Be drunk always. Nothing else matters; there are no other
subjects. Not to feel the grim weight of Time breaking your backs and bending
you double, you must get drunk and stay drunk.
But drunk on what? Wine, poetry, virtue — the choice is
yours. Just be drunk.
And if sometimes, on a palace staircase, on the green grass
of a ditch, in the gloomy isolation of your chamber, you wake sober or just a
little tipsy, ask the wind, waves, stars, birds, clocks, ask anything that
flies, moans, moves, sings, speaks, ask it the time. And the wind, wave, star,
bird, clock will reply: “Time to get drunk! To avoid the enslaved martyrdom of
Time, get drunk and stay drunk! On wine, poetry, virtue, the choice is yours!”
[translated by Martin Sorrell]