Droops its tendrils to the ground.
Petals of the rose, around
Spread your fragrant anodyne
For his gracious speech profound,
Muses and the Graces blending,
Honeyed charm to wisdom lending.”
In the “Acharnians” of Aristophanes the demesman Dicæopolis, shut up in the city by the war, grows tired of hearing: “Buy, buy!” when he would have “coals, vinegar or oil,” commodities to be had for nothing at home in the country. He therefore makes a private and personal treaty of peace, goes back to Acharnæ and proceeds to celebrate the rural Dinoysia. The revel is on and the wife and mother warns the daughter, who is to officiate as basket-bearer, to take precautions,—
“Lest some one ere you know it nibble off your gold.”
To-day the peasant girls of Menidi without fear display on their persons at the Easter dances their abundant dowries of gold and silver. As the Phallic procession moves off, Dicæopolis wisely sends his pretty wife to a place of safety:—
“You, wife, up with you to the roof and watch from there;