Wednesday 4 April 2007

Three Grapes

“It was a saying of [Anacharsis] that the vine bore three kinds of grapes: the first of pleasure, the next of intoxication, and the third of disgust.” [1] In my younger days, I could taste much of the first and the second with hardly a hint of the third, but little did I know that the latter is a taste acquired with a maturity that does not always remember the follies of youth kindly. Still, it was much fun. Naturally, the puritan need only taste the first to taste the third.
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[1] Diogenes Laetius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Vol.1, tr. R.D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 1972), Bk.I:103, p.107.

3 comments:

dearieme said...

May I atheistically observe that Jesus seemed pretty sound on wine.

Anonymous said...

Populations that are slaves to alcohol are: British Isles, American Indian, Russia, France, Germany, Mexico, and the United States. Populations that are free of this addiction are: Italy, Spain, Greece, Israel, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Thus, over half of the earth is a slave to drink.
It seems that for each gallon of alcohol that is consumed, two gallons of human tears are shed as a result of the behavior that it engenders.

Deogolwulf said...

You may, Dearieme.

"It seems that for each gallon of alcohol that is consumed, two gallons of human tears are shed as a result of the behavior that it engenders."

I've been to weddings like that.