Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/221

 THE FABULOUS BANQUET. 217 charge for wine, but only for the provisions of the feast. If any difference about this matter shall happen, let Gelasinus be judge. If you agree to these conditions, let them be ratified. He that will not- observe the orders let him be gone, but with liberty to come again to a collation the next day. We give our votes for the passing the bill our king has brought in. But who must tell the first story ? Eug. Who should but the master of the feast ? As, But, Mr. King, may I have the liberty to speak three words ? Eut. What, do you take the feast to be an unlucky one? As. The lawyers deny that to be law that is not just. Eut. I grant it. As. Your law makes the best and worst stories equal. Eut. Where diversion is the thing aimed at, there he deserves as much commenda- tion who tells the worst as he that tells the best story, because it affords as much merriment ; as amongst songsters none are admired but they that sing very well, or they that sing very ill. Do not more laugh to hear the cuckoo than to hear the nightingale? In this case mediocrity is not praiseworthy. As. But pray, why must they be punished that carry off the prize ? Eut. Lest their too great felicity should expose them to envy, if they should carry away the prize, and go shot-free too. As. By Bacchus, Minos himself never made a juster law. Ph. Do you make no order as to the method of drinking ? Eut. Having considered the matter, I will follow the example of Agesilaus king of the Lacedemonians. Ph. What did he do ? Eut. Upon a certain time, he being by lot chosen master of the feast, when the marshal of the hall asked him how much wine he should set before every man? If, says he, you have a great deal of wine, let every man have as much as he calls for, but if you are scarce of wine, give every man equally alike. Ph. What did the Lacedemonian mean by that ? Eut. He did this that it might neither be a drunken feast nor a querulous one. Ph. Why so? Eut. Because some love to drink plentifully, and some sparingly, and some drink no wine at all ; such an one Romulus is said to have been. For if nobody has any wine but what he asks for, in the first place nobody is compelled to drink, and there is no want to them that love to drink more plentifully. And so it comes to pass that nobody is melancholy at the table. And again, if of a less quantity of wine every one has an equal portion, they that drink moderately have enough ; nor can anybody complain in an equality, and they that would have drank more largely are contentedly temperate. If you like it, this is the example I would imitate, for I would have this feast to be a fabulous, but not a drunken one. Ph. But what did Romulus drink then? Eut. The same that dogs drink. Ph. Was not that unbeseeming a king? Eut. No more than it is unseemly for a king to draw the same air that dogs do, unless there is this difference, that a king does not drink the very same water that a dog drank, but a dog draws in the very same air that the king breathed out ; and on the contrary, the king draws in the very same air that the dog breathed out. It would have been much more to Alexander's glory if he had drank with the dogs. For there is nothing worse for a king, who has the care of so many thousand persons, than drunkenness. But the apothegm that Romulus very wittily made use of shews plainly that he was no wine-drinker. For