Deipnosophistae

And Plato in his Banquet speaks in the same manner on this subject.

For,

says he,

that we may destroy the proverb by altering it: Good men may go of their own accord to feasts given by good men. For Homer appears not only to have destroyed that proverb, but also to have ridiculed it; for having represented Agamemnon as valiant in warlike matters, and Menelaus as an effeminate warrior, when Agamemnon celebrates a sacrifice, he represents Menelaus as coming uninvited,—that is, the worse man coming to the feast of the better man.

And Bacchylides, speaking of Hercules, and telling how he came to the house of Ceyx, says—

1. Then on the brazen threshold firm he stood,
2. (They were a feast preparing,) and thus spake
3. Brave and just men do uninvited come
4. To well-appointed feasts by brave and just men made

And as to proverbs, one says—

1. Good men do of their own accord
2. To good men's entertainments come:

and another says—

1. Brave men do of their own accord
2. To cowards' entertainments come.

It was without reason, therefore, that Plato thought that Menelaus was a coward; for Homer speaks of him as Mars-loving, and as fighting single-handed with the greatest gallantry in defence of Patroclus, and eager to fight in single combat with Hector as the champion of the whole army, although he certainly was inferior to Hector in personal strength. And he is the only man in the whole expedition of whom he has said—

1. And on he went, firm in his fearless zeal.[*](Iliad, ii 588.)

But if an enemy, disparaging him, called him an effeminate warrior, and on this account Plato thinks that he really was an effeminate warrior, why should he not also class Agamemnon himself among the men void of prowess, since this line is spoken against him?—

1. O monster, mix'd of insolence and fear,
2. Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer!
3. When wert thou known in ambush'd fights to dare,
4. Or nobly face the horrid front of war?
5. 'Tis ours the chance of fighting fields to try,
6. Thine to look on and bid the valiant die.[*](Ib. i. 225.)

For it does not follow because something is said in Homer, that Homer himself says it. For how could Menelaus have been effeminate who, single-handed, kept Hector away from Patroclus, and who slew Euphorbus, and stripped him of his arms though in the very middle of the Trojan host? And it was foolish of him not completely to consider the entire line which he was finding fault with, in which Menelaus is called

Raising the battle cry,

βοὴν ἀγαθὸς, for that is an epithet which Homer is in the habit of giving only to the most valiant; for the ancients called war itself βοή.

But Homer, who is most accurate in everything, did not overlook even this trifling point; that a man ought to show some care of his person, and to bathe himself before going to an entertainment. And so, in the case of Ulysses, before the banquet among the Phæacians, he tells us—

1. A train attends
2. Around the baths, the bath the king ascends,
3. (Untasted joy since that disastrous hour
4. He sail'd defeated from Calypso's bower,)
5. He bathes, the damsels with officious toil
6. Shed sweets, shed unguents in a shower of oil.
7. Then o'er his limbs a gorgeous robe he spreads,
8. And to the feast magnificently treads.[*](Odyss. viii. 449.)

And again he says of Telemachus and his companion—

1. From room to room their eager view they bend,
2. Thence to the bath, a beauteous pile, descend.[*](lb. iv. 48.)

For it was unseemly, says Aristotle, for a man to come to a banquet all over sweat and dust. For a well-bred man ought not to be dirty nor squalid, nor to be all over mud, as Heraclitus says. And a man when he first enters another person's house for a feast, ought not to hasten at once to the banqueting-room, as if he had no care but to fill his stomach, but he ought first to indulge his fancy in looking about him, and to examine the house. And the poet has not omitted to take notice of this also.

1. Part in a portico, profusely graced
2. With rich magnificence, the chariot placed;
3. Then to the dome the friendly pair invite,
4. Who eye the dazzling roof with vast delight,
5. Resplendent as the blaze of summer noon,
6. Or the pale radiance of the midnight moon.[*](Ib. iv. 43.)

And Aristophanes, in his Wasps, represents the rustic and litigious old man as invited to a more civilized form of life by his son—

1. Cease; sit down here and learn at length to be
2. A boon companion, and a cheerful guest.[*](Ar. Vesp. 1208.)

And then showing him how he ought to sit down he says—

1. Then praise some of these beauteous works in brass,
2. Look at the roof, admire the carvèd hall.

And again Homer instructs us as to what we ought to do before a banquet, namely how we ought to allot the first-fruits of the dishes to the gods. At all events Ulysse and his friends, although in the cave of the Cyclops—

1. Then first a fire we kindle, and prepare
2. For his return with sacrifice and prayer.[*](Odyss. ix. 201.)

And Achilles, although the ambassadors were impatient, as they had arrived in the middle of the night, still—

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

And also he introduces the guests as making libations—

1. He said, and all approved; the heralds bring
2. The cleansing water from the living spring,
3. The youths with wine the sacred goblets crown'd,
4. And large libations drench'd the sand around.
5. The rite perform'd, the chiefs their thirst allay,
6. Then from the royal tent they take their way.[*](Iliad, ix. 219.)

And this ceremony Plato also observes in his Banquet. For he says—

Then after they had supped and made libations, they sang pæans to the god 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 gods, or of any offering of first-fruits. But as Simonides says of an immodest woman—

1. And oftentimes she eats unhallow'd victims.

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—

1. Hear me, my friends! who this good banquet grace,—
2. 'Tis sweet to play the fool in time and place.
3. And wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
4. Make the sage frolic and the serious smile;
5. The grave in merry measures frisk about,
6. And many a long-repented word bring out.[*](Odyss. xiv. 464.)

For Homer does not call wine ἠλεὸς in the sense of ἠλίθιος, 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 quantities 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 un- manly propensity to such trifling—

1. Makes . . . . . . . .
2. The grave in merry measure frisk about,
3. 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 quantities 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 cotylæ, using as an excuse that Alcibiades has led them on; not like the men in Homer—

1. 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—

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

And altogether the poet has attributed devotion to such things to the Suitors, and to the Phæacians, 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 principal 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—

1. Where sate Atrides 'midst his bridal friends,

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

1. While this gay friendly troop the king surround,
2. With festival and mirth the roofs resound;
3. A bard amid the joyous circle sings
4. High airs, attemper'd to the vocal strings,
5. Whilst, warbling to the varied strain, advance
6. 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 red not ἐξάρχοντες, the dancers beginning, but (τοῦ ᾠδοῦ, that is to say,) when the poet began to sing. For the word ἐξάρχω has peculiar reference to preluding on the lyre. On which account Hesiod also says in his Shield of Hercules—

1. The holy goddesses, the Muses nine,
2. Preluded (ἐξῆρχον) with a sacred melody.[*](Hes. Scut. Here. 205.)

And Archilochus says—

1. Himself preluding (ἐξάρχων) with a sacred paean
2. Set to the Lesbian flute.

And Stesichorus calls the Muse the Beginner of Song (ἀρχεσίμολπος). 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 δοίω δὲ κυβιστητῆρε κατʼ αὐτοὺς with an aspirate, καθʼ αὑτοὺς, but that would be a solecism. For κατʼ αὐτοὺς is equivalent to κατὰ σφᾶς αὐτοὺς, but to say ἑαυτοὺς would be a solecism.