Drunkenness

GENESIS 19:30-38 records that Lot’s daughters, their thinking so corrupted by the immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah, believed that it was incumbent upon them to produce children by their father. Lot was a party to this only under the heavy influence of alcohol (vv. 33, 35). The Pardoner alludes to this passage to demonstrate that wine and drunkenness lead to lust and excess: “The hooly writ take I to my witnesse / That luxurie is in wyn and dronkenesse. / Lo, how that dronken Looth, unkyndely, / Lay by his doghters two, unwityngly; / So dronke he was, he nyste what he wroghte.”