them, so that every one may see the they
remain uncorrupted, confuted by this Euripides's Clymene, who says thus
of Phaeton,

My best beloved, but now he lies
And putrefies in some dark vale.

And I believe brimstone is called [Greek omitted] (DIVINE), because its
smell is like that fiery offensive scent which rises from bodies that
are thunderstruck. And I suppose that, because of this scent, dogs and
birds will not prey on such carcasses. Thus far have I gone; let him
proceed, since he hath been applauded for his discourse of mushrooms,
lest the same jest might be put upon us that was upon Androcydes the
painter. For when in his landscape of Scylla he painted fish the best
and most to the life of anything in the whole draught, he was said to
use his appetite more than his art, for he naturally loved fish. So
some may say that we philosophize about mushrooms, the cause of whose
production is confessedly doubtful, for the pleasure we take in eating
them....

And when I put in my suggestion, saying that it was as seasonable to
dispute about thunder and lightning amidst our banquets as it would be
in a comedy to bring in machines to throw out lightning, the company
agreed to omit all other questions relating to the subject, and desired
me only to proceed on this head, Why men asleep are never struck
with lightning. And I, though I knew I should get no great credit by
proposing a cause whose reason was common to other things, said thus:
Lightning is wonderfully piercing and subtile, partly because it rises
from a very pure substance, and partly because by the swiftness of its
motion it purges itself and throws off all gross earthy particles that
are mixed with it. Nothing, says Democritus, is blasted with lightning,
that cannot resist and stop the motion of the pure flame. Thus the close
bodies, as brass, silver, and the like, which stop it, feel its force
and are melted, because they resist; whilst rare, thin bodies, and such
as are full of pores, are passed through and are not hurted, as clothes
or dry wood. It blasts green wood or grass, the moisture within them
being seized and kindled by the flame. Now if it is true that men asleep
are never killed by lightning, from what we have proposed, and not from
anything else, we must endeavor to draw the cause. Now the bodies of
those that are awake are stiffer and more apt to resist, all the parts
being full of spirits; which as it were in a harp, distending and