d Greece amidst our cups and feasting we have disputed on, in
obedience to your commands I have sent three books, each containing
ten problems; and the rest shall quickly follow, if these find good
acceptance and do not seem altogether foolish and impertinent.

QUESTION I. WHETHER AT TABLE IT IS ALLOWABLE TO PHILOSOPHIZE?

SOSSIUS, SENECIO, ARISTO, PLUTARCH, CRATO, AND OTHERS.

The first question is, Whether at table it is allowable to philosophize?
For I remember at a supper at Athens this doubt was started, whether at
a merry meeting it was fit to use philosophical discourse, and how
far it might be used? And Aristo presently cried out: What then, for
heaven's sake, are there any that banish philosophy from company and
wine? And I replied: Yes, sir, there are, and such as with a grave scoff
tell us that philosophy, like the matron of the house, should never be
heard at a merry entertainment; and commend the custom of the Persians,
who never let their wives appear, but drink, dance, and wanton with
their whores. This they propose for us to imitate; they permit us
to have mimics and music at our feasts, but forbid philosophy; she,
forsooth, being very unfit to be wanton with us, and we in a bad
condition to be serious. Isocrates the rhetorician, when at a drinking
bout some begged him to make a speech, only returned: With those things
in which I have skill the time doth not suit; and in those things with
which the time suits I have no skill.

And Crato cried out: By Bacchus, he was right to forswear talk, if he
designed to make such long-winded discourses as would have spoiled all
mirth and conversation; but I do not think there is the same reason
to forbid philosophy as to take away rhetoric from our feasts. For
philosophy is quite of another nature; it is an art of living, and
therefore must be admitted into every part of our conversation, into
all our gay humors and our pleasures, to regulate and adjust them, to
proportion the time, and keep them from excess; unless, perchance, upon
the same scoffing pretence of gravity, they would banish temperance,
justice, and moderation. It is true, were we to feast before a court, as
those that entertained Orestes, and were silence enjoined by law, that
might prove no mean cloak of our ignorance; but if Bacchus is really
[Greek omitted] (A LOOSER of everything), and chiefly takes off all
restraints and bridles from the tongue, and gives the voice the greatest
freedom, I thi