[p. 367] Taurus and had asked him what he thought about that reason which had been assigned, he answered: “He has told us properly and truly what happens when the blood is diffused or concentrated, but he has not told us why this takes place. For the question may still be asked why it is that shame diffuses the blood and fear contracts it, when shame is a kind of fear and is defined by the philosophers as 'the fear of just censure.' For they say: αἰσχύνη ἐστὶν φόβος δικαίου ψόγου.”
VII
[7arg] The meaning of obesus and of some other early words.THE poet Julius Paulus, a worthy man, very learned in early history and letters, inherited a small estate in the Vatican district. He often invited us there to visit him and entertained us very pleasantly and generously with vegetables and fruits. And so one mild day in autumn, when Julius Celsinus and I had dined with him, and after hearing the Alcestis of Laevius read at his table were returning to the city just before sunset, we were ruminating on the rhetorical figures and the new or striking use of words in that poem of Laevius', and as each word occurred that was worthy of notice with reference to its future use by ourselves, 1 we committed it to memory. Now the passages which then came to mind were of this sort: 2
Of chest and body wasted (obeso) everywhere,
Of mind devoid of sense and slow of pace,
With age o'ercome.
