Who but Dionysos pours the flowing win
and mixes water in the streaming bowls tonight?
One bowl for ruddy health, then one for getting off;
the third brings sleep -- and wise men leave before they're tight.
For after that the bowls no more belong to us:
the fourth's for hubris and the fifth for lots of noise,
the sixth for mindless fucking, following by black eyes,
the eighth brings the police, the ninth's for throwing up,
the tenth for trashing everything before we stop.
theognis, also quoted in this book. this poem is accompanied by a footnote that quotes an aristophanes character praising the barbarians because they "esteem as men of importance only those who eat and drink in enormous quantities"; another character replies "while we greeks esteem them as cocksuckers and buttboys". this is really making me want to read some more greek classics; but only if i can get the translations cahill is reading. one more poem fragment, from greek partyboy archilochus:
She flipped and she flopped round his cock
As a kingfisher flaps on a rock
She stooped, slurped him up -- oh my dear! --
like a Phrygian drinking his beer
through a straw, then presented her rear.
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