Himerius refers to the mock contests which were a part of the wedding ceremonies. There was always an _agon_ or sham fight, as in Greek comedy, running through the hymenaeal, to be succeeded in many cases by a real fight afterwards. The wedding echoed with noise which suggested the conflicts of prehistoric days when brides were captives of bow and spear, and all sorts of characters figured in this drama of real life. There was place for satire and ridicule as well as for praise. Even in recent years I have witnessed in a neighboring island, “Scio’s rocky isle,” the semblance of predatory warfare which the Chians keep up during their bridal ceremonies. And in 1902 I attended a three days’ Turkish wedding at Chiblak, near the site of ancient Troy. On that occasion the frequent shooting and fighting, which resulted even in injuries to Turks and Greeks, made the noisy ceremony seem like a battle. In Sappho’s day, as to-day in the Orient, a wedding was not a brief benedictory reading by a clergyman. It was a long-drawn celebration, a prolonged process rather than a precise pronouncement, with torchlight processions, dance, and song.[98] All these features emerge very clearly in Sappho, where we can trace the whole ceremony from the weaving of the bridal bower (_pastas_ = portico or bower in Himerius as cited above) to the aubade song of the next morning. Here is the charming song, sung, in the same metre as the famous _Linus Song_, by the bridesmaids as they led the bride to the bridegroom’s bed, proud of their island and of their Sappho:[99] Up with the rafters high, Ho for the wedding! Raise them high, ye joiners, Ho for the wedding! The bridegroom’s as tall as Ares, Ho for the wedding! Far taller than a tall man, Ho for the wedding! Towering as the Lesbian poet Ho for the wedding! Over the poets of other lands, Ho for the wedding! (EDMONDS 148) Then follows a kind of lyrical marriage drama, the bridesmaids representing the tribe of the bride, the youths the clan of the bridegroom, in this respect foreshadowing Catullus’ double choir. The maidens answer the young men’s praise by chiding Hesperus, the evening star, whose coming heralds the union. The young men in turn reply with the famous words already quoted, to which the sequel probably was “even so bring home the bride to the bridegroom.” We think of Edmund Spenser’s _Prothalamion_ and _Epithalamion_ which have many of the motives of the Greek epithalamium, with their reference to Hesper, with their beautiful descriptions of bride and bridegroom. I quote the lines about Hymen, which is Sappho’s Greek refrain, rendered by the word “wedding” in Edmonds’ version: Hymen, iö Hymen, they do shout; That even to the heavens theyr shouting shrill Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill.