Deipnosophistae

And when Ulpian was about to add something to this Aemilianus said,—It is time for us, my friends, to inquire in some degree about γρῖφοι, that we may leave our cups for a little while, not indeed in the spirit of that work which is entitled the Grammatical Tragedy of Callias the Athenian: but let us first inquire what is the definition of what we call a γρῖφος. . . . And we may omit what Cleobulina of Lindus has proposed in her Epigrams; for our companion, Diotimus of Olympia, has discussed that point sufficiently; but we must consider how the comic poets have mentioned it, and what punishment those who have failed to solve it have undergone. And Laurentius said,—Clearchus the Solensian defines the word thus:

γρῖφος,

says he,

is a sportive problem, in which we are bidden to seek out, by the exertion of our intellect and powers of investigation, what i proposed to us, which has been uttered for the sake of some honour or some penalty.

And in his discussion on these griphi, the same Clearchus asserts that

there are seven kinds of griphi. In the letter, when we say that there is a certain name of a fish or plant, beginning with a. And similarly,

v.2.p.708

when he who proposes the griphus desires us to mention some name in which some particular letter is or is not. Such are those which are called sigma-less griphi; on which account Pindar has composed an ode on the ς, as if some griphus had been proposed to him as a subject for a lyric poem. Then griphi are said to be in the syllable, when we are desired to recite some verse which begins with the syllable βα, as with βασιλεὺς, for instance, or which ends with ναξ, as καλλιάναξ, or some in which the syllables λεων take the lead, as λεωνίδης, or on the other hand close the sentence, as θρασυλέωϝ. They are in the name, when we utter simple or compound names of two syllables, by which some tragic figure, or on the other hand some humble one, is indicated; or some names which have no connexion with anything divine, as κλεώνυμος, or which have some such connexion, as διονύσιος: and this, too, whether the connexion be with one God or with more, as ʽἑρμαφρόδιτος; or whether the name begins with Jupiter, as διοκλῆς, or with Mercury, as ʽἑρμόδωρος; or whether it ends, as it perhaps may, with νῖκος. And then they who were desired to say such and such things, and could not, had to drain the cup.

And Clearchus defined the word in this way. And now you, my good friend Ulpian, may inquire what the cup to be drained is.

But concerning these griphi, Antiphanes says, in his Cnœthis, or the Pot-bellied Man—

1. A. I thought before that those who while at meals
2. Bade me solve griphi, were the silliest triflers,
3. Talking mere nonsense. And when any one
4. Was bade to say what a man bore and bore not,
5. I laugh'd and thought it utter childishness;
6. And did not think that truth did lie beneath,
7. But reckon'd them as traps for the unwary.
8. But now, indeed, I see there is some truth in them;
9. For we, ten men, contribute now for supper,
10. But no one of them all bears what he brings,
11. So here's a case where he who bears bears not,
12. And this is just the meaning of a griphus.
13. So surely this may fairly be excused;
14. But others play tricks with the things themselves,
15. Paying no money, as, for instance, Philip.
16. B. A wise and fortunate man, by Jove, is he.

And in his Aphrodisian he says—

1. A. Suppose I want to say now

   dish

   to you,
2. Shall I say

   dish,

   or shall I rather say,
v.2.p.709
3. A hollow-bodied vessel, made of earth,
4. Form'd by the potter's wheel in rapid swing,
5. Baked in another mansion of its mother,
6. Which holds within its net the tender milk-fed
7. Offspring of new-born flocks untimely choked?
8. B. By Hercules, you'll kill me straight if you
9. Do not in plain words say a

   dish of meat.

10. A. 'Tis well. And shall I speak to you of drops
11. Flowing from bleating goats, and well compounded
12. With streams proceeding from the yellow bee,
13. Sitting on a broad receptacle provided
14. By the chaste virgin born of holy Ceres,
15. And now luxuriating beneath a host
16. Of countless finely-wrought integuments;
17. Or shall I say

    a cheesecake?

18. B. Prithee say
19. A cheesecake.
20. A. Shall I speak of rosy sweat
21. From Bacchic spring?
22. B. I'd rather you'd say wine.
23. A. Or shall I speak of dusky dewy drops?
24. B. No such long paraphrase,—say plainly, water.
25. A. Or shall I praise the cassia-breathing fragrance
26. That scents the air
27. B. No, call it myrrh,—forbear
28. Those sad long-winded sentences, those long
29. And roundabout periphrases; it seems
30. To me by far too great a labour thus
31. To dwell on matters which are small themselves,
32. And only great in such immense descriptions.

And Alexis, in his Sleep, proposes a griphus of this kind—

1. A. It is not mortal, nor immortal either
2. But as it were compounded of the two,
3. So that it neither lives the life of man,
4. Nor yet of God, but is incessantly
5. New born again, and then again deprived
6. Of this its present life; invisible,
7. Yet it is known and recognised by all.
8. B. You always do delight, O lady, in riddles.
9. A. No, I am speaking plain and simple things.
10. B. What child then is there which has such a nature!
11. A. 'Tis sleep, my girl, victor of human toils.

And Eubulus, in his Sphingocarion, proposes grip i of this kind, himself afterwards giving the solution of there—

1. A. There is a thing which speaks, yet has no tongue
2. A female of the same name as the male;
3. The steward of the winds, which it holds fast;
4. Rough, and yet sometimes smooth; full of dark voices
v.2.p.710
5. Scarce to be understood by learned men;
6. Producing harmony after harmony;
7. 'Tis one thing, and yet many; e'en if wounded
8. 'Tis still invulnerable and unhurt.
9. B. What can that be?
10. A. Why, don't you know, Callistratus?
11. It is a bellows.
12. B. You are joking now.
13. A. No; don't it speak, although it has no tongue?
14. Has it not but one name with many people?
15. Is't not unhurt, though with a wound i' the centre?
16. Is it not sometimes rough, and sometimes smooth?
17. Is it not, too, a guardian of much wind?

Again:—

1. There is an animal with a locust's eye,
2. With a sharp mouth, and double deathful head;
3. A mighty warrior, who slays a race
4. Of unborn children.

('Tis the Egyptian ichneumon.) For he does seize upon the crocodile's eggs, And, ere the latent offspring is quite form'd, Breaks and destroys them: he's a double head, For he can sting with one end, and bite with th' other. Again:—

1. I know a thing which, while it's young, is heavy,
2. But when it's old, though void of wings, can fly
3. With lightest motion, out of sight o' th' earth.

This is thistledown. For it—

1. While it is young, stands solid in its seed,
2. But when it loses that, is light and flies,
3. Blown about every way by playful children.

Listen, now, to this one—

1. There is an image all whose upper part
2. Is its foundation, while the lower part
3. Is open; bored all through from head to feet;
4. 'Tis sharp, and brings forth men in threefold way,
5. Some of whom gain the lot of life, some lose it:
6. All have it; but I bid them all beware.

And you yourselves may decide here, that he means the box into which the votes are thrown, so that we may not borrow everything from Eubulus.

And Antiphanes, in his Problem, says—

1. A. A man who threw his net o'er many fish,
2. Though full of hope, after much toil and cost,
3. Caught only one small perch. And 'twas a cestreus,
4. Deceived itself, who brought this perch within,
v.2.p.711
5. For the perch followeth the blacktail gladly.
6. B. A cestreus, blacktail, perch, and man, and net,—
7. I don't know what you mean; there's no sense in it.
8. A. Wait while I clearly now explain myself:
9. There is a man who giving all he has,
10. When giving it, knows not to whom he gives it,
11. Nor knows he has the things he does not need.
12. B. Giving, not giving, having, and not having,—
13. I do not understand one word of this.
14. A. These were the very words of this same griphus.
15. For what you know you do not just now know,
16. What you have given, or what you have instead.
17. This was the meaning.
18. B. Well, I should be glad
19. To give you too a griphus.
20. A. Well, let's have it.
21. B. A pinna and a mullet, two fish, both
22. Endued with voices, had a conversation,
23. And talk'd of many things; but did not say
24. What they were talking of, nor whom they thought
25. They were addressing; for they both did fail
26. In seeing who it was to whom they talk'd.
27. And so, while they kept talking to each other,
28. The goddess Ceres came and both destroy'd.

And in his play called Sappho, Antiphanes represents the poetess herself as proposing griphi, which we may call riddles, in this manner: and then some one else is represented as solving them. For she says—

1. S. There is a female thing which holds her young
2. Safely beneath her bosom; they, though mute,
3. Cease not to utter a loud sounding voice
4. Across the swelling sea, and o'er the land,
5. Speaking to every mortal that they choose;
6. But those who present are can nothing hear,
7. Still they have some sensation of faint sound.

And some one, solving this riddle, says—

1. B.The female thing you speak of is a city;
2. The children whom it nourishes, orators;
3. They, crying out, bring from across the sea,
4. From Asia and from Thrace, all sorts of presents
5. The people still is near them while they feed on
6. And pour reproaches ceaselessly around,
7. While it nor hears nor sees aught that they do.
8. S. But how, my father, tell me, in God's name,
9. Can you e'er say an orator is mute,
10. Unless, indeed, he's been three times convicted?
11. B. And yet I thought that I did understand
12. The riddle rightly. Tell me then yourself.

And so then he introduces Sappho herself solving the riddle, thus—

1. S. The female thing you speak of is a letter,
2. The young she bears about her is the writing:
3. They're mute themselves, yet speak to those afar off
4. Whene'er they please. And yet a bystander,
5. However near he may be, hears no sound
6. From him who has received and reads the letter.

And Diphilus, in his Theseus, says that there were once three Samian damsels, who, on the day of the festival of Adonis, used to delight themselves in solving riddles at their feasts. And that when some one had proposed to them this riddle,

What is the strongest of all things?

one said iron, and alleged the following reasons for her opinion, because that is the instrument with which men dig and cut, and that is the material which they use for all purposes. And when she had been applauded, the second damsel said that a blacksmith exerted much greater strength, for that he, when he was at work, bent this strong iron, and softened it, and used it for whatever purposes he chose. And the third said, they were both wrong, and that love was the strongest thing of all, for that love could subdue a blacksmith.

And Achæus the Eretrian, though he is usually a very clear poet as respects the structure of his poems, sometimes makes his language obscure, and says many things in an enigmatical style; as, for instance, in his Iris, which is a satyric play. For he says,

A cruet of litharge full of ointment was suspended from a Spartan tablet, written upon and twisted on a double stick;

meaning to say a white strap, from which a silver cruet was suspended; and he has spoken of a Spartan written tablet when he merely meant the Spartan scytale. And that the Lacedæmonians put a white strap, on which they wrote whatever they wished, around the scytale, we are told plainly enough by Apollonius Rhodius, in his Treatise on Archilochus. And Stesichorus, in his Helen, speaks of a footpan of litharge; and Ion, in his Phœnix or Cæneus, calls the birdlime the sweat of the oak, saying—

1. The sweat of oaks, and a long leafy branch
2. Cut from a bush supports me, and a thread
3. Drawn from Egyptian linen, clever snare
4. To catch the flying birds.

And Hermippus says, that Theodectes of Phaselus, in

his book on the Pupils of Isocrates, was a wonderfully clever man at discovering any riddles that might be proposed to him, and that he too could propose riddles to others with great acuteness. As that riddle about shade, for instance;— for he said that there was a nature which is greatest at its birth and at its decease, and least when at its height. And he speaks thus:—

1. Of all the things the genial earth produces,
2. Or the deep sea, there is no single one,
3. Nor any man or other animal
4. Whose growth at all can correspond to this:
5. For when it first is born its size is greatest;
6. At middle age 'tis scarcely visible,
7. So small it's grown; but when 'tis old and hastens
8. Nigh to its end, it then becomes again
9. Greater than all the objects that surround it.

And in the Œdipus, which is a tragedy, he speaks of night and day in the following riddle:—

1. There are two sisters, one of whom brings forth
2. The other, and in turn becomes its daughter.

And Callisthenes, in his Greek History, tells the following story, that

when the Arcadians were besieging Cromnus, (and that is a small town near Megalopolis,) Hippodamus the Lacedæmonian, being one of the besieged persons, gave a message to the herald who came to them from the Lacedæmonians, showing the condition in which they were by a riddle, and he bade him tell his mother-'to be sure and release within the next ten days the little woman who was bound in the temple of Apollo; as it would not be possible to release her if they let those days elapse.' And by this message he plainly enough intimated what he was desirous to have understood; for the little woman meant is Famine, of which there was a picture in the temple of Apollo, near the throne of Apollo, and it was represented under a woman's form; so it was evident to every one that those who were besieged could hold out only ten days more because of famine. So the Lacedæmonians, understanding the meaning of that had been said, brought succour with great speed to the men in Cromnus.

There are also many other riddles, such as this:—

1. I saw a man who by the means of fire
2. Was glueing brass unto another man
3. So closely that they two became like brothers.

And this expression means the application of a cupping- glass. And a similar one is that of Panarces, mentioned by Clearchus, in his Essay on Griphi, that

A man who is not a man, with a stone which was not a stone, struck a bird which was not a bird, sitting on a tree which was not a tree.

For the things alluded to here are a eunuch, a piece of pumice-stone, a bat, and a narthex[*](νάρθηξ, a tall umbelliferous plant, (Lat. ferula,) with a slight knotted pithy stalk, in which Prometheus conveyed the spark of fire from heaven to earth. —L. & S. Gr. Eng. Lex. in voc. νάρθηξ. ). And Plato, in the fifth book of his Laws,[*](This is a mistake of Athenæus. The passage referred to occurs in the fifth book of the De Republica.) alludes to this riddle, where he says, that those philosophers who occupy themselves about minute arts, are like those who, at banquets, doubt what to eat, and resemble too the boys' riddle about the stone thrown by the eunuch, and about the bat, and about the place from which they say that the eunuch struck down the bat, and the engine with which he did it.

And of this sort also are those enigmatical sayings of Pythagoras, as Demetrius of Byzantium says, in the fourth book of his treatise on Poets, where, for instance, he says,

A man should not eat his heart;

meaning,

a man should cultivate cheerfulness.

One should not stir the fire with a sword;

meaning,

One should not provoke an angry man;

for anger is fire, and quarrelsomeness is a sword.

One should not step over a yoke

meaning,

one should avoid and hate all kinds of covetousness, but seek equality.

One should not travel along the high road;

meaning, One should not follow the opinions of the multitude, (for the common people approve of whatever they take in their heads without any fixed principle,) but one should rather go on the straight road, using sense as one's guide."

One should not sit down upon a bushel;

meaning,

one should not be content with merely considering what is sufficient for the present day, but one should always have an eye to the future

* * * * * * [*](A line or two is lost here, containing probably the enigmatical sentence subsequently referred to.)

For death is the boundary and limit of life;

and this saying is meant to forbid us approaching the subject with anxiety and grief.

And Dromeas the Coan used to play at riddles in

much the same way as Theodectes, according to the state- ment of Clearchus: and so did Aristonymus, the player on the harp, without any vocal accompaniment: and so did that Cleon who was surnamed Mimaulus, who was the best actor of Italian mimes that ever appeared on the stage without a mask. For in the style of play which I have mentioned already, he was superior even to Nymphodors. And Ischomachus the herald was an imitator of his, who used to give his representations in the middle of a crowd, and after he had become celebrated, he altered his style and used to act mimes at the jugglers[*](The Greek is ἐν γάστρι ἔχει, which also signifies to be pregnant.) shows. And the riddles which these men used to propose were of the following kind:—A clown once had eaten too much, and was very unwell, and when the physician asked him whether he had eaten to vomit, No, said he, but I ate to my stomach. And another was,— A poor woman had a pain in her stomach, and when the physician asked her whether she had anything in her stomach, How should I, said she, when I have eaten nothing for three days?

And the writings of Aristonymus were full of pompous ex- pressions: and Sosiphanes the poet said to Cephisocles the actor, reproaching him as a man fond of long words,

I would throw a stone at your loins, if I were not afraid of wetting the bystanders.

But the logical griphus is the oldest kind, and the one most suited to the natural character of such enigmatical language.

What do we all teach when We do not know it ourselves

and,

What is the same nowhere and everywhere?

and also,

What is the same in the heavens and on the earth and in the sea?

But this is a riddle arising from an identity of name; for there is a bear, and a serpent, and an eagle, and a dog, both in the heavens and on the earth and in the sea. And the other riddle means Time; for that is the same to all people and everywhere, because it has not its nature depending on one place. And the first riddle means

How to live:

for though no one knows this himself he teaches his neighbour.

And Callias the Athenian, whom we were discussing just now, and who was a little before Strattis in point of time, wrote a play which he called Grammatical Science; and the plot of it was as follows. The prologue consists of the

elements, and the actor should recite it, dividing it into para- graphs, and making the termination in the manner of a dramatic catastrophe, into

Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, eta, theta. For ει is sacred to the God; iota, cappa, lambda, mu, nu, xu, the diphthong ou, pi, rho, sigma, tau, the present u, phi, chi, which is next to psi, all down to omega.

And the chorus consisted of women, in pairs, made of two elements taken together, composed in metre and lyrical odes in this fashion —

Beta alpha ba, beta ei be, beta eta be, beta iota bi, beta ou bo, beta upsilon bu, beta omega bo.

And then, again, in the antistrophe of the ode and of the metre,

Gamma alpha, gamma ei, gamma eta, gamma iota, gamma omicron, gamma upsilon, gamma omega.

And in the same way he dealt with all other syllables—all which have the same melody and the same metre in the antistrophes. So that people not only suspect that Euripides drew all his Medea from this drama, but they think that it is perfectly plain that he drew the system of his choruses from it. And they say that Sophocles, after he had heard this drama, endeavoured to divide his poem in respect of the metre, and did it thus, in the Œdipus,—

1. I shall not grieve myself nor you,
2. Being convicted of this action.

On which account, all the rest admitted the system of antistrophes from his example, as it should seem, into their tragedies. Then, after this chorus, Callias introduces another speech of vowels, in this manner: (and this also the reciter must divide into paragraphs in the same way as the previous portions, in order that that delivery may be preserved which the author originally intended)—

1. Alpha alone, O woman; then one should
2. Say ει alone in the second place: next,
3. Still by itself you will say, thirdly, Eta;
4. Fourth, still alone, Iota; fifthly, Ou.
5. In the sixth place, Upsilon by itself.
6. The last of all the seven vowels is
7. The slow-paced Omega. The seven vowels
8. In seven verses; and when you've recited
9. All these, then go and ponder by yourself.

Callias was also the first man who taught the elements of learning by iambics, in a licentious sort of language, described in the following manner—

1. For I'm in labour, ladies; but from shame,
2. I will, my dear, in separate lines and letters,
3. Tell you the name of the child. There is a line
4. Upright and long; and from the middle of it
5. There juts forth on each side a little one,
6. With upward look: and next a circle comes,
7. On two short feet supported.

And afterwards, following this example, as any one may suspect, Mæandrius the prose writer, turning away a little from the usual pronunciation in his descriptions, wrote those things which are found in his Precepts, in a less polished style than the above-mentioned Callias. And Euripides appears to have followed the same model when he composed those verses, in his Theseus, in which the elements of writing are described. But the character is an illiterate shepherd, who is showing that the name of Theseus is inscribed in the place in this way—

1. For I indeed do nothing know of letters,
2. But I will tell you all their shapes, and give
3. Clear indications by which you may judge.
4. There is a circle, round as though 't had been
5. Work'd in a lathe, and in its centre space
6. It has a visible sign. Then the second
7. Has first of all two lines, and these are parted
8. By one which cuts them both across the middle.
9. The third's a curly figure, wreathed round.
10. The fourth contains one line which mounts right up,
11. And in a transverse course three others hang
12. From its right side. The letter which cones fifth
13. Admits of no such easy explanation;
14. For there are two diverging lines above,
15. Which meet in one united line below.
16. The letter which comes last is like the third.

[So as to make θ η ς ε υ ς.]

And Agathon the tragic poet has composed a similar passage, in his Telephus; for there also some illiterate man explains the way of spelling Theseus thus:—

1. The letter which comes first is like a circle,
2. Divided by a navel in the middle;
3. Then come two upright lines well-join'd together;
4. The third is something like a Scythian bow:
5. Next comes a trident placed upon its side;
6. And two lines branching from one lower stem:
7. The last again the same is as the third.

And Theodectes of Phaselus introduces an illiterate clown, who also represents the name of Theseus in his own way—

1. The letter which comes first a circle is,
2. With one soft eye; then come two upright lines
3. Of equal and exact proportions,
4. United by one middle transverse line;
5. The third is like a wreathed curl of hair;
6. The next a trident lying on its side;
7. The fifth two lines of equal length above,
8. Which below join together in one base;
9. The sixth, as I have said before, a curl.

And Sophocles has said something like this, in his Amphiaraus, which is a satyric drama, where he introduces an actor dancing in unison with his explanation of the letters.

But Neoptolemus the Parian, in his treatise on Inscriptions, says that this inscription is engraved on the tomb of Thrasymachus the sophist at Chalcedon—

1. My name is Theta, ro, alpha, and san,
2. Upsilon, mu, alpha, chi, ou, san again:
3. Chalcedon was my home, wisdom my trade.

And there is a poem of this kind upon Pan, by Castorion the Solensian, as Clearchus says: every foot[*](There is probably some corruption in the text here.) consists of one entire word, and so every line has its feet in pairs, so that they may either precede or follow each other; as for instance—

1. σὲ τὸν βόλοις νιφοκτύποις δυσχείμερον
2. ναίονθʼ ἕδος, θηρονόμε πὰν, χθόνʼ ʼαρκάδων,
3. κλήσω γραφῇ τῇδʼ ἐν σοφῇ, πάγκψειτʼ ἔπη
4. συνθεὶς, ἄναξ, δύσγνωστα μὴ σοφοῖς κλύειν,
5. μουσοπόλε θὴρ, κηρόχυτον ὅς μείλιγμʼ ἱεῖς.

[Which may be translated thus—

1. O thou that dwellest on the lofty plain,
2. Stormy with deep loud-sounding falls of snow,
3. Th' Arcadian land,—lord of the forest kinds,
4. Thee, mighty Pan, will I invoke in this
5. Sagacious writing, carefully compounding
6. Words difficult for ignorant men to know,
7. Or rightly understand. Hail, friend o' the Muse,
8. Who pourest forth sweet sounds from waxen flute.]

And so on in the same manner. And in whatever order you place each of these pairs of feet it will give the same metre; as you may, for instance, transpose the first line, and instead of—

1. σὲ, τὸν βόλοις νιφοκτύποις δυσχείμερον,

you may read it—

1. νιφοκτύποις σὲ τὸν βόλοις δυσχείμερον.

You may also remark that each pair of feet consists of ten[*](There is some mistake here, for they consist of eleven.) letters; and you may produce the same effect not in this way, but in a different one, so as to have many ways of putting one line; for instead you may read—

1. μέτρον φράσον μοι, τῶν ποδῶν μέτρον λαβών·

or this way—

1. λαβὼν μέτρον μοι τῶν ποδῶν, μέτρον φράσον.

[And you may take this line too—]

1. οὐ βούλομαι γὰρ τῶν ποδῶν μέτρον λαβεῖν,

[and transpose it thus—]

1. λαβεῖν μέτρον γὰρ τῶν ποδῶν οὐ βούλομαι.

But Pindar, with reference to the ode which was composed without a ς in it, as the same Clearchus tells us, as if some griphus had been proposed to him to be expressed in a lyric ode,—as many were offended because they considered it impossible to abstain from the ς, and because they did not approve of the way in which the idea was executed, uttered this sentence—

1. Before long series of songs were heard,
2. And the ill-sounding san from out men's mouths.

And we may make use of this observation in opposition to those who pronounce the sigma-less ode of Lasus of Hermione to be spurious, which is entitled The Centaurs. And the ode which was composed by Lasus to the Ceres in Hermione, has not a ς in it, as Heraclides of Pontus says, in the third book of his treatise on Music, which begins—

1. I sing of Ceres and her daughter fair,
2. The bride of Clymenus.

And there are great numbers of other griphi. Here is one—

1. In a conspicuous land I had my birth,
2. The briny ocean girds my country round,
3. My mother is the daughter fair of Number.

By the conspicuous land (φανερὰ) he means Delos (as δῆλος is synonymous with φανερὸς), and that is an island surrounded by the sea. And the mother meant is Latona, who is the daughter of Coius, and the Macedonians use κοῖος as synonymous with ἀριθμός. And the one on barley-water (πτυσάνη)—

1. Mix the juice of peel'd barley, and then drink it.

And the name πτισάνη is derived from the verbs πτίσσω, to pound, and ἄνω, to bruise. There is also the one on the snail, which is quoted in the Definitions of Teucer—

1. An animal destitute of feet and spine
2. And bone, whose back is clad with horny shell,
3. With long, projecting, and retreating eyes.

And Antiphanes, in the Man who admires himself, says—

1. Coagulated, tender-bodied milk.
2. lost understand me not? I mean new cheese.

And Anaxandrides, in his Ugly Woman, says—

1. He's lately cut it up; then he confined
2. The long, unbroken portions of the body
3. In earthen vases, wrought in crackling fire,—
4. A phrase, my men, invented by Timotheus,
5. Who meant to say in dishes.

And Timocles, in his Heroes, says—

1. A. And when the nurse of life was taken away,
2. Fierce hunger's foe, sweet friendship's guardian,
3. Physician of voracious hunger, which
4. Men call the table . . .
5. B. How you tire yourself,
6. When you might say

   the table

   in a word.

And Plato, in his Adonis, saying that an oracle was given to Cinyras concerning his son Adonis, reports it in these words—

1. O Cinyras, king of hairy Cyprians,
2. Your son is far the fairest of all men,
3. And the most admirable: but two deities
4. Lay hands upon him; one is driven on
5. By secret courses, and the other drives.

He means Venus and Bacchus; for both of them loved Adonis. And the enigma of the Sphinx is reported by Asclepiades, in his essay on the Subjects on which Tragedies have been written, to have been such as this—

1. There is upon the earth an animal
2. With two feet, and with four, and eke with three,
3. And with one voice; and it alone, of all
4. The things which move on earth, or in the heavens,
5. Or o'er the boundless sea, doth change its nature;
6. But when its feet are of the greatest number,
7. Then is its speed the slowest, and strength least.

And there are also some sayings partaking of the character of griphi, composed by Simonides, as is reported by Chamæleon of Heraclea, in his treatise on the Life and Writings of Simonides—

1. The father of a kid which roves for food,
2. And a sad fish, had their heads near together;
3. And when they had received beneath their eyelids
4. The son of Night, they did not choose to cherish
5. The bull-slaying servant of the sovereign Bacchus.

But some say that these verses were inscribed on some one of the ancient offerings which were dedicated at Chalcis; and that on it were represented the figures of a goat and a dolphin; to which animals allusion is made in the above lines. And others say that a dolphin and a goat were embossed in that part of a psaltery where the strings are put in, and that they are what is meant here; and that the bull-slaying servant of Bacchus is the dithyrambic. And others say that the ox which is sacrificed to Bacchus in the town of Iulis is struck with an axe by some one of the young men: and that the festival being near, the axe had been sent to a forge, and Simonides, being then a young man, went to the smith to fetch it; and that when he found the man asleep, and his bellows and his tongs lying loosely about with their fore parts touching one another, he then came back, and told the before-mentioned problem to his friends. For the father of a kid he called the bellows, and the sad fish the tongs (which is called καρκῖνος, or the crab). The son of Night is sleep, and the bull-slaying servant of Bacchus is the axe. And Simonides composed also another epigram which causes perplexity to those who are ignorant of history—

1. I say that he who does not like to win
2. The grasshopper's prize, will give a mighty feast
3. To the Panopeiadean Epeus.

And it is said, that when he was sojourning at Carthea he used to train choruses; and that the place where these exercises took place was in the upper part of the city, near the temple of Apollo, a long way from the sea; so that all the rest of the citizens, and Simonides himself, went down to get water, to a place where there was a fountain; an that an ass, whose name was Epeus, used to carry the water up for them; and they gave him this name, because there was a fable that Epeus himself used to do this; and there was also represented in a picture, in the temple of Apollo, th Trojan fable, in which Epeus is represented as drawing water for the Atridæ; as Stesichorus also relates—

1. For the great daughter of Jove pitied him
2. Bearing incessant water for the kings.

And as this was the case, they say that it was a burden imposed on every member of the choruses who was not present at the appointed time, that he should give the ass a chœnix of barley; and that this is stated by the same poet; and that what is meant by not liking to win the grasshopper's prize, is not liking to sing; and that by Panopeiadean is meant the ass, and the mighty feast is the chœnix of barley.

And of the same kind is the epigram of Theognis the poet,—

1. For a sea-corpse has call'd me now back home,
2. Which, though dead, speaketh with a living mouth.

Where he means the cockle. And we may consider of the same character those sentences in which we use words which resemble men's names, as—

1. λαβὼν ἀριστόνικον ἐν μάχῃ κράτος·
2. He gain'd in battle a glorious victory;

where ἀριστόνικος sounds like the name of a man, Aristonicus. And there is also that riddle which is so frequently repeated—

1. Five men came to one place in vessels ten,
2. And fought with stones, but might not lift a stone,
3. And died of thirst while water reach'd their chins.

And what punishment had the Athenians who could not solve this riddle when proposed to them, if it was only to drink a bowl of mixed wine, as Clearchus has stated in his Definition? And, in the first book of his treatise on Proverbs, he writes thus—

The investigation of riddles is not unconnected with philosophy; for the ancients used to make a display of their erudition by such things; for they used at their entertainments to ask questions, not such as the men of the present day ask one another, as to what sort of amorous enjoyment is the most delicious, or what kind of fish is nicest, or what is most in season at the moment; or again, what fish is best to eat at the time of Arcturus, or what after the rising of the Pleiades, or of the Dogstar. And then they offer kisses as prizes for those who gain the victory in such questions; such as are hateful to men of liberal sentiments; and as a punishment for those who are defeated they enjoin them to drink sheer wine; which they drink more willingly than the cup of health. For these things are well adapted to any one who has devoted his attention to the writings of Philænis and Archestratus, or who has studied the books called Gastro-

v.2.p.723

logies. They preferred such plays as these;—when the first person had recited a verse, the others were bound to quote the verse following; or if any one had quoted a sentence from some poet, the rest were bound to produce a sentence from some other poet expressing the same sentiments. After that, every one was bound to repeat an iambic. And then, each person was to repeat a line of such and such a number of syllables precisely; and so on with everything that related to any acquaintance with letters and syllables. And in a similar manner they would be bound to repeat the names of all the commanders in the army which attacked Troy, or of all the Trojan leaders: or to tell the name of some city in Asia beginning with a given letter; and then the next person was to tell the name of a city in Europe: and then they were to go through the rest according as they were desired to give the names of Grecian or barbarian cities; so that this sport, not being an inconsiderate one, was a sort of exhibition of the ability and learning of each individual. And the prizes given were a garland and applause, things by which love for one another is especially sweetened.

This, then, was what Clearchus said; and the things which he says one ought to propose, are, I imagine, such as these. For one person to quote a line in Homer beginning with Alpha, and ending with the same letter, such as—

1. ʼἀγχοῦ δʼ ἱσταμένη ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα.
2. ʼἀλλʼ ἄγε νῦν μάστιγα καὶ ἡνία σιγαλόεντα.
3. ʽἁσπίδας εὐκύκλους λαισήαϊ τε πτερόεντα.

And, again, they quoted iambics on a similar principle—

1. ʼἀγαθὸς ἀνὴρ λέγοιτʼ ἄν, ὁ φέρων τʼ ἀγαθά.
2. ʼἀγαθὸς ἂν εἴη καὶ ὁ φέρων καλῶς κακά.

Or lines in Homer beginning and ending with ε, as—

1. εὗρε λυκάονος υἷον ἀμύμονά τε κρατερόν τε.
2. ʼἐν πόλει ὑμετέρῃ ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἔμελλον ἔγωγε.

And iarabics on the same principle—

1. εὐκαταφρόνητός ἐστι πενία, δέρκυλε·
2. ʼἐπὶ τοῖς παροῦσι τὸν βίον διάπλεκε.

And lines of Homer beginning and ending with η, as—

1. ʽἡ μὲν ἄπʼ ὥς εἰποῦσʼ ἀπέβη γλαυκῶπις ʼαθήνη·
2. ʽἡ δʼ ἐν γούνασι πίπτε διώνης δῖ ʼαφροδίτη.

And iambics—

1. ʽἡ τῶν φίλων σοι πίστις ἔστω κεκριμένη.

Lines in Homer beginning and ending with ι, as—

1. ʼἰλίου ἐξαπολοίατʼ ἀκήδεστοι καὶ ἄφαντοι·
2. ʽἱππόλοχος δέ μʼ ἔτικτε καὶ ἐκ τοῦ φημὶ γενέσθαι.

Beginning and ending with ς, as—

1. συμπάντων δαναῶν, οὐδʼ ἢν ʼαγαμέμνονα εἴπῃς.

And iambics as—

1. σοφος ἐστιν ὁ φέρων τἀπὸ τῆς τύχης καλῶς.

And beginning and ending with ω, as—

1. ʽὡς δʼ ὅτʼ ἀπʼ οὐλύμπου νέφος ἔρχεται οὐρανὸν εἴσω.

And iambics as—

1. ʼὠρθωμένην πρὸς ἅπαντα τὴν ψύχην ἔχω.

Sometimes too, it is well to propound lines without a sigma, as—

1. πάντʼ ἐθέλω δόμεναι, καὶ ἔτʼ οἴκοθεν ἄλλʼ ἐπιθεῖναι·

and again, to quote lines of Homer, of which the first syllable when connected with the last, will make some name, such as—

1. ῎ἄιας δʼ ἐκ σαλαμῖνος ἄγεν δύο καὶ δεκα νῆας·
2. φυλείδης ὃν τίκτε διῒ φίλος ἵπποτα φυλευς.
3. ʼἰητὴρ δʼ ἀγαθὸς ποδαλείριος ἠδὲ μάχαων.

There are also other lines in Homer expressing the names of vessels from the first and last syllable, such as—

1. ʼὀλψυμένων δαναῶν ὀλοφύρεται ἐν φρεσὶ θυμος,

which makes ῞ὅλμος, a mortar;

1. μυθεῖται κατὰ μοῖραν ἅπερ κʼ οἴοιτο καὶ ἄλλος,

which makes μύλος, a millstone;

1. λυγρός ἐὼν μή πού τι κακὸν καὶ μεῖζον ἐπαύρῃ,

which makes λύρη, a lyre.

And other lines, the first and last syllables of which give some eatable, as—

1. ʼἀργυρόπεζα θέτις θυγατὴρ ἁλίοιο γέροντος,

which makes ἄρτος, bread;

1. μητι σὺ ταῦτα ἕκαστα διείρεο, μὴ δὲ μετάλλα,

which makes μῆλα, apples.

And since we have made a pretty long digression about griphi, we must now say what punishment those people underwent who failed to solve the griphus which was proposed to them. They drank brine mingled with their drink, and were bound to drink the whole cup up at one draught; as Antiphanes shows in his Ganymede, where he says—

1. A. Alas me! what perplexing things you say,
2. O master, and what numerous things you ask me.
3. B. But now I will speak plainly: if you know
4. One circumstance about the rape of the child,
5. You must reveal it quick, before you're hang'd.
6. A. Are you then asking me a riddle, master,
7. Bidding me tell you all about the rape
8. Of the child? What's the meaning of your words?
9. B. Here, some one, bring me out a halter quickly.
10. A. What for?
11. B. Perhaps you'll say you do not know.
12. A. Will you then punish me with that? Oh don't!
13. You'd better make me drink a cup of brine.
14. B. Know you then how you ought to drink that up?
15. A. Indeed I do.
16. B. How?
17. A. So as to make you pledge me.
18. B. No, but first put your hands behind your back,
19. Then drink it at a draught, not drawing breath.

So when the Deipnosophists had said all this about the griphi, since it has taken us till evening to recollect all they said, we will put off the discussion about cups till to-morrow. For as Metagenes says in his Philothytes—

1. I'll change my speech, by way of episode,
2. So as to treat the theatre with many
3. New dishes rich with various seasonings;

taking the discussion about cups next.