The bridegroom views her coming near;
The slender youth that led her here
May now release her arm.
In early times, the marriage banquet was not a mere matter of ceremony. It was desirable to have as many witnesses as possible, and such were the guests. At Greek marriages there was likewise a procession with song and flute accompaniment, a feast in the evening, and songs and dance before the nuptial chamber.
Theocritus in his ‘Epithalamium of Helen,’ describes the twelve first maidens of the city forming the dance in front of the newly-painted nuptial chamber. ‘And they began to sing, I ween, all beating time to one melody with many-twinkling feet, and the house was ringing round with a nuptial hymn.’
It was the custom both in Greece and in Italy, when the marriage procession halted before the bridegroom’s house, to salute it with a shower of sweetmeats. This recalls the ruder shower of earth that I saw in Kabylia, and which I took to symbolise a volley of stones. The custom still survives in Italy; for I have often seen sweetmeats thrown among the crowd when a newly-married couple have issued from church; great is the delight and eager the scrambling of small boys on such occasions.
CHAPTER V.
June 16 to June 24, 1880.