Don’t Conceive While Drunk!

Plutarch, de liberis educandis, 2a:

“Those who go to bed with their wives for the sake of making children should do so while sober or at least only moderately intoxicated. For those whose fathers happened to be drunk at the moment of first sowing their seed tend to be wine-loving and prone to drunkenness. For this reason, when Diogenes saw a man raving and quite out of his mind, said, ‘Young man, your father must have begotten you when he was drunk!'”

τοὺς ἕνεκα παιδοποιίας πλησιάζοντας ταῖς γυναιξὶν ἤτοι τὸ παράπαν ἀοίνους ἢ μετρίως γοῦν οἰνωμένους ποιεῖσθαι προσήκει τὸν συνουσιασμόν. φίλοινοι γὰρ καὶ μεθυστικοὶ γίγνεσθαι φιλοῦσιν ὧν ἂν τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς σπορᾶς οἱ πατέρες ἐν μέθῃ  ποιησάμενοι τύχωσιν. ᾗ καὶ Διογένης μειράκιον ἐκστατικὸν ἰδὼν καὶ παραφρονοῦν “νεανίσκε” ἔφησεν, “ὁ πατήρ σε μεθύων ἔσπειρε.”

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