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
Such as a stick of myrrh, she's forced to keep
Between her lips, till they have learnt the shape
Of the required grin. And by such arts
They make their charms and persons up for market.
24. And therefore I advise you, my Thessalian friend with the handsome
chairs, to be content to embrace the women in the brothels, and not to
spend the inheritance of your children on vanities. For, truly, the
lame man gets on best at this sort of work; since your father, the
boot-maker, did not lecture you and teach you any great deal, and did
not confine you to looking at leather. Or do you not know those women,
as we find them called in the Pannuchis of Eubulus—
Thrifty decoys, who gather in the money,—
Fillies well-train'd of Venus, standing naked
In long array, clad in transparent robes
Of thinnest web, like the fair damsels whom
Eridanus waters with his holy stream;
From whom, with safety and frugality,
You may buy pleasure at a moderate cost.
And in his Nannium, (the play under this name is the work of Eubulus,
and not of Philippides)—
For he who secretly goes hunting for
Illicit love, must surely of all men
Most miserable be; and yet he may
See in the light of the sun a willing row
Of naked damsels, standing all array'd
In robes transparent, like the damsels whom
Eridanus waters with his holy stream,
And buy some pleasure at a trifling rate,
Without pursuing joys he's bound to hide,
(There is no heavier calamity,)
Just out of wantonness and not for love.
I do bewail the fate of hapless Greece,
Which sent forth such an admiral as Cydias.
Xenarchus also, in his Pentathlum, reproaches those men who live as you
do, and who fix their hearts on extravagant courtesans, and on freeborn
women; in the following lines—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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