The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 1 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
General
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
Anacreon says--
The fair-hair'd maids of mighty Jove
Danced lightly in the mystic grove;
and Ion has the expression--
This strange occurrence makes my heart to dance.
38. And Hermippus says, that Theophrastus used to come to the walks at a
regular hour, carefully and beautifully dressed; and that then he would
sit down and enter upon an argument, indulging in every sort of motion
and gesture imaginable; so that once while imitating an epicure he even
put out his tongue and licked his lips.
Those men were very careful to put on their clothes neatly; and they
ridiculed those who did not do so. Plato, in the Theætetus, speaks of "a
man who has capacity to manage everything cleverly and perfectly, but
who has no idea how to put on even proper clothes like a gentleman, and
who has no notion of the propriety of language, so as to be able to
celebrate the life of gods and men in a becoming manner." And Sappho
jests upon Andromeda:--
Sure by some milkmaid you've been taught
To dress, whose gown is all too short
To reach her sturdy ancles.
And Philetærus says--
Don't let your gown fall down too low,
Nor pull it up too high to show
Your legs in clownish fashion.
And Hermippus says, that Theocritus of Chios used to blame the way in
which Anaximenes used to wrap his cloak round him as a boorish style of
dressing. And Callistratus the pupil of Aristophanes, in one of his
writings, attacked Aristarchus severely for not being neatly dressed, on
the ground, that attention to those minutiæ is no trifling indication of
a man's abilities and good sense. On which account Alexis says--
'Tis a sure sign of a degraded nature,
To walk along the street in sloven's guise;
Having the means of neatness: which costs nothing;
Is subject to no tax; requires no change;
And creditable is to him who uses it,
And pleasant to all those who witness it.
Who then would ever disregard this rule,
That wishes to be thought a man of sense?
39. But Æschylus was not only the inventor of becoming and dignified
dress, which the hierophants and torch-bearers of the sacred festivals
imitated; but he also invented many figures in dancing, and taught them
to the dancers of the chorus. And Chamæleon states that he first
arranged the choruses, not using the ordinary dancing-masters, but
himself arranging the figures of the dancers for the chorus; and
altogether that he took the whole arrangement of his tragedies on
himself. And he himself acted in his own plays very fairly. And
accordingly, Aristophanes (and we may well trust the comic writers in
what they say of the tragedians) represents Æschylus himself as saying--
I myself taught those dances to the chorus,
Which pleased so much when erst they danced before us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account