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
30. The author, too, of the Cyprian Poems gives lists of the flowers
which are suitable to be made into garlands, whether he was Hegesias,
or Stasinus, or any one else; for Demodamas, who was either a
Halicarnassian or Milesian, in his History of Halicarnassus, says that
the Cyprian Poems were the work of a citizen of Halicarnassus: however,
the author, whoever he was, in his eleventh book, speaks thus:—
Then did the Graces, and the smiling Hours,
Make themselves garments rich with various hues,
And dyed them in the varied flowers that Spring
And the sweet Seasons in their bosom bear.
In crocus, hyacinth, and blooming violet,
And the sweet petals of the peerless rose,
So fragrant, so divine; nor did they scorn
The dewy cups of the ambrosial flower
That boasts Narcissus' name. Such robes, perfumed
With the rich treasures of revolving seasons,
The golden Venus wears.
[Sidenote: GARLANDS.]
And this poet appears also to have been acquainted with the use of
garlands, when he says—
And when the smiling Venus with her train
Had woven fragrant garlands of the treasures
The flowery earth puts forth, the goddesses
All crown'd their heads with their queen's precious work,—
The Nymphs and Graces, and the golden Venus,—
And raised a tuneful song round Ida's springs.
31. Nicander also, in the second book of his Georgics, gives a regular
list of the flowers suitable to be made into garlands, and speaks as
follows concerning the Ionian nymphs and concerning roses:—
And many other flowers you may plant,
Fragrant and beauteous, of Ionian growth;
Two sorts of violets are there,—pallid one,
And like the colour of the virgin gold,
Such as th' Ionian nymphs to Ion gave,
When in the meadows of the holy Pisa
They met and loved and crown'd the modest youth.
For he had cheer'd his hounds and slain the boar,
And in the clear Alpheus bathed his limbs,
Before he visited those friendly nymphs.
Cut then the shoots from off the thorny rose,
And plant them in the trenches, leaving space
Between, two spans in width. The poets tell
That Midas first, when Asia's realms he left,
Brought roses from th' Odonian hills of Thrace,
And cultivated them in th' Emathian lands,
Blooming and fragrant with their sixty petals.
Next to th' Emathian roses those are praised
Which the Megarian Nisæa displays:
Nor is Phaselis, nor the land which worships
The chaste Diana,[125] to be lightly praised,
Made verdant by the sweet Lethæan stream.
In other trenches place the ivy cuttings,
And often e'en a branch with berries loaded
May be entrusted to the grateful ground;
* * * * *[126]
Or with well-sharpen'd knife cut off the shoots,
And plait them into baskets,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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