על השיכרות י״בOn Drunkenness 12
א׳
1[46] The same creed and rule is followed by everyone who has rejected the things of the soul and set his admiration on the things of the body, and outside the body, with shapes and colours rife, decked out to deceive the senses which are so easily seduced.
ב׳
2[47] Such a one is called by the lawgiver Laban, who, being blind to the true laws of nature, proclaims with false lips man-made law. “It is not so in our place,” he says, “to give the younger in marriage before the elder” (Gen. 29:26).
ג׳
3[48] For Laban thinks that he should maintain the order of time. He holds that older things should first be taken into our company, and younger things only later. But the Practiser of Wisdom, knowing that the timeless also exists in nature, desires what is younger first and the elder afterwards.
ד׳
4And the laws of human character as well as of nature agree with him in this; for Men of Practice must first take up with the younger culture, that afterwards they may be able to have secure enjoyment of that which is more perfect.
ה׳
5[49] And therefore to this day the lovers of true nobility do not attend at the door of the elder sister, philosophy, till they have taken knowledge of the younger sisters, grammar and geometry and the whole range of the school culture. For these ever secure the favours of wisdom to those who woo her in guilelessness and sincerity.
ו׳
6[50] But Laban with his sophistry will have it otherwise, and wishes us to wed the elder first, not that we may possess her in security, but that afterwards snared by the love-charms of the younger sister, we may abandon our desire of the elder.
