[26]
So it is with us. If we pour ourselves immense draughts, it will be no long time before both our bodies and our minds reel, and we shall not be able even to draw breath, much less to speak sensibly; but if the servants frequently ‘besprinkle’ us—if I too may use a Gorgian1 expression—with small cups, we shall thus not be driven on by the wine to a state of intoxication, but instead shall be brought by its gentle persuasion to a more sportive mood.”
1 Gorgias was a famous contemporary orator and teacher of rhetoric, whose speeches, though dazzling to inexperienced audiences, were over-formal and ornate. Some of his metaphors drew the criticism of Aristotle as being far-fetched. Cf. Aristot. Rhet. 3.3.4 (1406b 4 ff.).
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 4. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1979.
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