Chaucer’s Medieval Hangover
Advice and Cure
If you should quaff nocturnally too much,
and waking, find your mouth’s a rabbit hutch
in fragrance, while you’ve copiously been sick,
raw eels and bitter almonds do the trick.
Those eels and almonds cancel out what brew
doth loiter in your guts, inciting spew,
and soothes, betwixt your ears, that hornet’s nest
which gives your nauseous impulses no rest.
But let me backtrack. Ere those careless sips—
beware! Some grog should never pass your lips.
Un-Gallic wine and sedimentary ale
are those most prone to violently assail
the belly of an Englishman. Thus, mead
fermented in oak barrels is agreed
as best to shun an agonising head
that leaves you roundly wishing you were dead.
Paul A. Freeman is the author of Rumours of Ophir, a crime novel which was taught in Zimbabwean high schools and has been translated into German. In addition to having two novels, a children’s book and an 18,000-word narrative poem (Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers!) commercially published, Paul is the author of hundreds of published short stories, poems and articles.
A tempting remedy. I shall try it. Thank you, voice of experience.
I think if I’d been around in Medieval times, that cure would have kept me teetotal.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Martin.
As a lifetime teetotaler, my advice is never to drink alcohol and the brain is always fresh in the morning. This does seem like good advice for those who do imbibe.
My days of addled brains in the morning are behind me, which is certainly a good thing. Alas, though, the treats I give myself for finishing a writing project these days tend to be overly-calorific!
Thanks for reading and commenting, Roy.
Though raw baby eels, I’ve heard, can be a delicacy, I’ve never tried them. Back in college we believed the best cure for a hangover was the hair of the dog that bit you — in other words, start drinking again.
Yes, that hair (‘hair’ being both a countable and uncountable noun) of the dog can result in never sobering up. In retrospect, too many of my college days were spent paying homage to Bacchus.
Thanks for your time to read and comment CB.
Alcohol: It loves me, it loves me NOT! Love your poem, yes I do, especially the final line. Perfect.
Hi, Norma. My love-hate relationship came to an end when my liver rebelled.
This piece was a bit of fun for a competition. What was weird was I found no other hangover remedies online except this one!
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Just enough Chaucerian vocabulary to give the poem an aged taste, Paul. However, the advice leaves me more than one dilemma. I like my eels well cooked, and almonds are best turned into milk. Wine is better than mead (no oaken flavor, please), but Gallic is too expensive. Centuries after Chaucer, English wine is worthwhile when in country, but local California varietals serve my usual nocturnal quaffing quite well. Your poem presents an entertaining antique warning against excessive indulgence!
Hi, Margaret. I’m currently in a ‘dry’ country, and although I don’t drink, it’s interesting to see how others make do.
I can imagine with the ever warmer weather in the UK that the wine-making industry could take off again, as it did around the Norman invasion era until it got scotched (no pun intended) by the Little Ice Age.
Thanks for reading and commenting.