“…. O, it presses to my memory,
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds.”
(Romeo and Juliet, act 3, sc. 2)
Fifteen years is a long time for the collective memory of people. Collective drunkenness is not indispensable for collective forgetfulness. But Lady Macbeth’s words still apply,
“… memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A empty vase a”
Different causes, same effect. Drunkenness from drink in one case, drunkenness from power in the other. Continue reading