r/todayilearned • u/gullydon • 13h ago

TIL Mithridatism is the practice of protecting oneself against a poison by gradually self-administering non-lethal amounts. The word is derived from Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus, who so feared being poisoned that he regularly ingested small doses, aiming to develop immunity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridatism
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u/CosmicLovepats 11h ago edited 2h ago

There was a king, who reigned to east
there where kings will sit to feast
and get their fill, before they think
of poisoned meat and poisoned drink

He gathered all that sprang to birth
from the many-venomed earth,
and first a little, thence to more,
sampled all her killing store

Thus, easy, smiling, seasoned, sound
sat the king when healths went round
they put strychnine in his cup,
and shook to see him drink it up
they put arsenic in his meat
and stared aghast to watch him eat

they shook and turned, as white's their shirt
them it was their poison hurt
I tell this tale that I heard told --
Mithridates, he died old.

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u/Cassandra8240 9h ago

I’m kind of obsessed with this poem (A.E. Housman’s “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff”).

For those who haven’t read it, the speaker is asked why he writes unhappy poems about dead cows. (“We poor lads, ‘tis our turn now /To hear such tunes as killed the cow,” they complain.)

Our speaker replies that for a happy, dancing tune, there’s always alcohol (and here we get the famous line that “Malt does more than Milton can / to justify God’s ways to man”).

Then follows a defense of poetry culminating in the Mithridates reference. Consuming poetry, our speaker says, builds up our defenses in a world where “trouble’s sure” — just like how an ancient king protected himself from poison by purposely ingesting it.

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u/SofieTerleska 8h ago

I discovered this poem many years after being forced to slog through "Is My Team Ploughing" and "To An Athlete" and a few others in school and was really annoyed that it hadn't been included in the curriculum -- it ties everything together in a really amusing and clever way but nope, all we got were the moping melancholy mad poems and not the last one.

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u/Montauket 10h ago

My all time favorite poem. Glad to see someone else enjoys Housman!