Kitabı oku: «The Art of Drinking», sayfa 4

III.
The Degenerate Culture of the Grape and the Art of Drinking in China

If the learned men of China can be trusted, the grape-vine must have been known in their country more than a thousand years B. C. They refer to this in old books, the “Tshu-ly” and the “Shi-King;” but as to the latter, that seems everywhere to refer to the wine made of various grains, which is almost exclusively used in China.

At all events, it seems to be proved by the most trustworthy witnesses that rice-wine is older in China than the wine of grapes; for while the highest age that can be assigned to wine is only given by the doubtful testimony of the supposed author of the Tshu-ly,” Tshu-Kang, who mounted the throne 1122 B. C., the invention of rice-wine is set down to the Dynasty Hia, 2209 (1716 B. C.). This also accords with experience elsewhere, for beer of various kinds (and the grain-wines of the Chinese are nothing else, except that they frequently mix them with all sorts of fruit, including grapes) everywhere became the national drink in advance of wine, as brandy and other liquors follow wine. Grape-brandy has, it appears, been known in China only since the seventh century of our era, but is now a favorite beverage with the common Chinamen, and is drunk by them warm and almost as strong as alcohol in large quantities, in spite of its very unpleasant taste. For only a comparatively short time the grape-culture seems to have flourished in China. The Chinese always have had their grain-wines and their brandy more at heart. The inventor of the rice-wine was, it is true, banished by the Emperor Yu-te, because he well foresaw the sad consequences of its use, and yet the beverage has kept its place to the present day as an ornament of the Chinese table. It is like this people, who live on nothing but that water-plant, rice, and tea, to cling with the same obstinacy as they do to all old orders and customs, to this beverage, which is something between brandy and water, and taken neither hot nor cold. These wines are said to have a very bad effect; they fatten at first, but then bring on consumption, entire loss of appetite, and at last complete emaciation and death. It was natural, therefore, that the paternal Emperors, who looked after their subjects as after real children, and in whose laws dietetics always played a great part, should forbid these injurious beverages, and several of the Emperors set the good example. The third Emperor of the Dynasty Mant-shu, Yong-Tsheng, devoted one of his ten commandments to this subject, and the great Kanghi says in his writings that, despite his pleasure in them, he never became accustomed to wine and spirits. At feasts and banquets he only touched it with his lips, and so might well boast of not drinking any at all. Moreover, this wine consumes a great deal of grain, which in a densely peopled country, whose very existence depends upon its supplies of grain, is a matter of some importance, so that perhaps from this higher standpoint also there was good reason for the prohibition. But the most important reason lies deeper still, and was still more carefully considered; and as this chiefly concerns the wine from grapes, we must first cast another glance at grape-culture.

We have seen above that grapes existed of old in China. The just-mentioned learned, philosophical and humane Kanghi himself shows, in his remarks on natural history in China, that grapes came to China from the West, and that before his time but few kinds had existed in China, and boasts that he had sent for three new varieties to Ha-mi, as he would rather introduce a new fruit into his country than build a hundred porcelain towers. He observes, also, that these grapes degenerate in the south, but do well in the north in dry and stony soil. The experiences of the missionaries in Pekin, however, were unfavorable; the soil was against them, as well as the remarkably rough climate, and possibly they went to work awkwardly in other respects also. For it is certain that these very southern provinces once had many grape-vines, and the wine made in Shan-si, Shen-si, Petshe-ly, Shantong, Honan and Hu-Kuang, put into well-closed vessels and buried in the ground, could be preserved for years. This goes to prove an observation we shall often find repeated, that after a time the most favorable soil no longer suffices for the grape, which demands a certain youthful power in the soil in which it is to flourish most luxuriantly. In the older and middle ages of China we therefore find the grape-wine mentioned in all their songs, and that of the river Kiang is specially praised. It is known that at different periods vines were introduced from Samarcand, Persia, Thibet, Kashgar, Turfu and Ha-mi, and the annals themselves plainly mention wine under the reign of Emperor Wu-ty, Dynasty Han, 140 B. C. From there we can follow up its use almost from reign to reign, and after the already-mentioned Kanghi, the last dynasty shows still more rulers who introduced new grapes from distant countries, so that the southern provinces begin to restore their old grape-culture again. But the grapes in Ha-mi and Shan-si seem mostly to be used for raisins, and what we occasionally hear of their condition in Hoai-lai-hien – that their berries are of gigantic size, like plums, with a thick skin, and that their size is not so much due to the climate as to the fact that the vines are grafted on mulberry-trees, and that they ripen as early as April, May and June – all this seems highly characteristic of a degenerate culture, and gives us the poorest possible opinion of the wine that might be made there. Highly, therefore, as the Jesuits attempt to praise grape-culture in China, we can yet have but little belief in it; but in the Middle Ages it must have been all the more brilliant. The reports concerning it are, however, wrapped in a certain obscurity, from which no fact stands out clearly. The grape, it is said, flourished only too well in China – it caused various revolutions. As often as the Government had ordered the destruction of such trees as obstructed the grain-fields, the useless grape-vine was also included, and, if memory served the reporters, that plant was several times specially mentioned. It is certain that the destruction of the vine in most of the provinces, under various reigns, was carried so far that even the recollection of it was lost, and this induced the belief that the grape had been brought to China but recently from the Occident. It is plain that there was always a pretense put forward that the grape-wine detracted from the culture of the grain, although, with some care, the same area might probably have yielded a nobler beverage than was made of the rice and barley, grown where the grape had been rooted out. But the intellectual effect of it was evidently feared. In so regular a clock-work as the Chinese State, what might be more dangerous than irregular movements so very easily produced by wine in the heads of people? Even the making of the grape-wine was often prohibited. When that did not avail, its use was limited to feasts, banquets and sacrifices, and to guests and infirm old age. Not enough with this, at such feasts a special Mandarin was set over even the princes of the blood to keep watch over and not permit them to drink more than three glasses. And still more, certain ceremonies were prescribed, long healths and salutations, circumstantial rites, at which a free-thinker, as the Jesuits say, may laugh, but in which a philosopher must admire the wisdom of the lawgiver, and the subtlety with which he banished intemperance, and that injudicious freedom of speech which is its inseparable companion, from among the people! We have seen the effects of grain-wine in China. The wise Emperor Kanghi complains that it makes one stupid and dull and confuses the brain. And how much more terrible still must have been the effect of the grape-wine! This is probably meant in a certain book of the Dynasty Tshu, where it is said in warning explanation of the well-founded apprehensions of the Chinese Government, that if a spirit of rebellion and insurrection was then rife among the people of China, if they had lost much of their old virtues and principles, the cause of it must be sought solely in the effects of wine. Away, therefore, with that cursed boldness which betrays a tongue set free by wine; that noisy action and damnable confidence in one’s own strength; that rising of the spirit, which must have appeared to the learned Emperor as synonymous with confusion; the impudent overstepping of the good old laws of etiquette; the wild breaking away from the good old ruts! How should not all this, which was inseparably connected with wine, seem to the philosophical head of the State in his immovable peace and calmness, and to the council of his ministerial pedants, extremely dangerous to the State, and worthy of being annihilated to the last trace? Need we be surprised, therefore, at the stories of abstinence told of the Emperors? It was their duty to give a good example to the people. Had not their prophet, Confucius, left these words of moderation – that coarse rice for food, and water for drink, and the curved arm for a pillow, were enough for happiness!