על השיכרות כ״וOn Drunkenness 26
א׳
1[101] Elsewhere he says “When I have gone out of the city I will spread out my hands to the Lord and the sounds shall cease” (Exod. 9:29). Do not suppose that the person who speaks thus in a man—this compound animal in which soul and body are woven or twined or mingled (use any word you will). No, it is the mind pure and unalloyed. While it is cooped up in the city of the body and mortal life, it is cabined and cribbed and like a prisoner in the gaol declares roundly that it cannot even draw a breath of free air; but when it has gone out of this city, its thoughts and reflections are at liberty, like the hands and feet of the unbound prisoner, and it finds free scope and range for the employment of its active powers, so that the clamours of the passions are at once restrained.
ב׳
2[102] How shrill are the outcries of pleasure, wherewith it is wont to command what it wills! How continuous is the voice of desire, when it thunders forth its threats against those who do not minister to its wants! How full-toned and sonorous is the call of each of the other passions!
ג׳
3[103] Yet though each of them should have a thousand tongues and mouths with which to swell the war-shout, to use the poet’s phrase, yet it could not confuse the ears of the perfect Sage, who has passed elsewhere and resolved no longer to dwell in the same city as they.
