saveth wounds and evils. Wine strengtheneth all the members of the
body, and giveth to each might and strength, and deed and working of
the soul showeth and declareth the goodness of wine. And wine breedeth
in the soul forgetting of anguish, of sorrow, and of woe, and
suffereth not the soul to feel anguish and woe. Wine sharpeth the wit
and maketh it cunning to enquire things that are hard and subtle, and
maketh the soul bold and hardy, and so the passing nobility of wine is
known. And use of wine accordeth to all men's ages and times and
countries, if it be taken in due manner, and as his disposition asketh
that drinketh it.

Red wine that is temperate in its qualities, and is drunk temperately
and in due manner, helpeth kind and gendreth good blood, and maketh
savour in meat and in drink, and exciteth desire and appetite, and
comforteth the virtue of life and of kind, and helpeth the stomach to
have appetite, and to have and to make good digestion. And quencheth
thirst, and changeth the passions of the soul and thoughts out of evil
into good. For it turneth the soul out of cruelness into mildness, out
of covetousness into largeness, out of pride into meekness, and out of
dread into boldness. And shortly to speak, wine drunk measurably is
health of body and of soul.

And nothing is worse passing out of measure. And so Andronides, a
clear man of wit and of wisdom, wrote to the great Alexander, to
restrain wine kind in drinking, and said in this manner:--"King, have
mind that thou drinkest blood of the earth, for wine drinking
untemperately is to mankind heavy and venomous." And if Alexander had
done by his counsel, truly he had not slain his own friend in
drunkenness. If wine be often taken, anon by drunkenness it quencheth
the sight of reason, and comforteth beastly madness, and so the body