25.
What?
Do you imagine that those mushrooms, the epicure’s poison, work no evil results in secret, even though they have had no immediate effect?
What?
Do you suppose that your summer snow does not harden the tissue of the liver?
What?
Do you suppose that those oysters, a sluggish food fattened on slime, do not weigh one down with mud-begotten heaviness?
What?
Do you not think that the so-called “Sauce from the Provinces,” the costly extract of poisonous fish, burns up the stomach with its salted putrefaction?
What?
Do you judge that the corrupted dishes which a man swallows almost burning from the kitchen fire, are quenched in the digestive system without doing harm?
How repulsive, then, and how unhealthy are their belchings, and how disgusted men are with themselves when they breathe forth the fumes of yesterday’s debauch!
You may be sure that their food is not being digested, but is rotting.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On the usefulness of basic principles
Location: Chapter 95, Section 25
Content:
25.
What?
Do you imagine that those mushrooms, the epicure’s poison, work no evil results in secret, even though they have had no immediate effect?
What?
Do you suppose that your summer snow does not harden the tissue of the liver?
What?
Do you suppose that those oysters, a sluggish food fattened on slime, do not weigh one down with mud-begotten heaviness?
What?
Do you not think that the so-called “Sauce from the Provinces,” the costly extract of poisonous fish, burns up the stomach with its salted putrefaction?
What?
Do you judge that the corrupted dishes which a man swallows almost burning from the kitchen fire, are quenched in the digestive system without doing harm?
How repulsive, then, and how unhealthy are their belchings, and how disgusted men are with themselves when they breathe forth the fumes of yesterday’s debauch!
You may be sure that their food is not being digested, but is rotting.