These points, which we have hitherto handled, are very difficult of explanation. But the three inconveniencies, which close the discourse, are true ænigma’s, and require an Oedipus to solve them. And as such an one, in my opinion, has not appeared hitherto, I will use my endeavours to do it. The golden ewer, says he, is dashed in pieces: the pitcher is broken at the fountain-head; and the chariot is dashed in pieces at the pit.
Old men are troubled with defluxions from the head to the nose, mouth and lungs; which are compared to water rushing out of a broken bottle or ewer. And the ewer is said to be of gold, to express the dignity of the head.
Nor does phlegm flow from the head alone; but other parts also pour forth their juices too abundantly or irregularly. For the serosities, which are secreted by the kidneys (whose cavity is even at this day named pelvis by Anatomists) runs into the bladder; which, by reason of the relaxation of its sphincter, as if the pitcher were broken at the fountain head, is not able to retain its contents a sufficient time. Hence an incontinence or dribbling of urine is continually troublesome.
Now, the evils hitherto enumerated lodge in particular parts; but the last calamity, both in this discourse, as well as in old people, is that the whole body is afflicted. The very course of the blood is interrupted; hence wretched man is seized with difficulty of breathing, apoplexies or lethargies. The heart also, the principle and fountain of life, sinks thro’ want of its usual force, and the broken chariot falls into the pit. The ancients indeed did not know of the circulation of the blood; but they could not be ignorant, that it was moved thro’ the body, that it cherished the viscera and members by its heat, and lastly, that it concreted and grew cold in death.
But nothing in this whole discourse is so much worthy of our serious attention as these words, with which he closes it. The dust returns to the earth, such as it had been; and the spirit returns to God, who gave it. For by these words his intention seems plainly to have been, to refute the ignorant notions of those, who thought that the soul perished with the body, and to assert its immortality.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] Terent. Phorm. Act. iv. Scen. i. v. 9.
[74] Ecclesiastes, Chap. xii. Verse 1-7. translated from Castalio’s latin version.
[75] Job, Chap. xviii. Verse 5, 6, 7.
[76] Matthew, Chap. vi. Verse 23. John, Ep. i. Chap. ii. Verse 11.