If a man has intercourse while standing he has attacks of trembling,⁴⁸ and this is what is termed ‘fire of the bones’.⁴⁹ What is the remedy for it? Flour of lentils and wine. A person should take all remedies when well-fed, but this remedy when he is hungry. A person should take all remedies when standing, but this remedy with one foot in the bed and the other on the ground [51a]. A person should take all remedies three times in three days,⁵⁰ but he should continue this remedy until he is cured.

footnotes: ⁴⁸ Convulsions or ague. ⁴⁹ Cf. Ber. 32a (Sonc. ed., p. 197), i.e. fever. ⁵⁰ This is the reading of GRA. V has ‘up to three hours and three times’.

He who is in the habit of taking black cumin will not suffer with pain of the heart. Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel said: Cumin is one of the sixty deadly poisons, and as for him who sleeps to the east of his store [of cumin], his blood is on his head.⁵¹, p. 264, n. 1, remarks, ‘The west wind will carry the odour to him with fatal results’ (Rashi). [There is no contradiction] because the former refers to when it is baked⁵² and the latter when it is not baked. If one eats cumin of the weight of a dinar his heart will be affected; so too if he eats forty eggs, forty nuts or a quarter of a log of honey.

footnotes: ⁵¹ Cf. Ber. 40a (Sonc. ed., p. 247). A. Cohen, Berakoth ⁵² Sprinkled on baked bread.

Likewise, if one eats fat beef⁵³ with vegetables on the night of the fourteenth and fifteenth of the month and sleeps in [the light of the full] moon in the summer solstice, his blood is on his head. If one has intercourse when drunk,⁵⁴ (Sonc. ed., p. 334). [his heart] will ultimately be affected; if both of them are drunk their hearts will be affected. If one has intercourse by the light of a lamp, he will have epileptic children. If one has intercourse sitting, he will be subject to diarrhoea. What is the remedy for it? Crocus of thorns. If he is below and she above he will be seized with convulsions;⁵⁵ he above and she below, this is the normal way of human beings; if the two of them lie facing one another, this is a form of perversion. R. Judah said: The bold-faced are [destined] to Gehinnom and the shamefaced to the Garden of Eden.⁵⁶

footnotes: ⁵³ Cf. Giṭ. 70a (Sonc. ed., p. 332) which omits ‘fat’. ⁵⁴ Giṭ. loc. cit. ⁵⁵ Giṭ. loc. cit. ⁵⁶ Cf. Aboth V, 23 (Sonc. ed., V, 20, pp. 73f).

The bold-faced, R. Eliezer said, is the bastard; the son of a niddah, said R. Joshua; R. ‘Aḳiba said: Both a bastard and the son of a niddah. The elders were once sitting in the gate when two young lads passed by; one covered his head and the other uncovered his head. Of him who uncovered his head R. Eliezer remarked that he is a bastard; R. Joshua remarked that he is the son of a niddah; R. ‘Aḳiba said that he is both a bastard and the son of a niddah. They said to R. ‘Aḳiba, ‘How did your heart induce you to contradict the opinion of your colleagues?’ He replied, ‘I will prove it concerning him’. He went to the lad’s mother and found her sitting in the market selling beans. He said to her, ‘My daughter, if you will answer the question which I will put to you, I will bring you to the World to Come’. She said to him, ‘Swear it to me’. R. ‘Aḳiba, taking the oath with his lips but annulling it in his heart, said to her, ‘What is the status of your son?’ She replied, ‘When I entered the bridal chamber I was niddah and my husband kept away from me; but my best man⁵⁷ had intercourse with me and this son was born to me’. Consequently the child was both a bastard and the son of a niddah. It was declared, ‘R. ‘Aḳiba showed himself a great man when he contradicted his teachers’. At the same time they added, ‘Blessed be the God of Israel, Who revealed His secret to R. ‘Aḳiba b. Joseph’.

footnotes: ⁵⁷ Both bridegroom and bride had ‘best men’, i.e. friends to attend to their interests(cf. Tosiftha Keth. I, 4).