על הנטיעה ל״חConcerning Noah's Work as a Planter 38
א׳
1[154] The ancients called strong drink “wine” and an “intoxicant” indifferently: as we see from the frequency with which this last word occurs in poetry. If, then, “wine” and “intoxicant” are used as synonyms of one object, their derivatives “to be filled with wine” and “to be intoxicated” will differ only in word;
ב׳
2[155] for either term denotes taking more wine than usual, a thing which several motives might induce a really excellent man to do. But if such an one will get filled with wine, he will get drunk, and be in no worse plight for being drunk, but in precisely the same state as he was brought to by being filled with wine.
ג׳
3[156] One proof of the wise man’s getting drunk has been mentioned; there is a second to the following effect. Broadly speaking, the men of the present day, apart from a small fraction of them, do not resemble those of former times in their aims and enthusiasms, but both in language and in action exhibit tendencies wholly out of harmony with theirs.
ד׳
4[157] Language that was once healthy and robust they have turned into a jargon hopelessly depraved. For a style sound and full of vitality as an athlete’s frame they have substituted a sickly form of speech. A full and massive type, possessed, as someone has said, of a solidity due to its firmness of fibre, they debase into a bloated mis-growth of disease, to which they give a seeming loftiness and grandeur by empty puffing and blowing, which, in default of any confining power, bursts when distention has reached its limit.
ה׳
5[158] Actions, meriting praise and calling out enthusiasm, and, if the expression may be permitted, masculine, they have rendered effeminate, and in performing them made them base instead of noble. The result is that whether on the side of action or of speech, there are very few indeed who take delight in the objects that kindled the ardour of the men of old.
ו׳
6[159] Consequently in their times poets and chroniclers flourished and all who engaged in literary work of other kinds, and they did not at once charm and enervate men’s ears by the rhythm of their language, but they revived any faculty of the mind that had broken down and lost its tone, and every true note of it they kept in tune with the instruments of nature and of virtue. But in our days it is chefs and confectioners that flourish, and experts in making dyes and concocting unguents. These are ever aiming at sacking the citadel of Mind, by bringing to bear upon the senses some novelty in shade of colour or shape of dress or perfume or savoury dish.
