魂

解説

付記

著名なる『聖人たちの気晴らし』の著者いわく―― 魂の本性については議論多し。 だが「体内のどこに宿るか」ほど争われたものはない。 私自身の信念はこうだ――魂は腹に座す。 この信仰により、長らく解けぬ真理を理解できる。 すなわち、大食漢こそ最も敬虔な人間であるということだ。 聖書は「腹を神とする」と記す。 ならば当然だ――彼は常に神を携えて信仰を新たにする。 誰よりも神の力と威厳を知るのは彼である。 真実、魂と胃袋は一なる神聖な存在だ。 ただしプロマシウスはその不死を否定したゆえに誤った。 彼は肉体死後に胃が朽ち果てるのを見たが、 その不滅の本質――すなわち「食欲」を知らなかった。 この食欲こそ死後も存続し、 この世で求めたものに応じて来世で報いを受ける。 庶民の不健康な食物を貪った食欲は永遠の飢餓に落ち、 高貴なる美食を求めた食欲は、 オルトラン、キャビア、テラピン、アンチョビ、フォアグラ―― そしてこの世で飲まれた最高のワインの霊を 永遠に噛み、永遠に喉を潤す。 これが私の信仰である。 だが悲しいかな、ローマ教皇もカンタベリー大主教も、 これを広めることには賛同されまい。

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Original

A spiritual entity concerning which there hath been brave disputation. Plato held that those souls which in a previous state of existence (antedating Athens) had obtained the clearest glimpses of eternal truth entered into the bodies of persons who became philosophers. Plato himself was a philosopher. The souls that had least contemplated divine truth animated the bodies of usurpers and despots. Dionysius I, who had threatened to decapitate the broad-browed philosopher, was a usurper and a despot. Plato, doubtless, was not the first to construct a system of philosophy that could be quoted against his enemies; certainly he was not the last.

Additional notes

Concerning the nature of the soul, saith the renowned author of Diversiones Sanctorum, "there hath been hardly more argument than that of its place in the body. Mine own belief is that the soul hath her seat in the abdomen—in which faith we may discern and interpret a truth hitherto unintelligible, namely that the glutton is of all men most devout. He is said in the Scripture to 'make a god of his belly' —why, then, should he not be pious, having ever his Deity with him to freshen his faith? Who so well as he can know the might and majesty that he shrines? Truly and soberly, the soul and the stomach are one Divine Entity; and such was the belief of Promasius, who nevertheless erred in denying it immortality. He had observed that its visible and material substance failed and decayed with the rest of the body after death, but of its immaterial essence he knew nothing. This is what we call the Appetite, and it survives the wreck and reek of mortality, to be rewarded or punished in another world, according to what it hath demanded in the flesh. The Appetite whose coarse clamoring was for the unwholesome viands of the general market and the public refectory shall be cast into eternal famine, whilst that which firmly though civilly insisted on ortolans, caviare, terrapin, anchovies, pates de foie gras and all such Christian comestibles shall flesh its spiritual tooth in the souls of them forever and ever, and wreak its divine thirst upon the immortal parts of the rarest and richest wines ever quaffed here below. Such is my religious faith, though I grieve to confess that neither His Holiness the Pope nor His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (whom I equally and profoundly revere) will assent to its dissemination."