Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

Nor shuttle work so close and fine cuts from the weaver’s beam, Nor none hath skill to ply the quill to the Gods of Women above As the maiden wise in whose bright eyes dwells all desire and love.

O maid of beauty, maid of grace, thou art a huswife now ; But we shall betimes to the running-place i’ the meads where flowers do blow,

And cropping garlands sweet and sweet about our brows to do, Like lambs athirst for the mother’s teat shall long, dear Helen, for you. For you afore all shall a coronal of the gay groundling trefoil Hang to a shady platan-tree, and a vial of running oil His offering drip from a silver lip beneath the same platan-tree,

And a Doric rede be writ i’ the bark

For him that passeth by to mark,

‘T am Helen’s; worship me.’

And ’tis Bride farewell, and Groom farewell, that be son of a mighty sire, And Leto, great Nurse Leto, grant children at your desire, And Cypris, holy Cypris, an equal love alway, And Zeus, high Zeus, prosperitye That drawn of parents of high degree Shall pass to a noble progenye For ever and a day. Sleep on and rest, and on either breast may the love-breath playing go Sleep now, but when the day shall break Forget not from your sleep to wake ; For we shall come wi’ the dawn along Soon as the first-waked master o’ song Lift feathery neck to crow.

Sing Hey for the Wedding, sing Ho for the Wedder, and thanks to him that made it !

Let one picture to himself the poem; how, accompanied by the song of female friends and by the soft tones of flutes, the youthful pair taste the inconceivable delights of the first night together ; let him draw the parallel with the custom (still generally common amongst us) of degrading this night by spending it in an indifferent room in an hotel; let him hear, that the idyll may not lack farce, how the Scholiast, the ancient commentator on Theocritus, consequently a kind of dry-as-dust learned soul, ‘“‘ explains ” the wonderfully beautiful custom of the Epithalamium. He says: “ The epithalamium is sung, in order that the cries of the young bride, while she is offered violence to by her husband, may not be heard, but may be drowned in the song of the girls.” So the scholiast