STILPO.
And hence you well may see how great an evil
The belly is to man; what lessons strange
It teaches, and what deeds it forces on us.
If there were any power which could take
This part alone from out our bodies, then
No one would any more do injury
Or insult to his neighbour. But from this
Flow all the ills that harass human life.
And Diphilus, in his Parasite, says—
Well did that wise Euripides oft speak,
And this does seem his wisest word of all—
"But want compels me and my wretched belly;"
For there is nought more wretched than the belly:
And into that you pour whate'er you have,
Which you do not in any other vessel.
Loaves you perhaps may in a wallet carry,—
Not soup, or else you'll spoil it. So again,
You put cakes in a basket, but not pulse;
And wine into a bladder, but not crabs:
But into this accursed belly, men
Put every sort of inconsistent thing.
I add no more; since it is plain enough
That all men's errors are produced by it.
And Crates the Cynic, as Sosicrates tells us in his Successions, reproached Demetrius Phalereus for sending him a wallet of bread with a flagon of wine. "I wish," said he, "that the fountains bore bread." And Stilpo did not think himself guilty of intemperance when, having eaten garlic, he went to sleep in the temple of the Mother of the Gods; but all who eat of that food were forbidden even to enter into it. But when the goddess appeared to him in his sleep, and said, "O Stilpo, do you, though you are a philosopher, transgress the law?" he thought that he made answer to her (still being asleep), "Do you give me something better to eat, and I will not eat garlic."
20. After this, Ulpian said,—Since we have feasted ([Greek: dedeipnamen]). . . . And Alexis, in his Curis, has used this expression, where he says—
Since we have long since supp'd ([Greek: dedeipnamen]);
and so has Eubulus, in his Procris—
But we have not yet supp'd ([Greek: dedeipnamen]);
and in another passage he says—
A man who ought long since to have had supper ([Greek: dedeipnanai]).
