on a fool (17:10). The fool is incorrigible and his folly well nigh ineradicable (27:22). Clearly, the fool’s failure to learn wisdom does not stem simply from the fact that he is a feckless kind of student. It stems from something much more deep-seated. In the first place, he just does not have an appetite for wisdom. Folly is much more to his taste (15:14). And even the effects of ‘food poison’, which might have taught him better, seem not to curb his appetite for it (26:11). Second, he does