Wherefore now proceeding to them, he begins by the sight. Those, says he, that look thro’ holes shall be darkened. By which words it is manifest, that he points out the failing of the eyes, which most people, far advanced in years, feel by sad experience.
Next follows the taste, which he thus describes: The doors shall be shut outwardly, with a low sound of the mill. As old people, thro’ diminution of appetite, open their mouths seldomer than formerly; so for want of teeth to comminute their food, they do it with less noise. Now this last inconvenience seems to be meant and expressed very elegantly by the words a low sound of the mill: for by the word mill, which in the Hebrew is used in the singular number, the grinding of the food may very well be meant; and this grinding, as it is not done by the assistance of the teeth, which they have lost, but by that of the gums, is performed with less noise.
Sleep is the sweet soother of our labours, and the restorer of our exhausted strength. But the loss of appetite, and disgust to our food, generally robs us of this comfort. Hence subjoining this evil of old-age to the foregoing, he says: he shall rise up at the voice of the bird; that is, the old man is awaked at the cock’s first crowing. Wherefore his sleep is short and interrupted, tho’ his weakness would require longer rest.
But he returns to the senses, among which he gives the third place to hearing; for receiving the benefits of which the Creator gave us the use of ears. Now this is frequently diminished, and sometimes entirely taken away in old-age; which the royal author seems to indicate in the following words: The daughters of music shall be of no avail. For thus he thought proper to express the ears, to which at this time of life, not only the pleasure of harmonious sounds is sought in vain; but, what is much more disagreeable, the words in conversation are not easily understood: whereby the enjoyment, and one of the greatest conveniencies of life, are gradually lost. Hence in the jewish history, Barzillai, at eighty years of age, complains that he could no longer hear the voice of the singing men and singing women.[79]
These defects of the organs of hearing, are immediately followed by those of the sense of feeling. Now the touch, as Cicero says, is uniformly spread over the whole body; that we may feel all strokes and appulses of things.[80] Wherefore this sense, besides its other uses, contributes vastly to the safety of the body, and the removal of many evils, to which it is perpetually exposed. And this the sagacious author seems to have principally in view, when he says: They shall be afraid of high places, and stumblings in the way. For as old folks are unsure of foot, even in a plain smooth way, by reason of the weakness of their limbs; so when they come to a rugged uneven road, thro’ the dulness of this sense, they do not soon enough perceive the depressions or elevations of the ground whereby they run the hazard of stumbling and hurting their feet. Therefore they are not unjustly represented as being afraid.
The only one that remains of the senses is that of smelling, the diminution of which in old men, he describes with equal elegance and brevity in this manner: the almond tree shall flower. By which words he seems to mean, that old people, as if they lived in a perpetual winter, no longer perceive the agreeable odors exhaling from plants and flowers in the spring and summer seasons. That this tree flowers in winter, we learn from Pliny, who in treating of it says: The almond tree flowers the first of all trees, in the month of January.[81] I am not to learn, that these words are by most interpreters understood as relating to grey hairs, which being generally a sure token of old age, they would have us believe, are denoted by the white flowers of the almond tree. But then, who can imagine, that this wise author, after having indicated the defects of four of the senses, by clear and distinct marks, would designedly pass over the fifth in silence? Besides, white hairs are by no means to be esteemed a sure and indubitable token of old-age; since there are not a few to be found, who turn gray in the middle stage of life, before their bodily strength is any ways impaired. Moreover, what they say of the flowers of the almond tree, does not seem to agree with the things they mean by them: for they are not, strictly speaking, white, but of a purplish cast. Thus far concerning the senses: let us proceed to the remaining part.
The scrotal rupture is a disease common to persons far advanced in years; whether it be formed by the intestine or omentum slipping down into the scrotum, or proceed from a humor distending that part. In either case the part is tumefied. This pernicious disease the Preacher thought proper to compare to a grasshopper. The grasshopper, says he, shall be a burthen, Oneri erit locusta. For thus the Hebrew phrase is more literally translated, than by convenient cicadæ, the cicadæ shall come together, as the learned Castalio has rendered it. Indeed the Vulgate version has impinguabitur locusta, the grasshopper shall be fatted. The Septuagint Παχυνθῆ ἡ ἀχρίς. The grasshopper shall be fatted. The Arabic version, turned into Latin, pinguescet locusta, The grasshopper shall grow fat. But our English translation, The grasshopper shall be a burden. It is well known, that the Hebrew language is always modest, and that the sacred Writers, in expressing such things as belong to the genital members, abstain from indecent and obscene words, for fear of offending chaste ears, and therefore borrow similitudes from any other things at discretion. Which is particularly observable in the Canticum Canticorum, or Solomon’s Song, written by our Author. Now the grasshopper, or locust, is an odd-shaped animal, made up chiefly of belly; and therefore, especially when full of eggs, may be said to bear some resemblance to a scrotum, swoln by a rupture.
These parts being thus affected, the wise author adds, the appetite shall be lost; wherein he does not attend so much to the appetite for victuals, as for those other things, which are sought after in the vigor of life. For as the author of the Art of Love has rightly said: Turpe senilis amor[82].
That old people are crushed to death by so great a heap of evils and infirmities, and depart to their eternal habitation, to the grief of their friends, can be no matter of wonder. But in the remaining part of the discourse we are admonished, that their miseries in this life are not confined within these bounds, but that sometimes there is still an accession of others.
For loss of strength in old age does not terminate at the limbs, or extremities of the body; the spine of the back also loses considerably of its firmness, by the daily diminution of power in its muscles and ligaments: hence an old man can seldom stand upright, but stoops his body towards the earth, which is shortly to cover it. This part is likened to a silver chain, which is said to be broken asunder. For the vertebræ, of which it is composed, may be looked upon as the rings or links, and they give way outward by the bending of the body. Moreover the medulla oblongata, which passes through them, is of a silver or whitish colour.