Meaning & Analysis
Based on pre-modern medical beliefs, the proverb literally means that consuming high-quality wine was thought to directly produce healthy blood, thereby improving one's physical health, strength, and vitality.
Insights
Vitality and Vigor
'Good blood' serves as a metaphor for vitality, courage, and a spirited disposition. The proverb suggests that wine enhances not just physical health but also one's life force, making a person more energetic, cheerful, and bold.
Sociability and Merriment
The proverb implies that the shared consumption of wine fosters emotional warmth, sociability, and good fellowship. In this sense, 'good blood' symbolizes a positive and merry temperament conducive to strong social bonds.
Cultivation of Character
Given the historical association of 'good blood' with noble lineage, the proverb can be read as a statement on character. It suggests that consuming things of quality, like fine wine, helps cultivate a refined, generous, and superior nature.
Humoral Medical Theory
The proverb is a direct expression of the historical medical framework of humoralism, where wine (a 'hot' and 'moist' substance) was believed to generate blood, the most vital of the four humors, associated with a sanguine and courageous temperament. This contrasts sharply with water, believed to produce 'phlegm' (coldness and sluggishness).
Eucharistic Resonance
The link between wine and blood carries deep religious overtones from the Christian Eucharist, where wine symbolizes the blood of Christ. This sacred association elevates wine beyond a mere beverage, infusing it with connotations of life force, spirit, and redemption, which the proverb draws on for its symbolic power.
Social Status and Quality
The emphasis on 'good' wine subtly reflects a social hierarchy. Access to high-quality wine, as opposed to common ale or water, was a marker of status. The proverb thus implies that vitality and superior constitution ('good blood') are linked to the refined consumption habits of the upper classes.
Psychological Justification
The proverb serves as a powerful psychological justification for drinking, framing it not as a mere indulgence but as a beneficial act for improving one's physical and mental well-being, courage, and creative spirit—a notion famously elaborated by Shakespeare's Falstaff.
Rhetorical Devices
Parallelism
The proverb uses a direct cause-and-effect structure ('Good X makes good Y') that is simple, balanced, and memorable, giving it an authoritative, aphoristic quality.
Symbolism
'Blood' functions as a powerful symbol, representing not just the physical fluid but also one's essential spirit, courage, temperament, and life force.
Alliteration
The repetition of the 'g' sound in 'Good... good' creates a simple alliteration that enhances the proverb's rhythm and reinforces the positive association between the cause and the effect.
Transcription
Quotations
Ith morninge to reviue his spirites I thinke and to breade some goode bloude toth alhouse he went.
Goode drinke makes good bloud.
Drinke neverthelesse, saide Ladie Fraunces, for it will engender bloud in you in dispight of love.
And yet at night carouse within my tent, Filling their empty veins with airy wine, That, being concocted, turns to crimson blood.
He that drinks wine, drinks blood, and he that drinks water, drinks fleame.
Therefore they mote not taste of fleshly food . . Ne drinke of wine, for wine they say is blood.
Ran, ran, tarra, Cold beere makes good bloud.
Wine . . engendreth good bloud.
Whose sacred liquor, temperately ta'en, Revives the spirits, and purifies the brain; Cheers the sad heart, increaseth kindly heat, Purgeth gross bloud, and doth the pure beget.
So, so, so, so. This heate [from drinking wine] is life; 'tis bloud, by this time.
Good drinke makes good bloud, Good blood needes no Barber, Ergo, tis good to drinke good drinke.
In wine he wades . . which makes good bloud.
And what the best drinke? —That that breedes the best blood.
Good wine engendreth good blood.
Yea, toot and spare not, it will be your owne, Good drinke breeds blood, and bloud makes able men.
So fill more wine, we use to drinke up all; Wine makes good blood and cheeres the heart withal.
In the morning white wine is good, Claret at night to breed good blood.
Blood requires blood, then from the Purple Grape I'le suck my fill.
Wine begets bloud, and water flegm.
Shakespeare Citations
Nor a man cannot make him laugh. But that's no marvel; he drinks no wine.
Prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking.
Drink a good hearty draught [of wine]; it breeds good blood, man.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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