14 



Indiana University Studies 



in darkness, like the drunken wine-soaked rascals they are, without 

 science to the dishonor and insult and serious injury of those who 

 are with them. And unless someone should come between them and 

 part them like an umpire, they would fight on with greater fury, 

 trying at once to murder and kill one another. For they do not 

 suffer less than they inflict on others, altho they do not realize what 

 is being done to them, those, that is, who dare to drink, not as the 

 comic poet says to the injury of their neighbors only, but to their 

 own as well. 



Consequently those who came to the banquet a little while before, 

 safe and sound and friendly to one another, a little later depart as 

 foes and with their bodies mutilated. And some of them have need of 

 lawyers and judges, others of doctors and those who can plaster them 

 up, and of help from such as these. 



Others, who seem to be more restrained drinkers, drinking unmixed 

 wine as if it were mandragora, bubble over, and supporting them- 

 selves on the left elbow and turning their necks to one side, vomit 

 it up into basins, and then are overcome by deep sleep, neither 

 knowing nor hearing anything further, like persons who have but a 

 single sense and that the most slavish of them all — taste. 



And I know of some persons who, when they are slightly drunk, 

 before they become completely intoxicated (soaked in wine), try 

 to arrange beforehand another banquet for the next day by voluntary 

 contributions and subscriptions, regarding a part of their present 

 pleasure to be the anticipation of getting drunk at a future time. 

 So they live out their miserable lives in this way, passing their days 

 homeless and hearthless, enemies of their parents and wives and 

 children; enemies also of their native land, and above all their own 

 worst enemies. For their besotted^^ and prodigal life is a menace to 

 everyone. 



VI 



Perhaps some may approve the style of banquet that is popular 

 everywhere at the present time, on account of a preference for the 

 Italian sumptuousness and luxury, which both the Greeks and 

 Barbarians have carefully imitated, who make their preparations 



32 Aristophanes, Wasps 1252 ff., suggests the same thing: "By no means. 

 Drinking is bad. From wine come both breaking of doors and the dealing of 

 blows, and the throwing of stones; and then settling the bill, after your 

 drunken headache." 



33 vyf)6g is found in HeracHtus in perhaps a similar sense. See Fragment 

 (Bywaterp. 73): v}'f)i/v t?)v ^{'vxyi' f'x^^] and (Fairbanks, 74-76): av?] fvxv oo^uraTri 

 Kal ap'ioTT]^ "The dry soul is wisest and best." 



