught him To drink i' th' morning, quite beyond his wont. _B._ Do you blame me that he has learnt to live? _A._ Call you this living? _B._ So the wise do say: At all events the allwise Epicurus Tells us that pleasure is the only good. _A._ No doubt, and nobody can entertain A different opinion. To live well Must be to rightly live; is it not so? Tell me, I pray thee, hast thou ever seen Any philosopher confused with wine? Or overtaken with those joys of yours?