The picture ends with the words of the drunkard on waking from his sleep. Unconscious of the excesses of the night, his first thought is to return to his old habit.
When shall I awake - Better, when I shall awake I will seek it yet again.

They have stricken me - Though beat and abused, full of pain, and exhibiting a frightful figure; yet so drunk was he, as to be insensible who had struck him: still, after all this abuse and disgrace, he purposes to embrace the next opportunity of repeating his excesses! Sin makes a man contemptible in life, miserable in death, and wretched to all eternity. Is it not strange, then, that men should Love it?

They have stricken me, [shalt thou say, and] I was not sick; they have beaten me, [and] I felt [it] not: when shall I awake? I will (q) seek it yet again.
(q) Though drunkenness makes them more insensible then beasts, yet they can not refrain.

They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick,.... Or "grieved not" (x); or was not wounded or skin broken (y); see Jeremiah 5:3. The drunken man is here represented as saying, that though his companions, with whom he quarrelled and fought in his drunken frolics, beat him very much, yet he was not sensible of the pain and smart; and it had left no sickness nor disorder upon him; he did not find himself much the worse for it;
they have beaten me; as with hammers (z); battered and bruised him terribly, laying very hard and heavy strokes upon him;
and I felt it not; or "knew it not" (a); did not perceive it, was not sensible of it, when the blows were given, or who gave them; and thus feeling no more, and coming off so well, as he thinks, he is so far from being reclaimed from this vice, that he is more strengthened in it, and desirous of it;
when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again: that is, the wine and his boon companions, though he has been so used. So the Vulgate Latin version, "when shall I awake, and again find wines?" being heavy with sleep through intemperance, and yet thirsty, is desirous of shaking off his sleep, that he may get to drinking again, and "add drunkenness to thirst", Deuteronomy 29:19; so the Septuagint version,
"when will it be morning, that going I may seek with whom I may meet?''
(x) "non dolui", Tigurine version, Michaelis. (y) Schultens Orig. Hebrews. l. 1. c. 9. s. 20. (z) "contuderunt me, velut malleis", Michaelis; so Grotius. (a) "non cognovi", Pagninus, Montanus; "non novi", Cocceius.

awake--that is, from drunkenness (Genesis 9:24). This is the language rather of acts than of the tongue.

Sick - I was not sensible of it. Again - At present my condition requires sleep to settle myself, and when I am composed, I purpose to return to my former course.