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On Wine and Hashish by Charles Baudelaire

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On Wine and Hashish (Hesperus Classics)
by

Charles Baudelaire,

Andrew Brown (Translator),

Margaret Drabble (Foreword by)

Lady Selene's review

Jan 19, 2022

it was amazing

bookshelves: nonfiction, shorts, philosophy, five-stars, diaries-letters, reflections, dolores

"Who has not known you, O deep joys of wine? Whoever has had some remorse to appease, a memory to evoke, a sorrow to drown, a castle to build in Spain, in fact all men have invoked you, mysterious god concealed in the tendrils of the vine.

Wine is like man himself: one never knows to what extent one may esteem or despise him, love or hate him, nor of what sublime actions or monstrous crimes he is capable. Let us not then be crueller towards wine than towards ourselves, let us treat him as an equal.

Sometimes I think I can hear wine speak (he speaks with his soul, the spiritual voice heard only by the spirit) and he says: “Man, my beloved, I would pour out for you, in spite of my prison of glass and fetters of cork, a song full of brotherhood, a song full of joy, light and hope. I am no ingrate; I know that I owe you my life. I know what it cost you in toil, your back under the burning sun. You gave me life and I shall reward you for it.

I am the soul of your country. I am half-lover, half-soldier.

I shall light up your aged wife’s eyes, the old companion of your everyday cares and your oldest hopes. I shall soften her glance and drop into the pupil of her eye the lightning-flash of her youth.

Our close reunion will create poetry. Between us we shall make a god.

This is what wine sang in its mysterious language."

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