Book 17
12
But in his eulogy of fever he even produced Plato as a witness, declaring that the philosopher wrote Tim. 10, p. 86 A. that one who after suffering from quartan ague got well and recovered his full strength, would afterwards enjoy surer and more constant health. And in that same eulogy he made this quip, which, of a truth, is not ungraceful: The following lines, he says, have met with the approval of many generations of men: Hesiod, Works and Days, 825. Sometimes a day is like a stepmother, And sometimes like a mother. The meaning of the verses is that a man cannot fare well every day, but fares well on one day and ill on another. Since it is true, he says, that in human affairs things are in turn, now good, now bad, how much more fortunate is this fever which has an interval of two days, Owing to the Roman method of inclusive reckoning, the quartan ague, occurring on every fourth day, had an interval of two days; see Class Phil. viii. 1 ff. since it has only one stepmother, but two mothers!
13
How many and what varieties of meaning the particle quin has, and that it is often obscure in the earlier literature.
