Tag: Wine

How Many Drinks?

Because Tuesday is the New Thursday….

Athenaeus, Deipnosophists Book 2 36a-d (=Adesp. com. fr. 101 and Eubulus fr. 93)

Mnêsitheos used to say, “the gods taught mortals
About wine because it is the greatest good
For those who use it correctly, and the opposite for those who don’t.
It gives sustenance to those who use it well,
Strength to their minds and their bodies.
It is also extremely useful for medicine,
Since it is mixed in with other drugs
And provides relief to those who have been wounded.
It also helps in daily gatherings it brings joy
To those who mix it and drink it wisely.
But to those who are excessive it brings outrage.
If you mix it evenly with water, it makes you crazy.
Unmixed, it paralyzes bodies.

“For this reason, Dionysus is called a doctor everywhere. The Pythia told some people to call Dionysus the “Healer”. Euboulos (fr. 93) has Dionysus saying this:

“I prescribe only three bowls of wine
For people of good sense. One is for health,
to drink first. The second is for
Sex and pleasure, and the third is for sleep—
Those who are wise drain that bowl and then
Go home. The fourth isn’t mine any more,
But it belongs to Hubris. And a fifth bowl leads to shouting;
A sixth bowl to street-parties; a seventh for brawls;
An eighth’s for getting arrested; the ninth makes dark bile.
And the tenth is madness to make you hurl […]
A lot of wine poured into a little bottle
Easily throws drunks down on their asses.”

Terracotta kylix (drinking cup), Attributed to the Amasis Painter,Vases
Kylix attributed to the Amasis Painter, ca. 540 BC

<ὁ> Μνησίθεος δ᾿ ἔφη ǁ τὸν οἶνον τοὺς θεοὺς
θνητοῖς καταδεῖξαι τοῖς μὲν ὀρθῶς χρωμένοις
ἀγαθὸν μέγιστον, τοῖς δ᾿ ἀτάκτως τοὔμπαλιν.
τροφήν τε γὰρ δίδωσι τοῖς <εὖ> χρωμένοις
ἰσχύν τε ταῖς ψυχαῖσι καὶ τοῖς σώμασιν.
εἰς τὴν ἰατρικήν τε χρησιμώτατον·
καὶ τοῖς ποτοῖς γὰρ φαρμάκοις κεράννυται,
καὶ τοῖσιν ἑλκωθεῖσιν ὠφελίαν ἔχει.
ἐν ταῖς συνουσίαις τε ταῖς καθ᾿ ἡμέραν
τοῖς μὲν μέτριον πίνουσι καὶ κεκραμένον |
εὐθυμίαν, ἐὰν δ᾿ ὑπερβάλῃς, ὕβριν,
ἐὰν δ᾿ ἴσον ἴσῳ προσφέρῃ, μανίαν ποεῖ·
ἐὰν δ᾿ ἄκρατον, παράλυσιν τῶν σωμάτων.

διὸ καὶ καλεῖσθαι τὸν Διόνυσον πανταχοῦ ἰατρόν. ἡ δὲ Πυθία εἴρηκέ τισι Διόνυσον ὑγιάτην καλεῖν. Εὔβουλος δὲ ποιεῖ τὸν Διόνυσον λέγοντα·

τρεῖς γὰρ μόνους κρατῆρας ἐγκεραννύω
τοῖς εὖ φρονοῦσι· τὸν μὲν ὑγιείας ἕνα,
ὃν πρῶτον ἐκπίνουσι, τὸν δὲ δεύτερον |
ἔρωτος ἡδονῆς τε, τὸν τρίτον δ᾿ ὕπνου,
ὃν ἐκπιόντες οἱ σοφοὶ κεκλημένοι
οἴκαδε βαδίζουσ᾿. ὁ δὲ τέταρτος οὐκέτι ἡμέτερός ἐστ᾿, ἀλλ᾿
ὕβρεος· ὁ δὲ πέμπτος βοῆς·
ἕκτος δὲ κώμων· ἕβδομος δ᾿ ὑπωπίων·
<ὁ δ᾿> ὄγδοος κλητῆρος· ὁ δ᾿ ἔνατος χολῆς·
δέκατος δὲ μανίας, ὥστε καὶ βάλλειν ποεῖ
πολὺς γὰρ εἰς ἓν μικρὸν ἀγγεῖον χυθεὶς
ὑποσκελίζει ῥᾷστα τοὺς πεπωκότας.

 

An eternal question:

 

 

Also, this is a possibility. Look, three drinks! (true story: a friend once ‘invented’ a drinking game which entailed a shot every time the chorus repeated. Not. A. Good. Idea.)

A Measure of Wine for Madness or Pain

Two fragments from Euenus

Anth. Pal. 11.49 Εὐήνου 

“The best measure of Bacchus is not too much
Nor too little
For this he is the cause of pain or madness.
He is happy to be mixed fourth with three Nymphs—
Then he is most prepared for the bedroom.
But if he puffs too much, he turns away from loves
And dips into sleep, the next-door neighbor of death.”

Βάκχου μέτρον ἄριστον ὃ μὴ πολὺ μηδ᾿
ἐλάχιστον·
ἔστι γὰρ ἢ λύπης αἴτιος ἢ μανίης.
χαίρει κιρνάμενος δὲ τρισὶν Νύμφαισι τέταρτος·
τῆμος καὶ θαλάμοις ἐστὶν ἑτοιμότατος.
εἰ δὲ πολὺς πνεύσειεν, ἀπέστραπται μὲν ἔρωτας,
βαπτίζει δ᾿ ὕπνῳ, γείτονι τοῦ θανάτου.

5 Stob. 3.20.2 Εὐήνου

“Anger often eclipses humans’ hidden mind.
This is much worse than madness.”

πολλάκις ἀνθρώπων ὀργὴ νόον ἐξεκάλυψεν
κρυπτόμενον· μανίης πουλὺ χερειότερον.

Nouvelle acquisition latine 1673, fol. 76v, Marchand de vin. Tacuinum sanitatis, Milano or Pavie (Italy), 1390-1400.

Hey Kids, Drinking is For the Middle-Aged

Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 10, 440c

“This is the reason why the most divine Plato rightly legislated in his second book of Laws that boys should not taste wine at all until they are 18 years old. For it is not right to heat fire with fire! It is permissible to taste a limited amount of wine up to thirty, but a young man should completely refrain from being drunk or drinking a lot.

When a man is forty years old he can pray to the rest of gods in the common mess and then may appeal to Dionysus and the rites of the elders and the games they have. Wine is the drug which Dionysus granted to humans as a companion for harsher old age, so we might recover ourselves and forget our despair.”

Διόπερ ὁ θειότατος Πλάτων καλῶς νομοθετεῖ ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ τοὺς παῖδας μέχρι ἐτῶν ὀκτωκαίδεκα τὸ παράπαν οἴνου μὴ γεύεσθαι· οὐ γὰρ χρὴ πῦρ ἐπὶ πῦρ cὀχετεύειν. οἴνου δὲ μετρίου γεύεσθαι. μέχρι τριάκοντα ἐτῶν, μέθης δὲ καὶ πολυοινίας τὸ παράπαν τὸν νέον ἀπέχεσθαι. τετταράκοντα δὲ ἐπιβαίνοντα ἐτῶν ἐν τοῖς συσσιτίοις εὐωχηθέντα καλεῖν τούς τε ἄλλους θεοὺς καὶ δὴ <καὶ> Διόνυσον παρακαλεῖν εἰς τὴν τῶν πρεσβυτῶν τελετὴν ἅμα καὶ παιδιάν, ἣν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐπίκουρον τῆς τοῦ γήρως αὐστηρότητος ἐδωρήσατο τὸν οἶνον φάρμακον, ὥστε ἀνηβᾶν ἡμᾶς καὶ δυσθυμίας λήθην γίγνεσθαι.

Related image
Luttrell Psalter

 

And, if we believe the news, it just might help us live a little longer…

Wine: A Family Planning Secret

Plutarch, Table-Talk 3.5 (652 D)

“Men who drink a lot of wine are rather sluggish at intercourse and they ejaculate semen not at all strong or good for fertilization; instead their attempts at sex with women are cursory and incomplete because of the weakness and frigidity of their seed.

Indeed, however much men suffer because of the cold occurs to them when they are drunk: tremors, heaviness, paleness, sudden jumps in the limbs, senseless speech, a lack of feeling in the joints and extremities. For most men, being drunk results in paralysis, whenever the wine totally expels and defeats the heat.”

οἱ δὲ πίνοντες πολὺν ἄκρατον ἀμβλύτεροι πρὸς τὰς συνουσίας εἰσὶν καὶ σπείρουσιν οὐδὲν εἰς γένεσιν ἰσχυρὸν οὐδὲ κεκρατημένον, ἀλλ᾿ ἐξίτηλοι καὶ ἀτελεῖς εἰσιν αἱ πρὸς τὰς γυναῖκας ὁμιλίαι αὐτῶν διὰ φαυλότητα καὶ κατάψυξιν τοῦ σπέρματος. καὶ μὴν ὅσα πάσχουσιν ἄνθρωποι ὑπὸ κρύους, πάντα συμβαίνει τοῖς μεθυσκομένοις, τρόμοι, βαρύτητες, ὠχριάσεις, σάλοι τοῦ περὶ τὰ γυῖα πνεύματος, ἀσάφεια γλώττης, ἔντασις τῶν Eπερὶ τοῖς ἄκροις νεύρων καὶ ἀπονάρκησις· τοῖς δὲ πλείστοις εἰς πάρεσιν αἱ μέθαι τελευτῶσιν, ὅταν ἐκπλήξῃ παντάπασιν καὶ κατασβέσῃ τὸ θερμὸν ὁ ἄκρατος.

Image result for medieval manuscript drunk man
Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 18r

“If Wine Could Tell A Story”

Plautus, Truculentus 829-833

“This is no good. You are blaming the silent who cannot speak.
If wine could tell a story it would defend itself.
Wine doesn’t control men—men usually control wine!
Well, that’s how it is when men are fit for anything—certain fools
When they drink a little or not at all remain fools by nature.”

non placet: in mutum culpam confers quit loqui.
nam uinum si fabulari possit se defenderet.
non uinum moderari, sed uiri uino solent,
qui quidem probi sunt; uerum qui improbust si quasi Bibit
siue adeo caret temeto, tamen ab ingenio improbust.

 

Image result for Ancient Roman Drinking

“The Mother City of Problems”

Athenaeus, Deipnosophists  10.443d

“Pontianus said that wine is the mother city of all these problems and, because of it, drunkenness and madness and drunken violence happen. Dionysius the Bronze does not badly describe those who take part in wine excessively as “rowers of cups”: “and some carrying wine in the oarlocks for Dionysus, sympotic sailors and rowers of the cups/ …over this—for what is dear does not die.”

ὁ Ποντιανὸς ἔφη πάντων τούτων εἶναι τῶν δεινῶν μητρόπολιν τὸν οἶνον, δι᾿ ὃν καὶ τὰς μέθας καὶ τὰς μανίας, ἔτι δὲ καὶ τὰς παροινίας γίνεσθαι· οὗ τοὺς ἐκπαθῶς μεταλαμβάνοντας οὐ κακῶς ὁ Χαλκοῦς ἐπικαλούμενος Διονύσιος ἐν τοῖς ἐλεγείοις “κυλίκων ἐρέτας” ἔφη·

καί τινες οἶνον ἄγοντες ἐν εἰρεσίᾳ Διονύσου,συμποσίου ναῦται καὶ κυλίκων ἐρέται, < > περὶ τοῦδε· τὸ γὰρ φίλον οὐκἀπόλωλε.

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