They tell you not to drink, that otherwise you shall become a prey to torment, and that in the day of reckoning you will burn as fire. That may be, but the day in which wine makes you joyous is more precious than the goods of this world and those of the next. 446. If your own satisfaction consists in casting grief into a heart free from all care, you could, friend, make mourning with your wisdom during your whole life. Go, be unhappy, then, for you are a person strangely ignorant. 447. Each time you can procure two _mens_ of wine, drink them, in every circumstance, in all society wherever you may be; for he who does is freed from scornful looks or gestures of disdain. 448. With a loaf of wheaten bread, two _mens_ of wine and meat in plenty, and seated in some desert spot with some young beauty decked with cheeks tinted with the tulip's blush, man hath a joy not given to any Sultan to procure. 449. If in a city you acquire renown, you are thought to be the most wicked of men; if you retire into a corner, they regard you as a conspirator. What then is best, were you Elias or Saint Jude, is to live in the way of knowing none, and being known by none. 450. If I were free and were allowed to use my will, if I were free from the torments of destiny and unembarrassed by any sentiment of the good and bad in this world where disorder resides, oh! I would prefer not to have lived here, not to have existed, than to be forced to go away! 451. Drink wine, my friend, for see it makes the perspiration flow upon the cheeks of the beauties of Rhei, the most beautiful creatures in the world! Oh! how long shall I repeat it to you? Yes, I have broken the bonds of all my vows. Is it not better to break the bonds of a thousand vows than to break a pitcher of wine? 452. We have some wine, O cupbearer! Let us rejoice in the presence of the well-beloved [the Divinity] and in the noise of the morning. Expect not on our part the renunciation of Nessouh, O cupbearer! How long shall I speak to you of the story of Noe, O cupbearer? Bring, bring me happily the repose of my soul [the wine], O cupbearer! 453. I see neither the means of joining myself to Thee, nor the possibility of living for the space of a breath separated from Thee. I have not the courage to drive out the torments I endure. Oh! how difficult my plight, how strange my grief, how exquisite my pain! 454. Now is the time to drink the morning wine; the noise makes itself heard, O cupbearer! Now we are ready, O cupbearer! here is the wine, behold the tavern. Could a moment like this be for prayer? Silence, O cupbearer! Leave thy discourse upon tradition and upon devotion; drink, O cupbearer! 455.