17
Abstain from beans; means that a man should keep out of politics, for beans were used in earlier times for voting upon the removal of magistrates from office. A form of recall (ἀποχειροτονία); cf. Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, chap. 61.
17
Do not put food into a slop-pail; signifies that it is not fitting to put clever speech into a base mind. For speech is the food of thought, and baseness in men makes it unclean.
17
Do not turn back on reaching the boundaries; that is, when people are about to die and see the boundary of their life close at hand, they should bear all this with serenity and not be faint-hearted.
