ictuals;

For not the bread of man their life sustains,
Nor wine's inflaming juice supplies their veins;
("Iliad," v. 341.)

intimating meat to be the cause of death as well as the means of
sustaining and supporting life. From hence proceed divers fatal
distempers caused much more by fulness than by fasting; and to digest
what we have eaten proves frequently a harder matter than to provide and
procure what we eat. And when we solicitously inquire beforehand what we
should do or how we should employ ourselves if we had not such care and
business to take up our time, this is as if Danaus's daughters should
trouble their heads to know what they should do if they had no sieves to
fill with water. We drudge and toil for necessaries, for want of better
and nobler occupation. As slaves then who have gained their freedom do
now and then those drudgeries and discharge those servile employments
and offices for their own benefit which they undertook heretofore
for their masters' advantage, so the mind of man, which at present is
enslaved to the body and the service thereof, when once it becomes
free from this slavery, will take care of itself, and spend its time in
contemplation of truth without distraction or disturbance. Such were our
discourses upon this head, O Nicarchus.

And before Solon had fully finished, in came Gorgias, Periander's
brother, who was just returned from Taenarum, whither he had been sent
by the advice of the oracle to sacrifice to Neptune and to conduct a
deputation. Upon his entrance we welcomed him home; and Periander having
among the rest saluted him, Gorgias sat by him upon a bed, and privately
whispered something to his brother which we could not hear. Periander
by his various gestures and motions discovered different affections;
sometimes he seemed sad and melancholic, by and by disturbed and angry;
frequently he looked as doubtful and distrustful men use to do; awhile
after he lifts up his eyes, as is usual with men in a maze. At last
recovering himself, saith he, I have a mind to impart to you the
contents of this embassy; but I scarce dare do it, remembering Thales's
aphorism, how things impossible or incredible are to be concealed and
only things credible and probable are to be related. Bias answered, I
crave leave to explain Thales's saying, We may distrust enemies, even
though they speak things credible, and trust friends, even though they
relate things incredible; and I suppos