Wine-drinking and Water-drinking
There can be little doubt even from the descriptions of feasts in the School Dialogues of Vives, as well as of Mosellanus and Erasmus, that drunkenness was not uncommon even amongst teachers in the Tudor period.[24] Vives distinguished himself by boldly advocating the claims of water against those of wines and beer. In Dialogue XI., “Getting dressed and a Morning Constitutional,” we read [speaking of the food for breakfast, after the walk]:—
Malvenda. Shall we have wine to drink?
Bellinus. By no means,—but beer, and that of the weakest, of yellow Lyons, or else pure and liquid water drawn from the Latin or Greek well.
Malvenda. Which do you call the Latin well and the Greek well?
Bellinus. Vives is accustomed to call the well close to the gate the Greek well; that one further off he calls the Latin well. He will give you his reasons for the names when you meet him.
J. T. Freigius, who is always ready to supply what Vives omits, gives in his commentary the reasons for Vives. The Greek well is the well close to the gate, because the Greek [xlvi]language is closer to the sources of language; the “Latin” well, for similar reasons, is further off from the gate.
In Dialogue XVII., called “The Banquet,” we read:—
Scopas. Don’t give one too much water (i.e. in his wine). Don’t you know the old proverb, “You spoil wine, when you pour water into it”?
Democritus. Yes, then you spoil both the water and the wine.
Polaemon. I would rather spoil them both than be spoiled by one of them.
But it is in Dialogue XVIII, on “Drunkenness,” that Vives specially launches his thunderbolts against excessive drinking. With the institution of lessons on temperance in schools under some Local Education Authorities in England, we have a return to the methods of Vives. For in the school dialogue referred to we have the matter put very strongly, and probably Vives’ statements would not prove unacceptable to modern teachers of this recently re-introduced subject. After describing the moral effects of drunkenness, one of the characters says: “Who would not prefer to be shut up at home with a dog or a cat than with a drunkard? For those animals have more intellect in them than the drunkard.” Another character remarks: “When you drink, you treat wine as you like. When you have drunk, it will treat you as it likes.”