The performance of rites so numerous generally consumed the whole day, so that the shades of evening were falling before the bride could be conducted to her future home. This hour, indeed, according to some, was chosen to conceal the blushes of the youthful wife.[64] And now commenced the secular portion of the ceremony. Numerous attendants, bearing lighted torches,[65] ran in front of the procession, while bands of merry youths dancing, singing, or playing on musical instruments, surrounded the nuptial car. Similar in this respect was the practice throughout Greece, even so early as the time of Homer, who thus, in his description of the Shield, calls up before our imagination the lively picture of an heroic nuptial procession: “Here sacred pomp and genial feasts delight, And solemn dance and Hymeneal rite. Along the streets the new-made brides are led, With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed. The youthful dancers in a circle bound To the soft flute and cittern’s silver sound.[66] Through the fair streets the matrons, in a row, Stand in their porches and enjoy the show.”[67] ----- Footnote 64: Potter, Arch. Græc. ii. 281. Footnote 65: Eurip. Helen. 722. Hesiod, Scut. Heracl. 275, seq. where the torches are said to be borne by Dmoës. Footnote 66: In Hesiod a troop of blooming virgins, playing on the phorminx, lead the procession. αἱ δ᾽ ὑπὸ φορμίγγων ἄναγον χορὸν ἱμερόεντα. A band of youths follow, playing on the syrinx. See the note of Gœttling on Scut. Heracl. 274, p. 117, sqq. Footnote 67: Iliad, σ. 490, sqq. Pope’s Translation. The song on this occasion sung received the name of the “Carriage Melody,” from the carriage in which the married pair rode while it was chaunted.[68] Footnote 68: Ἁρμάτειον μέλος. Leisner, in his notes on Bos (Antiq. Græc. Pars. iv. c. ii. § 4.), observes, that in Suidas, Hesychius, and Eustathius (ad Il. χ. p. 1380. 5), these words have a different meaning from that which, with Bos and Potter (Antiq. Græc. ii. 282), I have adopted. But in the passage quoted by Henri de Valois (ad Harpocrat. p. 222), they would seem to bear the signification above given them. -----