Note 343 — FIRST SECTION. (continued 2)

Menander, in Lucian, Amores ch. 43., says: νόσων χαλεπωτάτη φθόνος (of diseases the cruellest is envy.) It is used of envy by Aristophanes, Birds 31. νόσον νοσοῦμεν τὴν ἐναντίαν Σάκᾳ. (we are sick of the disease that was Saces’ enemy.) Euripides, Medea 525., γλωσσαλγία αἴσχιστος νόσος (garrulousness, a most shocking disease.) But in a special way νόσος (disease) was used of Love (Pollux) Onomast. Bk. VI. 42., εἰς Ἀφροδίτην νοσῶν. (being sick of Love). Eubulus, in Nannio, quoted by Athenaeus, Deipnos. Bk. XIII. ch. 24., says:

(To buy pleasure for a small coin, and not pursue secret amours,—most base of all diseases,—for overmastering lust’s sake and not for love.) Νόσημα (disease) is used in the same sense in Lucian, Amores 3., and πάθος (suffering, passion) in many passages in the same Work. Plutarch, Amator. p. 763., καὶ λελάληκε (Μένανδρος) περὶ τοῦ πάθους φιλοσοφώτερον. (And he—Menander—has talked about the passion more like a philosopher). The following passage in Philo, De specialibus legibus,—Opera. edit. Mangey, Vol. II. p. 301., is of interest: Ἔχει μὲν οὖν καὶ ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ἡδονὴ πολλάκις μέμψιν, ὅταν ἀμέτρως καὶ ἀκορέστως χρῆταί τις αὐτῇ, καθάπερ οἱ ἄπληστοι περὶ ἐδωδὴν, κἂν εἰ μηδὲν τῶν ἀπηγορευμένων προσφέροιντο· καὶ οἱ φιλογυναίοις συνουσίαις ἐπιμιμηνότες, καὶ λαγνίστερον προσομιλοῦντες γυναιξὶν οὐκ ἀλλοτρίαις, ἀλλὰ ταῖς ἐαυτῶν. Ἡ δὲ μέμψις σώματός ἐστι μᾶλλον ἢ ψυχῆς κατὰ τοὺς πολλοὺς, πολλὴν μὲν ἔχοντος εἴσω φλόγα, ἣ τὴν παραβληθεῖσαν τροφὴν ἐξαναλίσκουσα ἑτέραν οὐκ εἰς μακρὰν ἐπιζητεῖ πολλὴν ἰκμάδα, ἧς τὸ ῥοῶδες διὰ τῶν γενητικῶν ἀποχετεύετο, κνησμοὺς καὶ ὀδαξισμοὺς ἐμποιοῦν καὶ γαργαλισμοὺς ἀπαύσους.

(So the gratification even of natural pleasure is often blameworthy, when it is indulged immoderately and insatiably, just as men who are insatiably greedy about eating are blameworthy, even though they should not partake of any forbidden meats. So too men who are madly devoted to intercourse with women, and go with women lewdly,—not strange women but their own wives. And the blame lies rather with the body than with the mind in most cases, for the body has within it a great flame, which using up the fuel cast to it, does not for long lack much moisture, the watery humour of which is drawn off by intercourse with women, producing ticklings and gnashings with the teeth and unappeasable itchings.) Immoderate copulation then with a man’s own wife is only a reproach that concerns the body more than the mind; on the other hand Philo in the succeeding sentences speaks of those who practise fornication with strange women as, ἀνίατον νόσον ψυχῆς νοσοῦντας (sick of an incurable sickness of the soul., Clement of Alexandria) Paedag. bk. II. ch. 10., μικρὰν ἐπιληψίαν τὴν συνουσίαν ὁ Ἀβδηρίτης ἔλεγε σοφιστής, νόσον ἀνίατον ἡγούμενος. (the sophist of Abdera used to speak of coition as a miniature epilepsy, deeming it an incurable disease). Gellius, bk. XIX. ch. 2., indeed attributes this expression to Hippocrates, Stobaeus, Florileg. I. 6. De intemperantia, to Eryximachus.