John Trumbull, The Death of Paulus Aemilius at the Battle of Cannae (1773)
Hope that springs eternal in no
The human breast is fond of gin,
Or Scotch or beer or anything
Designed to help a hope to spring.
—Samuel Hoffenstein, Poems in Praise of Practically Nothing (1928)
"Nux vomica, the "vomiting nut,"
Semen of the strychnine tree,
As homeopathic remedy,
Treats the postelectoral urge to spew.
But strychnine's a deadly poison, too!"
"The juniper's the tree of hope.
With its berries the Swiss flavored gin
At Geneva—whose name means 'Mouth'—
Where Hannibal, headed south,
Discovered it, crossing the Alps in 218 BCE,
And spilled it to crack boulders in his way.
It might've fueled the Carthaginian army at Cannae!"*
"Others insist, as I recall, it was the Dutch invented gin:
Piet Hein zijn naam is klein,
Zijn daden bennen groot.†
For them, jenever—the juniper's boozy liquid fruit—
Gushed up like . . . like . . . like spring water in the brain.
(This looked-for rhyme may be pathetic, but's no sin.)"
"OK'd by (or, at least, oblivious) the FDA,
Gin makes no difference to our human slaughter,
And yet it drives cruel care away.
La gnôle of Hannibal's Gauls at Cannae,
New Rome's defenders' also love—with tonic and a slice of lime—today."
* The battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, perhaps the worst defeat in Roman history, made Hannibal's reputation as one of the world's greatest generals. According to Polybius, 70,000 Roman soldiers were killed, among them the Roman commander, consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus. Hannibal's infantry consisted mostly of Gauls recruited on his passage up the Rhône valley.
The Romans fought on, however, and in 146 BCE, they sacked the city of Carthage and slaughtered its population. Today, a few thousand years later, however, Carthaginians—North Africans—once again besiege Europe. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose: The more things change, the more they are the same.
Gnôle = eau de vie, moonshine, white lightning.
†"Piet Hein, his name is little but his deeds are great." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Pieterszoon_Hein