So I tell thee, give a soldier wine before he goes to battle;
it grinds out all gaps, it makes him forget all scars and wounds, and
fight in the thickest of his enemies, as though he were but at foils
among his fellows. Give a scholar wine going to his book, or being about
to invent; it sets a new point on his wit, it glazeth it, it scours it,
it gives him _acumen_. Plato saith, _Vinum esse fomitem quendam, et
incitabilem ingenii virtutisque_. Aristotle saith, _Nulla est magna
scientia absque mixtura dementia_! There is no excellent knowledge
without mixture of madness, and what makes a man more mad in the head
than wine? _Qui bene vult [Greek: Pioein] debet ante [Greek: pinein]_:
He that will do well must drink well. _Prome, prome, potum prome_! Ho,
butler, a fresh pot! _Nunc est libendum, nunc pede libero terra
pulsanda_:[86] a pox on him that leaves his drink behind him.
_Rendezvous_!
SUM. It is wine's custom to be full of words. I pray thee, Bacchus, give
us _vicissitudinem loquendi_.
BAC. A fiddlestick! ne'er tell me I am full of words. _Faecundi calices,
quem non fecere disertum; aut bibe[87] aut abi_; either take your
drink, or you are an infidel.
SUM. I would about thy vintage question thee.
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