LIBER XV · CAPUT 26
THE CORNEL. THE LENTISK
Latine · Mayhoff 1906
quae cura et cornis atque etiam lentisco adhibetur. ne quid non hominis ventri natum esse videatur, miscentur sapores et alio alius placere cogitur; miscentur vero et terrae caelique tractus: in alio cibi genere India advocatur, in alio Aegyptus, Creta, Cyrene singulaeque terrae. nec cessat in veneficiis vita, dum modo omnia devoret. planius hoc fiet in herbarum natura.
English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57
The same degree of care is expended also on the cultivation of the cornel and the lentisk; that it may not be thought, forsooth, that there is anything that was not made for the craving appetite of man! Various flavours are blended together, and one is compelled to please our palates by the aid of another—hence it is that the produce of different lands and various climates are so often mingled with one another. For one kind of food it is India that we summon to our aid, and then for another we lay Egypt under contribution, or else Crete, or Cyrene, every country, in fact: no, nor does man stick at poisons even, if he can only gratify his longing to devour everything: a thing that will be still more evident when we come to treat of the nature of herbs.