of Naucratis Athenaeus

“ When they have wives who cannot speak a word.
And Philetærus, in his Corinthiast, says—
O Jupiter, how soft and bland an eye
The lady has! 'Tis not for nothing we
Behold the temple of Hetæra here;
But there is not one temple to a wife
Throughout the whole of Greece.
And Amphis says in his Athamas—
Is not a courtesan much more good-humour'd
Than any wedded wife? No doubt she is,
And 'tis but natural; for she, by law,
Thinks she's a right to sulk and stay at home:
But well the other knows that 'tis her manners
By which alone she can retain her friends ”

“ True flower of love, my beauteous Galatea.
But this is but a blind panegyric, and not at all to be compared with the encomium of Ibycus:—
Beauteous Euryalus, of all the Graces
The choicest branch,—object of love to all
The fair-hair'd maidens,—sure the soft-eyed goddess,
The Cyprian queen, and soft Persuasion
Combin'd to nourish you on beds of roses.
And Phrynichus said of Troilus—
The light of love shines in his purple cheeks. ”

“ Clearly, O youth, the music of the flute,
And that which from the lyre comes, does suit
Well with our pastimes; for when each resound
In unison with the feelings of those present,
Then is the greatest pleasure felt by all.
And the exact meaning of the word συναυλία is shown by Semus the Delian, in the fifth book of his Delias, where he writes—"But as the term 'concert' (συναυλία) is not understood by many people, we must speak of it. It is when there is a union of the flute and of rhythm in alternation, without any words accompanying the melody." ”

“ For the ornament of a crown, as there is nothing lasting in it, is a sort of emblem of a passion which does not endure, but assumes a specious appearance for a while: and such a passion is love. For no people are more careful to study appearance than those who are in love. Unless, perhaps, nature, as a sort of god, administering everything with justice and equity, thinks that lovers ought not to be crowned till they have subdued their love; that is to say, till, having prevailed upon the object of their love, they are released from their desire. ”

“ A life of pleasure is the best for man.
And Homer, too, speaks of pleasure and indulgence in the following terms—
How sweet the products of a peaceful reign,—
The heaven-taught poet and enchanting strain,
The well-fill'd palace, the perpetual feast,
A loud rejoicing, and a people blest!
How goodly seems it ever to employ
Man's social days in union and in joy ”

“ So against her a Lydian man of noble birth rose up, one who had been previously offended at the government of Midas; while Midas lay in effeminacy, and luxury, and a purple robe, working in the company of the women at the loom. But as Omphale slew all the strangers whom she admitted to her embraces, he chastised both—the one, being a stupid and illiterate man, he dragged out by his ears; a man who, for want of sense, had the surname of the most stupid of all animals: but the woman.... ”

“ But Alexis says in his Helena—
The man who falls in love with beauty's flower,
And taketh heed of nothing else, may be
A lover of pleasure, but not of his love;
And he does openly disparage Love,
And causes him to be suspect to others. ”

“ Men also crown the doors of the houses of the objects of their love, either with a view to do them honour, as they adorn with crowns the vestibule of some god to do him honour: or perhaps the offering of the crowns is made, not to the beloved objects, but to the god Love. For thinking the beloved object the statue, as it were, of Love, and his house the temple of Love, they, under this idea, adorn with crowns the vestibules of those whom they love. And for the same reason some people even sacrifice at the doors of those whom they love. ”

“ And who are they whom the goddesses have carried off? are they not the handsomest of men? And they cohabit with them; as Aurora does with Cephalus and Clitus and Tithonus; and Ceres with Jason; and Venus with Anchises and Adonis. And it was for the sake of beauty also that the greatest of the gods entered through a roof under the form of gold, and became a bull, and often transformed himself into a winged eagle, as he did in the case of Ægina. ”

“ But after this, learning the airs of Timotheus and Philoxenus, they every year, at the festival of Bacchus, dance in their theatres to the music of flute-players; the boys dancing in the choruses of boys, and the youths in those of men. And throughout the whole duration of their lives they are addicted to music at their common entertainments; not so much, however, employing musicians as singing in turn: and to admit themselves ignorant of any other accomplishment is not at all reckoned discreditable to them; but to refuse to sing is accounted a most disgraceful thing. ”

“ For who would care to be a starving beauty?
After that, these other scolia were sung—
VIII.
'Tis well to stand upon the shore,
And look on others on the sea;
But when you once have dipp'd your oar,
By the present wind you must guided be.
IX.
A crab caught a snake in his claw,
And thus he triumphantly spake,—
"My friends must be guided by law,
Nor love crooked counsels to take."
[Pg 1111]
SCOLIA.
X.
I'll wreathe my sword in myrtle-bough,
The sword that laid the tyrant low,
When patriots, burning to be free,
To Athens gave equality. [139]
XI.
Harmodius, hail! ”

“ Or shall we rather say that people who fancy that they are deprived, or who really have been deprived of the ornament of their soul, consecrate to those who have deprived them of it, the ornament also of their body, being bewildered by their passion, and despoiling themselves in order to do so? And every one who is in love does this when the object of his love is present, but when he is not present, then he makes this offering in the public roads. ”

“ For to indulge in pleasure and luxury is the conduct of freeborn men and of a liberal disposition. For pleasure relaxes the soul and invigorates it. But labour belongs to slaves and to mean men; on which account they are contracted in their natural dispositions. And the city of the Athenians, while it indulged in luxury, was a very great city, and bred very magnanimous men. ”

“ Beauty is next; the third great prize
Is to grow rich, free both from sin and vice;
The fourth, to pass one's youth with friends beloved by heaven.
And when this had been sung, and everybody had been delighted with it; and when it had been mentioned that even the incomparable Plato had spoken of this scolium as one most admirably written, Myrtilus said, that Anaxandrides the comic poet had turned it into ridicule in his Treasure, speaking thus of it—
The man who wrote this song, whoe'er he was,
When he call'd health the best of all possessions,
Spoke well enough. ”

“ O Callias, you entertain us superbly; for you have not only given us a most faultless feast, but you have furnished us also with delicious food for our eyes and ears.'—'Well, then,' said he, 'suppose any one were to bring us perfumes, in order that we might also banquet on sweet smells?'—'By no means,' said Socrates; 'for as there is one sort of dress fit for women and another for men, so there is one kind of smell fit for women and another for men. And no man is ever anointed with perfume for the sake of men ”

“ Now I warn you, O philosophers, who indulge in unnatural passions, and who treat the great goddess Venus with impiety, to beware, lest you be destroyed in the same manner. For boys are only handsome, as Glycera the courtesan said, while they are like women: at least, this is the saying attributed to her by Clearchus. ”

“ And, therefore, in the case of a young man who had every other imaginable virtue, this one fault alone, that he did not honour Venus, was the cause of his destruction. And neither Diana, who loved him exceedingly, nor any other of the gods or demi-gods could defend him; and accordingly, in the words of the same poet,—
Whoe'er denies that Love's the only god, [54]
Is foolish, ignorant of all that's true,
And knows not him who is the greatest deity
Acknowledged by all nations.
And the wise Anacreon, who is in everybody's mouth, is always celebrating love. ”

“ LOVE OF PLEASURE.
5. But Heraclides of Pontus, in his treatise on Pleasure, speaks as follows—"Tyrants and kings, having all kinds of good things in their power, and having had experience of all things, place pleasure in the first rank, on the ground that pleasure makes the nature of man more magnanimous. Accordingly, all those who have honoured pleasure above everything, and who have deliberately chosen to live a life of luxury, have been and magnificent people, as, for instance, the Medes and the Persians. For they, of all men, are those who hold pleasure and luxury in the highest honour ”

“ Now in ancient times all the Greeks were fond of music; but when in subsequent ages disorders arose, when nearly all the ancient customs had got out of fashion and had become obsolete, this fondness for music also wore out, and bad styles of music were introduced, which led all the composers to aim at effeminacy rather than delicacy, and at an enervated and dissolute rather than a modest style. ”

“ And we must not wonder at people having on some occasions fallen in love with others from the mere report of their beauty, when Chares of Mitylene, in the tenth book of his History of Alexander, says that some people have even seen in dreams those whom they have never beheld before, and fallen in love with them so. ”

“ And when some one asked him what his system had been which had caused him to live with such comfort, and to retain such full possession of his senses, he said, "I have never done anything merely for the sake of pleasure." But Demetrius of Byzantium, in the fourth book of his treatise on Poems, says—"Gorgias the Leontine, being once asked by some one what was the cause of his living more than a hundred years, said that it was because he had never done anything to please any one else except himself." ”

“ When they had heard this they thought the God had said to them that they should never have their luxury terminated; for that there was no chance of their ever honouring a man more than God. But in agreement with the oracle they experienced a change of fortune, when one of them flogging one of his slaves, continued to beat him after he had sought an asylum in a temple; but when at last he fled to the tomb of his father, he let him go, out of shame. But their whole revenues were dissipated by the way in which they rivalled one another in luxury. ”

“ On which account Homer, wishing to represent pleasure in an odious light, says that the greatest of the gods receive no advantage from their power, but are even much injured by it, if they will allow themselves to be hurried away by the pursuit of pleasure. For all the anxiety which Jupiter, when awake, lavished on the Trojans, was lost in open day, when he abandoned himself to pleasure. And Mars, who was a most valiant deity, was put in chains by Vulcan, who was very powerless, and incurred great disgrace and punishment, when he had given himself up to irrational love ”

“ Now the daughter of Omartes, the king of the Marathi, a tribe dwelling on the other side of the Tanais, was named Odatis. And concerning her it is written in the Histories, that she in her sleep beheld Zariadres, and fell in love with him; and that the very same thing happened to him with respect to her. And so for a long time they were in love with one another, simply on account of the visions which they had seen in their dreams. And Odatis was the most beautiful of all the women in Asia; and Zariadres also was very handsome. ”

“ Where deathless live the glorious dead;
Achilles fleet of foot, and Diomed.
In myrtles veil'd will I the falchion wear;
For thus the patriot sword
Harmodius and Aristogeiton bare,
When they the tyrant's bosom gored
When, in Minerva's festal rite,
They closed Hipparchus' eyes in night.
Harmodius' praise, Aristogeiton's name,
Shall bloom on earth with undecaying fame;
Who, with the myrtle-wreathed sword,
The tyrant's bosom gored;
And bade the men of Athens be
Regenerate in equality. —Elton.
Hybrias. (Book xv. § 50, p. 1112.) ”

“ Wherefore it seems to me that we ought to have a philosophical conversation about music: for Pythagoras the Samian, who had such a high reputation as a philosopher, is well known, from many circumstances, to have been a man who had no slight or superficial knowledge of music; for he indeed lays it down that the whole universe is put and kept together by music. And altogether the ancient philosophy of the Greeks appears to have been very much addicted to music ”

“ For enjoyment is connected, in the first instance, with appetite; and in the second place, with pleasure. And Sophocles the poet, being a man fond of enjoyment, in order to avoid accusing old age, attributed his impotence in amatory pleasures to his temperance, saying that he was glad to be released from them as from some hard master. But I say that the Judgment of Paris is a tale originally invented by the ancients, as a comparison between pleasure and virtue. Accordingly, when Venus, that is to say pleasure, was preferred, everything was thrown into confusion. ”

“ A man who marries once may be excused;
Not knowing what misfortune he was seeking.
But he who, once escaped, then tries another,
With his eyes open seeks for misery.
And Antiphanes, in his Philopator, says—
A. He's married now.
B. How say you? do you mean
He's really gone and married—when I left him,
Alive and well, possess'd of all his senses?
And Menander, in his Woman carrying the Sacred Vessel of Minerva, or the Female Flute-player, says—
A. You will not marry if you're in your senses
When you have left this life. For I myself
Did marry; so I recommend you not to. ”

“ And Theophrastus, in his book on Love, says that Chæremon the tragedian said in one of his plays, that—
As wine adapts itself to the constitution
Of those who drink it, so likewise does Love
Who, when he's moderately worshipp'd,
Is mild and manageable; but if loosed
From moderation, then is fierce and troublesome.
On which account the same poet afterwards, distinguishing his powers with some felicity, says—
For he doth bend a double bow of beauty,
And sometimes men to fortune leads,
But sometimes overwhelms their lives
With trouble and confusion. ”

“ Accordingly, when on one occasion Stilpo, at a banquet, was accusing Glycera of seducing the young men of the city, (as Satyrus mentions in his Lives,) Glycera took him up and said, "You and I are accused of the same thing, O Stilpo; for they say that you corrupt all who come to you, by teaching them profitless and amorous sophistries; and they accuse me of the same thing: for if people waste their time, and are treated ill, it makes no difference whether they are living with a philosopher or with a harlot." ”

“ For if a slave and a freeman be anointed with perfume, they both smell alike in a moment; but those smells which are derived from free labours, require both virtuous habits and a good deal of time if they are to be agreeable and in character with a freeman.'" And [Pg 1097] that admirable writer Chrysippus says that perfumes (μύρα) derive their name from being prepared with great toil (μόρος) and useless labour. The Lacedæmonians even expel from Sparta those who make perfumes, as being wasters of oil; and those who dye wool, as being destroyers of the whiteness of the wool. ”