DUTIES TO THE CHILD

Bathing

Among the principal duties incumbent on the nurse of an infant was the giving of the bath. That it was given immediately after birth, we infer from Lycophron’s Alexandra, 309, where a child dies πρὶν ἐκ λοχείας γυῖα χυτλῶσαι δρόσῳ, and also from Plautus, Amphitryo, 1103: “Postquam peperit pueros lavere iussit nos.” The heroine nymphs of Libya, acting as nurses, bathed Athena when she leaped in gleaming armor from the head of Zeus.[[58]] Some nurses preferred pure water;[[59]] others, like the Spartans, bathed the child in wine as a test of its strength, they being of the opinion that the weakly ones would faint, but the more vigorous would acquire firmness and hardness after a bath of this kind.[[60]] On a vase portraying the life of Achilles one of the scenes shows the nurse giving the infant son of Thetis his first bath.[[61]] The vessel in which this bath is given is mentioned by Pindar:

ἐπεί νιν καθαροῦ λέβητος ἔξελε Κλωθώ.[[62]]

Swaddling Clothes

Attic nurses wrapped the infant in swaddling clothes (σπάργανα).[[63]] As far as we can gather from the grave-reliefs these seem to have been long narrow strips of cloth bound like bandages around the child’s body, which they completely covered from head to foot, leaving nothing but the face uncovered.[[64]] White,[[65]] purple,[[66]] and saffron[[67]] are mentioned as colors of these bands. The practice of swaddling children is alluded to by Hesiod,[[68]] and frequent reference is made to it by the Tragedians.[[69]] The Theban children given over to the state were swaddled.[[70]] The nurse in the Amphitryo complained that Hercules was so large she could not swathe him.[[71]] How long the children were kept thus bound we do not know; but we can hardly suppose that it was until they had reached the age of two years, as Plato advises.[[72]] The Spartan nurses dispensed with these bands, allowing the children to grow up unrestrained in limb and form.[[73]] Exposed children were sometimes recognized by the swaddling clothes.[[74]]

Food

The child was suckled either by mother[[75]] or nurse.[[76]] Naturally the practice of employing wet-nurses prevailed chiefly among well-to-do mothers.[[77]] The author of the De Liberis Educandis counsels mothers to nurse their own children, and dilates on the advantages accruing therefrom; nevertheless he permits the employment of wet-nurses wherever the mothers cannot perform the duty themselves.[[78]] Antiphanes considered the Scythians the wisest of men because they fed their children on mare’s and cow’s milk, and did not entrust them to nurses as did the Greeks.[[79]] In the Menaechmi of Plautus distinction is made between “mater quae mammam dabat” and “mater quae pepererat,”[[80]] and in the Adelphi of Terence the services of a nurse are secured for a courtesan.[[81]] We have ample evidence from Demosthenes that this employment was resorted to by poor women as a means of livelihood during the hard times which followed the Peloponnesian War.[[82]] We read besides that nurses were allowed to nurse but one child at a time.[[83]] Plato refers to definite laws regarding the nurture of children,[[84]] and speaks of the time when they were fed with milk: ἐκ νέων παίδων ἔτι ἐν γάλαξι τρεφόμενοι.[[85]] In the community of wives and children, he would have the mothers, from a feeling of humanity, assisted in the nurture of the children by wet-nurses: καὶ ἄλλας γάλα ἐχούσας ἐκπορίζοντες.[[86]] Aristotle associates infantile maladies with the physical condition of the nurse: εἴωτε δὲ τὰ παιδία τὰ πλεῖστα σπασμὸς ἐπιλαμβάνειν καὶ μᾶλλον τὰ εὐτραφέστερα καὶ γάλακτι χρώμενα πλείονα ἢ παχυτέρῳ καὶ τίτθαις εὐσάρκοις,[[87]] and φύει δὲ πρῶτον τοὺς προσθίους, καὶ τὰ μὲν τοὺς ἄνωθεν πρότερον, τὰ δὲ τοὺς κάτωθεν. πάντα δὲ θᾶττον φύουσιν, ὅσων αἱ τίτθαι θερμότερον ἔχουσι τὸ γάλα.[[88]] He objects to the use of wine for young children,[[89]] and deems it unsuitable for the nurses as well: διὸ τοῖς παιδίοις οὐ συμφέρουσιν οἱ οἶνοι, οὐδὲ ταῖς τίτθαις.[[90]] Dion Chrysostom speaks of its use: ὥσπερ ὑπὸ τίτθης γάλακτι καὶ οἴνῳ καὶ σιτίοις,[[91]] but Hippocrates says: ἀμεῖνον εἶναι τοῖς παιδίοισιν τὸν οἶνον ὡς ὑδαρέστατον διδόναι.[[92]] After being weaned,[[93]] children were fed on milk,[[94]] and honey.[[95]] According to Athenaeus, young children thrive well on the juice of figs.[[96]] They were also fed on morsels: “αἱ τὰ παιδία ψωμίζουσι τροφοί.”[[97]] The practice of first chewing the food before giving it to the child seems to have been usual, for we have several allusions to it. Democrates likens the orators to nurses αἱ τὸ ψώμισμα καταπίνουσαι, τῷ σιάλῳ τὰ παιδία παραλείφουσι,[[98]] and Sextus Empiricus has a similar statement: εἰκότως ταῖς τίτθαις, αἱ μικρὸν τοῦ ψωμίσματος τοῖς παιδίοις διδοῦσαι τὸ ὅλον καταπίνουσι.[[99]] Nor did it escape the ridicule of Aristophanes who says:

καθ’ ὥσπερ αἱ τίτθαι γε σιτίζεις κακῶς

μασώμενος γὰρ τῷ μὲν ὀλίγον ἐντίθης

αὐτὸς δ’ ἐκεῖνον τριπλάσιον κατέσπακας.[[100]]

Athenaeus tells the absurd story of a man who had his nurse chew his food for him all his life: Σάγαριν τὸν Μαριανδυνὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ τρυφῆς σιτεῖσθε μὲν μέχρι γήρως ἐκ τοῦ τῆς τίτθης στόματος, ἵνα μὴ μασώμενος πονήσειεν.[[101]]

The Child in the Nurse’s Arms

In the beautiful idyllic scene of Iliad, vi, 389 ff., where Hector bids farewell to Andromache and his darling son, it is to the familiar arms of the nurse that the child turns when frightened by the glancing helm:

ἂψ δ’ ὁ παὶς πρὸς κόλπον εὐζώνοιο τιθήνης

ἐκλίνθη ἰάχων.[[102]]

In those arms he had been carried,[[103]] and when tired out from his childish play there he had slept on a soft cushion satisfied with every comfort:

αὐτὰρ ὅθ’ ὕπνος ἔλοι, παύσαιτό τε νηπιαχεύων,

εὕδεσκ’ ἐν λέκτροισιν, ἐν ἀγκαλίδεσσι τιθήνης,

εὐνῇ ενι μαλακῇ, θαλέων ἐμπλησάμενος κῆρ.[[104]]

In the Odyssey, too, the faithful Eurycleia is spoken of as carrying Odysseus and laying him in the arms of his grandsire, that the latter might choose for him a name.[[105]] The author of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter puts these words into the mouth of the goddess-nurse:

καί κεν παῖδα νεογνὸν ἐν ἀγκοίνῃσιν ἔχουσα

καλὰ τιθηνοίμην.[[106]]

The nurse in Herodotus carried the child each day to the temple of Helen.[[107]] Iphigenia speaking of Orestes says that she left him at home a young child in the arms of his nurse:

ἔλιπον ἀγκάλαισι νεαρὸν τροφοῦ.[[108]]

At the festival of the Amphidromia, it was the nurse who carried the child around the hearth;[[109]] and in the Nurse-festival (τιθηνίδια) at Sparta, the nurses carried the male children to the temple of Artemis.[[110]] We know that nurses walked the floor with fretful children in order to soothe them. A good instance of this is given in Menander’s Samia, 26–30 (Capps), where an old nurse fondles a child to her heart’s content, kissing it and calling it soft names, walking around with it until it is quieted. “The homeopathic cure of morbid ‘enthusiasm’ by means of music was, it may be incidentally observed, known to Plato. In a passage of the Laws,[[111]] where he is laying down the rules for the management of infants, his advice is that infants should be kept in perpetual motion, and live as if they were always tossing at sea. He proceeds to compare the principle on which religious ecstasy is cured by a strain of impassioned music, with the method of nurses, who lull their babes to sleep not by silence but by singing, not by holding them quiet, but by rocking them in their arms.... An external agitation (κίνησις) is employed to calm and counteract an internal. But Plato recognized the principle only as it applied to music and to the useful art of nursing.”

This perpetual motion used by the nurse is referred to in the Timaeus,[[112]] and Aristotle thinks “it is of advantage to have all the movements made (of the bodies of infants) that it is possible to have made in the case of creatures so young.”[[113]] Plato lays down regulations for the nurses to carry the children into the fields, to the temples, and on visits to their acquaintances until they are able to stand alone. He would have them carried until the end of the third year, lest their limbs should be distorted by standing on them too soon: καὶ δὴ καὶ τὰς τροφοὺς ἀναγκάζωμεν νόμῳ ζημιοῦντες τὰ παιδία ἢ πρὸς ἀγροὺς ἢ πρὸς ἱερὰ ἢ πρὸς ὀικείους ἀεί πῃ φέρειν, μέχριπερ ἂν ἱκανῶς ἵστασθαι δυνατὰ γίγνηται, καὶ τότε διευλαβουμένας, ἔτι νέων ὄντων μή πῃ βίᾳ ἐπερειδομένων στρέφηται τὰ κῶλα ἐπιπονεῖν φερούσας, ἕως ἂν τριέτες ἀποτελεσθῇ τὸ γενόμενον;[[114]] This is doubtless the reason why there is no mention made of a contrivance to keep the children’s limbs straight like the “serperastra”[[115]] in use among the Romans.[[116]] The Greeks were careful to develop the body and to have it well-shapen. In the Pseudo-Plutarchian Essay, De Liberis Educandis, the writer thinks it necessary for the members of children to be shapen aright as soon as they are born: ὥσπερ γὰρ τὰ μέλη τοῦ σώματος εὐθὺς ἀπὸ γενέσεως πλάττειν τῶν τέκνων ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστι.[[117]] In the De Virtute, the author tells us that this is the work of the nurses: αἱ τίτθαι ταῖς χερσὶ τὸ σῶμα πλάττουσι.[[118]] Plato, speaking of the influence of stories on the minds of children, says that we must persuade the nurses and the mothers to form the souls of their children by these stories πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ σώματα ταῖς χερσὶν.[[119]] This practice continued down to the days of Galen as is shown from the following: τὰ κῶλα διαπλάττουσι αἱ τροφοὶ τῶν βρεφῶν ὥσπερ κήρινα.[[120]]

Cradles

The nurse had various contrivances in which to place the children after they were lulled to sleep. We read that Alcmena cradled her children in a shield:

χάλκειον κατέθηκεν ἐπ’ ἀσπίδα.[[121]]

The scholiast on Callimachus, Jove, 48, alluding to this passage of Theocritus, says that military men were accustomed to place their children in shields after birth that they might become vigorous and strong. A specimen of a Greek cradle, that of the infant Hermes, a little two-handled basket shaped like a shoe, is seen on a vase.[[122]] The σκάφη, another kind of cradle, is mentioned as being instrumental in the ἀναγνώρισις of children: καὶ οἶνον ἐν τῇ Τυροῖ διὰ τῆς σκάφης.[[123]] Children were also exposed in a σκάφη: ἐνθέμενος οὖν εἰς σκάφην τὰ βρέφη.[[124]] Adrasteia, the nurse of Zeus, lulled him to sleep in a golden winnowing-fan:

Λίκνῳ ἐνὶ χρυσέῳ.[[125]]

It was considered an omen of future wealth and prosperity to place children in these λίκνα.[[126]] Bacchus is called λικνίτης,[[127]] and is represented as carried in a λίκνον between a faun and a Bacchante.[[128]] Hermes is conceived to have been cradled in the same manner.[[129]] Another kind of cradle shown on a vase looks like a bed on rollers,[[130]] and answers very well to the description given by Plutarch, Fragm. in Hesiod, 45: οἷά τισιν εὐκίνητα κλινίδια μεμηχάνηται πρὸς τὴν τῶν παιδίων εὐνήν. The rocking of the cradle is mentioned by Athenaeus: ἡ τροφὸς ... ἐτίθει αὐτὸ ἐν σκάφῃ ... ὅτε δὲ κλαίοι ... τὴν σκάφην ἐκίνει καὶ κατεκοίμιζεν αὐτό.[[131]]

Amusements Furnished by the Nurse

It was natural for the nurse to amuse the children with the various kinds of toys in use in antiquity. Of these, both the literature and the art of Greece furnish many examples. We shall here consider only the toys which are mentioned in direct connection with the nurse. That the nurse sometimes made toys for the children, we learn from Apollonius Rhodius, iii, 131 ff., where the wonderful ball of Zeus τὸ οἷ ποίησε φίλη τροφὸς Ἀδράστεια is described. The shaking of rattles (κρόταλα) before children by the nurse is spoken of by Stobaeus,[[132]] and Pollux has preserved a passage dealing with the same subject: τὸ κρόταλον καὶ τὸ σεῖστρον, ᾧ καταβαυκαλῶσιν αἱ τίτθαι ψυχαγωγοῦσαι τὰ δυσυπνοῦντα τῶν παιδίων.[[133]] We have a vase-painting which portrays a nurse holding in her arms a child, while before its face she dandles a fruit.[[134]] Plutarch’s little daughter used to ask her nurse to give her dolls the breast.[[135]] We learn from Plautus that the nurses took the children to the theatres:

Nutrix ...

Me spectatum tulerat per Dionysia.[[136]]

And in the Poenulus, the nurses are bidden to refrain from bringing the children to that play.[[137]] In Vitruvius’ account of the origin of the Corinthian Capital, there is mention made of a Corinthian nurse who gathers in a basket the playthings which had served for the amusement of her nursling in life, in order to adorn the tomb with them after death.[[138]]

General Care Over Children

To keep the child clean and to attend to all its wants were the principal occupations of the nurse. Cilissa recalls in touching terms the childhood of her dear nursling whose death she had just learned. She ran to him by night, at his least cry, anticipating all his wishes and foreseeing all his needs. Careful for the child’s cleanliness, she washes its garments and its linen:

ὃν ἐξέθρεψα μητρόθεν δεδεγμένη,

καὶ νυκτιπλάγκτον ὀρθίων κελευμάτων

καὶ πολλὰ καὶ μοχθήρ’ ἀνωφέλητ’ ἐμοὶ

τλάσῃ. τὸ μὴ φρονοῦν γὰρ ὡσπερεὶ βοτὸν

τρέφειν ἀνάγκη, πῶς γὰρ οὔ; τρόπῳ φρενός·

οὐ γάρ τι φωνεῖ παῖς ἔτ’ ὢν ἐν σπαργάνοις,

εἰ λιμὸς ἢ δίψη τις, ἢ λιψουρία

ἔχει· νέα δὲ νηδὺς αὐτάρκης τέκνων.

τούτων πρόμαντις οὖσα, πολλὰ δ’, οἴομαι,

ψευσθεῖσα παιδὸς σπαργάνων φαιδρύντρια·

γναφεὺς τροφεύς τε ταὐτὸν εἰχέτην τέλος.[[139]]

With less vividness Moschio’s nurse recalls the days of his infancy.

πρώην τοιοῦτον ὄντα Μοσχίων’ ἐγώ,

αὐτὸν ἐτιθηνούμην ἀγαπῶσα, νῦν δ’ ἐπεὶ

παιδίον ἐκείνου γέγονεν.[[140]]

Suidas suggests another duty in an anonymous passage: μειράκια, ταῖς τίτθαις ἀπομύττειν ... ἀποπέμψατε, and the same thing is referred to in the first book of the Republic: περιορᾷ καὶ οὐκ ἀπομύττει.[[141]] After the children were washed and dressed by the nurses, they were brought to their mothers who took them up and played with them.[[142]] This fondling of children is mentioned in Agamemnon:

πολέα δ’ ἐσχ’ ἐν ἀγκάλαις

νεοτρόφου τέκνου δίκαν.[[143]]

and in Orestes:

καὶ γὰρ μ’ ἔθρεψε σμικρὸν ὄντα, πολλὰ δὲ

φιλήματ’ ἐξέπλησε, τὸν Ἀγαμέμνονος

παῖδ’ ἀγκάλαισι περιφέρων.[[144]]

That it was resorted to by the nurses, we gather from Samia, 29 ff., where we also learn that the nurse used pet names in speaking to the children. Aeschines says that Demosthenes acquired the nickname βάταλος from his nurse.[[145]]

In learning to walk the children must have had many a tumble; but the nurse was always at hand to pick them up, and clean them, and tidy their dress and afterwards find fault with and correct them: καὶ γὰρ αἱ τίτθαι τοῖς παιδίοις πεσοῦσιν οὐ λοιδορησόμεναι προστρέχουσιν, ἀλλ’ ἤγειραν καὶ κατέστειλαν, εἶθ’ οὕτως ἐπιπλήττουσι καὶ κολάζουσι.[[146]] Epictetus speaks of a nurse beating the stone which had caused a child to stumble.[[147]] Philoctetes, miserably crawling along the ground to obtain food, likens himself to a child without its kind nurse:

τότ’ ἂν εἰλυόμενος, παῖς ἄτερ ὡς φίλας τίθηνας.[[148]]

Plato speaks of a method nurses had of finding out what children want. When anything is brought to an infant and he is silent, then he is supposed to be pleased, but when he weeps and cries out, then he is not pleased.[[149]] Aristotle thinks that the crying of infants should not be restrained since it is conducive to their growth: συμφέρουσι γὰρ πρὸς αὔξησιν,[[150]] but Plutarch in his De Cohibenda Ira says: ὅπερ οὖν αἱ τίτθαι πρὸς τὰ παιδία λέγουσι “μὴ κλαῖε καὶ λήψῃ” τοῦτο πρὸς τὸν θυμὸν οὐκ ἀχρήστως.[[151]] By means of amulets and charms the nurses sedulously guarded the children against the pernicious influence of witchcraft and the evil eye. Demeter, in the Homeric Hymn, promises the mother that no harm shall come to the child from witchcraft:

θρέψω, κοὔ μιν ἔολπα κακοφραδίῃσι τιθήνης

οὔτ’ ἄρ’ ἐπηλυσίη δηλήσεται οὔθ’ ὑποτάμνον.[[152]]

The amulets were usually of a grotesque character that the sight being diverted to them should not make so strong an impression on the child.[[153]] On the approach of a stranger, a nurse in charge of a sleeping infant would spit towards him as if to keep off from the child a possibly evil influence.[[154]] Another charm against the evil eye is preserved by St. John Chrysostom: βόρβορον αἱ γυναῖκες ἐν τῷ βαλανείῳ λαμβάνουσαι τροφοὶ καὶ θεραπαινίδες καὶ τῷ δακτύλῳ χρίσασαι κατὰ τοῦ πετώπου τυποῦσι τοῦ παιδίου κἂν ἔρηταί τις, τί βούλεται ὁ βόρβορος τὶ δὲ ὁ πηλός; ὀφθαλμὸν πονηρὸν ἀναστρέφει, φασί, καὶ βασκανίαν καὶ φθόνον.[[155]]

At what age the children left the care of the nurses is not certain. Chrysippus allows three years to them,[[156]] and according to Plato, the boys and girls were separated at six.[[157]] It seems clear that the boys, at least, were sent early to school to keep them out of harm’s way: ἐπεὶ καὶ αἱ τίτθαι τοιάδε λέγουσι περὶ τῶν παιδίων ὡς ἀπιτέον αὐτοῖς ἐς διδασκάλου. καὶ γὰρ ἂν μηδέπω μαθεῖν ἀγαθόν τι δύνωνται, ἀλλ’ οὖν φαῦλον οὐδὲν ποιήσουσιν ἐκεῖ μένοντες.[[158]]

The Nurse and the Grown Daughter

The tie between nurse and child might continue strong in later years. She often remained in the family as the attendant and sometimes as the confidante of the young maiden. Thus Nausicaa’s old nurse lights her fire and prepares her evening meal:

ἥ οἱ πῦρ ἀνέκαιε καὶ εἴσω δόρπον ἐκόσμει.[[159]]

The same nurse who had tended Phaedra as an infant remained in her service until the death of her mistress. Her devotion, introduced mainly as a dramatic expedient, is nevertheless lifelike. Indeed it is the blindness, even to precipitancy, of her love of Phaedra which must be held accountable for the method employed by her to cure the distemper of her mistress. This she herself acknowledges in her answer to Phaedra:

ἔθρεψά σ’ εὔνους τ’ εἰμί· τῆς νόσου δέ σοι

ζητοῦσα φάρμαχ’ ηὗρον οὐχ ἁβουλόμην.

εἰ δ’ εὔ γ’ ἔπραξα, κάρτ’ ἂν ἐν σοφοῖσιν ἦ·

πρὸς τὰς τύχας γὰρ τὰς φρένας κεκτήμεθα.[[160]]

We read that the nurse accompanied the young maiden out of doors, guarded her well, looking askance at admirers who were attracted by the girl’s beauty: “Thou old nurse of a loved one, why do you bark at me while approaching you, and harshly throw me into twice as many pains? For you are leading a very beautiful virgin in whose steps I am treading. See, how I am going along my own path. It is sweet merely to look upon her form. What grudging of eyes is there, thou wretched one! We look upon the forms of even the immortals....”[[161]]

Still, she is sometimes the go-between in the maiden’s love affairs, as in the tale of Acontius and Cydippe.[[162]] So, too, the old nurse of Hero dries the tears of her love-sick charge and receives her confidence.[[163]] The power and influence of Polyxo, the aged nurse of Hypsiple, are evidenced by the fact of her being consulted in an affair of state.[[164]] That these old nurses were wont to comfort and console their charges when grown up, we learn from the following:

ἠύτε κούρη

οἰόθεν ἀσπασίως πολιὴν τροφὸν ἀμφιπεσοῦσα

μύρεται.[[165]]

The Nurse and the Grown Son

Outside of Homer, we do not find the nurse as actively engaged in duties towards the grown son as towards the daughter. Eurycleia continued her care of Telemachus until he came to man’s estate. She accompanied him to his chamber, folded and smoothed his clothes, and having hung them up, carefully closed the door after her.[[166]] She welcomed him as a son on his return from Pylos,[[167]] and is sought by him as his faithful friend.[[168]] She gently reproved him for having blamed his mother where there was no blame,[[169]] yet she was anxious to see him established in his rights.[[170]] She is the first to recognize her old master and former nursling, Odysseus.[[171]] On the recognition, he addresses her by the old name of his childhood, μαῖα, which Telemachus also uses.[[172]]

The grief of Cilissa for Orestes shows that her love for him had endured beyond the nursery days.[[173]] The unfortunate woodcutter in Callimachus’ Demeter, who had offended the goddess, was bewailed by the nurse by whom he had been suckled.[[174]] Moschio’s nurse still retained loving thoughts of her dear child, Moschio, and was much interested in the son for the sake of the father.[[175]] The old nurse in Demosthenes’ In Evergum was welcomed by her former nursling as a safe companion for his wife during his absence, and his care of her after the robbery is an evidence of the esteem in which she was held.[[176]] A further indication of the love and gratitude evinced by young men for the nurses of their childhood is shown in the relatively large number of monuments and epigrams dedicated to them.[[177]]

The Nurse in the Household

When the nurse was not occupied with the child, she owed towards the household, duties which are specifically mentioned in Homer; but not so clearly defined in later authors. Thus the nurse of Eumaeus is engaged in washing when she is seduced by the pirates.[[178]] Eurycleia is the mainstay of the house in Ithaca, having complete charge of the domestic arrangements. In the morning, she gives her directions for the day’s work to the female slaves[[179]] over whom she has joint supervision with the mistress.[[180]] These, she taught how to perform the various works of the house—making beds, strewing couches, carding wool, setting tables and cleaning rooms. Besides, she is the stewardess of the household:

ἐν δὲ γυνὴ ταμίη νύκτας τε καὶ ἦμαρ

ἔσχ’, ἣ πάντ’ ἐφύλασσε νόου πολυιδρείῃσιν,

Εὐρύκλει’, Ὦπος θυγάτηρ Πεισηνορίδαο.[[181]]

and to her Telemachus applies for provisions for his journey.[[182]] It is characteristic of her to keep the best wine against the homecoming of Odysseus.[[183]]

Demeter enumerates the duties incumbent on a nurse in addition to her nursing cares:

οἷαί τε τροφοί εἰσι θεμιστοπόλων βασιλήων

παίδων καὶ ταμίαι κατὰ δώματα ἠχήεντα.

· · · · ·

... καὶ δώματα τηρήσαιμι,

καί κε λέχος στορέσαιμι μυχῷ θαλάμων εὐπήκτων

δεσπόσυνον, καὶ κ’ ἔργα διδασκήσαιμι γυναῖκας.[[184]]

They are substantially the same as those of Eurycleia.

So far as we can see, the nurse of Tragedy is occupied almost exclusively with the mistress. The nurse of Medea, however, affects a superior tone in speaking to the παιδαγωγός,[[185]] and gives him directions concerning the children.[[186]] In a similar way the nurse of Comedy seems to have authority over some of the servants.[[187]]

General Characteristics of the Nurse

Instances of the love and devotedness of nurses are not wanting in the literature. From Homer down, we see the nurse as a kind mother lavishing love and affection on the child that she nursed. In the Odyssey, Eurycleia is represented as loving Telemachus more than did the other women:

καὶ ἔτρεφε τυτθὸν ἐόντα.[[188]]

and Penelope bears witness that Eurycleia had diligently nursed and tended Odysseus:

εὐ τρέφεν ἤδ’ ἀτίταλλε.[[189]]

Right willingly did the old nurse give her services to one who reminded her of her master. She is the first to recognize him by the scar he had received in his youth. Then

τὴν δ’ ἅμα χάρμα καὶ ἄλγος ἕλε φρένα, τὼ δέ οἱ ὄσσε

δακρυόφι πλῆσθεν, θαλερὲ δέ οἱ ἔσχετο φωνή.[[190]]

A picture of true devotedness is given by Herodotus,[[191]] where a nurse takes an ugly child every day to the temple of Helen to implore the gift of beauty for her charge.

Stesichorus[[192]] and Pindar[[193]] assert that it was the nurse who saved Orestes from his mother after his father’s murder. Aeschylus calls her Cilissa, and points her out to us as full of love and devotedness for the child.[[194]] Such is the devotion of Medea’s nurse for her mistress that the old παιδαγωγός is surprised to see her outside the place without Medea.[[195]] The nurse in the Trachiniae shows real grief for the fate of her mistress,[[196]] while Phaedra’s nurse attributes her unwise action to excess of love,[[197]] and Hypsipyle’s nursling is as dear to her as her own child.[[198]] Fidelity is the attribute which characterizes Aristophanes’ πιστὴ τροφός.[[199]] A good instance of the nurse’s care for the child is given in Menander, where an old nurse, seeing a child crying and neglected, goes up to it and says: “My darling, and my precious, and where is Mama?” She then kisses it and walks about with it until it stops crying, when she says to herself, “Ah me, it seems but yesterday I was nursing that dear child, Moschio, and now that a child is born to him!” Then to a young girl who comes running in from outside: “Bathe the child, can’t you? What is this? Is it because it is his father’s wedding day that you have no care of the little one?”[[200]]

Examples of tender attachment are also met with in real life. Demosthenes furnishes a typical illustration in Oration, xlvii. “I explained to the interpreters the attachment of the woman to our family, the cause of my having her in my house, and that she had lost her life in the defense of my property. She had no kind of family connection with me, except that she had been my nurse.”

In contrast to these, we have but few instances of unkindness on the part of the nurse. However, the perversity of human nature is exemplified in the illustration Plutarch gives: “For nurses, who are often rubbing the dirt off their infants, sometimes tear the flesh and put them to torture.”[[201]] This contrary note is again struck in Stobaeus,[[202]] where the lack of skill and teasing humor of some nurses is portrayed. The child is hungry, the nurse obliges it to sleep; it is thirsty, she gives it a bath; it is sleepy, she keeps it awake by shaking rattles in its ears. Aristophanes, too, does not spare those nurses who rob their nurslings of a part of their meal.[[203]] Though the chattering[[204]] and tippling propensities[[205]] of the nurse are sometimes referred to, we do not read that they led her to neglect the child. In fact, neglect and unkindness to children are not characteristic of the Greek nurse as popularly conceived. Of this we have ample evidence from the number of metaphors employed in the literature wherein the nurse figures and always in a good sense. One’s fatherland is frequently called a nurse, since the care and nurture bestowed on a man by his country is like that given the child by the nurse. We read of the much-nourishing nurse, Greece (Ἑλλάδος ἀμητῆρα πολυθρέπτοιο τιθήνης);[[206]] your motherland, most beloved nurse (γῇ τε μητρί, φιλτάτῃ τροφῷ;)[[207]] this, thy country, nursed thee:

(οὔτ’ ἐννομ’ εἶπας οὐτε προσφιλὲς πόλει

τῇδ’, ἥ σ’ ἔθρεψε, τήνδ’ ἀποστερῶν φάτιν;)[[208]]

Apollo may love me as caring for his dear nurse, i. e. the island of Delos (Κύνθιος αἰνήσῃ με φίλης ἀλέγοντα τιθήνης),[[209]] and many other examples. The dinner table is styled the nurse of life (βίου τιθήνη).[[210]] The dove keeping the snake from her brood is an all-attentive nurse:

(δράκοντες ὥς τις τέκνων

ὑπερδέδοικεν λεχαίων δυσευνάτορας

πάντροφος πελειάς.)[[211]]

The fountains are called the nurses of Bacchus, because the water being mingled with the wine increased the quantity of the wine.[[212]]

Thus we find that in the performance of her fourfold office towards child, grown daughter, grown son, and household, the nurse exhibited a tender devotion towards the family in which she lived and especially towards the members of it who had been the former objects of her care.

CHAPTER IV
NURSERY TALES AND LULLABIES

The importance of the nurse in Greek life may be judged from the fact that to her as well as to the mother was entrusted the early education of the child. Quintilian quoting Chrysippus, whose treatise on Greek education has unfortunately been lost, says: “Those advise better who like Chrysippus think that no part of a child’s life should be exempt from education. For Chrysippus, though he has allowed three years to the nurses, yet is of the opinion that the minds of children may be imbued with excellent instruction even by them.”[[213]] The same author wishes nurses to be women of some knowledge. At any rate, they should be the best circumstances allow.[[214]] If we can judge from Republic, 343 a, the nurse taught the children to distinguish between ordinary words: εἰπέ μοι, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες, τίτθη σοι ἔστιν;... ὅτι τοί σε, ἔφη, κορυζῶντα περιορᾷ καὶ οὐκ ἀπομύττει δεόμενον, ὅς γε αὐτῇ οὐδὲ πρόβατα οὐδὲ ποιμένα γιγνώσκεις.

The first lessons of the nurse were imparted by means of stories and songs, when children were not of an age to learn gymnastic. Of this Plato makes mention in the following passage: οὐ μανθάνεις, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, ὅτι πρῶτον τοῖς παιδίοις μύθοις λεγόμενον; τοῦτο δέ που ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν ψεῦδος, ἔνι δὲ καὶ ἀληθῆ. πρότερον δὲ μύθοις πρὸς τὰ παιδία ἢ γυμνασίοις χρώμεθα.[[215]] Furthermore, he would have mothers and nurses mould the minds of the children by means of these tales: πείσομεν τὰς τροφούς τε καὶ μητέρας πλάττειν τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν τοῖς μύθοις πόλυ μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ σώματα ταῖς χερσίν.[[216]]

In ancient literature, however, we find only isolated traces of nursery tales which may perhaps be accounted for by the contempt with which the Greeks regarded this form of literature, an inference drawn from Socrates’ answer to Hippias: σοι χαίρουσιν οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ἅτε πολλὰ εἰδότι· καὶ χρῶνται ὥσπερ ταῖς πρεσβύτισιν οἱ παῖδες πρὸς τὸ ἡδέως μυθολογῆσαι.[[217]] More emphatic is his answer to Gorgias: τάχα δ’ οὖν ταῦτα μῦθος σοι δοκεῖ λέγεσθαι, ὥσπερ γραός· καὶ καταφρονεῖς αὐτῶν.[[218]] In a similar strain writes Lucian: ἔτι σοι γραῶν μῦθοι τὰ λεγόμενα ἐστι.[[219]] Disconnected as are the allusion to nursery tales and notwithstanding the contempt in which they were held, we have sufficient evidence to prove their existence and suggest their character.

Nurses had many ways of acting on the imaginations of their young charges in order to secure their obedience, to quiet them or put them in good humor. The choice of the tales depended on the nurse and on the intelligence of the children whom they nursed διὰ μυθολογίας,[[220]] and quieted again by tales after they had beaten them: καθάπερ αἱ τίτθαι τὰ παιδία, ἐπειδὰν αὐτοῖς πληγὰς ἐμβάλωσι παραμυθούμεναι καὶ χαριζόμεναι μῦθον αὐτοῖς ὕστερον διηγήσαντο.[[221]] This recounting of tales is also mentioned by Philostratus: καὶ καταμυθολόγει με ἡ τίτθη χαριέντως.[[222]]

As a substitute for the sandal, which according to Lucian[[223]] was energetically applied, they sometimes told the children stories of an awe-inspiring character. The time-honored bogey was always in requisition to frighten them into good behavior, while there were tales of a pleasing character for the good children. These two classes of tales which we may designate as protreptic and apotropaic are clearly defined by Strabo in the following passage: τοῖς τε γὰρ παισὶ προσφέρομεν τοὺς ἡδεῖς μύθους εἰς προτροπὴν εἰς ἀποτροπὴν δὲ τοὺς φοβερούς.[[224]]

We shall first consider the apotropaic tales, or bogeys. Of these, the most frequently mentioned is Lamia who is so intimately connected with the domain of fable that Plutarch called Demetrius Μῦθος because the name of his mistress was Lamia: Δημοχάρης δὲ ὁ Σόλιος τὸν Δημήτριον ἐκάλει Μῦθον· εἶναι γὰρ αὐτῷ καὶ Λαμίαν (Λάμιαν).[[225]]

From Diodorus we learn that she was of Libya: τίς τοὔνομα ἐπονείδιστον βροτοῖς οὐκ οἶδε Λαμίας τῆς Λιβυστικῆς γένος.[[226]] The Scholiast on Aristophanes, Peace, 758, says that she was a Libyan woman with whom Zeus consorted, not without the knowledge of Hera, who being jealous, destroyed Lamia’s children. When they were killed and she was overburdened, Lamia killed the children of others.[[227]] Therefore, nurses called Lamia to them to frighten children. And the story is told how she by the counsel of Hera passed her life sleepless, so that day and night she was in continual pain, until Zeus taking pity on her made her eyes removable.[[228]] Plutarch thus speaks of her in De Curiositate: νῦν δὲ ὥσπερ ἐν τῷ μύθῳ τὴν Λάμιαν λέγουσιν· οἴκοι μὲν ᾄδειν τυφλήν, ἐν ἀγγείῳ τινι τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχουσαν ἀποκειμένους ἔξω δὲ προιοῦσαν ἐπιτίθεσθαι καὶ βλέπειν. Her singing would attract children to her abode but they had a chance to escape when her eyes were ἐν ἀγγείῳ.[[229]]

The fear which children had for the Lamia is referred to by Lucian in a passage where he is speaking of the stories told to children: μυθίδια παίδων ψυχὰς κηλεῖν δυνάμενα ἔτι τὴν Μορμὼ καὶ τὴν Λάμιαν δεδιότων.[[230]] She was said to devour children alive. Whence Horace: “Neu pransae Lamia vivum puerum extrabat alvo.”[[231]] Philostratus represents her as a monster, possessing the blood-sucking reputation of the vampire.[[232]] Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions her in a passage in which he is treating of the fables of earlier historians: Λαμίας τινὰς ἱστοροῦντες ἐν ὕλαις καὶ νάπαις ἐκ γῆς ἀνιεμένας, καὶ ναΐδας ἀμφιβίους ἐκ ταρτάρων ἐξιούσας καὶ διὰ πελάγους νηχομένας καὶ μιξόθερας, καὶ ταύτας εἰς ὁμιλίαν ἀνθρώποις συνερχομένας.[[233]]

Lamia plays an important part in modern Greek nursery tales, where she is portrayed as a monster, hideous and deformed, hungry for human flesh, partaking of the nature of the Harpy, the Gorgon, and the Empusa.[[234]] Belief in her is so common in Greece that Wachsmuth says when a child dies suddenly they say: τὸ παιδὶ τὸ ἔπνιξε ἡ Λάμια.[[235]]

With Lamia, Strabo groups: Γοργὼ καὶ ὁ Ἐφιάλτης καὶ ἡ Μορμολύκη.[[236]] That the hideous aspect of the Gorgon was used as a bugbear, may be gathered from Aristophanes, Acharnians, 582, where Lammachus is bidden to take away his shield which has the Gorgon for a device: ἀπένεγκε μου τὴν μορμόνα. As if the speaker said: “Take away the representation of the Gorgon which strikes terror into me, as μορμώ does into children.” Mormolyke is called the nurse of Acheron, husband of Gorgyce by Sophron.[[237]] The significance of the name is derived from μορμολύκεια, the general term for “bogey” of which Plato, speaking of the fear of death, says: μὴ δεδιέναι τὸν θάνατον, ὥσπερ τὰ μορμολύκεια.[[238]]

To the apotropaic nursery tales belong also the stories of Acco and Alphito which are classed together by Plutarch: τῆς Ἀκκοῦς καὶ τῆς Ἀλφιτοῦς δ’ ὦν τὰ παιδάρια τοῦ κακοσχολεῖν αἱ γυναῖκες ἀνείργουσιν.[[239]] According to Hesychius the word Acco is etymologically connected with ἀσκός and ἀκκόρ, so that by Acco was originally meant a bugbear which carried off naughty children in a bag. In a similar manner Alphito, from ἄλφιτα is explained.

Another favorite of the nurses was Gello: δαίμων ἣν γυναῖκες τὰ νεογνὰ παιδία φασὶν ἁρπάζειν. (Hesychius.) Zenobius, iii, 3, explaining the proverb, Γελλὼ παιδοφιλωτέρα, says of her: Γελλὼ γάρ τις ἦν παρθένος, καὶ ἐπειδὴ ἀώρως ἐτελεύτησε, φασὶν οἱ Λέσβιοι αὐτῆς τὸ φάντασμα ἐπιφοιτᾶν ἐπὶ τὰ παιδία, καὶ τοὺς τῶν ἀώρων θανάτους αὐτῇ ἀνατιθέασι. Μέμνηται ταύτης Σαπφώ.[[240]] Hesychius also styles her εἴδωλον Ἐμπούσης. The Empusa here referred to is placed in the same category with Lamia and Mormolyke: ἡ χρηστὴ νύμφη μία τῶν Ἐμπουσῶν ἐστιν, ἃς Λαμίας τε καὶ μορμολοκίας οἱ πολλοὶ ἡγοῦνται.[[241]] She possessed the property of assuming any form she pleased: “For they were travelling by a bright moonlight when the figure of an empusa or hobgoblin appeared to them that changed from one form into another until finally it vanished into nothing.”[[242]] According to the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, iii, 860, Hecate often sends out ghosts, the so-called Ἑκαταῖρα and often changes her form, wherefore she is called Empusa. Aeschines’ mother acquired the nickname Empusa ἐκ τοῦ πάντα ποιεῖν,[[243]] according to the Scholiast πάντα τὰ αἰσχρὰ καὶ ἀνόσια.

Another bogey was the Strigla, the Roman Strix (Mod. Greek στρίγλαις), of which mention is made in a fragment of an ancient nursery song:

Στρίγγ’ ἀποπομπεῖν νυκτιβόαν, στρίγγ’ ἀπὸ λαῶν,

ὄρνιν ἀνωνυμίαν ὠκυπόρους ἐπὶ νῆας.[[244]]

The wolf had also its place in this literature, since its name was used in the same manner as the bugbears mentioned above:

Ἄγροικος ἠπείλησε νηπίῳ τίτθη

κλαίοντι ‘Παῦσι· μή σε τῷ λύκῳ ῥίψω.’[[245]]

A good example of the way in which children were frightened by these bogeys is given in Theocritus, where Praxinoe who wants to go out to the Adonis festival says to the child who runs after her crying:

οὐκ ἄξω τυ, τέκνον· Μορμώ, δάκνει ἵππος·

δάκρυε, ὅσσα θέλεις· χωλὸν δ’ οὐ δεῖ σε γένεσθαι.[[246]]

Another instance is given by Callimachus in the Hymn to Artemis, where he tells that when a mother in Olympus cannot get her daughter to obey her, she calls one of the Cyclopes, and the indefatigable Hermes appears immediately with his face smeared with soot to personate the Cyclops. Then the child hastens in fright to her mother and puts her head on her bosom:

ἀλλ’ ὅτε κουράων τις ἀπειθέα μητέρι τεύχε,

μήτηρ μὲν Κύκλωπας ἑῇ ἐπὶ παιδὶ καλιστρεῖ,

Ἄργην, ἢ Στερόπην· ὁ δὲ δώματος ἐκ μυχάτοιο,

ἔρχεται Ἑρμείης σποδίῃ κεχρημένος αἴθῃ.

αὐτίκα τὴν κούρην μορμύσσεται.[[247]]

The Scholion on this passage says: καταπληκτικὰ φοβερά. ἐκ μεταφορᾶς τῆς μορμοῦς τὰ βρέφη φοβούσης.[[248]] The μορμώ here spoken of was a woman of horrible and monstrous aspect which Hesychius calls τὸ φόβητρον τοῖς παιδίοις. Xenophon likens the fear of the allies to that which young children have for μορμώ: οἱ μὲν Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἐπισκώπτειν ἐτόλμων ὡς οἱ σύμμαχοι φοβοῖντο τοὺς πελταστὰς, ὥσπερ μορμόνας παιδάρια.[[249]] Aristophanes also makes use of this word:

οὐδὲν δέομεθ’, ὦνθρωπε, τῆς σῆς μόρμονος.[[250]]

ὀφρῦς ἔχοντα καὶ λόφους, δείν’ ἄττα μορμορωπὰ.[[251]]

ὡς δὴ καταπιόμενός με. μορμὼ τοῦ θράσους.[[252]]

Such were the tales told by nurses to frighten children into good behavior. We cannot but think that these stories, although they secured obedience for the time being, must have had a deleterious effect on the children. This view is substantiated by a passage of Lucian: “If you do not want to fill these boys’ heads with ghosts and hobgoblins, postpone your grotesque horrors for a more suitable occasion. Have some mercy on the lads: do not accustom them to listen to a tangle of superstitious stuff that will cling to them for the rest of their lives and make them start at their own shadow.”[[253]]

What the children naturally preferred to these threats were the stories told to put them to sleep or to amuse them—the protreptic tales. The nurses had a store of such tales, and γραῶν or τιτθῶν μῦθοι have grown into a proverb.[[254]]

The subject matter of these tales was the actions of the gods and heroes of mythology: γεγονὼς αὐτὸς ἐκ Διός τε καὶ τῆς τοῦ δήμου ἀρχηγέτου θυγατρός· ἅπερ αἱ γραῖαι ᾄδουσι.[[255]] Hence the telling of them might have the greatest influence on the moral education of the children. Plato, therefore, enlarges on the care to be taken in their selection, so that the children might not receive immoral impressions and false ideas: ἆρ’ οὖν ῥᾳδίως οὕτω παρήσομεν τοὺς ἐπιτυχόντας ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιτυχόντων μύθους πλασθέντας ἀκούειν τοὺς παῖδας καὶ λαμβάνειν ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ ἐναντίας δόξας ἐκείναις, ἄς ἐπειδὰν τελεωθῶσιν, ἔχειν οἰησόμεθα δεῖν αὐτούς;[[256]] He therefore establishes a censorship of the writers of fiction, and rejects even Hesiod and Homer: πρῶτον δὴ ἡμῖν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐπιστατητέον τοῖς μυθοποιοῖς, καὶ ὃν μὲν ἂν καλὸν ποιήσωσιν, ἐγκριτέον, ὃν δ’ ἂν μή, ἀποκριτέον. τοὺς δ’ ἐγκριθέντας πείσομεν τὰς τροφούς τε καὶ μητέρας λέγειν τοῖς παισί.[[257]] As a matter of fact, all sins that men could commit were imputed to the gods by these poets.[[258]]

The story of Zeus who thrust his father from the throne would teach children disloyalty to parents,[[259]] while his amorous connections with goddesses and mortals could not but have a pernicious effect on young minds. Plutarch thinks nurses should be restrained in the selection of these tales: μὴ τοὺς τυχόντας μύθους τοῖς παιδίοις λέγειν, ἵνα μὴ τὰς τούτων ψυχὰς ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀνοίας καὶ διαφθορᾶς ἀναπίμπλασθαι συμβαίνῃ,[[260]] and Aristotle wishes to place these matters under the supervision of the Paedonomoi: καὶ περὶ λόγων τε καὶ μύθων ποίους τινὰς ἀκούειν δεῖ τοὺς τηλικούτους ἐπιμελὲς ἔστω τοῖς ἄρχουσιν, οὓς καλοῦσι παιδονόμους.[[261]]

On the other hand, ancient mythology is so full of humor and imagination and so rich in amusing adventures, that many of these same stories might do excellent service to-day as nursery tales. For example, the story of the inventiveness of Hermes even in his cradle, the adventures of Odysseus, the labors of Hercules, and many others would furnish enjoyment to many a child.[[262]]

Philostratus records that nurses made use of the tale of Theseus and Ariadne: ὅτι τὴν Ἀριάδνην ὁ Θησεὺς ἄδικα δρῶν κατέλιπεν ἐν Δίᾳ τῇ νήσῳ καθεύδουσα τάχαν, του καὶ τίτθης διάκησας, σοφαὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖναι τὰ τοιαῦτα καὶ δακρύουσεν ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς ὅταν ἐθελωσιν.[[263]]

The magic rings which Timolous wishes for in Lucian, seem to have been borrowed from a nursery tale,[[264]] and the story of the ring of Gyges, which rendered its wearer invisible, contains elements of the nursery tale.[[265]] Stories told for comfort and consolation are alluded to by Euripides, where Amphitryon counsels Megara to tell tales to the children disturbed over their father’s absence:

ἀλλ’ ἡσύχαζε καὶ δακρυρρόους τέκνων

πηγὰς ἀφαίρει καὶ παρευκήλαι λόγοις,

κλέπτουσα μύθοις ἀθλίνους κλοπὰς ὅμως.[[266]]

At the festival of the Oschophoria, the telling of old fables and tales to children was part of the ritual.[[267]]

The style characteristic of modern nursery tales was in vogue in classical times, as we learn from Aristophanes where the first words of a tale correspond to our well-known “Once upon a time.”

οὕτω ποτ’ ἦν μῦς καὶ γαλῆ.[[268]]

The Scholiast commenting on this line says: πρὸς τὴν συνήθειαν, ὅτι τὸν μῦθον προέταττον οὕτως, οἷον, ἦν οὕτω γέρων καὶ γραῦς. καὶ Πλάτων ἐν Φαίδρῳ (237 B) ἦν οὕτω δὴ παῖς μᾶλλον δὲ μειρακίσκος· τούτῳ δ’ ἦσαν ἐράσται πάνυ πολλοί. There is another instance in Lysistrata, where the semi-choruses, telling each other a little nursery tale begin:

οὕτως ἦν πότε ......

οὕτω ........[[269]]

The purpose of all these tales is training to virtue, and is well expressed by the Scholiast on Hermogenes, Progymnasmata, i.e.: τὸν μῦθον ἀξιοῦσι προσάγειν τοῖς νεοῖς ὅτι τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν πρὸς τὸ βέλτιον ῥυθμίζειν δύναται.

We conclude that there was at Athens a store of popular tales for the amusement of children, many of which were attributed to Aesop whom Herodotus calls λογοποιός.[[270]] The word λογοποιός seems to indicate that a prose version of his fables may have circulated in Athens in the time of Socrates.[[271]] What is certain, however, is that these tales were very much enjoyed and that Socrates himself versified some of them.[[272]] The so-called Aesopic tales began “Aesop said.”[[273]] Other tales were classified as Libyan, Cyprian and Sybaritic, distinguishable by the opening words: “A man (or a woman) of Sybaris (or of Libya or of Cypris) said.”[[274]] A further distinction between the fables of Aesop and those of Sybaris is that the latter were political and about men; the former, ethical and about animals.[[275]] A Λιβυκὸς μῦθος is mentioned by Dion Chrysostom employed to calm children after they had been chastised.[[276]]