Compressæ nares, nasi primoris acumen
Tenue, cavati oculi, cava tempora, frigida pellis
Duraque, inhorrebat rictum, frons tenta minebat.”
De Rerum Natura, vi., 1190.
Shakespeare’s description of the death of Falstaff, by the way, contains images which have always appeared to me to be borrowed (at second-hand, no doubt) from this and other passages of the present work: “For after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers’-ends, I knew there was but one way: for his nose was as sharp as a pin, and he babbled of green fields.—So he bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone,” etc.—Henry V., ii., 3. Although perhaps it may be thought rather hypercritical, I cannot omit the present opportunity of making the remark, that it appears to me rather out of character to make the wandering mind of a London debauchee dwell upon images “of green fields.” One would have thought that “the ruling passion strong in death” would have rather suggested stews and pot-houses to the imagination of such a person.
[466] It will be remarked that our author modifies his judgment on the result of the ensemble of dangerous symptoms which he has just described, provided they be connected with want of food and of rest, or with looseness of the bowels. See Galen’s Commentary on this passage. Celsus renders this clause of the sentence as follows: “Si ita hæc sunt, ut neque vigilia præcesserit, neque ventris resolutio, neque inedia.”—ii., 6. I may briefly mention that both Galen and Stephanus seem to have understood this passage as I have translated it. Littré it will be seen has rendered it somewhat differently.
[467] The prognostics, drawn from the position in which the patient is found reclining, are mostly taken from the Coacæ Prænotiones, 497. As usual, however, Hippocrates has improved very much the materials which he avails himself of.
I would here point out a mistake which most of the modern translators have committed respecting the meaning of an expression contained in this paragraph. It is καὶ τὸ ξύμπαν σῶμα ὑγρον κείμενον, which Clifton, Moffat, and even Littré understand as descriptive of the body’s being in a moist state with sweat. Littré’s translation is, “Le corps entier en moiteur.” The translators forget that the word ὑγρὸν is used by the best classical authors to signify “relaxed” or “soft.” Thus Pindar, in his celebrated description of the eagle perched upon the sceptre of Jupiter, and lulled asleep by the power of music (every English scholar will remember Gray’s version of it in his Ode on the Progress of Poesy), has the expression ὑγρὸν νῶτον, which Heyne interprets by flexile and lubricum. (Ad Pyth., 1.) See also the Scholiast, in h. 1. Galen apprehends the meaning of the term as I have stated it: thus he defines it as applying to the position intermediate between complete extension and complete flexion, that is to say, half-bent or relaxed. Foës also renders the expression correctly by “corpus molliter positum.” (Œconom. Hippocrat.) See also Stephanus (p. 96, ed. Dietz), who decidedly states that the epithet (ὑγρὸς), in this place, means slightly bent or relaxed. Heurnius explains ὑγρὸν as signifying “molliter decumbens,” p. 189. Celsus renders the words in question by “cruribus paulum reductis,” ii., 3.
[468] This is taken pretty closely from the Coacæ Prænotiones, 235.
[469] This sentence is thus translated by Celsus: “Ubi ulcus, quod aut ante, aut in ipso morbo natum est, aridum, et aut pallidum, aut lividum factum est.” (ii., 6.) It is imitated from the Coacæ Prænotiones, 496.