madmen. ’Tis said this disease ariseth from the gall; but I do rather believe its origin is in this, that a fool hath a fool’s pride: so if thou hear an angry man rage, especially about a small matter, be thou bold to believe that man hath more pride than sense. From this disease followeth endless mischance both for the patient and for others: for the patient, palsy, gout, and early death (and perhaps an eternal death also). Yet can we with a good conscience refuse to call such men patients, be they never so dangerously ill, for patience is what they most do lack. Some, too, I saw quite sick with envy, of whom ’tis said that they eat their own hearts out, because they do ever walk so pale and sad. And this disease do I hold to be the most dangerous, as coming directly from the devil himself, though yet it spring from mere good fortune which the sick man’s enemy doth enjoy: and he that can quite cure such an one may well-nigh boast that he hath converted a lost sinner to the Christian belief, for this disease can infect no true Christians, which have a jealousy only of sin and vice. The gaming passion I hold likewise for a disease, not only because the name doth imply as much, but specially because they that are infected therewith are mad after the thing as if poisoned: it hath its rise from idleness and not from greed, as some do judge; and if thou take away from a man the chances of lust and idleness, that sickness will of itself depart. Likewise I found that gluttony is a disease: and that it cometh from habit and not from overmuch wealth. Poverty is indeed a good protective against it, but ’tis not thereby cured, for I saw beggars that revelled and rich misers that starved. It doth bring its own remedy on its back with it, and that is called Want, if not of money yet of bodily health, so much so that these patients commonly must of themselves be healed when it comes to this, that either from poverty or from disease they can devour no more. As to pride, I took it for a kind of madness, having its rise in ignorance: for if a man do but know himself and remember whence he is and whither he goeth, ’tis clean impossible that he can go on in his foolish pride. When I do see a peacock or a turkey-cock strut and gobble, I must needs laugh like a fool that these unreasoning beasts can so cleverly mock at poor man in this his great malady: yet have I never been able to find a special remedy against it: for they that are sick of it are without humility, as little to be cured as other madmen. Yea, I deemed, too, that immoderate laughter must be a disease, for Philemon died of it and Democritus was till his end sick of it. And so nowadays do our women say they could laugh till they died. ’Tis said it hath its origin in the liver: but I do believe it cometh from immoderate folly, for much laughter is no sign of a reasonable man: nor is it needful to present a remedy for it, since ’tis not only a merry madness but often doth leave a man before he can well enjoy it. Nor less did I remark how curiosity is but a disease and one born in the female sex: ’tis little to outside view yet in truth most dangerous, seeing that we all must pay for our first mother’s curiosity. Of the rest, as sloth, revenge, jealousy, presumption, the passions of love, and the like, I will for this turn say naught, since ’twas never my intent to write of such, but will return to mine host, which indeed gave me the hint to reflect upon suchlike failings, seeing that he himself was utterly ruled and possessed by greed.
XXIV
How the Huntsman Caught a Hare in the Middle of a Town
The fellow had, as I have said, all manner of trades by which he scraped together money: he fed with his guests and not his guests with him, and he could have plentifully fed all his household with the money they brought him in, if the skinflint had so used it: but he fed us Swabian fashion and kept a mighty deal back. At the first I ate not with his guests but with his children and household, because I had little money with me: there were but little morsels, that were like Spanish fasting-food for my stomach, so long accustomed to the hearty Westphalian diet. No single good joint of meat did we ever get but only what had been carried away a week before from the students’ table, pretty well hacked at by them, and now, by reason of age, as grey as Methuselah. Over this the hostess, who must do the cooking herself (for he would pay for no maid to help her), poured a black, sour kind of gravy and bedevilled it with pepper. Yet though the bones were sucked so dry that one could have made chessmen of them, yet were they not yet done with, but were put into a vessel kept for the purpose, and when our miser had a sufficient quantity, they must be chopped up fine and all the fat that remained boiled out of them. I know not whether this was used for seasoning soup or greasing shoes. But on fast-days, of which there happened more than enough, and which were all religiously observed (for therein was our host full of scruples), we had the run of our teeth on stinking herrings, salt cod, rotten stockfish, and other decayed marine creatures: for he bought all with regard to cheapness only, and grudged not the trouble to go himself to the fish-market
