But when life ran out of its accustomed groove, and opportunities for eating became precarious, breakfast and dinner—_ariston_ and _deipnon_—were apt to coalesce. Noon, the regular dinner-hour, might, under such circumstances, be anticipated. Thus, when Telemachus and Pisistratus were setting out from Sparta towards Pylos, Menelaus, who was the soul of hospitality, ordered a _deipnon_ to be hastily got ready, and it had certainly been preceded by no lighter repast. The third Homeric meal—_dorpon_—was taken at, or after sundown. Its status fluctuated. Of primary importance to those busily engaged in out-of-door occupations, it counted for relatively little with idle folk like the Suitors, whose feasts and diversions might be prolonged, if they so willed it, from dawn to dusk. Supper, on the other hand, was naturally the chief meal of soldiers and sailors. ‘Perils will be paid with pleasures,’ says Verulam; and when the rage of battle was spent, or the ship brought safely into port, a banquet was spread with every available luxury, and enjoyed to the utmost. At sea, cooking was reduced to a minimum, even to zero, the probability being small that fires were ever kindled on shipboard. So that the hardships of long voyages were very great, if rarely incurred. When possible, land was made by nightfall, the vessel moored, and the crew disembarked. Ac magno telluris amore Egressi, optata potiuntur Troes arena. Supper followed, and sleep. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VIII. HOMER’S MAGIC HERBS. THERE are certain low-lying districts in southern Spain where the branched lily, or king’s spear, blooms in such profusion that whole acres, seen from a distance towards the end of March, show as if densely strewn with new-fallen snow. Just such in aspect must have been the abode of the Odyssean dead. There, along boundless asphodel plains, Odysseus watched Orion, a spectral huntsman pursuing spectral game: there Agamemnon denounced the treachery of Clytemnestra: there Ajax still nursed his wrath at the award of the Argive kings: there Achilles gnawed a shadowy heart in longing, on any terms, for action and the upper air: thither Hermes conducted the delinquent souls of the suitors of Penelope. A tranquil dwelling-place: where the stagnant air of apathy was stirred only by sighs of inane regret.