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THE SECOND BOOKE 215
that makes us lesse sharpe and greedie to the enjoying
of good and of pleasures: It is true but the miserie of
our condition beareth that we have not so much to
enjoy as to shun, and that extreme voluptuousnesse
doth not so much pinch us as a light smart: Segniutt
homines bona quam mala sentiunt:¹ ' Men have a duller
feeling of a good turne than of an ill;' we have not so
sensible a feeling of perfect health as we have of theleast
sicknesse.
In cute vix summa violatum plagula corpus,
Quando valere nihil quemquam movet, Hoc juvat unum
Quod me non torquet latus aut pes; casteia quisquam
Vix queat aut sanum sese aut sentire valentem.
A light stroke that dooth scarce the top-skin wound,
Greeves the gali'd bodie, when in henlth to be,
Doth scarce move any: onely ease is found,
That neither side nor foot tormenteth me:
Scarce any in the rest can feel he's sound.
Our being in health is but the privation of being ill.
See therefore where the sect of Philosophie that hath
most preferred sensualitie, hath also placed the same
but to indolencie or unfeeling of paine. To have no
infirmitie at all is the chiefest possession of health that
man can hope for (as Ennius said) :
Nimium boni est, cui nihil est mali,
He hath but too much good,
Whom no ill hath withstood.
For the same tickling and pricking which a man
doth feel in some pleasures, and seemes beyond simple
health and indolencie, this active and moving sensualitie,
or as I may terme it, itching and tickling pleasure,
aymes but to be free from paine, as her chiefest scope.
The lust-full longing which allures us to the acquaintance
of women seekes but to expell that paine which an
earnest and burning desire doth possesse us with, and
desireth but to allay it thereby to come to rest and be
¹ TIT. LI V. 1. xxx. c. 21.