CASEI.

loathed cheese; the grandfather could not even bear the smell of it. Meanwhile, my children, of whom eight are still living by the blessing of God, eat cheese most avidly and hold it among their delights, except for my second-born son. Because this antipathia antipathy is, as it were, hereditary to me, I have determined to inquire as accurately as I could for many years into everything, until at last I might find some cause, not perhaps entirely immediate and infallible, yet a general and probable one. Before I propose it, I wish first to inquire into the reasons that have come to the minds of others regarding this same ζήτημα question/problem.

§ V. And at the beginning, some, having taken into account the heavy smell that is so burdensome to the brain, which exhales from cheese—especially when it is putrid—thought that all those who do not find cheese pleasing in their diet are offended by it. It is as if that which strikes and offends the nostrils cannot also please the palate and be agreeable to it. But although I concede that putrid and stinking things are for the most part disgusting, and I acknowledge that Martialis was not altogether wrong when he railed against Bassa, a foul and smelly little harlot, in his book 4, Epigram 4, thus:

You would prefer that the dry marsh of a pool, or the mists of the raw Albula, smelled as you do, Bassa. You would prefer the smell of an old fishpond, or a sea breeze, or the smell of a pimp pressed into a small cap; or that of a tired soldier's cloak, or a garment twice stained with murex, or the fasting of Sabbath-observers, or the breath of mourning criminals, or the dirty torch of a dying lamp, or ointments made of Sabine dregs, or the flight of a fox, or the den of a viper.

Nevertheless, all grave smells cannot be placed in the same category as stinking things. For whatever is stinking must also be acknowledged as being corrupted by putrefaction, whereas things that are merely pungent—otherwise whole and free from all putrefaction and corruption—appear to smell bad only to the inexperienced. Thus, in common parlance, assa foetida a pungent resin is called such not because of a foul stench, but because of a heavier odor. Similarly, there are many things that have a strong smell and yet do not stink: for example, garlic, leeks, onions, aristolochia, and the roots of angelica and dittany, especially if they are burned; likewise the smoke of pitch and lard. Cheese should also be added to this number, which, although it smells strongly, does not stink in the same way. Hence, many of those very people who do not like cheese in their food testify that they are not in the least offended by its odor, a fact to which I myself can testify. And note