The Anatomy of Melancholy

A great deal of harm comes from a variety of dishes, which causes the disorder just described. Nothing, says Avicenna, is worse than eating many different foods, or eating too much; dining like Sertorius “until daylight,” and prolonging meals all day or all night, as people commonly do in Muscovy and Iceland.

Our northern countries are especially guilty of this, and we on this island—“living lavishly at dinner and supper,” as Polydore observes—are the most generous eaters, but to our own harm. “I hate Persian extravagance, boy.” Excessive eating breeds sickness, and gluttony causes bilious diseases; many die from overeating, but someone who restrains his diet prolongs his life: Ecclesiasticus 37:29–30.

We count it a great distinction for a man to have his table furnished every day with a variety of foods. But listen to the physician: he pulls you by the ear as you sit there and tells you that nothing can be more harmful to your health than such variety and abundance.

Temperance is a golden bridle, and whoever can use it rightly—“I do not compare him with the greatest men, but judge him most like a god”—is more like a god than a man. For just as it will transform a beast into a man again, so it will make a man a god.

To preserve your honour and health, therefore, and avoid all the swellings, pains, obstructions, indigestion and diseases that come from a heavy diet, the best course is to eat sparingly from one or two dishes at most; to have “a well-behaved stomach,” as Seneca calls it; to choose one dish from many and eat that alone, as Crato advises his patient.

Prosper Calenus gives Cardinal Caesius the same advice: to follow a moderate, simple diet; and although his rank and guests require his table to be generously furnished, he himself should select one appetizing dish and eat that.

Crato, consultation 9, book 2, presses the same advice on a nobleman suffering from this complaint. He would have His Highness dine or sup alone, without all his distinguished attendants and courtly company, with perhaps a personal friend, a dish or two, and a cup of Rhenish wine.

Montanus, consultation 24, for a noble lady, prescribes one dish and forbids drinking between meals. He gives similar advice in consultation 229, or says not to eat until one is hungry: a rule Berengarius observed most strictly, as Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans, writes in his life.

“He never drank before he was thirsty, nor ate before he was hungry,”

and all temperate people constantly observe it. We still commonly follow this ceremony: when friends meet, they go to an alehouse or tavern; otherwise they are not being sociable. And if they visit one another's houses, they must both eat and drink. I do not condemn this when practised in moderation, but for some people nothing could be more harmful: they would do better, as I say with Saint Ambrose, to pour that much water into their shoes.