Sim. He who eats such cheese is hunting for thirst and he eats in order to drink.
Scop. The pastry-cook delays too long with his sweets. Why does he not bring his tarts, his wine-cakes and cup-cakes and the fried cakes made of a concoction thrown into a vessel of boiling oil with honey poured over it?
Crit. Give me a few dates, both some to eat and some to keep by me. Perhaps I shall to-night eat nothing else.
Scop. Then take the whole of this branch of them. Will you have some pomegranates?
Pol. Here, boy, relieve me of these wild dates and give me something eatable.
Scop. I advise you to drink. Don’t you know that it was the opinion of Aristotle that the dessert was introduced into meals to invite us to drinking lest the food should be digested dry?
Crit. The discoverer must have been either a sailor or fish to be so much afraid of dryness.
Scop. Take away those things which are ordinarily called the seal of the stomach, because after them nothing more is to be eaten or drunk, biscuits, quince-cakes, coriander covered with sugar. But such food must be chewed, not eaten. What remains from the portion chewed must be spit out, for it is uneatable. Collect the bits and what remains over in baskets; bring scented waters, of rose, of the flowers of the healing apple (citron), and of musk-melon.