Bel-iqisa and Babi-lû Bel-iqisa · Babi-lû
c. 8th–7th century BC · Nineveh, Assyria · Tebet is the tenth month, in winter. The brackets and the question mark are the translator Johnston's; the translation is as Sayce reprints it.
Let the king our lord know that the wine received during the month Tebet has been bottled, but that there is no room for it, so we must make (new) cellars for the king our lord. Let the king our lord give orders that a (place for) the cellars be shown to us, and we shall be relieved from our embarrassment (?). The wine that has come for the king our lord is very considerable. Where shall we put it?A clay-tablet letter from the royal archive at Nineveh · A. H. Sayce, Babylonians and Assyrians: Life and Customs (1899) · in place of the original: the English translation by Christopher Johnston (1899)
More from Bel-iqisa and Babi-lû · #drink
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Ishikawa Takuboku 石川啄木
c. 1911 · Meiji Japan
So I have been drinking again today! Knowing all the while how drink turns my stomach.
今日もまた酒のめるかな！
酒のめば
胸のむかつく癖を知りつつ。Tanka collection Sad Toys (Kanashiki gangu)
Du Fu 杜甫
758 · Tang China
Back from court, day after day I pawn my spring clothes, and every day I come home from the riverside thoroughly drunk. Wine debts are an ordinary thing, wherever I go; a life of seventy years has been rare since ancient times.
朝回日日典春衣，每日江頭盡醉歸。
酒債尋常行處有，人生七十古來稀。"Qujiang," second poem, in the Complete Tang Poems
Li Bai 李白
8th century · Tang China · The Minister of Rites was Zhou Ze of the Han, who is said to have kept ritual abstinence all year round and neglected his wife
Three hundred and sixty days a year, and every day I am drunk as mud. You may be the wife of Li Bai, but how are you better off than the wife of the Minister of Rites?
三百六十日，日日醉如泥。
雖爲李白婦，何異太常妻。"To My Wife," in the Complete Tang Poems
Xin Qiji 辛棄疾
late 12th century · Song China
Cup, come here. This morning your old master looked his body over. For years I have been thirsty, my throat like a scorched pot; now I only want to sleep, and my breath comes like thunder.
杯汝來前，老子今朝，點檢形骸。
甚長年抱渴，咽如焦釜，於今喜睡，氣似奔雷。To the tune "Spring in the Garden of Qin": resolving to give up drink, I warn the wine cup to keep away
Xin Qiji 辛棄疾
late 12th century · Song China
Here is my word to you: do not linger, be gone at once. I still have strength enough to smash you. The cup bowed twice and said, "Wave me away and I go. Call me and I must come."
與汝成言，勿留亟退，吾力猶能肆汝杯。
杯再拜，道麾之即去，招則須來。To the tune "Spring in the Garden of Qin": resolving to give up drink, I warn the wine cup to keep away; the closing lines
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