_Pol._ All this has too much depth of meaning. Let us leave the subject.
_Scop._ Yes, indeed, and the whole discussion about bread! If there is so much difference of opinion about what is eaten with bread, how much discord there will be over every part of the menu of the whole meal!
_Crit._ It happens, forsooth, as Horace says:— Tres mihi convivae prope dissentire videntur, Poscentes vario multum diversa palato.[73] _Fruits_ _Scop._ Bring those dishes and plates with the cherries, plums, pomegranates, ripe fruit, and early ripe fruit.
_Pol._ Why did Varro say that the number of guests ought not to exceed the number of the Muses, when the number of the Muses is not settled? For some put the number at three; others six; others nine.
_Crit._ He spoke as if it were established that there were nine, and so it was commonly accepted.
Whence Diogenes made his joke at the expense of the schoolmaster, who had only a small number of scholars in the school, whilst he had the Muses painted on the walls.
The master, said he, has many scholars, if you reckon in the Muses (σὺν ταῖς μοῦσαις).
_Dem._ But is it true that the Persians introduced into Greece the fruit which they regarded as so deadly as to be a pestilence to those against whom they were waging war?
_Crit._ So I have heard.
_Dem._ How wonderful is the variety of products in the different nature of soils!
_Crit._ India sends ivory, says Vergil,[74] the effeminate Sabaeans their frankincense. Oh! look at those Persian quinces!
_Sim._ This is a new kind of grafting which the ancients did not know of. Reach me the bowl with the hard-skinned figs, which are, as you know, early ripe.
_Scop._ Enough of the fruits! Let us be filled with more healthful foods of the body.
_Crit._ What is, then, healthier?
_Scop._ Nothing, if to be health-giving and of good taste are the same thing as in a mid-day dream.
_Crit._ I forgive fruits their harmfulness on account of their pleasantness of taste.
_Meats_ _Scop._ Do you remember the verse of Cato?
Pauca voluptati debentur; plura saluti.[75] Give every one a platter of meat with sauce, so that he may swallow it down, and this will warm the intestines and pleasantly wash and so soften the body.
_Sim._ Here, boy, give me at once some salted pork. Oh!
most savoury leg of pork! It is a barrow-hog. If you can hear what I say, return the cabbage and bacon, to the cook, at this season of the year, or preserve it till the winter. Cut me a couple of bits off this sausage, so that the first cup of wine may taste the sweeter.
_Crit._ Let us follow the advice of physicians that wine be taken with pork. Pour out wine.
_Wine_ _Scop._ Now follows action after talk. Surely this is wisest at this time of the year. Look at the necessary preparations for our drinking wine. First of all the keeper of the sideboard (_custos abaci_) has set out the cups of brightest crystal glass with purest white wine; you would think it water by its mere appearance. It is San Martin wine and partly Rhein wine, but not mixed as they are accustomed to drink it in Belgium, but such as they drink in mid-Germany. The wine-seller to-day has tapped two casks, one of yellow Helvell from the neighbourhood of Paris, and one of blood-red Bordeaux.
Others are in readiness kept cool, dark (_fuscus_) from Aquitaine and black from Saguntum. Let every one choose according to his liking.
_Crit._ What suggestion could be more delightful? as nothing is harder fortune than to perish of thirst.
For myself I should prefer that you had set before us the best water. I would rather have heard such an announcement than that of the wines.
_Scop._ Nor shall that be lacking.
_Sim._ Lately when I was in Rome, I drank at a cardinal’s house, the noblest wines of every flavour; sweet, sharp, mild, fruity, and tart. I was indeed extremely friendly with the wine-cellarer.
_Dem._ I dearly like fiery wine.
_Pol._ So also do Belgian women. In some places in France they offer you the dregs of wine. They most delight in two and three year old vintage. But these are rather sampling of wine than real wine-drinking, and French wine especially bears neither the addition of water nor years. Therefore soon after it is racked off it is drunk.
Indeed, in a year it begins to get worse, and becomes uncertain, then its flavour escapes and it becomes sour.
Had it been kept longer it would become mouldy and flat.
The Spanish and Italian wines, on the other hand, improve with age, and with the addition of water.
_Dem._ What do you mean by wine getting “flat”? The casks become shrunken, the wine is enclosed in cells, and the casing of the cask falls in, if need be.
_Pol._ Like as fruit gets uneatable through decay by age and does not keep, and, as we say commonly, goes bad. The opposite term is “still wine” (_consistens_).
_Dem._ Pour me first a half-cupful of water and then pour in the wine, after the old custom.
_Crit._ Nay, to-day’s custom is yet the same with many people, the French and Germans being exceptions.
_Dem._ The nations who drink water with wine pour wine to the water; those who will drink wine watered, pour water on to the wine.
_Crit._ And what do those drink who mix no water with their wine?
_Dem._ Pure, unmixed wine.
_Crit._ That is, if the wine-dealer did not first water it himself.
_Pol._ They call that baptising it, so that the wine should be Christian. This was in my time a fine, philosophical way of speaking.
_Dem._ They baptise the wine, and themselves are unbaptised (_i.e._, unwatered or unwashed).
_Pol._ They do worse to wine who add chalk, sulphur, honey, alum, and other more noisome things than which nothing is more pernicious to one’s body. Against such people the state ought to proceed as against robbers or assassins. For thence are incredible kinds of diseases and especially gout.
_Crit._ By conspiracy with physicians they can do this.
Then both share the profit.
_Dem._ The cup you reach to me is too full. Empty it a little, I beg, so that there may be a space for water.
_Drinking_ _Crit._ Pour me wine in that chestnut-coloured cup. What is that?
_Scop._ A great Indian nut, surrounded with a silver edge. Won’t you drink out of that bowl of ebony wood?
They say that this is the healthiest. But don’t give me too much water. Don’t you know the old proverb: “You spoil wine when you pour water into it”?
_Dem._ Yes, then you spoil both the water and the wine.
_Pol._ I would rather spoil both, than be spoiled by one of them.
_Scop._ Would it not be pleasant, according to the Greek custom, to drink out of the bowls and from the bigger beakers?
_Pol._ By no means. You reminded us just now of the old proverb. In my turn I remind you of the Pauline precept: “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess”; and that of our Saviour: “And take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness.”
_Water_ _Crit._ Whence is this cold water, so pure and pellucid?
_Scop._ Out of the spring near by here.
_Crit._ Rather than mixing of wine I prefer cistern water, if it is thoroughly pure.
_Dem._ What do you think of spring-drawn water?
_Crit._ It is more appropriate for washing purposes than for drinking.
_Pol._ Very many people commend flowing water.
_Crit._ And quite rightly if the streams flow through gold veins, as in Spain, and the water is peaceful and clear.
_Beer_ _Sim._ Bring me in that Samian phial some beer which, in this heat, should be very good for refreshing one’s body.
_Scop._ Which sort of beer will you have?
_Sim._ The lightest you have, for other kinds muddle the mind too much and make the body too fat.
_Pol._ Give me some also, but in the round glass.
_Scop._ Run to the kitchen and see what they are waiting for. Why don’t they send another course? You see that already no one further tastes of this. Bring young cocks cooked with lettuce, garden oxtongue, and endive; also mutton and calf’s flesh.
_Crit._ Add also a little mustard or rock-parsley in small dishes.
_Dem._ Mustard seems to me a strong (_violenta_) food.
_Crit._ It is not suitable for bilious people, but is not without its usefulness for those who abound in thick and cold humours.
_Pol._ Therefore are the countries of northern latitudes wise in using it, for whom it is of great service, especially with thick and hard food, _e.g._, with beef and salted fish.
_Pottage_ _Scop._ In this place, I think broth and rice come seasonably, also ash-coloured bread, fine wheaten bread, every one take according to his taste.
_Dem._ I have seen those who shuddered terribly at “little worms” because they believed they were out of the earth and from mud, and had previously been alive.
_Crit._ Such people deserve to have these “worms” come to life again in their stomachs. They say that rice is born in water and dies in wine. Give me, therefore, wine.
_Dem._ Drink not immediately after warm food. Eat first something cold and solid.
_Crit._ What?
_Dem._ A crust of bread, or a rissole or two of meat.
_Fish_ _Sim._ Bah! fish and meat at the same sitting! To mix earth and sea. This is forbidden by physicians.
_Scop._ Nay, rather physicians are pleased by it.
_Sim._ I think it is because it is profitable to them.
_Scop._ Why, then, do the physicians forbid it?
_Sim._ I have made a mistake. I ought to have said that it is prohibited by the art of medicine, not by physicians. But what sort of fish is this?
_Scop._ Place them in order. The first is roasted pike with vinegar and capers, then turbot cooked with the juice of pointed sorrel, fried soles, a fresh pike and for yourself—fresh roasted and salted tunny-fish, fresh _maenae_ (small sea fish) fried, pasties, in which are many bearded-fishes, _murenae_, and trout, with suitable relishes, fried gudgeon and boiled lobsters and crabs.
Mingle with them dishes with garlic, pepper, mustard, pounded up.
_Sim._ I will indeed speak of the fish, but not eat of them.
_Crit._ If a philosopher begins to conduct a controversy on fish, _i.e._, on a most uncertain, debatable question, then let us have a bed set up, so that we can sleep here.
_Scop._ No one is worthy to even taste these dishes. Take them away.
_Sim._ And yet formerly banquets at Rome were most splendid and they were accustomed to say that sumptuous ones were given which consisted entirely of fish.
_Crit._ Thus have times changed, although this custom also lasts with some people.
_Birds_ _Scop._ Bring up roasted chickens, partridges, thrushes, ducklings, teal, wood-pigeons, rabbits, hares, calf’s flesh, kids, and sauce or flavours, vinegar, oil, fruit penetrating in its medical properties, also citrons, olives from the Balearic Islands, preserved, pressed, and kept in pickle.
_Dem._ Are no Bethica (district of Spain) olives there?
_Scop._ Those from the Balearic Islands taste better.
_Crit._ What will happen to those big animals there, the goose, the swan, the peacock?
_Scop._ Merely show them, and take them back to the kitchen.
_Pol._ See there a peacock! Where is Q. Hortensius who held a peacock for such a delicacy?[76] _Sim._ Take the lamb-meat away.
_Scop._ Why?
_Sim._ Because it is unsound. They say it does not go out by any other way than that it entered.
_Crit._ I have seen someone who swallowed olive stones like an ostrich.
_Scop._ From what meat are those pasties made?
_Crit._ This here is stag’s flesh.
_Scop._ This is deer’s flesh; and that there, I believe, is boar’s flesh.
_Crit._ I prefer the condiments to meat itself.
_Sim._ And that is clearly right, for spice renders the sourest things sweet.
_Crit._ What is the spice of the whole of life?
_Dem._ An equable mind.
_Crit._ I can name something else, which is of larger scope and more august.
_Dem._ What can be more important than what I have named?
_Crit._ _Pietas_, under which equanimity is included.
Moreover, “piety” is the most suitable and pleasant sauce for all things hard and easy, and those things which lie between these extremes.
_Scop._ Pour white Spanish wine in that beaker and bear it round to the guests.
_Dem._ What are you preparing to do? When dinner is finished, bring us some strong and generous wine. We can afterwards drink something more diluted, if we wish to take care of our health.
_Sim._ Thy counsel seems to me good, for it behoves us to have colder food at the end of a meal, which by its weight may thrust down the other food to the bottom of the stomach, and may restrain the vapours from escaping to the head.
_Scop._ Take away those things; change the round and square plates, and lay the second table (dessert). For no one is anywhere further stretching forth his hand to the dishes.
_Crit._ I have eaten so heartily from the beginning that I have quite lost all further appetite.
_Dem._ I also have no more appetite, but I was led on by the desire of the fruit dishes here, and so have eaten to satiety.
_Pol._ I have eaten I don’t know how much fish. This has repulsed all my appetite.
_Sim._ And is there so much of splendid dainties and delicacies before us when there is no longer the desire of eating? Pears, apples, and cheese of many kinds! The most attractive to my palate is the horse-cheese.
_Crit._ I believe that it is not horse-cheese at all, but Phrygian cheese from asses’ milk, such as is brought from Sicily in the form of columns and squares. When one is broken, it cleaves into layers or, as it were, sheets (of paper).
_Dem._ This cheese is porous as if it were from England, and will not in my opinion be pleasing to you.
_Crit._ Nor will this spongy Dutch cheese. This from Parma is thicker and, as it seems, fairly fresh, and that Penasellian (Spanish) will easily vie with it.
_Dem._ This cheese is not from Parma but Placentia.
_Crit._ It also is pleasant. Commonly the cheese dearest to the Germans is old cheese, putrid, fried up and wormy.
_Sim._ He who eats such cheese is hunting for thirst and he eats in order to drink.
_Scop._ The pastry-cook delays too long with his sweets.
Why does he not bring his tarts, his wine-cakes and cup-cakes and the fried cakes made of a concoction thrown into a vessel of boiling oil with honey poured over it?
_Crit._ Give me a few dates, both some to eat and some to keep by me. Perhaps I shall to-night eat nothing else.
_Scop._ Then take the whole of this branch of them. Will you have some pomegranates?
_Pol._ Here, boy, relieve me of these wild dates and give me something eatable.
_Scop._ I advise you to drink. Don’t you know that it was the opinion of Aristotle that the dessert was introduced into meals to invite us to drinking lest the food should be digested dry?
_Crit._ The discoverer must have been either a sailor or fish to be so much afraid of dryness.
_Scop._ Take away those things which are ordinarily called the seal of the stomach, because after them nothing more is to be eaten or drunk, biscuits, quince-cakes, coriander covered with sugar. But such food must be chewed, not eaten. What remains from the portion chewed must be spit out, for it is uneatable. Collect the bits and what remains over in baskets; bring scented waters, of rose, of the flowers of the healing apple (citron), and of musk-melon.
IV. _End of the Banquet_ _Pol._ Let us return thanks to Christ.
_The Boy._ Agimus tibi gratias, Pater, qui tam multa ad hominum usus condidisti: annue, ut tuo favore ad coenam illam veniamus tuae beatitudinis.[77] _Pol._ Now then let us return thanks to the host.
_Crit._ Well, you do it.
_Pol._ Nay, rather Democritus, who is strong on these points.
_Dem._ I cannot return thanks as in duty bound to thee, deserving well of the republic, for all has been confused by Bacchus, but I will recite what once Diogenes said to Dionysius; I have committed his speech to memory. If I have a lapse of memory or a faltering tongue you will forgive me after so great a soaking of drink.
_Scop._ Say what you will; it will be written in wine.
_Dem._ Thou hast, my Scopas, thyself, thy wife, thy man-servants and maid-servants, neighbours, cooks, and pastry-cooks, wearied thyself and themselves, so that we may become yet more wearied by eating and drinking. When Socrates had entered a very crowded market, he exclaimed wisely, “O immortal gods, how many things there are here which I don’t need.” Thou, on the contrary, mightest say, “What a small part is all this of that which I need.” The idea of moderation is pleasing to Nature. Thereon it is formed and supported. This supply of many and manifold things overwhelms Nature, as Pliny rightly observes.
Manifoldness of food is injurious to man; yet more injurious is every sauce. We take hence to our homes bodies made heavy by these things, minds oppressed and sunk in food and drinks, so that we cannot duly perform any human duty. Do you yourself point out what thanks we owe you.
_Scop._ Are these the thanks you have for me? Thus you pay back so splendid a meal!
_Pol._ Clearly it is so—for what greater benefit is there than becoming wiser? You send us home evidently beasts. We wish to leave you at home a man, so that you may know how to consult your own health and that of others and to live conformably to the desires of Nature, not following fancies caught up from folly. Farewell and learn wisdom.
XVIII ASOTUS, TRICONGIUS, ABSTEMIUS, GLAUCIA In this dialogue Vives describes the causes and effects of drunkenness.
The occasion of the dialogue is based on Horace, book i. Epist. 5, where firstly is described the desire to cast away care by a splendid feast, to drink the best wines freely and in quantities, for Horace says: Potare et spargere flores Incipiam patiarque vel inconsultus haberi.
Then he adds the seven effects of drunkenness. It causes the disclosure of secrets, renders men confident, makes them bold, takes away anxiety, brings the fatuous impression of wisdom, makes men garrulous and loquacious, and in the depth of poverty renders men dissolute and lavish.
Quid non ebrietas designat? operta recludit: Spes jubet esse ratas, in praelia trudit inermem.
Sollicitis animis onus eximit, addocet artes.
Foecundi calices quem non fecêre disertum?
Contractâ quem non in paupertate solutum?
Here, again, names of interlocutors are aptly applied. Asotus (middle vowel long) is a man given up to luxuries of the palate. In Latin such is called _heluo_ (glutton), _nepos_ (spendthrift), _decoctor_ (bankrupt). The Greek word comes from a privative particle, and σώζω; in mensam vomant, et qui de conviviis auferantur, crudique nostridie se rursus ingurgitent; qui solem (ut aiunt) nec occidentem unquam viderint, nec orientem: qui consumtis patrimoniis egeant. Nemo istius generis asotos jucunde putat vivere.”
Concerning Tricongius we have spoken in the dialogue “Garrientes.”
Abstemius is one who does not drink wine, as if held back, _i.e._ from wine. There are two parts to the dialogue, the Exordium, which contains the occasion of the dialogue, and Narratio, the telling of the story.
I. _Exordium_ _Asot._ What do you say, Tricongius? How splendidly that Brabantian entertained us yesterday!
_Tric._ A curse on him, for I could not rest the whole night! I was sick, with all due respect to you let me say it (_sit habitus honos vestris auribus_), and then tossed myself about all over the bed, now on the inner, then on the outer, frame of the bed. It seemed to me as if I should vomit forth throat and stomach. Even now I cannot use my eyes or ears for headache. It is as if I had heavy bars of lead lying on my forehead and eyes.
_Asot._ Fasten a band round your forehead and temples, and you will seem to be a king.
_Tric._ Much rather like Bacchus himself, from whom the institution of diadems on kings was derived.
_Asot._ Go home, then, and sleep off the soaking.
_Tric._ Home, indeed! There is no place I should shun so much as my home. I should feel too much aversion to meet my shrieking wife. For if she were to see me now she would entertain me with longer homilies than Chrysostom.
_Abstem._ And this is what you call being treated splendidly!
_Glauc._ Clearly so; for your throat and stomach have been well washed!
_Abstem._ And the hands too?
_Glauc._ Not even once.
_Asot._ Nay, on the contrary, often with wine and milk, whilst we dipped our hands in one another’s bowls (_pateras_).
_Glauc._ What could be said more splendidly? Fancy the fingers sticking with the fat of meat and with sauces.
_Abstem._ By the gods, keep quiet! Who could listen without nausea to the unclean business, much less look upon it, or taste of such wine or milk.
_Asot._ By your faith, ye gods! are you so delicate a man, Abstemius, that you cannot swallow this even with your ears? What would you do with your palate, if you were like us? But listen to me, Tricongius, sweetest fellow-wine-bibber, let us send some boy to fetch us some of the same wine in that clay vessel. There is no surer antidote against this poison.
_Tric._ Has this been tried?
_Asot._ Why should it not be so? Don’t you remember the verses which Colax sings:— Ad sanandum morsum canis nocturni, Sume ex pilis eiusdem canis.[78] PLAUTUS.
_Glauc._ Tell us, I beg you, all about the banquet.
_Abstem._ Nay, don’t! unless you wish me to part with all I have in my stomach, and even the vitals themselves.
_Glauc._ Then go away for a short time.
_Asot._ I will tell you as frankly as possible, but so as nowhere to go beyond the limits of decency.
_Glauc._ Begin, I beseech you. Give your attention, Abstemius.
_Asot._ My dear Glaucia, before everything, I am of opinion that there is no class of men which can be likened to festive and liberal hosts at banquets. Some show knowledge of all kinds of things, _i.e._, of mere trifles; others show with pride, experience, and wisdom gathered from practice. And what of this? There are people who indeed have wealth, but, wretched that they are, they don’t dare to spend it. What they have, they take pleasure in storing up. A kindly host is everywhere of use, everywhere is welcome. The very sight of him is sufficient to heal the sadness of the mind and scatter it; and if a man has any wretchedness, the memory of the feast takes it away. So, too, does the hope and expectation of a coming feast. All the other so-called mental blessings I don’t care to look on; they are, to me, slight and unfruitful.
_Abstem._ I ask you, Asotus, who is the author of such a fine sentiment?
_Asot._ I and all like me, _i.e._, a host of people from Belgic France, from the Seine to the Rhine. There are only a few poor and very sparing men who think differently, who envy Abstemius his name, and wish to be called frugal, or else certain distinguished people who are puffed up with a great opinion of their own wisdom, _i.e._, an empty word, whom we (_i.e._, the greatest and chief part of mankind) simply laugh at.
_Abstem._ What do I hear?
_Digression_ _Glauc._ He is quite right, though he is drunk. For nowhere has scholarship less estimation than in Belgium.
A distinguished man in scholarship is not otherwise esteemed than one who is occupied in shoe-making or in weaving.
_Abstem._ And yet there are many students here who make not altogether unsatisfactory progress.
_Glauc._ Yes. Little boys are led by their parents to the schools as to an operative shop, by which afterwards they can derive a living. The very teachers themselves, incredible to say, as little as the pupils, cherish the occupation they follow with such slight honour and with such meagre reward, so that illustrious teachers of the first rank can scarcely maintain themselves.
_Asot._ This has nothing to do with the subject of our conversation. Let us return to the banquet.
_Glauc._ Yes, I would rather hear about that, but dismiss this talk about studies, which are certainly unfruitful.
I know not how you Italians think about scholarship.
In my eyes, it seems to me not only useless but even pernicious (_damnosa_).
_Abstem._ So it seems to an ox and a pig, as it does to you. We, too, should think the same if we had not more intelligence than you.
II. _The Exposition (Narratio)_ _Asot._ If we let you go on, there would be no end.
Therefore, listen. First, we all of us reclined, severe and serious. Grace was said, and everywhere was silence and quiet. Every one began to get his knife ready. We put on the appearance not of eagerness but of restraint (_non invitatorum sed invitorum_), so that you would have said that we were compelled to eat, and in the act of eating, did it as if reluctantly, for our mind had not as yet warmed with the ardour of spontaneity. Each one placed his napkin over his shoulders; some indeed in front of their chests. Others spread the tablecloth over their knees. One takes bread, looks at it, cleans it, if there is any coal or cinders lining it. All these things are done gently and lingeringly (_cunctabunde_).
_Cause_ Some began the meal by drinking; others, before they drank, took a little salad and salted beef to arouse their sleeping appetite and to stimulate their languor.
The first cup was of beer, so that there might be a cold, firm foundation underlaid for the warmth of wine. Then that holy liquor was brought first in narrow and small cups, which should rather irritate than assuage thirst.
The host was a very festive man, than whom there was none better in the whole neighbourhood, nor even his equal, _i.e._, in my opinion (which may be said without injury to any one). He then orders the largest of cups to be brought and a beginning was made of drinking liberally, after the Greek fashion, as a certain Philo-Greek said, who once had studied at Lyons. Then we began to talk, and then to get warm. Everywhere joviality and laughing became general. Oh, feasts and nights of the gods! We drank to one another’s health, and returned like for like, with great equity. It would have been unjust to gain a point over one’s companion, especially at such a time.
_Abstem._ Rightly, if it were merely a question of a chalice of wine, but it is one’s senses and intellect which are in question, the chief possessions of man. But if we are to talk over so copious and festive a subject, first I must ask of you whether you are drunk?
_Asot._ No, certainly not. This you can easily and truly see from the connectedness of my talk. Do you think, if I were drunk, that I could relate all this in such an orderly fashion?
_Abstem._ Then it is well, for otherwise I should be contending with an absent opponent, according to the verse of Mimus. But tell me now, first, why don’t you erect a temple in these parts to Bacchus, the discoverer of this celestial liquor?
_Asot._ This is your business; you, who have a temple at Rome of Sergius and Bacchus. It is sufficient for us daily to follow his rites, wherever we are. And perchance we should erect a temple for him if it were settled he was the discoverer, for I have heard certain students debate the question. There are some who think that Noah was the first who drank wine and was intoxicated by it.
_Abstem._ Let us leave that point! Tell us what wine you had.
_Asot._ What concerns us is what sort of wine it is and whence it came. Let it only have the name and colour of wine, that is sufficient for us. For these delicacies in wines let the Frenchman and the Italian seek.
_Abstem._ What enjoyment can there then be if you don’t at all taste what you are pouring into your body?
_Tric._ Perchance some taste something at the beginning with the palate whole. But when it becomes palled from so great a superfluity, things lose all their taste.
_Abstem._ If thirst has been quenched, no pleasure remains. For this consists only in the satisfaction of natural needs. So it is a kind of torment to go on drinking when there is no thirst, or to eat when there is no hunger.
_Tric._ Don’t you think, then, Abstemius, that we drink for pleasure or because it is pleasant?
_Abstem._ Then you are so much worse than beasts, who are controlled by natural desires, whilst reason does not govern you, nor nature exercise a control over you.
_Tric._ Good fellowship leads us to that point; and in spite of reason we get drunk little by little.
_Abstem._ How often have you been drunk? how often do you see others drunk?
_Tric._ Every day, very many.
_Abstem._ Don’t then so many experiments satisfy you so as to put you on your guard against so disgraceful an event? Even one such experience would suffice for an animal!
_Glauc._ But do you know also how dear our companions are, for whose sake men become beasts? Whilst drinking they would give their very hearts for them. When they meet afterwards, they hardly know them! Their very life and soul they would not redeem for the sum of a sesterce.
_Abstem._ Out of what sort of cups and how did you quaff the wine?
_Asot._ In the first place there were brought glass cups; a little time afterwards, on account of the danger, these were taken away and silver ones presented. In the wine at first we put herbs, which the season of the year provided, a little time afterwards, flesh-broth, milk, butter, and pap.
_Abstem._ Oh, filth, which would not be borne by animals!
_Tric._ How much more tragically (τραγικὼτερον) you would call out if you knew that they plunged their dirty hands into one another’s wine and cast in the shells of eggs, fruit and nuts, and the stones of olives and prunes.
_Abstem._ Cease from this description, if you don’t wish me to take myself off hence to some woods.
_Tric._ Listen to me, Glaucia. I will speak in your ear.
Some people carry a hunting-bugle when taking a journey, which is full of dust, straws, fluff, and other dirty things. Out of this we drank.
_Glauc._ What?
_Tric._ What, indeed? wine?
_Glauc._ Nay, rather say your understanding.
_Tric._ Clearly it is so. And after we had drunk the understanding we took pots (_matuli_), not altogether clean, from off a stool and used them for cups.
_Effects_ _Abstem._ How ended the banquet—the story of which sounds like a fable?
_Asot._ The floors swam with wine. We were all drunk, especially the host, a strong man. Two or three were lying down under the table, overcome by a great victory.
_Abstem._ O glorious victory, and in a very beautiful and glorious conflict! But did wine overcome every one?
_Asot._ Even so.
_Abstem._ Wretched man, what do you think drunkenness is?
_Asot._ A fine thing! It is to give oneself up to one’s genius.
_Abstem._ Yes, but which genius, your good one or your bad one?
_Glauc._ If you will rightly look into all these matters, you will never find which genius they give themselves up to. For it is neither to the heart, nor to pleasure, nor any other cause for which others indulge, who follow vices and the depraved desires of the mind. To be drunk is different. It is to lose the power of the senses, to go away from the power of reasoning, of judgment; clearly, from being a man to become either cattle or, indeed, a stone. What follows afterwards I can easily imagine, had I never seen a drunkard; to speak, and not to know what you are saying; if any secret, of especial importance not to be divulged, is committed to you, to blab it out, and to say things which may lead into grave danger yourself, your people, and often your whole province and fatherland, to have no discrimination of friend and foe, of wife and mother—and it leads to quarrels, contentions, enmities, snares, wounds, maiming, killing!
_Tric._ Even without sword and blood, for not a few pass on from drunkenness to death.
_Glauc._ Who would not prefer to be shut up at home with a dog or a cat than with a drunkard? For those animals have more intellect in them than the drunkard.
_Abstem._ After the drunkenness follows indigestion, weakening of the nerves, paralysis, the tortures of gout, heaviness in the head and the whole body, dulness of all the senses; memory is extinguished; the sharpness of the intellect is stunned; thence there is a stupor in the whole mind which precludes intelligence, wisdom, and eloquence.
_Asot._ Now I begin to understand what a serious evil drunkenness is; henceforward, I will take the keenest pains to drink up to the point of cheerfulness, not to that of drunkenness.
_Glauc._ Joviality is the gate of drunkenness. No one comes to be drunk with the idea in his mind that he will get drunk; but he is exhilarated by drinking; then going on and on, drunkenness follows afterwards, for it is difficult to place the bounds of joviality and to remain in it. Slippery is the step from joviality to drunkenness!
_Abstem._ So long as thou hast the wine in the beaker, it is in thy power; when thou hast it in thy body, thou art in the power of the wine. Then you are held and do not hold. When you drink, you treat wine as you like. When you have drunk, it will treat you as it likes.
_Asot._ What then? Are we never to drink?
_Abstem._ When fools avoid their vices, they run into the opposite extremes. We must, indeed, quench thirst, but not be “drinkers.” Nature on this point teaches beasts alone. The same nature will not teach man, because he possesses reason. You eat when you are hungry; you drink when you are thirsty. Hunger and thirst will warn you how much, when, to what extent, we must eat and drink.
_Asot._ What if I am always thirsty, and if I cannot assuage my thirst except by getting drunk?
_Abstem._ Then drink what cannot possibly make you drunk.
_Asot._ The constitution of my body won’t permit that.
_Abstem._ If then you had such hunger that by no amount of food you could satisfy it unless you were to burst yourself, what then?
_Asot._ That indeed would not be hunger, but disease.
_Abstem._ There would surely be need of medicine, not meals, to take away that hunger, wouldn’t there?
_Asot._ Certainly.
_Abstem._ So needest thou for such a thirst a physician, not an inn-keeper, and a drug from the chemist, not one fetched from the providers of banquets. What you describe is not thirst but disease, and a perilous one, too!
XIX AGRIUS, SOPHRONIUS, HOLOCOLAX