Hector foreseeing the miseries consequent upon the destruction of Troy, says to Andromache—
“But no grief
So moves me as my grief for thee alone,
Doom’d then to follow some imperious Greek,
A weeping captive, to the distant shores
Of Argos; there to labour at the loom
For a taskmistress.”
And again he says to her—
“Hence, then, to our abode; there weave or spin,
And task thy maidens.”
And afterwards—
“Andromache, the while,
Knew nought, nor even by report had learn’d
Her Hector’s absence in the field alone.
She in her chamber at the palace-top
A splendid texture wrought, on either side
All dazzling bright with flow’rs of various hues.”
Though “Penelope’s web” is become a proverb, it would be unpardonable here to omit specific mention of it. Antinoüs thus complains of her:—
“Elusive of the bridal day, she gives
Fond hope to all, and all with hope deceives.
Did not the Sun, through heaven’s wide azure roll’d,
For three long years the royal fraud behold?
While she, laborious in delusion, spread
The spacious loom, and mix’d the various thread;
Where, as to life the wondrous figures rise,
Thus spoke th’ inventive queen with artful sighs:—
‘Though cold in death Ulysses breathes no more,
Cease yet a while to urge the bridal hour;
Cease, till to great Laertes I bequeath
A task of grief, his ornaments of death.
Lest, when the Fates his royal ashes claim,
The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame:
When he, whom living mighty realms obey’d,
Shall want in death a shroud to grace his shade.’
Thus she: At once the generous train complies,
Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue’s fair disguise.
The work she plied; but, studious of delay,
By night revers’d the labours of the day.
While thrice the Sun his annual journey made,
The conscious lamp the midnight fraud survey’d;
Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail;
The fourth, her maid unfolds th’ amazing tale.
We saw, as unperceiv’d we took our stand,
The backward labours of her faithless hand.
Then urg’d, she perfects her illustrious toils;
A wondrous monument of female wiles.”
The Greek costume was rich and elegant; and though, from our familiarity with colourless statues, we are apt to suppose it gravely uniform in its hue, such was not the fact; for the tunic was often adorned with ornamental embroidery of all sorts. The toga was the characteristic of Roman costume: this gradually assumed variations from its primitive simplicity of hue, until at length the triumphant general considered even the royal purple too unpretending, unless set off by a rich embroidery of gold. The first embroideries of the Romans were but bands of stuff, cut or twisted, which they put on the dresses: the more modest used only one band; others two, three, four, up to seven; and from the number of these the dresses took their names, always drawn from the Greek: molores, dilores, trilores, tetralores, &c.
Pliny seems to be the authority whence most writers derive their accounts of ancient garments and needlework.