Chapter XXX. That, in Advising Men What to Do, They Were Guided by Ordinary Human Reasonings

‘FOR twenty days before the Dog-star rise, And twenty days that follow next thereon, In shady bower let Bacchus be thy leech:’ [1]

‘A medical and not a prophetical answer given to the Athenians when troubled by the burning heat.

“Grandson of Presbon, son of Clymenus, Thyself, Erginus, would’st the race prolong: ‘Tis late; yet give the old plough a new tip.”

‘For a young woman to be wedded to an old man, if he desires children, this is the advice not of a prophet, but of one who understands nature. Desire, however, sets the weaklings beside themselves.’