על הנטיעה ל״הConcerning Noah's Work as a Planter 35
א׳
1[142] Many philosophers have given no slight attention to the question; which is propounded in the form “Will the wise man get drunk?” Now, there are two ways of getting drunk; one is equivalent to drinking heavily, the other to being silly in your cups.
ב׳
2[143] Among those who have tackled the problem some have maintained that the wise man will neither take strong drink in excess nor become silly and maudlin; the latter being a sin, and the former productive of sin, and both alike alien to him whose standard of conduct is the highest.
ג׳
3[144] Others, while regarding a condition of silliness as foreign to a man of moral excellence, have pronounced heavy drinking to befit him, seeing that the good sense which resides in him is capable of holding its own against everything that attempts to injure him, and of baffling their efforts to change the constitution of his soul. They hold that good sense is an armour which has power to quench passions, whether fanned by the stinging blasts of inflaming love, or kindled by the heat of much wine; and that in virtue of his good sense he will come off victorious. They point out that, when people sink in a deep river or in the sea, those who cannot swim are drowned, while those who know how to swim escape at once; and that a quantity of strong drink is like a torrent washing over the soul; in one case, as it sinks, plunging it into the lowest depth of ignorance, in another case, as it is buoyed up and kept afloat by salutary instruction, altogether powerless to hurt it.
ד׳
4[145] The others, failing, as I think, to recognize the completeness of the wise man’s superiority to every passion, have brought him down to earth from heaven whose skies he haunts, treating him as fowlers treat the birds they catch, and being bent on bringing him into as evil a plight, and not setting him on virtue’s lofty summit, have declared that after taking an immoderate quantity of wine he will certainly lose self-control and commit sin, and not only, like vanquished athletes, let his hands fall from sheer weakness, but let his neck and head drop and his knees give way, and, collapsing in every part, sink to the ground.
