Wine, Women and Song

"Who does not love wine, women and song/ Remains a fool his whole life long". These words were attributed to Johann Heinrich Voss the German classicist known for his translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey during the latter part of the 18th century. Wine, women and song was also the name of a later waltz by Johann Strauss II. The expression is used to promote the benefits of the hedonistic lifestyle which has now become more the norm than the exception in our modern world. Contemporary versions of this famous quotation have included "sex and drugs and rock and roll". Most world languages have their own version of it and the German National Anthem contains the variant "German women, German wine, German song". Today is the occasion of the annual Denbigh Beer Festival in which a great many people come together to drink copious amounts of beer until they can no longer do so. It has become quite a social event in the Denbigh calendar which is surprising because much of the conversations after the first hour or so is largely unintelligible. Our love of beer goes back over many centuries not least because it was always one of the few ways of avoiding water-borne bacteria, viruses and parasites before the days of water treatment. Denbigh itself was the site of a famous cholera outbreak which was dealt with by the local physician Dr. Evan Pierce. His statue now surveys the part of town where I live. It is a very tall column upon which the statue stands in judgement of the current denizens of this old town. I wonder if things were radically different in his day or is this new love of beer peculiar to our own generation. Either way, it is a good excuse for people to get together and the atmosphere is almost always cordial and respectful with no shortage of good natured banter. Although other parts of the country boast superior beers to our local brews, the festival is what we all make of it. It is the people who make it what it is and yes, a live band is usually in attendance too. We therefore have our own Denbigh version of wine, women and song as we seek our own form of hedonism. The equivalent Greek God was Dionysus who the Romans referred to as Bacchus. According to legend, it was Dionysus who granted King Midas a wish. Midas, as we all know, wished that everything he touched turned to gold and much misery it brought him.