Libations and utter’d
Fair wishes for bridegroom,
[For fair bride fair wishes.]
Stebbing in his Friends of Man has the Gods descend to the modest hall wherein the marriage feast is spread.
All the High Gods from Olympus, to bless the Two, descend.
...
By an ample bowl Hermes, deftest of cupbearers, stands,
Crowning the Gods’ goblets from the full flagon in his hands.
The function of what we Americans used to call the first groomsman, in the primitive times of wife-stealing, was to protect the bridegroom from pursuit and the name “best man” perpetuates the tradition. In the Greek wedding, where the passing and closing of the door was so essential a part of the ritual, he was the door-keeper, and there was much bantering and chaffing at his personal appearance on the part of the maidens, who made much use of the same jokes which have since been applied to the feet of maidens of Chicago. The feet of the porter were put in the laughing stocks somewhat after this fashion (E. 154):
Full seven fathoms stretch the feet of the porter,