Aphorisms of Hippocrates

TO THE FRIENDLY READER.

FRIENDLY Reader, I have always been of the opinion that a commentator has excellently fulfilled his duty when he has laid open the mind of the author whom he has undertaken to illustrate; and that those are the best interpreters who do this in few words and without digressions. For I know not how it is that the prolixity of some, while they burden the reader with a mass of ill-conceived little questions, is accustomed to blunt the edge of the mind and to retard the spirited course of the reader, and to drag the mind of the reader in a direction contrary to the plan and goal of the author whom they have undertaken to interpret; whose schools, indeed, might be called scholae kai diatribai kalos baireite. Wherefore, lest I, too, waste your time uselessly, I wished to follow the manner of the iosum? asini? Galen and the most learned Holerius, and those additional Duretian schools. For these, among all whom I have seen until now, have attained this praise. Therefore, in these commentaries, I have decided to imitate them; and to them I say openly, I owe much; for I have transferred many things from them to my own use. For as Flavius Albinius well said, the fruit of reading is that you emulate what you approve in others: and what you admire most in the sayings of others, you turn to your own use by an opportune derivation. Aphranius also, an illustrious poet, when he offered an answer to those who accused him of having taken many things from Menander, said: "I confess," he said, "I received them not only from him, but from whomever had what was suitable for me, and even from a Latin source, whatever I believed I could not do better myself." Virgil was not ashamed to transfer thousands of verses from Homer, and to imitate all the emotions: he who also [took] many things from Theocritus, Apollonius, and Hesiod