Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Ficino on Honey

It is pleasant to remind you again how Democritus, when he was at the point of death, to gratify the wishes of his friends retained his spirit for four days by the smell of hot loaves; he would have kept his spirit even longer if only it had pleased him to do so. There are also those who say that he did this by the smell of honey. I think that if he used honey at all, he poured it, liquefied with white wine, into the hot loaves. For the odor of honey is not to be scorned; for it is the flower of flowers; it nourishes considerably by its very sweetness; moreover, by its quality things are kept for a long time whole from putrefecation. And so if anyone knows how to eat honey, even as a food, so as not to fill up his passages with too much sweetness nor to augment choler with its heat, he will possess a sure support for a longer life.
-Marsilio Ficino
De Vita Libri Tres
Three Books on Life
Book II.XVIII
as translated by Kaske & Clark

No comments: