But, if the ceremonies of the Choes clearly indicate the ‘unlucky’ nature of the day, what is to be made of the name? Nothing, as it stands. _Choes_, _Cups_, are undeniably cheerful. But, as in the case of Chytroi, there _may_ have been a confusion between approximate forms; the two words χοή, funeral libation, and χοῦς, cup, have a common stem χοϝ. May not χόες have superimposed itself on χοαί, wine-cups upon funeral libations? A scholiast on Aristophanes[85] seems to indicate some such a _contaminatio_. In explaining the word χοάς, he says the meaning is ‘pourings forth, offerings to the dead or libations. An oracle was issued that they must offer libations (χοάς) yearly to those of the Aetolians who had died, and celebrate the festival so called.’ Here the name of a festival Χοάς is oxytone, and though we cannot assume that it was identical with the Athenian Choes, it looks as if there was some confusion as to the two analogous forms. If we view the Choes as Χοαί, the Cups as Libations, the anomalous and, as it stands, artificial connection of Orestes with the festival becomes at once clear. At the drinking bout of the Choes, we learn from Athenaeus[86] and other authorities, the singular custom prevailed that each man should drink by himself. A mythological reason was sought to account for this, and the story was told[87] that Orestes, polluted by the blood of his mother, came to Athens at the time of the celebration of the Choes. The reigning king, variously called Pandion and Phanodemus, wished to show him hospitality, but religious scruple forbade him to let a man polluted enter the Sanctuaries or drink with those ceremonially clean. He therefore ordered the Sanctuaries to be shut and a measure of wine (χοῦς) to be set before each man severally, and bade them, when they had finished drinking, not to offer up the garlands with which they had been crowned in the Sanctuaries, because they had been under the same roof with Orestes; but he bade each man place his wreath round his own cup, and so bring them to the priestess at the precinct of the Limnae. That done, they were to perform the remaining sacrifices in the Sanctuary. From this, Athenaeus adds, the festival got the name of _Cups_. The mad Orestes in the _Iphigenia in Tauris_[88] tells the same tale and naïvely states that, though he was hurt by the procedure, he dare not ask the reason, knowing it all too well. The whole account is transparently aetiological. Some mythological precedent is desired for the drinking bout of the Choes, based as it was on a ceremony of funeral libations; it is sought and found or rather invented in the canonical story of Orestes, and he is made to say in a fashion almost too foolish even for a madman: ‘And this I learn, that my mishaps became A rite for the Athenians; and Pallas’ folk Have still this custom that they reverence The Choan vessel.’