Canter Bridge

Whether the intended audience of the biblical Proverbs is comprised of the sons and daughters of the court or whether these collected dicta are for the instruction of sons and daughters in the home, the sayings of the wise display a certain concern with the dignity of leaders. Royalty, for the sages, is no laughing matter. The nation’s fate depends to some considerable degree upon justice and mercy working their way into the conscience and conduct of those who hold the levers of power in their hand.

A democratic age squirms at the thought. The wise contemplate the matter with serene realism.

The mother of a certain Lemuel reflects this concern. No tea-totaler, it would seem, she is nevertheless clear-eyed about the damaging effects of strong drink as well as sanguine about its pain-killing qualities.

It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to desire strong drink; or else they will drink and forget what has been decreed, and will pervert the rights of all the afflicted. Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more. (Proverbs 31:4–7 NRSV)

Lemuel’s mother knows that behavior located within the gray zones of the ethical map can be tolerated when the hapless engage in it. But when the influential meddle in such stuff, bad things happen. If no man is an island, women and men born to influence cannot imagine themselves to be even a peninsula.

Too much is at stake.

The prudent mother of Lemuel cannot bear to imagine that the relatively modest pleasure of strong drink should end up perverting the rights of the oppressed because the addled brain of an inebriated prince can no longer recall what he’s been taught about justice and its carcinogenic alternatives.

No Bible-thumping here, no jeremiads, no screaming in the street. Just the real-world discernment that those who lead give up certain prerogatives for a quite simple reason: too much is at stake.