Book 8
7.4
This discourse of mine gave the company encouragement to proceed, so they attempted other symbols, and gave moral interpretations of them. Philinus said, that the precept of blotting out the print of the pot instructed us not to leave any plain mark of anger, but, as soon as ever the passion hath done boiling, to lay aside all thoughts of malice and revenge. That symbol which adviseth us to ruffle the bedclothes seemed to some to have no secret meaning, but to be in itself very evident; for it is not decent that the impression and (as it were) stamped image should be left to be seen by others, in the place where a man hath lain with his wife. But Sylla thought the symbol was rather intended to prevent men’s sleeping in the daytime, all the conveniences for sleeping being taken away in the morning as soon as we are up. For night is the time for sleep, and in the day we should rise and follow our affairs, and not suffer so much as the print of our body in the bed, since a man asleep is of no more use than one dead. And this interpretation seems to be confirmed by that other precept, in which the Pythagoreans advise their followers not to take off any man’s burthen from him, but to lay on more, as not countenancing sloth and laziness in any.
Question VIII. WHY THE PYTHAGOREANS COMMAND FISH NOT TO BE EATEN, MORE STRICTLY THAN OTHER ANIMALS. EMPEDOCLES, SYLLA, LUCIUS, TYNDARES, NESTOR.
