Wine is a turncoat…

…first a friend, then an enemy, it turns the good-natured man into an idiot; and although it makes a man better pleased with himself, I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others! Wine throws a man out of himself, and councils in wine seldom prosper. Wine is a mocker: it’s the first weapon that devils use in attacking the young, and where Satan cannot go in person, there he sends wine (there is a devil in every grape of the vine). Some of the most dreadful mischiefs that afflict mankind proceed from wine; it has drowned more men than the sea. It causes a chillness in the blood, a dissolution of the nerves, a dissipation of the generative seed… Good wine ruins the purse but bad wine ruins the stomach.

So, should we drink only water?

No poems can please nor live long which are written by water drinkers. Ever since Bacchus enrolled half-crazed poets among his Satyrs and Fauns, the sweet Muses have usually smelt of wine in the morning…

Direct quotations from: G. Herbert, J. Addison, S. Johnson, J. Addison, Proverbs 20:1, Trad., St. Jerome, Trad., The Koran, F. Fénelon, T. Fuller, F. Rabelais,  Trad., Horace.