Book 4
11
For this reason the words of Xenocrates touched Polemon also, since he was a lover of beauty, for he entered (the room) having in him certain incitements (ἐναύσματα) to love of beauty, but he looked for it in the wrong place.As to Polemon see iii. c. 1, 14. For nature has not made even the animals dirty which live with man. Does a horse ever wallow in the mud, or a well bred dog? But the hog, and the dirty geese, and worms and spiders do, which are banished furthest from human intercourse. Do you then being a man choose to be not as one of the animals which live with man, but rather a worm, or a spider? Will you not wash yourself somewhere some time in such manner as you choose?It has been suggested that the words s. 19, [if you do not choose to wash with warm water, wash with cold, p. 369]belong to this place. Will you not wash off the dirt from your body? Will you not come clean that those with whom you keep company may have pleasure in being with you? But do you go with us even into the temples in such a state, where it is not permitted to spit or blow the nose, being a heap of spittle and of snot?
