THE PROBLEMSofMARCUS ANTONIUS ZIMARAS SANCTIPERTIAS.
Q. Why is it esteemed in the judgement of the most wise, the hardest thing to know a man’s self? A. Because nothing can be known that is of so great importance to man, for the regulation of his conduct in life. Without this knowledge, man is like the ship which has neither compass nor rudder to conduct her to port, and is tossed by every passion and prejudice to which his natural constitution is subjected. To know the form and natural perfection of man’s self, according to the philosophers, is a task too hard; and a man, says Plato, is nothing, or if he be any thing, he is nothing but his soul.
Q. Why is a man, though endowed with reason, the most unjust of all living creatures? A. Because only man is desirous of honour; and so it happens that every one covets to seem good, and yet naturally shuns labour, though he attain no virtue by it.
Q. Why is man the proudest of all livingcreatures? A. By reason of his great knowledge; or as philosophers say, all intelligent beings have understanding, nothing remains that escapes man’s knowledge in particular; or it is because he hath rule over all earthly creatures, and all things seem to be brought under his dominion.
Q. Why have beasts their hearts in the middle of their breasts, and man his inclining to the left side? A. To moderate the cold on that side.
Q. What is the cause that the suffocation of the matrix, which happens to women through strife and contention, is more dangerous than the detaining of the flowers? A. Because the more perfect an excrement is, in its natural disposition, the worse it is when it is altered from that disposition, and drawn to the contrary quality; as is seen in vinegar, which is sharpest when it is made of the best wine. And so it happens that the more men love one another, the more they fall into variance and discord.
Q. How come women’s bodies to be looser, softer, and less than men’s; and why do they want hair? A. By reason of their menses; for with them their superfluities go away, which would produce hair; and thereby the flesh is filled, consequently the veins are more hid in women than in men.
Q. What is the reason that when we think upon a horrible thing, we are stricken with fear? A. Because the conceit or imagination of things has force and virtue. For Plato saith, the fancy of things has some affinity with the things themselves; for the image and representation of coldand heat is such as the nature of things are. Or it is, because when we comprehend any dreadful matter, the blood runneth to the internal parts; and therefore the external parts are cold, and shake with fear.
Q. Why doth a radish root help digestion, and yet itself remaineth undigested? A. Because the substance consisteth of divers parts; for there are some thin parts in it, which are fit to digest meat, the which being dissolved, there doth remain some thick and close substance in it, which the heat cannot digest.
Q. Why do such as cleave wood cleave it easier in the length than athwart? A. Because in the wood there is a grain, whereby if it be cut in length, in the very cutting, one part naturally separateth from another.
Q. What is the reason, that if a spear be stricken on the end, the sound cometh sooner to one which standeth near, than to him who striketh? A. Because, as hath been said, there is a certain long grain in wood, directly forward filled with air, but on the other side there is none, and therefore a beam or spear being stricken on the end, the air which is hidden receiveth a sound in the aforesaid grain, which serveth for its passage; and seeing the sound cannot go easily out, it is carried unto the ear of him who is opposite; as those passages do not go from side to side, a sound cannot be distinctly heard there.
Q. Why are the thighs and calves of the legs of men fleshy, seeing the legs of beasts are not so? A. Because men only go upright; and therefore nature hath given the lower parts corpulency, and taken it away from the upper; andthus she has made the buttocks, the thighs, and calves of the legs fleshy.
Q. Why are the sensible powers in the heart; yet, if the hinder part of the brain be hurt, the memory suffereth by it; if the fore part, the imagination; if the middle, the cogitative part? A. It is because the brain is appointed by Nature to cool the heat of the heart; whereof it is, that in divers parts it serveth the powers and instruments with their heat, for every action of the soul doth not proceed from one measure of heat.
Q. Why doth the sun make a man black, and dirt white, wax soft, and dirt hard? A. By reason of the disposition of the substance that doth suffer. All humours, phlegm excepted, when heated above measure, do seem black about the skin; and dirt, being full either of saltpetre, or salt liquor, when the sun hath consumed its dregs and filth, doth become white again; when the sun hath drawn and stirred up the humidity of wax, it is softened; but in dirt the sun doth consume the humidity, which is very much, and makes it hard.
Q. Why are round ulcers hard to be cured? A. Because they are bred of a sharp choler, which eats and gnaws; and because it doth run, dropping and gnawing, it makes a round ulcer; for which reason it requires drying medicines, as physicians assert.
Q. Why is honey sweet to all men but such as have the jaundice? A. Because they have much bitter choler all over their bodies, which abounds in the tongue; whence it happens, when they eat honey the humours are stirred, and the taste itself, by the bitterness, of choler, causes an imagination that the honey is bitter.
Q. Why doth water cast on serpents cause them to fly? A. Because they are dry and cold by nature, having but little blood, and therefore fly from excessive coldness.
Q, Why doth an egg break if it be roasted and not if boiled? A. When moisture comes near the fire, it is heated very much, and so breeds wind, which being put up in little room, forces its way out, and breaks the shell: the like happens to tubs, and earthen vessels, when new wine is put into them: too much phlegm breaks the shell of an egg in roasting; it is the same with earthen pots too much heated; wherefore some people wet an egg when they intend to roast it. Hot water, by its softness, doth dissipate its humidity by little and little, and dissolves it through the thinness and passages of the shell.
Q. Why have children gravel breeding in their bladders, and old men in their kidneys and reins? A. Because children have strait passages in their kidneys, and an earthy thick humour is thrust with violence by the urine to the bladder, which hath wide conduits and passages, that give roomfor the urine and humour whereof gravel is engendered, which waxes thick, and seats itself, in the manner it is. In old men it is the reverse, for they have wide passages of the veins, back, and kidneys, that the urine may pass away, and the earthy humour congeal and sink down; the colour of the gravel shows the humour whereof the stone comes.
Q. Why is it, if the stone do congeal and wax hard through heat, we use not contrary things to dissolve it by coldness, but light things, as parsley, fennel, and the like? A. It is thought to fall out by an excessive scorching heat, by which the stones do crumble into sand, as in the manner of earthen vessels, which, when they are over-heated or roasted, turn to sand. And by this means it happens that small stones are voided, together with sand, in making water. Sometimes cold drink thrusts out the stone, the kidneys being stretched, and casting it out by a great effort, thus easing the belly of its burden. Besides, it often happens that immoderate heat of the kidneys, or reins of the back (through which the stone doth grow) is quenched with coldness.
Q. Why is the curing of an ulcer or bile in the kidney or bladder very hard? A. Because the urine, being sharp, doth ulcerate the sore. Ulcers are worse to cure in the bladder than in the kidneys, because the urine stays in the former, but runs away from the latter.
Q. Why do chaff and straw keep water hot, but make snow cold? A. Because the nature of chaff wants a manifest quality; seeing, therefore, that of its own nature it can be easily mingled, and consumed by that which it is annexedunto, it easily assumes the same nature, and being put into hot things, it is easily hot, heats again, and keeps hot; and, on the contrary, being made cold by the snow, and making the snow cold, it keeps it in its coldness.
Q. Why have we oftentime a pain in making water? A. Because sharp choler issuing out, and pricking the bladder of the urine, doth provoke and stir up the whole body to ease the part offended and to expel the humour moderately. This doth happen most of all unto children, because they have moist excrements, by reason of their often filling.
Q. Why have some medicines of one kind contrary effects, as experience proves; for mastich doth expel, dissolve, and also knit; and vinegar cools and heats? A. Because there are some invisible bodies in them, not by confusion, but by interposition; as sand moistened doth clog together and seem to be but one body, though indeed there are many small bodies in sand. And since this is so, it is not absurd that contrary qualities and virtues should be hidden in mastich, and that nature hath given that virtue to these bodies.
Q. Why do nurses rock and move their children when they would draw them to sleep? A. To the end that the humours being scattered by moving, may move the brains; but those of more years cannot endure this.
Q. Why doth oil, being drank, cause one to vomit, and especially yellow choler? A. Because, being light, and ascending upwards, it provoketh the nutriment in the stomach, and lifteth it up, and so the stomach being grieved, summoneth the ejective virtue to vomit, andespecially choler, because that is light, and consisteth of subtle parts, and therefore the sooner carried upward; for when it is mingled with any moist thing, it runneth into the highest room.
Q. Why doth not oil mingle with moist things? A. Because, being pliant, soft, and thick in itself, it cannot be divided into parts, and so cannot be mingled; neither if it be put on earth can it enter into it.
Q. Why are water and oil frozen in cold weather, and wine and vinegar are not? A. Because that oil, being without quality, and fit to be compounded with any thing, is cold quickly, and so extremely, that it is most cold. Water, being cold of nature, doth easily freeze when it is made colder than its own nature. Wine being hot, and of subtle parts, suffereth no freezing.
Q. Why do contrary things in quality bring forth the same effect? A. That which is moist is hardened and bound alike by heat and cold. Snow and liquid do freeze with cold; a plaster, and gravel in the bladder, are made dry with heat. The effect indeed is the same, but by two divers actions; the heat doth consume and eat the abundance of moisture; but the cold stopping and shutting with its overmuch thickness, doth wring out the filthy humidity, like as a sponge wrung with the hand doth cast out the water which it hath in the pores or small passages.
Q. Why doth a shaking or quivering seize us oftentimes when any fearful matter doth happen, as a great noise or crack made, the sudden downfall of water, or the fall of a large tree? A. Because that oftentimes the humours beingdigested and consumed by time, and made thin and weak, all the heat, vehemently, suddenly, and sharply flying into the inward part of the body, consumeth the humours which cause the disease.
Q. Why do steel glasses shine so clearly? A. Because they are lined in the inside with white lead, whose nature is shining, and being put to glass, which is lucid and transparent, doth shine much more; and casts its beams through its passages, and without the body of the glass; and by that means the glass is very shining and clear.
Q. Why do we see ourselves in glasses and clear water? A. Because the quality of the sight, passing into the bright bodies by reflection, doth return again on the beam of the eyes, as the image of him who looketh on it.
Q. What is the reason, that if you cast a stone into standing water which is near the surface of the earth it causes many circles, and not if the water be deep in the earth? A. Because that the stone with the vehemence of the cast, doth agitate the water in every part of it, until it come to the bottom; and if there be a very great vehemence in the throw, the circle is still greater, the stone going down to the bottom causing many circles. For, first of all, it doth divide the outermost and superficial parts of the water in many parts, and so always going down to the bottom, again dividing the water, it maketh another circle, and this is done successively until the stone resteth; and because the vehemence of the stone is slackened still as it goes down, of necessity the last circle is lessthan the first, because by that and also by its force the water is divided.
Q. Why are such as are deaf by nature dumb? A. Because they cannot speak and express that which they never heard. Some physicians do say, that there is one knitting and uniting of sinews belonging to the like disposition. But such as are dumb by accident are not deaf at all, for then there ariseth a local passion.
Q. Why doth itching arise when an ulcer doth wax whole and phlegm cease? A. Because the part which is healed and made sound doth pursue the relic of the humours which remained there against nature, and which was the cause of the bile, and so going out through the skin, and dissolving itself, doth originally cause the itch.
Q. How comes a man to sneeze oftener and more vehemently than a beast? A. Because he uses more meats and drinks, and of more different sorts, and that more than requisite; the which, when he cannot digest as he would, he doth gather together much air and spirit, by reason of much humidity; the spirits then very subtle, ascending into the head, often force a man to void them, and so provoke sneezing. The noise caused thereby proceeds from a vehement spirit or breath passing through the conduits of the nostrils, as belching doth the stomach, or breaking wind by the fundament, the voice by the throat, and a sound by the ear.
Q. How come the hair and nails of dead people to grow? A. Because the flesh rotting, withering, and falling away, that which was hidden about the root of the hair doth now appear as growing. Some say that it grows indeed, because carcases are dissolved in the beginningto many excrements and superfluities by putrefaction. These going out at the uppermost parts of the body by some passages, do increase the growth of the hair.
Q. Why does not the hair of the feet soon grow grey? A. For this reason, because that through great motion they disperse and dissolve the superfluous phlegm that breeds grayness.
Q. Why, if you put hot burnt barley upon a horse’s sore, is the hair which grows upon the sore not white but like the other hair? A. Because it hath the force of expelling, and doth drive away and dissolve the phlegm, as well as all other unprofitable matter that is gathered together through the weakness of the parts, or crudity of the sore.
Q. Why doth hair never grow on an ulcer or bile? A. Because man hath a thick skin, as is seen by the thickness of his hair; and if the scar be thicker than the skin itself, it stops the passages from whence the hair should grow. Horses have thinner skins, as is plain by their thick hair; therefore all passages are not stopped in their wounds and sores; and after the excrements which were gathered together have broken a passage through those small pores, the hair doth grow.
Q. Why is Fortune painted with a double forehead, the one side bald and the other hairy? A. The baldness signifies adversity; and hairiness prosperity, which we enjoy when it pleaseth her.
Q. Why have some commended flattery? A. Because flattery setteth forth before our eyes what we ought to be, though not what we are.
Q. Wherefore should virtue be painted girded?A. To show that virtuous men should not be slothful, but diligent, and always in action.
Q. Why did the ancients say it was better to fall into the hands of a raven than a flatterer? A. Because ravens do not eat us till we are dead, but flatterers devour us alive.
Q. Why have choleric men beards before others? A. Because they are hot, and their pores large.
Q. How comes it that such as have the hiccough do ease themselves by holding their breath? A. The breath retained doth heat the interior parts of the body and the hiccough proceeds from cold.
Q. How comes it that old men remember well what they have seen and done in their youth, and forget such things as they see and do in their old age? A. Things learned in youth take deep root and habitude in a person, but those learned in age are forgotten, because the senses are weakened.
Q. What kind of covetousness is best? A. That of time, when employed as it ought to be.
Q. Why is our life compared to a play? A. Because the dishonest do occupy the place of the honest, and the worst sort the room of the good.
Q. Why do dolphins, when they appear above the water, denote a storm or tempest approaching? A. Because at the beginning of a tempest there do arise from the bottom of the sea certain hot exhalations and vapours which heat the dolphins, causing them to rise up for cold air.
Q. Why did the Romans call Fabius Maximus the target of the people, and Marcellus thesword? A. Because the one adapted himself to the service of the commonwealth, and the other was very eager to revenge the injuries of his country; and yet they were in the senate joined together, because the gravity of the one would moderate the courage and boldness of the other.
Q. Why doth the shining of the moon hurt the head? A. Because it moves the humours of the brain, and cannot afterwards dissolve them.
Q. If water do not nourish, why do men drink it? A. Because water causes the nutriment to spread through the body.
Q. Why is sneezing good? A. Because it purgeth the brain, as milk is purged by the cough.
Q. Why is hot water lighter than cold? A. Because boiling water has less ventosity, and is more light and subtle, the earthy and heavy substance being separated from it.
Q. How comes marsh and pond water to be bad? A. By reason they are phlegmatic, and do corrupt in summer; the fineness of the water is turned into vapours, and the earthiness doth remain.
Q. Why are studious and learned men soonest bald? A. It proceeds from a weakness of the spirits, or because warmth of digestion causes phlegm to abound in them.
Q. Why doth much watching make the brain feeble? A. Because it increases choler, which dries and extenuates the body.
Q. Why are boys apt to change their voices about fourteen years of age? A. Because that then nature doth cause a great and sudden change of voice, experience proves this to betrue; for at that time we may say that women’s paps do grow great, do hold and gather milk, and also those places that are above the hips, in which the young fruit would remain. Likewise men’s breasts and shoulders, which then can bear great and heavy burdens. The body is bigger and dilated, as the alternation and change of every part doth testify, and the harshness of the voice and hoarseness; for the rough artery, the wind-pipe, being made wide in the beginning, and the exterior and outward part within being unequal to the throat, the air going out the rough uneven pipe doth then become unequal and sharp, and after hoarse, something like unto the voice of a goat, wherefore it has its name called Bronchus. The same doth also happen to them unto whose rough artery distillation doth flow; it happens by reason of the drooping humidity that a light small skin filled unequally causes the uneven going forth of the spirit and air. Understand that the wind-pipe of goats is such by reason of the abundance of humidity. The like doth happen unto all such as nature hath given a rough artery, as unto cranes. After the age of fourteen they leave off that voice, because the artery is made wider and reacheth its natural evenness and quality.
Q. Why do hard dens, hollow and high places, send back the likeness and sound of the voice? A. Because that in such places also by reflection do return back the image of a sound, for the voice doth beat the air, and the air the place, which the more it is beaten the more it doth bear, and therefore doth cause the more vehement sound of the voice; moist places, and as it were soft, yielding to the stroke, and dissolving it, give nosound; for according to the quantity of the stroke, the quality and quantity of the voice is given, which is called an echo. Some do idly fable that she is a goddess; some say that Pan was in love with her, which without doubt is false. He was some wise man, who did first desire to search out the cause of that voice; and as they who love, and cannot enjoy that love, are grieved, so in like manner was he very sorry until he found out the solution of that cause: as Endymion also, who first found out the course of the moon, watching all night, and observing her course, and searching her motion, did sleep in the day-time, and therefore they do fable that he was beloved of her, and that she came to him when he was asleep, because she did give the philosopher the solution of the course of herself. They say also that he was a shepherd, because that in the desert and high places he did mark the course of the moon. And they gave him also the pipe, because that the high places are blown with wind, or else because he sought out the consonancy of figures. Prometheus, also, being a wise man, sought the course of the star, which is called the eagle in the firmament, his nature and place; and when he was as it were wasted with the desire of learning, then at last he rested, when Hercules did resolve unto him all doubts with his wisdom.
Q. Why do not swine cry when they are carried with their snouts upwards? A. Because that above all other beasts they bend more to the earth. They delight in filth, and that they seek, and therefore in the sudden change of their face, they be as it were strangers, and being amazed with so much light do keep that silence; somesay the wind-pipe doth close together by reason of the straitness of it.
Q. Why do swine delight in dirt? A. As the physicians do say, they are naturally delighted with it, because they have a great liver, in which desire is, as Aristotle saith; the wideness of the snout is the cause, for he hath smelling which doth dissolve itself, and as it were strive with stench.
Q. Why do many beasts wag their tails when they see their friends, and a lion and a bull beat their sides when they are angry? A. Because they have the marrow of their backs reaching to the tail, which hath the force of motion in it, the imagination acknowledging that which is known to them as it were with the hand, as happens to men, doth force them to move their tails. This doth manifestly show some secret force to be within them, which doth acknowledge what they ought. In the anger of lions and bulls nature doth consent to the mind, and causeth it to be gently moved, as men do sometimes when they are angry, beating their hands on other parts; when the mind cannot be revenged on that which doth hurt, it presently seeks out some other source, and cures the malady with a stroke or blow.
Q. How come steel glasses to be better for the sight than any other kind? A. Because steel is hard, and doth present unto us more substantially the air that receiveth the light.
Q. How doth love show its greater force; by making the fool to become wise, or the wise to become a fool? A. In attributing wisdom to him that hath it not; for it is harder to buildthan to pull down; and ordinarily love and folly are but an alteration of the mind.
Q. How comes much labour and fatigue to be bad for the sight? A. Because it dries the blood too much.
Q. Why is goat’s milk reckoned best for the stomach? A. Because it is thick, not slimy; and they feed on wood and boughs rather than grass.
Q. Why do grief and vexation bring gray hairs? A. Because they dry, which bringeth on grayness.
Q. How come those to be most merry who have the thickest blood? A. Because the blood which is fat and thick makes the spirits firm and constant, wherein consists the force of all creatures.
Q. Whether is it hardest to obtain a person’s love, or to keep it when obtained? A. It is hardest to keep it, by reason of the inconstancy of man, who is quickly angry, and soon weary of a thing; hard to be gained, and slippery to keep.
Q. Why do serpents shun the herb rue? A. Because they are very cold, dry, and full of sinews, and that herb is of a contrary nature.
Q. Why is a capon better to eat than a cock? A. Because a capon loses not his moisture by treading the hens.
Q. Why is our smell less in winter than summer? A. Because the air is thick, and less moveable.
Q. Why does hair burn so quickly? A. Because it is dry and cold.
Q. Why is love compared to a labyrinth? A. Because the entry and coming in is easy, and the going out impossible, or very hard.