Of Gluttony

Now have we to consider how this part of our medicine, that is to wit the remembrance of death, may be appHed to the cure and help of gluttony, which is a beastly sickness and an old sore. For this was in the beginning joined with pride in our mother Eve, who beside the proud appetite that she had to be by knowledge made in manner a goddess, yet took she such delight also in the beholding of the apple that she longed to feel the taste. And so entered death at the windows of our own eyes into the house of our heart, and there burnt up all the goodly building that God had wrought therein. And surely so falleth it daily that The wickedness ^j^^ jg ^^^ ^j^j ^^^^ ^^^^

OI tilG CVG and the tapster to bring the ravenous appetite of delicate meals and drink into the belly, so far forth that men commonly say, It were better fill his belly than his eye, and many men mind it not at all till they see the meat on the board; but the eye is also the hand to bring the heart to the desire of the foul, beastly pleasure.... And therefore saith the holy prophet: "Turn away thine eyes from the beholding of vanities." * Now, as I began to say, sith it is so that this old sore of gluttony was the vice and sin by which our forefathers, eating the forbidden fruit, fell from the felicity of paradise and from their immortality into death and into the misery of this wretched world, well ought we to hate and abhor it, although there should now no new harm grow thereof. But so it is now that so much harm daily groweth thereof new, not to the soul only but to the body also, that, if we love either, we see great cause to have it in hatred and abomination, though it had never done us hurt of old. For hard it is to say whether this vice be more pestilent to the body or to the soul; surely very pestilent to both. And as to the soul, no man doubteth how deadly it is. For sith the body rebelleth alway against the spirit, f what can be more venomous and mortal to the soul than gorbellied ± gluttony, -luuon'-^"^ which so pampereth the body

"^ " °"^ ' that the soul can have no rule thereof, but carrieth it forth like an headstrong horse till he have cast his master in the mire. And if the corruptible body be, as the wise man saith, § burdenous || to the soul, with what a

• Ps. cxviii. t Gal. v. % Big—bLUied.

§ burdensome.;i Sam. ix.

burden chargeth he the soul that so pampereth his paunch that he is scant "^ able [to] bear the burden of his own belly though it were taken from the place t and laid upon his back! If the body be to the soul a prison, loth^toxA ^"''°" ^'^^^^ ^^''^^^ ^ P^^^^'^ maketh he the body, that stuffeih it so full of riffraff that the soul can have no room to stir itself, but as one were to set hand and foot in a strait stocks that he can neither stand up nor lie down, so the soul is so stifled in such a stuffed body that it can nothing wield itself that appertaineth unto his part, but is, as it were, enclosed not in a prison but in a grave, dead in manner already for any good operation that the unwieldy body can suffer it to do. And yet is gluttony to the soul not so pernicious and pestilent for the hurt it doth itself as for the harm and destruction that is done by such other vices as commonly come thereon. For no man doubteth but sloth and lechery Sloth and lechery ^^ ^^e very daughters of glut-the daue-hters ot ^ a j ^i j <- g-luttony. ^^"y- -^"^ "^^" needs must it be a deadly enemy to the soul, that bringeth forth two such daughters, of which either one killeth the soul eternally — I mean not the substance of the soul but the

• Scarcely. t i.e., its place.

wealth and felicity of the soul, without which it were better never to have been born. What good can the great glutton do with his belly standing a strout like a tabour * and his noil totty t with drink, but balk up his brewes in the midst of his matters, or lie down and sleep like a swine? And who doubteth but that the body delicately fed maketh, as the rumour saith, an unchaste bed?

Of our glutton-feasts followeth not only sloth and lechery but oftentimes lewd and perilous talking, foolhardiness, Inconveniences back-biting, debate, variance, followine the,.,. ', \ r, l^- glutton feasts. chidmg, wrath and fightmg, with readiness to all manner mischief running to ruin for lack of circumspection, which can never be without soberness. The holy Scripture rehearseth that in [the] desert the children of Israel, when they had sitten down and well eaten and drunken, then rose they up and played the idolaters, whereof by the occasion of gluttony the wrath of God fell upon them. I Holy Job,§ when his children fell to feasting, feared so greatly that the occasion of gluttony should in their feasts make them fall into foolish talking and blas-

• Blown out like a drum. t His head shaky. X Ex. xlii. § Job i.

phemy, that while they were about their feasts he fell to prayer and sacrifice, that God might at his prayer send them grace so to make good cheer that they fell not in the vices usually coming of gluttony. Now, to the body what sin is so noyous? * what sin so shameful? Is it not a beastly thing to see a man that hath reason so to rule himself that his feet may not bear him, but when he cometh out he weeneth that the sky would fall on his head, and there rolleth and reeleth till he fall down the canal, f and there lie down till he be taken up and borne to bed as a corpse were borne in [a] bier? And in good faith in my mind much wrong is there done him that any man presumeth to take him up, and that he is not suffered to take his ease all night at his pleasure in the king's highway that is free for every man.

Wonder it is that the world is so mad that we had liefer | take sin with pain than virtue with pleasure. For, as I said

Virtue is pleasant, -^^ ^j^g beginning and often sin IS painrul. u n t • ^ u • ^.u

^ shall I say, virtue bnngeth his pleasure, and vice is not without pain. And yet speak I not of the world to come, but of the life present. If virtue were all painful and vice all pleasant, yet sith death shall shortly finish

• i.e., noisome. f i.e., ditch. X «•€., rather.

both the pain of the one and the pleasure of the other, great madness were it if we would not rather take a short pain for the winning of everlasting pleasure, than a short pleasure for the winning of everlasting pain. But now if it be true, as it is indeed, that our sin is painful and our virtue pleasant, how much is it then a more madness to take sinful pain in this world, that shall win us eternal pain in hell, rather than pleasant virtue in this world, that shall win us eternal pleasure in heaven.

If thou ween that I teach thee wrong when I say that in virtue is pleasure, and in sin is pain, I might prove it by many plain texts of holy Scripture, as by the words of the Psalmist, where he saith: " I have had as great pleasure in the way of Thy testimonies as in all manner of riches."* And Solomon saith of virtue thus: " Her ways are all full of pleasure and her paths are peaceable." f And further he saith: "The way of the wicked is as it were hedged with thorns, but the way of the righteous is without stumbling." \ " And we be wearied (shall the wretches say) in the way of wickedness; we have walked in hard and cumbrous ways." § And the wise man saith: " The way

• Ps. cxviii. t Prov. iii. X Ibid. xv.

§ Wisd. V.

of the sinners is set or laid with stones, but in the end is hell, darkness and pains." ^ But to tell us worldly wretches the words of holy writ is but a dull prose. For our beastly taste savoureth not the sweetness of heavenly things. And as for experience, we can none get of the one part, that is to wit the pleasure that is in virtue. The other part we cannot perceive for bitter for the corruption of our custom, whereby sour seemeth us sweet. But yet if we would consider our sin well with the dependents thereupon, we should not fail to perceive the painful bitterness of our valued sweet sin. For no man is so mad that [he] will reckon that thing for pleasant that hath with little pleasure much pain. For so might we call a man of Inde white because of his white teeth.

Now if thou shouldest for a little itch claw thyself suddenly deep into the flesh, thou wouldest not call thy clawing pleasant, though it liked thee a little in the beginning. But so is it that for the little itching pleasure of sin we claw ourselves suddenly to the hard bones, and win thereby not a little pain, but an intolerable torment. Which thing I might prove, beginning at pride, in every kind of sin, saving that

• Ecclus xxl, 1 1.

THE FOUR LAi^'T THINGS the digression would be over long. For the abridging whereof let us consider it but in the self-same sin that we have in hand.

The pleasure that the glutton hath in his viand can be no longer any very pleasure than while it is joined with hunger, That gluttony is ^^at is to say with pain. For painrul. ^,, r ^- •

^ the very pleasure of eatnig is but the minishing of his pain in hungering. Now all that ever is eaten after, in which gluttony beginneth, is in effect pain altogether. And then the head acheth and the stomach gnaweth, and the next meal is eaten without appetite, with gorge upon gorge and grief upon grief, till the gorbelly be compelled to cast up all again, and then fall to a rare* supper.

If God would never punish gluttony, yet bringeth it punishment enough with itself;

it disfigurelh the face, dis-

Gluttonydls- coloureth the skin, and disrieureth the body, r ■,- ^.u.i u i

^ ■' fashioneth the boay, it maketh the skin tawny, the body fat and fobby, the face drowsy, the nose dropping, the mouth spitting, the eyes bleared, the teeth rotten, the head hanging, and the feet tottering, and finally no part left in right course and frame. And beside the daily

• i.e., light.

q6 de ^ATUOR nofissimis dulness and grief that the unwieldy body feeleth by the stuffing of his paunch so full, it bringeth in by leisure the dropsy, the colic, the stone, the strangury, the gout, the cramp, the palsy, the pox, the pestilence and the apoplexy — diseases and sickness of such kind that either shortly destroy us, or else, that worse is, keep us in such pain and torment that the longer we live the more wretched we be.

Howbeit very long lasteth no man with the surfeits of gluttony. For undoubtedly nature, which is sustained with right little — as well appeared by the old fathers that so many years lived in desert with herbs only and roots — is very sore oppressed and in man-Gluttony j^gj. overwhelmed with the great nafure.^^ weight and burden of much and divers viands, and so much laboureth to master the meat and to divide and sunderly to send it into all parlies of the body, and there to turn it into the like and retain it, that she is by the force and great resistance of so much meat as she hath to work upon (of which every part laboureth to conserve and keep his own nature and kind such as it is), forewearied and overcome and giveth it over except it be holpen by some outward aid. And this driveth us of necessity to have so much recourse to medicines, to pills, potions, plasters, cly-Potions. sters and suppositories; and yet all too little, our gluttony is so great and therewith so divers that while one meat digesteth another lieth and putrefieth, and ever we desire to have some help to keep the body in health. But when we be counselled to live temperately, and forbear our delicates and our gluttony, that will we not hear of, but fain would we have some medicine as purgations and vomits to pull down and avoid that we cram in too much. And in this we fare, as the great moral philosopher Plutarch saith, like Plutarch, a lewd master of a ship that goeth not about to see the ship tight and sure, but letteth by his lewdness the ship fall on a leak, and then careth not yet to stop the chinks, but set more men to the pump rather with much travail and great peril to draw it dry than with little labour and great surety to keep it dry. Thus fare we, saith Plutarch, that through intemperate living drive ourselves in sickness and botch us up with physic, where we might with sober diet and temperance have less need of [physic] and keep ourselves in health.

If we see men die some dear year by famine, we thereof make a great matter, we fall to procession, we pray for plenty, and reckon the world at an end. But whereas yearly there dieth in good years great people of gluttony, thereof we take none heed at all, but rather impute the blame to the sickness whereof they die, than to the gluttony whereof the sickness cometh.

And if there be a man slain of a stroke, there is, as reason is, much speech made thereof — the coroner sitteth, the quest* is charged, the verdict given, the felony founden, the doer indicted, the process sued, the felon arraigned and dieth for the deed. And yet if men would ensearch how many be slain with weapon, and how many eat and drink themselves to death, there should be found, as Solomon saith,t more dead of the cup and the kitchen than of the dent of sword, and thereof is no words made at all.

Now if a man willingly kill himself with a knife, the world wondereth thereupon, and, as well worthy is, he is indicted of his own death, his goods forfeited, and his corpse cast out on a dung hill, his body never buried in Christian burial. These gluttons daily kill themselves [with] their own hands, and no Gluttons kill ^^^ ^ndtih fault, but carrieth his themselves.. ',,., carrion corpse mto the choir, and

• i.e., inquest. f Ecclus xxxvii.

with much solemn service burieth the body boldly at the high altar, when they have all their life, as the apostle saith,* made their belly their god, and liked to know none other, abusing not only the name of Christian men, preferring their belly joy before all the joys of heaven, but also abusing the part and office of a natural man and reasonable creature. For whereas nature and reason sheweth us that we should eat but for to live, these gluttons are so glutted in the beastly pleasure of their taste that Gluttons ^^ would not wish to live if it live to eat. •' ^ ^ were not to eat.

But surely wisdom were it for these gluttons well and effectually to consider that, as St Paul saith, t meats for the belly, and the belly to the meat; but God shall destroy both the meat and the belly.

Now should they remember and think upon the painful time of death, in which the hands shall not be able to feed the mouth, and the mouth that was wont to pour in by the pottle and cram in the flesh by the handfuls, shall scant be able to take in three drops with a spoon, and yet spew it out again.

Oft have they had a sick drunken head and slept themselves sober, but then shall they feel

• Phil. iii. t I Cor. vi.

DE ^UATUOR NOriSSIMIS a swimming and aching in their drunken head, when the dazing of death shall keep all sweet sleep out of their watery eyes. Oft have they fallen in the mire, and thence borne to bed; but now shall they fixU in the bed, and from thence laid and left in the mire till Gabriel blow them up.

Whereas these considerations much ought to move any man, yet specially should it so much the more move those gluttons in how much that they may well wit that their manner of living must needs accelerate this dreadful day and draw it shortly to them, albeit that by course of nature in temperate diet, it might seem many years off. Which thing, if these intemperate would well and advisedly remember, I would ween verily it would not fail to make them more moderate in their living, and utterly flee such outrageous riot and pestilent excess.

THE FOUR LAST THINGS loi