21. Now, as we have prepared
a place for our idea, let us next receive some one born to dwell there,
where there is nothing but an empty void,3542
| 3542
Lit., “born, and that, too (et wanting in almost all
edd.), into the hospice of that place which has nothing, and is inane
and empty.” |
—one of the race of Plato, namely,
or Pythagoras, or some one of those who are regarded as of superhuman
wit, or have been declared most
wise by the
oracles of the gods.
And when this has been done, he must then be nourished and brought up
on suitable
food. Let us therefore
provide a
nurse also, who
shall come to him always
naked, ever
silent, uttering not a word, and
shall not open her mouth and
lips to speak at all, but after suckling
him, and doing what else is necessary, shall leave him fast
asleep, and
remain day and
night before the closed
doors; for it is usually
necessary that the
nurse’s care should be near at
hand, and that
she should watch his varying motions. But when the
child
begins to need to be supported by more substantial
food, let it be
borne in by the same
nurse, still
undressed, and maintaining the same
unbroken
silence. Let the
food, too, which is carried in be
always precisely the same, with no difference in the material, and
without being re-cooked by means of different flavours; but let it be
either pottage of millet, or
bread of spelt, or, in imitation of the
ancients, chestnuts roasted in the
hot ashes, or berries plucked from
forest
trees. Let him moreover, never
learn to drink
wine, and
let nothing else be used to quench his
thirst than pure cold
water from
the spring, and
that if possible
raised to his
lips in the
hollow of his hands. For habit, growing into
second
nature, will become familiar from custom; nor will his desire
extend
3543
| 3543 So
most edd. reading porrigeturfor the ms. corrigetur—“be
corrected,” i.e., need to be corrected, which is retained in the
first ed. |
further, not
knowing that there is
anything more to be sought
after.
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