Wine
Scop. Now follows action after talk. Surely this is wisest at this time of the year. Look at the necessary preparations for our drinking wine. First of all the keeper of the sideboard (custos abaci) has set out the cups of brightest crystal glass with purest white wine; you would think it water by its mere appearance. It is San Martin wine and partly Rhein wine, but not mixed as they are accustomed to drink it in Belgium, but such as they drink in mid-Germany. The wine-seller to-day has tapped two casks, one of yellow Helvell from the neighbourhood of Paris, and one of blood-red Bordeaux. Others are in readiness kept cool, dark (fuscus) from Aquitaine and black from Saguntum. Let every one choose according to his liking.
Crit. What suggestion could be more delightful? as nothing is harder fortune than to perish of thirst. For myself I should prefer that you had set before us the best water. I would rather have heard such an announcement than that of the wines.
Scop. Nor shall that be lacking.
Sim. Lately when I was in Rome, I drank at a cardinal’s house, the noblest wines of every flavour; sweet, sharp, mild, fruity, and tart. I was indeed extremely friendly with the wine-cellarer.
Dem. I dearly like fiery wine.
Pol. So also do Belgian women. In some places in France they offer you the dregs of wine. They most delight in two and three year old vintage. But these are rather sampling of wine than real wine-drinking, and French wine especially bears neither the addition of water nor years. Therefore soon after it is racked off it is drunk. Indeed, in a year it begins to get worse, and becomes uncertain, then its flavour escapes and it becomes sour. Had it been kept longer it would become mouldy and flat. The Spanish and Italian wines, on the other hand, improve with age, and with the addition of water.
Dem. What do you mean by wine getting “flat”? The casks become shrunken, the wine is enclosed in cells, and the casing of the cask falls in, if need be.
Pol. Like as fruit gets uneatable through decay by age and does not keep, and, as we say commonly, goes bad. The opposite term is “still wine” (consistens).
Dem. Pour me first a half-cupful of water and then pour in the wine, after the old custom.
Crit. Nay, to-day’s custom is yet the same with many people, the French and Germans being exceptions.
Dem. The nations who drink water with wine pour wine to the water; those who will drink wine watered, pour water on to the wine.
Crit. And what do those drink who mix no water with their wine?
Dem. Pure, unmixed wine.
Crit. That is, if the wine-dealer did not first water it himself.
Pol. They call that baptising it, so that the wine should be Christian. This was in my time a fine, philosophical way of speaking.
Dem. They baptise the wine, and themselves are unbaptised (i.e., unwatered or unwashed).
Pol. They do worse to wine who add chalk, sulphur, honey, alum, and other more noisome things than which nothing is more pernicious to one’s body. Against such people the state ought to proceed as against robbers or assassins. For thence are incredible kinds of diseases and especially gout.
Crit. By conspiracy with physicians they can do this. Then both share the profit.
Dem. The cup you reach to me is too full. Empty it a little, I beg, so that there may be a space for water.