This then is that account of these things which
best suits the nature of the Gods. And if I now must,
according to my promise, say something concerning those
things they daily offer by way of incense, you are in the
first place to understand this, that these people make the
greatest account imaginable of all endeavors that relate to
health; and more especially in their sacrifices, purgations,
and diets, health is no less respected than devotion. For
they think it would be an unseemly thing to wait upon
that nature that is pure and every way unblemished and
untouched, with crazy and diseased minds or bodies.
Whereas, therefore, the air that we most use and live in
hath not always the same disposition and temperament,
but in the night-time grows condense, compresses the body,
and contracts the mind into a kind of melancholy and
thoughtful habit, it becoming then as it were foggy and
dozed, they therefore, as soon as they are up in the morning, burn rosin about them, refreshing and clearing the air
by its scattered particles, and fanning up the native spirit
of the body, which is now grown languid and dull; this
sort of scent having something in it that is very impetuous
[p. 137]
and striking. And perceiving again at noon-time that the
sun hath drawn up by violence a copious and gross exhalation out of the earth, they by censing mix myrrh also
with the air; for heat dissolves and dissipates that puddled
and slimy vapor which at that time gathers together in
the ambient air. And physicians are also found to help
pestilential diseases by making great blazes to rarefy the
air; but it would be much better rarefied, if they would
burn sweet-scented woods, such as cypress, juniper, and
pine. And therefore Acron the physician is said to have
gained a mighty reputation at Athens, in the time of the
great plague, by ordering people to make fires near to the
sick; for not a few were benefited by it. Aristotle likewise saith that the odoriferous exhalations of perfumes,
flowers, and sweet meadows are no less conducing to health
than to pleasure; for that their warmth and delicacy of
motion gently relax the brain, which is of its own nature
cold and clammy. And if it be true that the Egyptians in
their language call myrrh bal, and that the most proper
signification of that word is scattering away idle talk, this
also adds some testimony to our account of the reason why
they burn it.
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