If thou to health and vigour wouldst attain,
Shun weighty cares—all anger deem profane,
From heavy suppers and much wine abstain.
Nor trivial count it, after pompous fare,
To rise from table and to take the air.
Shun idle, noonday slumber, nor delay
The urgent calls of Nature to obey.
These rules if thou wilt follow to the end,
Thy life to greater length thou mayst extend.[4]
Evidently it was rather easy to commit such rhymes to memory, and this accounts for the fact that we have many different versions of the Regimen and disputed readings of all kinds. These medieval hygienists believed very much in early rising, cold water, thorough cleansing, exercise in the open air, yet without sudden cooling afterwards. The lines on morning hygiene seem worth while giving in Ordonaux’s translation.
At early dawn, when first from bed you rise,
Wash, in cold water, both your hands and eyes.
With brush and comb then cleanse your teeth and hair,
And thus refreshed, your limbs outstretch with care.
Such things restore the weary, o’ertasked brain;
And to all parts ensure a wholesome gain.
Fresh from the bath, get warm. Rest after food,
Or walk, as seems most suited to your mood.
But in whate’er engaged, or sport, or feat,
Cool not too soon the body when in heat.
The Salernitan writers were not believers in noonday sleep, though one might have expected that the tradition of the siesta in Italy had been already established. They insist that it makes one feel worse rather than better to break the day by a sleep at noonday.
Let noontide sleep be brief, or none at all;
Else stupor, headache, fever, rheums, will fall
On him who yields to noontide’s drowsy call.
They believed in light suppers—
Great suppers will the stomach’s peace impair;
Wouldst lightly rest, curtail thine evening fare.
With regard to the interval between meals, the Salernitan rule was, wait until your stomach is surely empty:
Eat not again till thou dost certain feel
Thy stomach freed of all its previous meal.
This mayst thou know from hunger’s teasing call,
Or mouth that waters—surest sign of all.
Pure air and sunlight were favourite tonics at Salerno—