The belly is an ungrateful wretch, it never remembers past favors, it always wants more tomorrow.

The line personifies hunger (or bodily appetite) as a perpetually dissatisfied “wretch,” stressing how physical needs quickly erase any sense of sufficiency. Even after being fed, the body “never remembers” and demands again, making gratitude and contentment difficult when one’s life is governed by scarcity or desire. Read in a moral key, it cautions against letting appetite—whether literal hunger or metaphorical craving—rule one’s judgment, since it is structurally incapable of being finally appeased. Read in a historical key, it resonates with the psychology of deprivation: when survival is at stake, the next meal eclipses yesterday’s relief.