until unconsciously we have become teetotalers.
Stylistically I think it is unadmissible to render thus ὑδροπόται because it smacks of the prohibition period in the US.
LSJ has
water-drinker, X. Cyr. 6.2.29; used of a thin-blooded, mean-spirited fellow, AP 11.20 (Antip. Thess.); cf. ὑδατοπότης.
The Cambridge Greek lexicon has "one who drinks only water (i.e. not wine).
Being teetotal has nothing to do with prohibition in the US or elsewhere. It is simply a description of someone who does not drink alcohol, for whatever reason (health, religion, morals etc). During prohibition there were many people who were not teetotal.
(I would say inadmissible rather than “unadmissable” but it doesnt seem seem the right word to use anyway. But the sense was clear - inadmissible normally appear as a description of evidence which cannot be heard in a trial for legal reasons)
There’s one Mr Semple has raised a proud temple
To Kant, and translates what he wrote all ;
But did the philosopher teach men to toss over
Drink and the Devil, Tee-Total?
On, no! though he boasted a stern categorical,
I fear like most Germans, he’s mad, metaphorical ;
But this is substantial, solid, and Doric all,
That Matthew has done by Tee-Total.
Teetotalism got it’s name from the there-mentioned Father Theobald Matthew’s Catholic “Total Abstinence Society” founded back in the 1830s. (I assume that’s the Matthew mentioned, anyway.) It means Tee-Total (the letter T) abstinence from alcohol. To me it’s a word with severe connotations of the Temperance movement and the Prohibition era, but perhaps Seneca is more representative of general readers than I am?
'Tis a barbarous relic of German and Gaelic,
Unless you have read and forgot all,
How Tacitus tells with what beer-inspired yells,
And with what a Bacchanal trot, all
Stark-naked, the wild woodmen rushed to the fight,
(> Berserking > in German I think it is hight,)
But they were mowed down ; and it served them right
For blaspheming the goddess Tee-Total.
“Great is Tee-Total of the Americans!” Though the strong American association was late 19th-century I think. For this poem (1840), it’s a British/Tory/Catholic/Protestant issue.
_Euripides says, in one of his plays,
Which he wrote by the light of the bottle,
That Pentheus was torn, by Greek women, one morn,
For joining the Theban Tee-Total.
For Protestant sermons no Catholic asks ;
The Bishops, of course, sit at home on their casks,
Nibble heathenish Greek, and then flourish their flasks,
With a hearty God-damn to Tee-Total !_
To have such bishops again!
I do think teetotaler captures the “flavor” of ὑδατοπότης, though it’s too bad that it makes me think 19th century. I would not personally use it in any modern English prose. But many others disagree.
Nabakov calls non-drinkers filii aquae. Punny.
ὢ πόποι, οἷον δή νυ θεοὺς βροτοὶ αἰτιόωνται.
ἐξ ἡμέων γάρ φασι κάκ’ ἔμμεναι· οἱ δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ
σφῇσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὑπέρμορον ἄλγε’ ἔχουσιν.
-HOMER
Zounds! what a set on the earth do plague us with peevish devotion,
Saying that Jove is to blame, because evil floods earth like an ocean!
But they themselves are the cause that evil on earth is so frisky,
Tainting their blood every day with a poison that mortals call WHISKY!
-Odyssey, i., 32
I asked the AI to read my above post aloud, as it contained both meter and prose, Greek and a bit of Latin. He has some very minor problems, and he murders the Homeric meter, but overall, great job. He sounds better than I would have.
I wonder who the author of these poems is.
It is anonymous, but my guess is that the author is John Stuart Blackie (not unfamiliar to Textkit readers, I hope).
It’s volume 7 (1840) of Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, pg. 383. “A Song of Tee-Totalers.” There is a footnote at the bottom mentioning “Burschen Melodies.” On the other hand, the footnote is signed “E. T. M.”? “Editor Tait Magazine”?
Sorry, I meant unacceptable. In French, you can use here ‘inadmissible’, so I mixed it up.