53. When Democritus had said this, Cynulcus said;—Why do you remind me of those cyclic poems, to use the words of your friend Philo, when you never ought to say anything serious or important in the presence of this glutton Ulpian? For he prefers lascivious songs to dignified ones; such, for instance, as those which are called Locrian songs, which are of a debauched sort of character, such as— Do you not feel some pleasure now? Do not betray me, I entreat you. Rise up before the man comes back, Lest he should ill-treat you and me. 'Tis morning now, dost thou not see The daylight through the windows? [Sidenote: PARODIES.] And all Phœnicia is full of songs of this kind; and he himself, when there, used to go about playing on the flute with the men who sing colabri.[142] And there is good authority, Ulpian, for this word κόλαβροι. For Demetrius the Scepsian, in the tenth book of his Trojan Array, speaks thus:—"Ctesiphon the Athenian, who was a composer of the songs called κόλαβροι, was made by Attalus, who succeeded Philetærus as king of Pergamus, judge of all his subjects in the Æolian district." And the same writer, in the nineteenth book of the same work, says that Seleucus the composer of merry songs was the son of Mnesiptolemus, who was an historian, and who had great interest with that Antiochus who was surnamed the Great. And it was very much the fashion to sing this song of his— I will choose a single life, That is better than a wife; Friends in war a man stand by, While the wife stays at home to cry. 54. And after this, looking towards Ulpian, he said;—But since you are out of humour with me, I will explain to you what the Syrbenæan chorus is. And Ulpian said;—Do you think, you wretch, that I am angry at what you say, or even that I pay the least attention to it, you shameless hound? But since you profess to teach me something, I will make a truce with you, not for thirty, but for a hundred years; only tell me what the Syrbenæan chorus is. Then, said he, Clearchus, my good friend, in the second book of his treatise on Education, writes thus—"There remains the Syrbenæan chorus, in which every one is bound to sing whatever he pleases, without paying the least attention to the man who sits in the post of honour and leads the chorus. And indeed he is only a more noisy spectator." And in the words of Matron the parodist— For all thoe men who heroes were of old, Eubæus, and Hermogenes, and Philip, Are dead, and settlers in dark Pluto's realms; But Cleonicus has a life secure From all th' attacks of age; he's deeply skill'd In all that bards or theatres concerns; And even now he's dead, great Proserpine Allows his voice still to be heard on earth.