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Home  »  Familiar Quotations  »  9506 John Sirmond 1589 (?)-1649 John Bartlett

John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

9506 John Sirmond 1589 (?)-1649 John Bartlett

 
NUMBER:9506
AUTHOR:John Sirmond (1589 (?)–1649)
QUOTATION:If on my theme I rightly think,
There are five reasons why men drink,—
Good wine, a friend, because I ’m dry,
Or lest I should be by and by,
Or any other reason why. 1
ATTRIBUTION:Causæ Bibendi.
 
Note 1.
These lines are a translation of a Latin epigram (erroneously ascribed to Henry Aldrich in the “Biographia Britannica,” second edition, vol. i. p. 131), which Menage and De la Monnoye attribute to Père Sirmond:

Si bene commemini, causæ sunt quinque bibendi:
Hospitis adventus; præsens sitis atque futura;
Et vini bonitas, et quælibet altera causa.
Menagiana, vol. i. p. 172. [back]