More, more, more, isn’t Anacreontea’s message a little selfish? If everyone drank that much out of life, would some people not get their share? The thing is is that this water of life and fulfillment is unlimited. This poem reminds me of the biblical story where Jesus turns the water into an unlimited supply of wine. Life is something that we shouldn’t fall short on. We need to give it our all and take all that we can out of our experience here on earth.

I like how not all the images are of drinking water in this poem. For instance, "The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun" (Anacreontea, "Drinking," in 99 Poems in Translation, p.4). Another image is of the plants sucking up the earth. It’s like when you’ve finished one thing, you must go on to the next. This is the best image of all. I believe the best image of this was in another poem we read earlier. In Dante’s poem he used the word satiety which means being filled to the max or gorging yourself with food. Dante stretches satiety even further saying: "That even satiety should still enhance / Between our hearts their strict community" (Alighieri, "Sonnet: Dante Alighieri to Guido Cavalcanti," in 99 Poems in Translation, p. 36). This is exactly what Anacreontea does but only in a different way. Anacreontea actually gives us an image to use when imagining satiety: water. Dante is rather vague with his description of satiety. Though I like the rhyming ring of satiety and community in Dante’s poem, I have to say that Anacreontea wins the gold medal for his image of satiety with water. I am a very visual person which probably makes me biased. Does anyone disagree with me or agree with me? What do others prefer in a poem: images or sounds? This might be an awful question, because they are probably both should be equally rated. A poem is just as much a painting as it is a song. There really is no true "sister arts." These medias are all in one big family together.

I like how "Drinking" personifies the natural world. As humans, we really are just as part of the natural world as any other creature. We have the same needs (as simple as water) and the same community with one another in the natural world. We must remember that. We must remember this very simple and most basic fact. It’s a fact that I keep coming to along with another very simple fact: that we are so small in comparison to the entire universe. This poem is a simple reminder that should be read again and again.

I like the last line: "Why, man of morals, tell me why?" (Anacreontea, "Drinking," in 99 Poems in Translation, p.4). I find myself asking this question to this man of morals quite often, just like a little kid. Why? Why? The man doesn’t respond. Why? Because we already know. The man of morals has given us a conscience with all the answers right in it. We know what the answer is, but sometimes we just don’t want to accept it. I like the answer that Eskimo gives in response to a why question: "Nobody can explain this: / That’s the way it [is]" (Eskimo, "Magic Words," in The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, p. 160). In other words, don’t ask why.

Why must you drink 8 glasses of water a day you ask? Just do it. In fact, why stop at 8? Drink 9 glasses. Drink 10 glasses. Drink 20 glasses. Drink up yourself. Drink up your neighbor. Drink up the ocean. Drink up the earth. Drink up the entire universe and only then will you BEGIN to answer the question that Anacreontea raises in his poem.

Pinter, 99 Poems in Translation, p4

Drinking -- I was immediately turned off by this poem because of the title. I wonder what connotations the word had when Anacreontea wrote this in the 6th c BC.

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, -- Personifies the earth; the earth has thirst. Does it need or just want the rain? Was the poet watching a rainstorm? What was the view of the earth at this time, were people afraid of its wildness (am I?) or bent on conquering it? (maybe I should be.) It is a feminine image of the earth, passive, and waiting for the miracle of water to bestow life upon it. All life come from the water and the earth, they are lovers, but it is born of the earth. Maternal.

And drinks and gapes for drink again; -- This for me is after a long run in the summer, when we cannot wait for our water bottles at the end, but rush to the creek and thrust our heads underwater, and open our mouths, letting the water wash the dusty saliva out of our mouths until we emerge, and run with new energy, not wiping the water that drips from out wet hair off the tips of our noses.

The plants suck the earth, -- like infants suckling their pregnant mothers' nipples; rain is the milk of the earth.

and are/ with constant drinking fresh and fair; -- What does Anacreontea mean by "fresh and fair" ? Why use THOSE adjectives; could there have been different translations? This conjures images of spring, or of young women after bathing. The plants are never satisfied... are we? We have a constant need for satiation, perhaps it is a spiritual need that is never completely satisfied. What are we drinking? Is love our milk?

The sea itself (which one would think/ Should have but little need of drink)/ Drinks ten thousand rivers up, -- Because the sea has more water than any other entity, we think it does not need drink, but we are wrong, the sea drinks more water than any plant. The idea of greedy sea is not new; the sea eats lives of sailors and swallows ships. In the Odyssey how many times do creatures related to the sea try to keep (or kill) Odysseus? If we have more connection to Duende in our lives, do we then need more? Do poets need to 'drink' less of the earth because they are already intoxicated with it, or do they only need more and more?

So filled that they o'er flow the cup, -- What cup? Seems like a cheap rhyme. makes me think of Christianity and the blood of Christ poured out, or maybe the holy grail.

The busy Sun -- Sun is a male symbol; Apollo, powerful, strong ... busy? What is the sun doing? Did the author worship the sun as the bringer of life? Did he think the sun went round the earth?

(and one would guess/ By's drunken fiery face no less) -- Did the author know the sun was a star, a giant ball of burning gas? 'drunken fiery face' seems a negative phrase; but if we take drunken to be a good attribute, then fiery could mean full of energy, as opposed to full of rage, as I first read it. We can guess by the Sun's strength that he'd be thirsty, his drinking doesn't surprise us. Are there people we know who seem so thirsty for inspiration that no matter how much life they drink up, it never surprises us that they want more?

Drinks us the sea, and when he's done -- Is done used only for its rhyme/sound/rhythm? Or does the sun really ever stop drinking. I guess the sun does stop, at night. What is the poets' night? What is our night, our time to stop drinking?

The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun -- I wonder what the author's perception of the stellar universe was. I can see how stars so sharp and bright could be said to drink the sun. Imagine the sun as the pulsing mother, her rays like veins feeding the stars. I guess the sun is our mother in a way - her energy makes life possible on earth. The whole poem seems really maternal - did the author feel the same way?

They drink and dance by their own light, -- The moon (a female symbol) does not have its own light but reflects that of the (male) sun. hmmm. But did the author know that the moon didn't produce light?

The drink and revel all the night -- Night is the party of the Moon and Stars. The stolen light of the sun is their wine, and they come out to frolic as soon as the sun - the staunch King, gets out of the way. This image reminds me of college. We 'steal' the ideas of our profs and the 'greats' we study. Then we go back to our rooms, away from the classroom and the need to regurgitate and we make the ideas, the light, ours. We dance and drink and revel in it. we stay up late at night and talk about it. the ideas are our wine. the night is also our wine, the stolen day, the physically being awake in the wee hours; it is sometimes all that's necessary to revel and dance and play.

Nothing in nature's sober found, -- Nature's intoxicated. what do the rocks drink? Is nature aware of its intoxication, or is it for us to enjoy the thought of its personification? Reminds me of Rumi, could we handle this fire?

But an eternal health goes round. -- So if we were to soak up nature, or Duende, this spiritual inspiration, and be constantly open to revelation, would we be eternally inspired? Spiritually satisfied? What did health mean to Anacreontea? Was it a physical wellbeing caused by a spiritual wellbeing? Round makes me think of whole and holistic and unified and pregnant.

Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high, / Fill all the glasses there, -- With what are we filling them? This seems a pro-alcohol ending to the poem. if it was like the volkslieder (folksongs) we're looking at in another class, I'd say this last verse was tacked on to lighten the ideas of the song. But perhaps I am mis-reading it and one could continue the metaphor to mean that we should rink long and deep from life.

For why should every creature drink but I, -- Creature, perhaps includes moon, stars, sea, earth, and plants, because no animals or insects were mentioned in the poem. Who is the 'I'? The implied poet? We should partake of the earth's splendors as the earth itself does. Are we part of this cycle? If 'I' is the poet, do others who are not poets get to drink as well?

Drinking a Drunk Creation

And drinks and gapes for drink again;

These two lines make me think of a time when I am so thirsty and grab for a full glass of ice water and gulp it down only to find that I'm just as thirsty as I was before I drank the water. This is how I imagine the earth, especially from the "drinks and gapes for drink again." I like how these lines make the earth alive, as a being reaching out and up for more rain, begging to be given more in order to quench its dying thirst.

With constant drinking fresh and fair;

Now the earth, which was so thirsty in the previous lines, is being drunk up by the plants. The growing plants constantly rely on the earth, and through "fresh and fair" drinking, they absorb the earth in order to grow.

Drink ten thousand rivers up,

You would think that the last thing on the earth that would be thirsty would be the sea! But even the sea wants drink and I never thought of all of the rivers which dump into a big sea as the sea taking one big gulp of river!

So filled that they o'erflow the cup.

This line left me a bit confused. The rivers are being compared to being water in a cup and the cup is so full that it's overflowing. Perhaps I'm trying to read more into it but I don't know what the cup stands for, whether it's referring to the sea or its banks or what. Any ideas or insights?

By's drunken fiery face no less)

What a different way of thinking about the sun--as busy. The "Sun" needs to rise and set each day and cover the entire earth when not covered itself so it remains busy from routine all the time. How reliant we are on its business. I'm not sure what the second line means: "By's drunken fiery face no less" because it doesn't "flow" in my mind but it creates a very clear picture in my mind.

The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun:

Anacreontea is capturing the natural cycle of the earth and the cosmos. The sun makes water/sea evaporate only for the sun to turn around (or sink down as on earth) and the moon and stars drink up its light so that there is a much different picture on earth. The thought of the moon and stars drinking the sun is a refreshing outlook on day and night.

They drink and revel all the night:

The moon and stars now have drank the sun's light and call the light their own--and they celebrate in this light. Yet they also continue to drink the sun's light all night long and celebrate in this also.

But an eternal health goes round.

So although all of nature is drunk off of each other, they are all healthy in their drunkeness. Imagine thinking about your breathing process as drinking the air and from your breathing you are no longer sober but in a healthy drunken stupor--healthy from being drunk off of swallowing nature! But soon Anacreontea distinguishes our acts from the rest of the world.

Should every creature drink but I,

The speaker is now telling some person, commanding it of someone, to fill up his/her bowl or glass so that he/she can participate in this great drunken fest--to be an intrinsic part of the rest of what nature is involved in. Here is the first instance that we as readers are made aware that the speaker is separate from this shared drinking bond that the earth, plants, sea, rivers, Sun, Moon, Stars...Nature participates in. There is a strong desire in the command to be included in this, to clink glasses with the rest of creation in a toasting process and to become drunk off of another.

Why, man of morals, tell me why?