The function of what we Americans used to call the first groomsman, in the primitive times of wife-stealing, was to protect the bridegroom from pursuit and the name “best man” perpetuates the tradition. In the Greek wedding, where the passing and closing of the door was so essential a part of the ritual, he was the door-keeper, and there was much bantering and chaffing at his personal appearance on the part of the maidens, who made much use of the same jokes which have since been applied to the feet of maidens of Chicago. The feet of the porter were put in the laughing stocks somewhat after this fashion (E. 154): Full seven fathoms stretch the feet of the porter, Full five ox-hides were used for his shoe-soles, Ten stout cobblers were needed to make them, (D. M. R.) to which Edmonds would make the ingenious but doubtful addition based on Synesius “[and his father lived in other ways an honest life, but claimed to be better born than Cecrops].” The door is shut and the mocking subsides, as all chant for the groom, “Happy bridegroom, the marriage is accomplished, as you prayed it should be, and the maiden you prayed for is yours” (E. 155); and for the bride they sing, “O beauteous one, O lovely one, thine it is to sport with the rose-ankled Graces and Aphrodite the golden” (E. 157). If Edmonds’ tentative restoration of the end of the first book of 1320 verses is correct, “the maidens spend all the night at this door, singing of the love that is between thee, thrice happy bridegroom, and a bride whose breast is sweet as violets. But get thee up and go when the dawn shall come, and may great Hermes lead thy feet where thou shalt find just so much ill-luck as we shall see sleep to-night” (E. 47). Evidently the maidens saw little sleep that night, but finally silence falls and in the early dawn is heard the last song of the serenaders: “Farewell the bride, farewell the bridegroom” (E. 160, 162). This chapter should not close without a mention of the epigrams. Many have been attributed to Sappho, but three especially (E. 143, 144, 145) have been included in most of the translations. They are, however, written in normal epic language without any essential traces of Sappho’s Aeolic dialect. One, which Wilamowitz would date as late as 400 B.C., according to Edmonds was inscribed on the base of a statue of a nameless infant, dedicated to Artemis in gratitude for her birth by her priestess-mother. I prefer the older interpretation: