Wine, women and song

“Wine, women, and song“ is a hendiatris that endorses hedonistic lifestyles or behaviors. In modern times, it is usually seen in the form “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.”

Similar tripartite mottoes have existed for a long time in many languages, for example:

• Bengali/Hindi/Sanskrit – “Sur, Sura, Sundari” (music, wine and woman)
• Bulgarian – “Пиене, ядене и някоя сгодна женица” (drink, food and a good woman)
• Czech – “Víno, ženy a zpěv” (wine, women and song)
• Danish – “Vin, kvinder og sang” (wine, women and song)
• Finnish – “Viini, laulu ja naiset” (wine, song, and women)
• Georgian – “ღვინო, დუდუკი, ქალები” (wine, duduk, women)
• German – “Wein, Weib und Gesang” (wine, woman and singing)
• Hebrew – “Sex, samim ve rock ‘n’ roll”
• Italian – “Bacco, tabacco e Venere” (Bacchus, tobacco and Venus)
• Persian – “Kabab, Sharab va Shabab” (meat, wine and youth)
• Norwegian – “Piker, vin og sang” (women, wine and song)
• Polish – “Wino, kobiety i śpiew” (wine, women and singing)
• Swedish – “Vin, kvinnor och sång” (wine, women and song)
• Spanish – “Naipes, Mujeres y Vino, Mal Camino” (cards, women and wine, bad ways)
• Portuguese – “Putas e vinho verde” (whores and young wine)

Not all hendiatris including women are positive: in Greek – “Πύρ, γυνή και θάλαττα” (“fire, women and the sea”) instead suggest three dangers rather than pleasures, and Turkish At, Avrat, Silah (“horse, woman, weapon”) offers the three essentials of quite another culture.

The following “tetrad” (using four concepts rather than three) predates all of the above^{[citation needed]}:

• Persian “دویار زیرک و از باده کهن دو منی فراغتی و کتابی و گوشه چمنی” a popular Ghazal (Ghazal) by Hafez (1325–1389):

“Two sweethearts,

Two flasks of old wine,

A book of verse

And a cosy corner in the garden.”