The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
There was also a reaper's song called Lityerses; and another song
sung by hired servants when going to the fields, as Teleclides tells
us in his Amphictyons. There were songs, too, of bathing men, as we
learn from Crates in his Deeds of Daring; and a song of women baking,
as Aristophanes intimates in his Thesmophoriazusæ, and Nicochares in
his Hercules Choregus. And another song in use among those who drove
herds, and this was called the Bucoliasmus. And the man who first
invented this species of song was Diomus, a Sicilian cowherd; and it is
mentioned by Epicharmus in his Halcyon, and in his Ulysses Shipwrecked.
The song used at deaths and in mourning is called Olophyrmus; and the
songs called Iouli are used in honour of Ceres and Proserpine. The
song sung in honour of Apollo is called Philhelias, as we learn from
Telesilla; and those addressed to Diana are called Upingi.
There were also laws composed by Charondas, which were sung at Athens
at drinking parties; as Hermippus tells us in the sixth book of his
treatise on Lawgivers. And Aristophanes, in his catalogue of Attic
Expressions, says—"The Himæus is the song of people grinding; the
Hymenæus is the song used at marriage-feasts; and that employed in
lamentation is called Ialemus. But the Linus and the Ælinus are not
confined to occasions of mourning, but are in use also in good fortune,
as we may gather from Euripides."
11. But Clearchus, in the first book of his treatise on matters
relating to Love, says that there was a kind of song called Nomium,
derived from Eriphanis; and his words are these:—"Eriphanis was a
lyric poetess, the mistress of Menalcas the hunter; and she, pursuing
him with her passions, hunted too. For often frequenting the mountains,
and wandering over them, she came to the different groves, equalling
in her wanderings the celebrated journeys of Io; so that not only
those men who were most remarkable for their deficiency in the tender
passion, but even the fiercest beasts, joined in weeping for her
misfortunes, perceiving the lengths to which her passionate hopes
carried her. Therefore she wrote poems; and when she had composed them,
as it is said, she roamed about the desert, shouting and singing the
kind of song called Nomium, in which the burden of the song is—
The lofty oaks, Menalcas."
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