If on my theme I rightly think, There are five reasons why men drink, Good wine, a friend, because I m dry, Or lest I should be by and by, Or any other reason why.2
Man-like is it to fall into sin, Fiend-like is it to dwell therein; Christ-like is it for sin to grieve, God-like is it all sin to leave.
Sin. (Sinngedichte.)
Note 1. Goethe adopted this motto for his Travels in Italy. [back]
Note 2. These lines are a translation of a Latin epigram (erroneously ascribed to Henry Aldrich in the Biographia Britannica, second edition, vol. i. p. 131), which Menage and De la Monnoye attribute to Père Sirmond:
Si bene commemini, causæ sunt quinque bibendi: Hospitis adventus; præsens sitis atque futura; Et vini bonitas, et quælibet altera causa. Menagiana, vol. i. p. 172. [back]
[greek].Leutsch and Schneidewin: Corpus Paræmiographorum Græcorum, vol. i. p. 444.
Sextus Empiricus is the first writer who has presented the whole of the adage cited by Plutarch in his treatise Concerning such whom God is slow to punish. [back]