Ebrietatis Encomium Part 17

CHAP. XXV.

BURLESQUE, RIDICULOUS, AND OUT-OF-THE-WAY THOUGHTS, AGAINST DRUNKENNESS.

It is reported that Gerson should say, That there was no difference between a man's killing himself at one stroke, or to procure death by several, in getting drunk.

Somebody has burlesqued this verse of Ovid[1]:--

Vina parant animos, faciuntque coloribus aptos.[1a]

And thus changed it,

Vina parant asinos, faciuntque furoribus aptos.

Cyneas[2] alluding to those high trees to which they used to fasten the vines, said one day, discoursing on wine, that it was not without reason that his mother was hanged upon so high a gibbet.

"[3]The diversion that people took heretofore in making one another drunk, appeared more heinous to St. Augustine than an a.s.sa.s.sination, for he maintained, that those who made any one drunk, did him greater injury than if they had given him a stab with a dagger.

"A Greek[4] physician once wrote a letter to Alexander, in which he begged him to remember, that every time that he drank wine, he drank the pure blood of the earth, and that he must not abuse it.

"[5]Some poets say, that it was the blood of the G.o.ds wounded in their battle with the giants.

"[6]The Severians in St. Epiphanius, hold, that it was engendered by a serpent, and it is for that reason that the vine is so strong. And the Encrat.i.tes, in the same author, imagine to themselves that it was the gall of the devil.

"Noah[7] in an hour of drunkenness," says St. Jerom, "let his body be seen naked, which he had kept covered for six hundred years."

[Footnote 1: Sphinx Theol. p. 682.]

[[Footnote 1a: Ovid, _Ars Amatoria_ 237.]]

[Footnote 2: Diver, cur. t. i. p. 141.]

[Footnote 3: Rep. des Lett. Janv. 1687. Art. I.]

[Footnote 4: Androcydes.]

[Footnote 5: Entret. de Voiture, et de Costar, Lett. 29.]

[Footnote 6: Lib. i. Heres. 47.]

[Footnote 7: Ep. ad Ocean.]

CHAP. XXVI.

A RIDICULOUS AVERSION THAT SOME HAVE TO WINE.

An aversion to wine is a thing not very common; and there are but a very few but will say with Catullus:--

"At vos quo lubet, hinc abite lymphae Vini pernicies."[a]

Pernicious water, bane to wine, be gone.

One should certainly be very much in the wrong to put in the number of those who had an aversion to wine the duke of Clarence. His brother, Edward the Fourth, prejudiced with the predictions of Merlin, as if they foretold, that one day that duke should usurp the crown from his children, resolved to put him to death, he only gave him the liberty to choose what death he would die of. The duke being willing to die a merry death, chose to be drowned in a b.u.t.t of Malmsey. Not unlike him on whom this epigram was made.

"[1]In cyatho vini pleno c.u.m musca periret; Sic, ait Oeneus, sponte perire velim."

In a full gla.s.s of wine expir'd a fly; So, said Oeneus, would I freely die.

But let us come in earnest to those who have really had an antipathy to wine. Herbelot[2], in his Bibliotheque Orientale, says, that there are some Mussulmans so superst.i.tious, that they will not call wine by its true name, which is Schamr and Nedibh; and that there are some princes amongst them that have forbidden the mentioning of it by express laws.

The reason of all this is, the prohibition of Mahomet to his followers, which enjoins them not to drink wine. The occasion of which prohibition is as follows: "[3]They say, that pa.s.sing one day through a village, and seeing the people in the mirth of wine embracing and kissing one another, and making a thousand protestations of friendship, he was so charmed with the sight, that he blessed the wine, as the best thing in the world. But that, at his return, observing the same place full of blood, and having been informed, that the same men whom he had seen before so merry, had, at last, changed their mirth into rage, and been fighting with their swords, he recalled his benediction, and cursed wine for ever, on account of the bad effects it produced."

It is one of the chief commandments amongst the Siameze, to drink no wine, nor any liquor that will procure drunkenness[4].

"[5]Drunkenness is detested in most parts of hot countries. It is looked upon there as infamous. The greatest affront you can give a Spaniard, is to call him drunkard. I have been a.s.sured, continues M. Bayle, a servant, if his master should call him so, might bring his action at law against him, and recover damages, though any other name he will suffer very patiently, and without any right of complaint of being injured in his reputation, as rogue, hang-dog, b----, &c."

Empedocles, we may well conclude, loved wine, which he called, Water putrified in wood.

[6]Amongst the Locrians, Seleucus had such an aversion to wine, that he forbad any one to drink it under pain of death, or even give it to the sick.

Apollonius Thyanaeus never drank any wine, no more than St. Fulgentius, bishop, S. Stephen, king of Poland, and cardinal Emeri.

"[7]The Severians, disciples of Severus, in the time of pope Sotherus, condemned absolutely wine, as a creature of the devil."

[8]The emperor Frederick the Third, seeing his wife barren, consulted the physicians upon the case; who told him, that if the empress would drink wine she might be fruitful. But he told them, like a simpleton as he was, That he had rather his wife should be barren and sober, than be fruitful and drink wine. And the empress, being informed of the wise answer of the imperial ninny-hammer, her husband, said full as wisely, That if she was to be put to her choice, to drink wine or die, she should make no manner of hesitation, but prefer death.

De nimia sapientia libera nos domine.

[[Footnote a: Catullus XXVII.5-6.]]

[Footnote 1: Rem. sur Rabel. t. iv. ch. 93.]

[Footnote 2: Page 777.]

[Footnote 3: Du Mont. Voyag. t. iii. let. 5.]

[Footnote 4: Chaumont Voyag. de Siam.]

[Footnote 5: Bayle Dict. t. ii. p. 1266.]

[Footnote 6: aelian, lib. ii. ch. 33.]