De planctu naturae

Alan's seventh question. To this, then, I said: "Since this general understanding wanders about like a runaway in open air, but understanding is truly befriended by particularity, I would wish that you should unfold, in the varicolored intervals of their most specific species, those vices which you enfold in a certain ball of generality."

Nature's reply. "Since it would be unbecoming to defraud the well earned reason of your request of the merit of fulfillment, it is right that each vice should be marked out for you one by one, with notes proper to itself. Since it has already been told how nearly the whole world is endangered by the general conflagration of impure Venus, it now remains to tell how that same world is shipwrecked by the most general flood of gluttony. For gluttony is, as it were, a kind of prelude to the carrying out of Venus's work, and a kind of antecedent to the consequence of lust. Know, then, that certain daughters of the ancient idolatry, though torn out to its very marrow, are striving in this present moment to restore their mother's rule, and to rouse her, revived, from the dead with certain ominous incantations; who, in the office of harlots, whitening their faces with the look of a fantastic affection, entice their lovers by deceitful allurement: who, under a sorrowful gladness, under a friendly cruelty, under a hostile friendship, sweet even unto ruin like the Sirens, holding out on their faces the melody of delight, lead their lovers on to the shipwreck of idolatry: one of these, if I may speak with a coined name suited to her proper nature, might fittingly be called Bacchilatry."

On excessive drinking. This Bacchilatry, robbing her lover of the little spark of reason, exposes him to the darkness of brute sensuality, and, in the manner of a harlot, makes her lover so drunk that he is compelled to court Bacchus with all too emphatic devotion, to such a degree that the drinker, bound to Bacchus by the chain of excessive delight, is believed to render to him the worship due to divine majesty. So much so that the man who worships Bacchus, generally unable to bear being separated from him even by the space of a room, does not allow his god to lodge long in the little vessels of others, but, so that the divinity of that same god may attend upon him more intimately, shuts him up in the cask of his own belly. But because the vessel of the stomach generally cannot long sustain the divinity of so great a guest, that same god shamefully evaporates, either through the arctic pole of the eastern gate, or through the antarctic of the western region. Often, too, the worshipper of Bacchus builds a lodging for Bacchus in cups made powerful by the honor of their material, so that the divinity of that same god might shine forth more divinely in a golden vessel; whence that god, vying in brightness with ethereal splendors, contending in greenness with emerald colors, and surpassing most flavors with the majesty of his own flavor, provokes the sons of drink with the sophistic dignities of his own properties, so that they might celebrate Bacchus, as though he were the secret of an ineffable divinity, with an ineffable love. And these men, animated by him, lest any part of that divinity remain undrained, swallow Bacchus down to the very dregs, and so shamefully force their god to descend into the infernal abyss of the belly, and, thus passing from the specific to the most general kind of drinking, they ascend to the superlative degree of drunkenness. This plague is hostile not only to men of common, plebeian stock, but even makes the haughty necks of prelates bow down to it, for whom the graces of Bacchus, which the grace of nature has poured out upon him, do not suffice, but who, seizing also upon a reedy attraction, now glory in Bacchus wedded to roses, now breathe in the fragrance of some other flower, now claim for him a certain privilege in fellowship with hyssop; and, enriched from without with the endowments of other things, they swallow him down the impetuous Charybdis of gluttony, to such a degree that they fall into shipwreck without a sea, weeping without sorrow, lethargy without illness, and the sleep of drunkenness without slumber. And while these men, struck by the force of drunkenness, devote their effort to psalm singing, breaking the verses with too much interruption, they intersperse the unwelcome north wind of their crapulence.

On excess in food. Nor is it only the aforementioned lust for drink, but also a doglike avidity for food that ensnares so many, whose disordered pleasures and ill-composed thoughts dream up ever new preparations of food for themselves. And while they pay out too abundantly to the tax collector the daily debt owed to their appetite, the overabundant collector is forced to render payment back to his own debtor. These men treasure up whatever they possess in the strongbox of the stomach. And although that deposit is not gnawed by the tooth of corroding rust, nor stolen away by the cunning of a pilfering thief, yet it vanishes, more shamefully, through the more shameful robbery of a digesting heat. These men invite their purse to vomit forth its coins, and their strongbox to a nausea of money, so that they may flatter the tax collecting stomach all the more carefully. Within, they enrich the belly with the riches of foods; without, they stand in bare and simple poverty. This plague, not content with common lowliness, advances still more deeply to prelates, who baptize salmon and pike, and other fish marked out with an equal nobility, tortured through various martyrdoms of stewing, corrupting the office of baptism, in a font of sacred pepper, so that, baptized by such a baptism, they might attain the grace of a manifold flavor. At the same table, a creature of the land is submerged in a flood of pepper, a fish swims in pepper, a bird is bound fast in that same viscous sauce: and while so many kinds of animals are imprisoned together in the single dungeon of the belly, the creature of the water marvels to find itself entombed in the same sepulcher with the creature of the land and the kind that belongs to the air. And if these were given license to depart, the very width of the door would scarcely suffice for their going out. These aforesaid plagues build the bridge by which one arrives at the brothels of excess. These are the introductions by which one enters upon the art of thieving. These give birth to diseases, and sow poverty. These are the nurses of discord, the sisters of madness, the mothers of intemperance, the huntresses of uncleanness. Through these, the human race oversteps the bounds of moderation, sets aside the reins of temperance, breaks the seals of chastity, and pays no heed to the grace of my bounty. For although my generosity procures so many courses for so many men, and rains down so many abundant dishes, yet these men, ungrateful for that grace, abusing all too unlawfully what is lawful, loosening the reins of gluttony, while they exceed the measures of eating, extend the lines of their drinking without limit; and, their palates seduced by the sharpness of salted things, so that they may drink often and much, are all the more often compelled to thirst.

On avarice. There is also another daughter of idolatry, whom, if the propriety of a name may keep its kinship of meaning in the word, it is fitting to call, by a fitting term, Coinolatry. This is that malice by which money is made a god in the minds of men, by which the authority of divine veneration is shown to a coin, by which, where money speaks, the trumpet of Tullian eloquence grows hoarse; where money serves as a soldier, the lightning flashes of Hectorean warfare fall silent; where money fights, Herculean virtue is overcome. For if anyone is armed with money, as though with silvery breastplates, the torrent onset of Tully, the lightning charge of Hector, the strength of Herculean virtue, and the shape shifting cunning of Ulysses are counted as nothing; for so far does the hunger for possession spread that the subtlety of dialectic grows mute, and the civility of rhetoric grows faint. Where the fullness of coin pleads its case, now Tully sells the very coinage of his own eloquence, now Lucretia exchanges the jewels of her modesty for gold; Penelope lays down, at a price, the honor of her twenty years chastity; even Hippolytus, should he hear the whispered pleadings of money, would no longer play the stepson against his stepmother's advances. For if money should whisper in a judge's ear, the lyre of Orpheus, the song of Amphion, and the muse of Virgil are all drowned out by the voice of money. Now the rich man, shipwrecked in the depths of his own riches, thirsts for wealth with the burning of a dropsical thirst, and, set in the very midst of it, suffers the torment of Tantalus. The poor man too, although he cannot in fact actually practice avarice in matter, nevertheless retains within himself its archetype of stinginess. Alas for grief! the burdens of metal bestow honors, weighed out according to the weight of the metal. Now it is not Caesar but money that is all in all, since it runs through, as a mediator, every single honor, from the least particular up to the most general. Money is our patriarch; it enthrones bishops and archbishops. It fits some to the offices of archdeacons; and it matches others, in turn, to the affairs of other dignities and offices. What more is there to say? Money conquers, money rules the world, money commands all things. What good does it do, with Ptolemy, to pursue the fleeing courses of astronomy, elusive in its subtlety, by a running course of subtlety; to investigate the prophecies of the stars, the seemingly wayward errors of the planets; with Euclid, to search out the secrets of geometrical riddles; to descend in understanding to the depths of the sea; to reach the height of the heavens with the measures of the intellect; with the Milesian, to discover the harmonious friendships of musical proportions; with Pythagoras, to examine the battles of numbers by the power of multiplication; with Tully, to stud a speech with the stars of rhetorical colors; with Aristotle, to divide the false from the true with the two edged sword of dialectic; with Zeno, to clothe falsehood in the sophistic tunic of probability; with Donatus, to weave together words in the agreement of their accidents, when in our times wisdom is rewarded with the wages of no profit, when the favorable breeze of fame extols her not at all, while money itself buys the titles of honor and the heralds of praise? And yet wisdom alone truly stands preeminent above every possession. A noble possession, which, though scattered, is gathered in; though spent, returns again; though made public, receives increase! Through her, the noble treasure of knowledge is born in the secret inner chambers of the mind, and the fruit of inward delight is acquired. She is the sun by which the mind grows bright in darkness, the eye of the heart, the delightful paradise of the soul. She turns the earthly into the heavenly, the perishable into the immortal, man into god, by the authority of a deifying transformation. She is the true remedy of our wandering exile, the sole comfort of human calamity, the singular morning star of man's night, the special redemption of your wretchedness, whose keen sight no mist of the air confounds, whose working the density of the earth does not hinder, whose gaze the depth of the water does not dull. Although, therefore, among many who grow brutish through the fickleness of the senses, she languishes in excessive contempt, yet among those who have fanned the original spark of reason back into flame, she is not defrauded of the gift of renown. For although prudence disdains the pleasing applause of a fantastical flattery, yet, since it is the glorious property of true fame to despise those who court her and to court those who despise her, she is won by fleeing from her, and lost by pursuing her. Therefore, even if you see money reigning among certain men, and prudence lying low, riches serving as soldiers, and wisdom sent into exile, still, with a victorious spirit, trample down beneath you the weight of riches belonging to that cowardice, and pursue prudence with the inmost love of your affection, so that you may be able to gaze, with an unhindered eye, deep into the very bedchamber of wisdom, our mother." Then I said: "I would wish that, with the reins of reproof let loose, you would attack the daughters of avarice yet more to the heart." Then she, turning the course of her narration to the sharpest bites of invective, said: