Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

As any one perchance begins to squeeze

With hand and dry a sponge with water soaked.

Next, all which forth we squeeze is spread about

Along the pores and intertwined paths

Of the loose-textured tongue. And so, when smooth

The bodies of the oozy flavour, then

Delightfully they touch, delightfully

They treat all spots, around the wet and trickling

Enclosures of the tongue. And contrariwise,

They sting and pain the sense with their assault,

According as with roughness they're supplied.

Next, only up to palate is the pleasure

Coming from flavour; for in truth when down

'Thas plunged along the throat, no pleasure is,

Whilst into all the frame it spreads around;

Nor aught it matters with what food is fed

The body, if only what thou take thou canst

Distribute well digested to the frame

And keep the stomach in a moist career.

Now, how it is we see some food for some,

Others for others....

I will unfold, or wherefore what to some

Is foul and bitter, yet the same to others

Can seem delectable to eat,—why here

So great the distance and the difference is

That what is food to one to some becomes

Fierce poison, as a certain snake there is

Which, touched by spittle of a man, will waste

And end itself by gnawing up its coil.

Again, fierce poison is the hellebore

To us, but puts the fat on goats and quails.

That thou mayst know by what devices this

Is brought about, in chief thou must recall

What we have said before, that seeds are kept

Commixed in things in divers modes. Again,

As all the breathing creatures which take food

Are outwardly unlike, and outer cut

And contour of their members bounds them round,

Each differing kind by kind, they thus consist

Of seeds of varying shape. And furthermore,

Since seeds do differ, divers too must be

The interstices and paths (which we do call

The apertures) in all the members, even

In mouth and palate too. Thus some must be

More small or yet more large, three-cornered some

And others squared, and many others round,

And certain of them many-angled too

In many modes. For, as the combination

And motion of their divers shapes demand,

The shapes of apertures must be diverse

And paths must vary according to their walls

That bound them. Hence when what is sweet to some,

Becomes to others bitter, for him to whom

'Tis sweet, the smoothest particles must needs

Have entered caressingly the palate's pores.

And, contrariwise, with those to whom that sweet

Is sour within the mouth, beyond a doubt

The rough and barbed particles have got

Into the narrows of the apertures.

Now easy it is from these affairs to know

Whatever...

Indeed, where one from o'er-abundant bile

Is stricken with fever, or in other wise

Feels the roused violence of some malady,

There the whole frame is now upset, and there

All the positions of the seeds are changed,—

So that the bodies which before were fit

To cause the savour, now are fit no more,

And now more apt are others which be able

To get within the pores and gender sour.

Both sorts, in sooth, are intermixed in honey—

What oft we've proved above to thee before.

Now come, and I will indicate what wise

Impact of odour on the nostrils touches.

And first, 'tis needful there be many things

From whence the streaming flow of varied odours

May roll along, and we're constrained to think

They stream and dart and sprinkle themselves about

Impartially. But for some breathing creatures

One odour is more apt, to others another—

Because of differing forms of seeds and pores.

Thus on and on along the zephyrs bees

Are led by odour of honey, vultures too

By carcasses. Again, the forward power

Of scent in dogs doth lead the hunter on

Whithersoever the splay-foot of wild beast

Hath hastened its career; and the white goose,

The saviour of the Roman citadel,

Forescents afar the odour of mankind.

Thus, diversly to divers ones is given

Peculiar smell that leadeth each along

To his own food or makes him start aback

From loathsome poison, and in this wise are

The generations of the wild preserved.

Yet is this pungence not alone in odours

Or in the class of flavours; but, likewise,

The look of things and hues agree not all

So well with senses unto all, but that

Some unto some will be, to gaze upon,

More keen and painful. Lo, the raving lions,

They dare not face and gaze upon the cock

Who's wont with wings to flap away the night

From off the stage, and call the beaming morn

With clarion voice—and lions straightway thus

Bethink themselves of flight, because, ye see,

Within the body of the cocks there be

Some certain seeds, which, into lions' eyes

Injected, bore into the pupils deep

And yield such piercing pain they can't hold out

Against the cocks, however fierce they be—

Whilst yet these seeds can't hurt our gaze the least,

Either because they do not penetrate,

Or since they have free exit from the eyes

As soon as penetrating, so that thus

They cannot hurt our eyes in any part

By there remaining.

To speak once more of odour;

Whatever assail the nostrils, some can travel

A longer way than others. None of them,

However, 's borne so far as sound or voice—

While I omit all mention of such things

As hit the eyesight and assail the vision.

For slowly on a wandering course it comes

And perishes sooner, by degrees absorbed

Easily into all the winds of air;—

And first, because from deep inside the thing

It is discharged with labour (for the fact

That every object, when 'tis shivered, ground,

Or crumbled by the fire, will smell the stronger

Is sign that odours flow and part away

From inner regions of the things). And next,

Thou mayest see that odour is create

Of larger primal germs than voice, because

It enters not through stony walls, wherethrough

Unfailingly the voice and sound are borne;

Wherefore, besides, thou wilt observe 'tis not

So easy to trace out in whatso place

The smelling object is. For, dallying on

Along the winds, the particles cool off,

And then the scurrying messengers of things

Arrive our senses, when no longer hot.

So dogs oft wander astray, and hunt the scent.

Now mark, and hear what objects move the mind,

And learn, in few, whence unto intellect

Do come what come. And first I tell thee this:

That many images of objects rove

In many modes to every region round—

So thin that easily the one with other,

When once they meet, uniteth in mid-air,

Like gossamer or gold-leaf. For, indeed,

Far thinner are they in their fabric than

Those images which take a hold on eyes

And smite the vision, since through body's pores

They penetrate, and inwardly stir up

The subtle nature of mind and smite the sense.

Thus, Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, thus

The Cerberus-visages of dogs we see,

And images of people gone before—

Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago;

Because the images of every kind

Are everywhere about us borne—in part

Those which are gendered in the very air

Of own accord, in part those others which

From divers things do part away, and those

Which are compounded, made from out their shapes.

For soothly from no living Centaur is

That phantom gendered, since no breed of beast