Old-age itself is a disease, as the poet has properly expressed it[73]. Wherefore as I have frequently read with pleasure, the very elegant description of it, given by Solomon the wisest of kings; I think it will not be foreign to my design, to attempt an explanation and illustration thereof. For it contains some things not easy to be understood, because the eloquent preacher thought proper to express all the circumstances allegorically. But first I will lay the discourse itself before my readers, which runs thus.

“Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil times come, and the years draw nigh, in which, thou shalt say, I find no pleasure: before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars be darkened, and the clouds return after rain; when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the soldiers shall give way, and the diminished grinders shall cease; and those that look out thro’ holes shall be darkened; and the doors shall be shut outwardly, with a low sound of the mill, and they shall rise up at the voice of the bird; and all the daughters of music shall be of no avail; also when they shall be afraid of high places, and stumblings in the way; and the almond tree shall flower, and the CicadÆ shall come together; and the appetite shall be lost, man departing to his eternal habitation, and the mourners going about in the street: before the silver chain be broken asunder, and the golden ewer be dashed in pieces; and the pitcher be broken at the fountain head; and the chariot be dashed in pieces at the pit; and the dust return to the earth, such as it had been; and the Spirit return to God, who gave it[74].”

The recital of evils (and infirmities) begins from the aberrations of the mind. The sun, says Solomon, and the light, and the moon, and the stars are darkened. Perceptions of the mind are less lively in old men; the ideas and images of things are confounded, and the memory decays: whence the intellectual faculties must necessarily lose their strength or power by degrees. Wisdom and understanding are frequently called light in the sacred scriptures;[75] and privation of reason, darkness and blindness.[76] Cicero likewise says very justly, that reason is as it were, the light and splendor of life.[77] Hence God is stiled the father of lights.[78] Thus the virtues of the mind decaying, may be compared to the luminaries of the world overcast. I am conscious that this exposition is contrary to that of a number of learned interpreters, who take this obscuration of the lights in the genuine sense of the words, and think that the failing of the sight is here to be understood. But I am surprized, how they happened not to take notice, that every thing in this discourse, even to the most minute circumstances, is expressed in words bearing a figurative sense. For whereas, in describing the infirmities of Old-age, the injuries of the operations of the mind, as the most grievous of all, were not to be pretermitted; so these could not be more clearly expressed, than by the obscuration of the coelestial luminous bodies, which rule our orb, and cause the vicissitudes of times and seasons. Moreover it is particularly to be observed here, that the author mentions the defects of sight lower down, and most certainly he would have avoided repeating the same thing.

But he goes on, and adds, what well agrees with the foregoing explanation. The clouds return after rain. That is, cares and troubles crowd on each other, and daily oppress aged folks. As in moist climates, and those liable to storms, even when the clouds seem to be exhausted, others soon follow, and the rains become almost perpetual. And these inconveniencies are felt the more sensibly, in proportion to the debilitation of the powers of the mind, whereby they are rendered less able now, than formerly, either to bear, or get the better of their oppressions.

But from the mind our royal author now passes to the body. The keepers of the house, says he, shall tremble, and the soldiers shall give way, and the diminished grinders shall cease. The limbs, and firmest parts of the body, are damaged by age: the hands and knees grow weak, thro’ the relaxation of the nerves. Hence those are rendered incapable of defending us against injuries, and of performing innumerable other good offices, for which they were originally intended; and these becoming unequal to the weight they were wont to sustain, lose their active suppleness, and fail in bending. Likewise the double teeth or grinders, either drop out, or rot away; so as now to be too few remaining to comminute solid food. In the translation of the Hebrew word, which I have here rendered by double teeth or grinders, I followed Arias Montanus, who, in my opinion, has translated it right. For it is in this passage used by the author in the plural number; who afterwards employs it in the singular, but in a quite different sense, when he treats of the sense of tasting; as I shall shew anon, when I come to that passage. For, that Solomon’s intention in this place was, to describe those defects of the senses, which generally steal on old-age, I have not the least doubt.

Wherefore now proceeding to them, he begins by the sight. Those, says he, that look thro’ holes shall be darkened. By which words it is manifest, that he points out the failing of the eyes, which most people, far advanced in years, feel by sad experience.

Next follows the taste, which he thus describes: The doors shall be shut outwardly, with a low sound of the mill. As old people, thro’ diminution of appetite, open their mouths seldomer than formerly; so for want of teeth to comminute their food, they do it with less noise. Now this last inconvenience seems to be meant and expressed very elegantly by the words a low sound of the mill: for by the word mill, which in the Hebrew is used in the singular number, the grinding of the food may very well be meant; and this grinding, as it is not done by the assistance of the teeth, which they have lost, but by that of the gums, is performed with less noise.

Sleep is the sweet soother of our labours, and the restorer of our exhausted strength. But the loss of appetite, and disgust to our food, generally robs us of this comfort. Hence subjoining this evil of old-age to the foregoing, he says: he shall rise up at the voice of the bird; that is, the old man is awaked at the cock’s first crowing. Wherefore his sleep is short and interrupted, tho’ his weakness would require longer rest.

But he returns to the senses, among which he gives the third place to hearing; for receiving the benefits of which the Creator gave us the use of ears. Now this is frequently diminished, and sometimes entirely taken away in old-age; which the royal author seems to indicate in the following words: The daughters of music shall be of no avail. For thus he thought proper to express the ears, to which at this time of life, not only the pleasure of harmonious sounds is sought in vain; but, what is much more disagreeable, the words in conversation are not easily understood: whereby the enjoyment, and one of the greatest conveniencies of life, are gradually lost. Hence in the jewish history, Barzillai, at eighty years of age, complains that he could no longer hear the voice of the singing men and singing women.[79]

These defects of the organs of hearing, are immediately followed by those of the sense of feeling. Now the touch, as Cicero says, is uniformly spread over the whole body; that we may feel all strokes and appulses of things.[80] Wherefore this sense, besides its other uses, contributes vastly to the safety of the body, and the removal of many evils, to which it is perpetually exposed. And this the sagacious author seems to have principally in view, when he says: They shall be afraid of high places, and stumblings in the way. For as old folks are unsure of foot, even in a plain smooth way, by reason of the weakness of their limbs; so when they come to a rugged uneven road, thro’ the dulness of this sense, they do not soon enough perceive the depressions or elevations of the ground whereby they run the hazard of stumbling and hurting their feet. Therefore they are not unjustly represented as being afraid.

The only one that remains of the senses is that of smelling, the diminution of which in old men, he describes with equal elegance and brevity in this manner: the almond tree shall flower. By which words he seems to mean, that old people, as if they lived in a perpetual winter, no longer perceive the agreeable odors exhaling from plants and flowers in the spring and summer seasons. That this tree flowers in winter, we learn from Pliny, who in treating of it says: The almond tree flowers the first of all trees, in the month of January.[81] I am not to learn, that these words are by most interpreters understood as relating to grey hairs, which being generally a sure token of old age, they would have us believe, are denoted by the white flowers of the almond tree. But then, who can imagine, that this wise author, after having indicated the defects of four of the senses, by clear and distinct marks, would designedly pass over the fifth in silence? Besides, white hairs are by no means to be esteemed a sure and indubitable token of old-age; since there are not a few to be found, who turn gray in the middle stage of life, before their bodily strength is any ways impaired. Moreover, what they say of the flowers of the almond tree, does not seem to agree with the things they mean by them: for they are not, strictly speaking, white, but of a purplish cast. Thus far concerning the senses: let us proceed to the remaining part.

The scrotal rupture is a disease common to persons far advanced in years; whether it be formed by the intestine or omentum slipping down into the scrotum, or proceed from a humor distending that part. In either case the part is tumefied. This pernicious disease the Preacher thought proper to compare to a grasshopper. The grasshopper, says he, shall be a burthen, Oneri erit locusta. For thus the Hebrew phrase is more literally translated, than by convenient cicadÆ, the cicadÆ shall come together, as the learned Castalio has rendered it. Indeed the Vulgate version has impinguabitur locusta, the grasshopper shall be fatted. The Septuagint ?a????? ? ?????. The grasshopper shall be fatted. The Arabic version, turned into Latin, pinguescet locusta, The grasshopper shall grow fat. But our English translation, The grasshopper shall be a burden. It is well known, that the Hebrew language is always modest, and that the sacred Writers, in expressing such things as belong to the genital members, abstain from indecent and obscene words, for fear of offending chaste ears, and therefore borrow similitudes from any other things at discretion. Which is particularly observable in the Canticum Canticorum, or Solomon’s Song, written by our Author. Now the grasshopper, or locust, is an odd-shaped animal, made up chiefly of belly; and therefore, especially when full of eggs, may be said to bear some resemblance to a scrotum, swoln by a rupture.

These parts being thus affected, the wise author adds, the appetite shall be lost; wherein he does not attend so much to the appetite for victuals, as for those other things, which are sought after in the vigor of life. For as the author of the Art of Love has rightly said: Turpe senilis amor[82].

That old people are crushed to death by so great a heap of evils and infirmities, and depart to their eternal habitation, to the grief of their friends, can be no matter of wonder. But in the remaining part of the discourse we are admonished, that their miseries in this life are not confined within these bounds, but that sometimes there is still an accession of others.

For loss of strength in old age does not terminate at the limbs, or extremities of the body; the spine of the back also loses considerably of its firmness, by the daily diminution of power in its muscles and ligaments: hence an old man can seldom stand upright, but stoops his body towards the earth, which is shortly to cover it. This part is likened to a silver chain, which is said to be broken asunder. For the vertebrÆ, of which it is composed, may be looked upon as the rings or links, and they give way outward by the bending of the body. Moreover the medulla oblongata, which passes through them, is of a silver or whitish colour.

These points, which we have hitherto handled, are very difficult of explanation. But the three inconveniencies, which close the discourse, are true Ænigma’s, and require an Oedipus to solve them. And as such an one, in my opinion, has not appeared hitherto, I will use my endeavours to do it. The golden ewer, says he, is dashed in pieces: the pitcher is broken at the fountain-head; and the chariot is dashed in pieces at the pit.

Old men are troubled with defluxions from the head to the nose, mouth and lungs; which are compared to water rushing out of a broken bottle or ewer. And the ewer is said to be of gold, to express the dignity of the head.

Nor does phlegm flow from the head alone; but other parts also pour forth their juices too abundantly or irregularly. For the serosities, which are secreted by the kidneys (whose cavity is even at this day named pelvis by Anatomists) runs into the bladder; which, by reason of the relaxation of its sphincter, as if the pitcher were broken at the fountain head, is not able to retain its contents a sufficient time. Hence an incontinence or dribbling of urine is continually troublesome.

Now, the evils hitherto enumerated lodge in particular parts; but the last calamity, both in this discourse, as well as in old people, is that the whole body is afflicted. The very course of the blood is interrupted; hence wretched man is seized with difficulty of breathing, apoplexies or lethargies. The heart also, the principle and fountain of life, sinks thro’ want of its usual force, and the broken chariot falls into the pit. The ancients indeed did not know of the circulation of the blood; but they could not be ignorant, that it was moved thro’ the body, that it cherished the viscera and members by its heat, and lastly, that it concreted and grew cold in death.

But nothing in this whole discourse is so much worthy of our serious attention as these words, with which he closes it. The dust returns to the earth, such as it had been; and the spirit returns to God, who gave it. For by these words his intention seems plainly to have been, to refute the ignorant notions of those, who thought that the soul perished with the body, and to assert its immortality.