The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 55

Himself opposed t' Ulysses full in sight Each portion parts, and orders every rite; The first fat offerings to th' Immortals due, Amid the greedy flames Patroclus threw.

And also he introduces the guests as making libations--

He said, and all approved; the heralds bring The cleansing water from the living spring, The youths with wine the sacred goblets crown'd, And large libations drench'd the sand around.

The rite perform'd, the chiefs their thirst allay, Then from the royal tent they take their way.[294:1]

And this ceremony Plato also observes in his Banquet. For he says--"Then after they had supped and made libations, they sang paeans to the G.o.d with all customary honours." And Xenophon speaks in very nearly the same terms. But in Epicurus there is no mention of any libation to the G.o.ds, or of any offering of first-fruits. But as Simonides says of an immodest woman--

And oftentimes she eats unhallow'd victims.

8. He says too that the Athenians were taught the proper proportions in which wine should be mixed by Amphictyon when he was king; and that on this account he erected a temple to the Upright Bacchus. For he is then really upright and not likely to fall, when he is drunk in proper proportions and well mixed; as Homer has it--

Hear me, my friends! who this good banquet grace,-- 'Tis sweet to play the fool in time and place.

And wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic and the serious smile; The grave in merry measures frisk about, And many a long-repented word bring out.[294:2]

For Homer does not call wine ??e?? in the sense of ???????, that is to say, foolish and the cause of folly. Nor does he bid a man be of a sullen countenance, neither singing nor laughing, nor ever turning himself to cheerful dancing in time to music. He is not so morose or ill-bred. But he knew the exact proportions in which all these things should be done, and the proper qualities and quant.i.ties of wine to be mixed. On which account he did not say that wine makes the sage sing, but sing very much, that is to say, out of tune and excessively, so as to trouble people. Nor, by Jove, did he say simply to smile, and, to frisk about; but using the word merry, and applying that to both, he reproves the unmanly propensity to such trifling--

Makes . . . . . . .

The grave in merry measure frisk about, And many a long-repented word bring out.

But in Plato none of these things are done in a moderate manner. But men drink in such quant.i.ties that they cannot even stand on their feet. For just look at the reveller Alcibiades, how unbecomingly he behaves. And all the rest drink a large goblet holding eight cotylae, using as an excuse that Alcibiades has led them on; not like the men in Homer--

But when they drank, and satisfied their soul.

Now of these things some ought to be repudiated once for all; but some ought to be enjoyed in moderation; people looking at them as at a slight addition or appendage to a repast; as Homer has said--

Let these, my friend, With song and dance the pompous revel end.

9. And altogether the poet has attributed devotion to such things to the Suitors, and to the Phaeacians, but not to Nestor or to Menelaus. And Aristarchus did not perceive that in his marriage feast, after the entertainment had lasted some time, and the princ.i.p.al days of the revel were over, in which the bride had been taken to the house of the bridegroom, and the marriage of Megapenthes was completed, Menelaus and Helen were left to themselves and feasted together. He, I say, not perceiving this, but being deceived by the first line--

Where sate Atrides 'midst his bridal friends,

he then added these lines, which do not properly belong to this place--

While this gay friendly troop the king surround, With festival and mirth the roofs resound; A bard amid the joyous circle sings High airs, attemper'd to the vocal strings, Whilst, warbling to the varied strain, advance Two sprightly youths to form the bounding dance:--

transferring them with the error in the reading and all from the eighteenth book of the Iliad, where he relates the making of the arms of Achilles; for it ought to be read not ???????te?, _the dancers beginning_, but ???????t?? (t?? ?d??, that is to say,) _when the poet began to sing_. For the word ?????? has peculiar reference to preluding on the lyre. On which account Hesiod also says in his s.h.i.+eld of Hercules--

The holy G.o.ddesses, the Muses nine, Preluded (???????) with a sacred melody.[296:1]

And Archilochus says--

Himself preluding (???????) with a sacred paean Set to the Lesbian flute.

And Stesichorus calls the Muse the Beginner of Song (???es???p??). And Pindar calls Preludes the Leaders of the Dance. And Diodorus the Aristophanian enclosed the whole account of the wedding in brackets; thinking that the first days only were alluded to, and disregarding the termination and what came after the banquet. And then he says we ought to write the words d??? d? ???st?t??e ?at' a?t??? with an aspirate, ?a?'

a?t???, but that would be a solecism. For ?at' a?t??? is equivalent to ?at? sf?? a?t???, but to say ?a?t??? would be a solecism.

10. But, as I said before, the introduction of this kind of music into this modest kind of entertainment is transferred to this place from the Cretic dance, of which he says in the eighteenth book of the Iliad, about the Making of the Arms--

A figured dance succeeds; such once was seen In lofty Cnossus, for the Cretan queen Form'd by Daedalean art; a comely band Of youths and maidens bounding hand-in-hand; The maids in soft cymars of linen dress'd, The youths all graceful in the glossy vest.

Of those the locks with flow'ry wreaths enroll'd, Of these the sides adorn'd with swords of gold, That glittering gay from silver belts depend.[296:2]

And then he adds to this--

Now all at once they rise, at once descend, With well-taught feet; now shape in oblique ways Confus'dly regular the moving maze.

Now forth at once too swift for sight they spring, And undistinguish'd blend the flying ring.[296:3]

Now among the Cretans, dancing and posture-making was a national amus.e.m.e.nt. On which account aeneas says to the Cretan Meriones--

Swift as thou art (the raging hero cries), And skill'd in dancing to dispute the prize, My spear, the destined pa.s.sage had it found, Had fix'd thy active vigour to the ground.

And from this they call the hyporchemata Cretan

They call it all a Cretan air . . . .

The instrument is called Molossian . . . .

"But they who were called Laconistae," says Timaeus, "used to sing standing to dance in square figures." And altogether there were many various kinds of music among the Greeks: as the Athenians preferred the Dionysiac and the Cyclian dances; and the Syracusians the Iambistic figure; and different nations practised different styles.

But Aristarchus not only interpolated lines which had no business there into the banquet of Menelaus, and by so doing made Homer make representations inconsistent with the system of the Lacedaemonians, and with the moderation of their king, but he also took away the singer from the Cretan chorus, mutilating his song in the following manner:--

The gazing mult.i.tudes admire around Two active tumblers in the centre bound; Now high, now low their pliant limbs they bend, And general songs the sprightly revel end.[297:1]

So that blunder of his in using the word ???????te? is almost irremediable, as the relation cannot after that possibly be brought back so as to refer to the singer.

11. And it is not probable that there were any musical entertainments at Menelaus's banquet, as is manifest from the fact of the whole time of the banquet being occupied by the guests in conversation with one another; and that there is no name mentioned as that of the minstrel; nor is any lay mentioned which he sang; nor is it said that Telemachus and his party listened to him; but they rather contemplated the house in silence, as it were, and perfect quiet. And how can it be looked upon as anything but incredible, that the sons of those wisest of men, Ulysses and Nestor, should be introduced as such ignorant people as, like clowns, not to pay the least attention to carefully prepared music? At all events Ulysses himself attends to the Phaeacian minstrels:--

Ulysses gazed, astonish'd to survey The glancing splendours as their sandals play:--[297:2]

although he had plenty of things to distract his attention, and although he could say--

Now care surrounds me, and my force decays, Inured a melancholy part to bear, In scenes of death by tempest and by war.[297:3]

How then can we think Telemachus any better than a mere clown, when a minstrel and a dancer are present, if he had bent silently towards Pisistratus and gazed on nothing but the plate and furniture? But Homer, like a good painter, makes Telemachus in every respect like his father; and so he has made each of them easily recognised, the one by Alcinous, and the other by Menelaus, by means of their tears.

12. But in the banquet of Epicurus there is an a.s.sembly of flatterers praising one another. And Plato's banquet is full of mockers, cavilling at one another; for I say nothing of the digression about Alcibiades.

But in Homer it is only banquets conducted with moderation which are applauded; and on one occasion, a man addressing Menelaus says--

I dare not in your presence speak, Whose voice we reverence as a voice divine.[298:1]

But he was reproving something which was either not said or not done with perfect correctness--

And now if aught there is that can be done, Take my advice; I grief untimely shun That interrupts the feast.[298:2]

And again, he says--

O son of wise Ulysses, what a word has 'scaped thy ivory fence! . . . .

For it is not right for a man to be a flatterer, nor a mocker.