In vino veritas
In vino veritas is a Latin phrase that translates, “in wine [there is the] truth". It is also known as a Greek phrase “Ἐν οἴνῳ ἀλήθεια” En oino álétheia, which has the same meaning. The author of the Latin phrase is Pliny the Elder;[1] the Greek phrase is attributed to the Greek poet Alcaeus.
The Greek poet Alcaeus is the oldest known source for the phrase. The Roman historian Tacitus described how the Germanic peoples always drank wine while holding councils, as they believed nobody could lie effectively when drunk.
The phrase is often continued as, "In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas", i.e., "In wine there is truth, in water there is health."
Similar phrases exist across cultures and languages. In Chinese, there is the saying, "酒後吐真言" ("After wine blurts truthful speech"). The Babylonian Talmud (תלמוד בבלי) contains the passage: "נכנס יין יצא סוד", i.e., "In came wine, out went a secret".[2]
It continues, "בשלשה דברים אדם ניכר בכוסו ובכיסו ובכעסו", i.e., "In three things is a man revealed: in his wine goblet, in his purse, and in his wrath."[3] (In the original Aramaic, the words for "his goblet", "his purse", and "his wrath" rhyme and are a play on words all using the root "כס".)
In the 1770s, Benjamin Cooke wrote a glee by the title of In Vino Veritas. His lyrics [with modern punctuation, etc.] are as follows:
- Round, round with the glass, boys, as fast as you can,
- Since he who don't drink cannot be a true man.
- For if truth is in wine, then 'tis all but a whim
- To think a man's true when the wine's not in him.
- Drink, drink, then, and hold it a maxim divine
- That there's virtue in truth, and there's truth in good wine![4]
[edit] References
- ^ Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia 14, 141
- ^ See Tractate Eruvin 65a (מסכת עירובין, פרק ו, דף סה,א גמרא).
- ^ Id. at 65b (דף סה,ב גמרא).
- ^ Warren, Thomas, ed. A collection of catches, canons & glees. Wilmington, Delaware: Mellifont Press, 1970. ISBN #0842000267. Reprint of a collection, originally in thirty-two volumes, of glees published by various publishers in London, from 1762 to 1793. Thomas Warren (ca. 1730–1974) was the original editor of the collection. The reprint is not complete. For more information, see the University of Michigan library's holding here.
