Chapter XII.
How drunkenness leads to all kinds of wrongdoing, and how ridiculous and hateful it is, is explained with an elegant description. After that, some things are added about a luxuriant youth who turned to philosophy.
41. But what is this? While I discuss fasting, I hear the noise of feasts. Unless I am mistaken, my speech smells of lunch. Therefore, the sound of letters invites, examples of impatience do not deter. Indeed, the people did not allow the one who was fasting and carrying the things of the Law to wait, they sat down to eat and drink, and they rose to play. We see that sacrilege was combined with drunkenness. For just as temperance is the mother of faith, so drunkenness is the mother of unfaithfulness. Into what crime does this not hurry?
42. Men are sitting at the doors of the taverns without a tunic, nor the expense of the following day. They judge about emperors and powers; in fact, they seem to be kings themselves and to command armies. They become rich through drunkenness, who are poor in truth. They give gold, distribute money to the people, build cities, who do not have from where they can pay the price of their body's drink. For wine ferments in them, and they do not know what they are saying. They are rich while they are getting drunk: but soon when they have digested the wine, they realize that they are beggars. In one day, they consume the labors of many days.
43. From drunkenness, they rise to arms, with cups replacing weapons. For blood is shed for wine, and wine itself sheds blood. How strong men imagine themselves to be in wine, how wise, how eloquent, how even beautiful and graceful, when they cannot even stand! The mind must stumble, the tongue stammers, a pale color suffuses the bloodless face, and the stench of drunkenness nauseates. Barbarians rush to the sword, the common people to brawls. If anyone of them is struck with a fist, you would see their wounded faces shedding tears of wine, singing pitiful epilogues. One thing this drunkenness has, that it softens and dissolves the hearts of drunkards. For just as fire tests hard iron, so also the heat of wine melts even the hearts of proud men.
44. All seem equal to themselves in wine, no one inferior. The poor does not yield to the rich, as he does not know himself to be poor: the weak does not yield to the strong, in whom all strength is in drinking: the beggar does not yield to the wealthy, nor the ignoble to the honorable; when they drink, they consider him a king, who surpasses the others in drinking. And rightly it is written: Wine in drunkenness is equal for all men (Eccl. XXXI, 32). But I wish you also heard what follows: Drink it moderately, that you may be sober (Ibid.). You have nothing to blame: wine is created for pleasure, not for drunkenness from the beginning. It is a delight of the soul and heart, if you drink in moderation; however, excessive drinking incites anger and causes many ruinous consequences.
45. But perhaps they would say that these are the drinks of common and lowly people. Let us then come to the banquets of those who are powerful and strong. I will not here produce perfumed young boys or crowned with roses, such as they say he was who, covered in ointments, adorned with flowers, supported by harlots, drunk with the morning drink, and accompanied by the light of burning candles, entered the room of the philosopher who was delivering a lecture. Upon hearing this, he slowly removed the crowns, as they say, wiped away the ointments, and bid farewell to the prostitutes. The philosopher afterwards became so great that he was an example of sobriety, who had previously been a mockery of drunkenness. For I do not envy them the fact that they have reformed; let me teach you that their kind of luxury is not simulated by me. Certainly, even if he repented of wine, he was always drunken on sacrilege.