Gesta Romanorum Vol. II (1871)/Of Gluttony and Drunkenness
TALE XCVIII.
OF GLUTTONY AND DRUNKENNESS.
Cesarius, (122) speaking of the detestable vices of gluttony and drunkenness, says, that the throat is the most intemperate and seductive part of the whole body. Its daughters are uncleanness, buffoonery, foolish joy, loquaciousness, and dulness. It has five grades of sin. The first is, to enquire for high-seasoned and delicate food; the second, to dress it curiously; the third, to take it before there is occasion; the fourth, to take it too greedily, and the fifth, in too large a quantity. The first man, Adam, was conquered by gluttony; and for this, Esau gave away his birth-right. This excited the people of Sodom to sin, and overthrew the children of Israel in the wilderness. So the Psalmist, "While the meat was yet in their mouths, the anger of God came upon them." The iniquity of Sodom arose in its super-abundance; and the man of God, who was sent to Bethel, was slain by a lion in consequence of indulging his appetite. Dives, of whom it is said in the Gospel, that he feasted sumptuously every day, was buried in hell. Nabusardan[1], the prince of cooks, destroyed Jerusalem. How great the danger of gluttony is, let the Scriptures testify. "Woe to the land," says Solomon, "whose princes eat in the morning." Again, "All the labour of man in the mouth will not fill his soul." The daughter of gluttony is drunkenness; for that vice is the author of luxury—the worst of all plagues. What is there fouler than this? What more hurtful? What sooner wears away virtue? Glory laid asleep is converted to madness; and the strength of the mind, equally with the strength of the body, is destroyed. Basilius says, "When we serve the belly and throat, we are cattle; and study to resemble brutes which are prone to this, and made by nature to look upon the earth and obey the belly." (123) Boethius also, "De Consolatione, 51, iv." "He who forsakes virtue ceases to be a man; and since he cannot pass to the divine nature it remains that he must become a brute." And our Lord, in the Gospel, "Take heed lest your hearts be hardened with surfeiting and drunkenness." Oh how great had been the counsels of wisdom, if the heats of wine and greediness interposed not. Dangerous is it when the father of a family, or the governor of a state, is warm with wine, and inflamed with anger. Discretion is dimmed, luxury is excited, and lust, mixing itself with all kinds of wickedness, lulls prudence asleep. Wherefore, said Quidius[2], "Wine produces lust if taken too copiously." Oh odious vice of drunkenness! by which the possession of all good things—the security of happiness—is lost for ever and ever. Noah, heated with wine, exposed himself to his children. The most chaste Lot, thrown by wine into sleep, did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. Herod Antipas had not decapitated the holy John, if he had kept from the feast of surfeiting and drunkenness. Balthasar, king of Babylon, had not been deprived of his life and throne, if he had been sober on the night in which Cyrus and Darius slew him overpowered with wine. (124) On which account the Apostle advises us to be "sober and watch." Let us then pray to the Lord to preserve us in all sobriety, that we may hereafter be invited to a feast in heaven.
Note 122.Page 390.
"Cesarius, I suppose, is a Cistercian monk of the thirteenth century; who besides voluminous lives, chronicles, and homilies, wrote twelve books on the miracles, visions, and examples of his own age. But there is another and an older monkish writer of the same name. In the British Museum, there is a narrative taken from Cesarius, in old northern English, of a lady deceived by fiends, or the devil, thro' the pride of rich clothing."—Warton.
Note 123.Page 392.
"This is the sentiment of the historian Sallust, in the opening of the Jugurthine war.
"Omnes homines, qui sese student præstare cæteris animalibus, summâ ope niti decet, nè vitam silentio transeant, veluti pecora; quæ natura prona atque ventri obedientia finxit."[1]
Note 124.Page 393.
Darius, the son of Hytaspes, conquered Babylon. But the son and grandson of this monarch are here meant.
- ↑ This quotation is actually from the beginning of The War with Catilline: "It behooves all men who wish to excel the other animals to strive with might and main not to pass through life unheralded, like the beasts, which Nature has fashioned groveling and slaves to the belly." (Wikisource contributor note)