It is fortunate that our English boys have no such passion for sunshine; otherwise, as Phœbos Apollo hides his face for months together in this blessed climate, we should be in a worse plight than Dionysos among the frogs of Acheron, when his passion for Euripides led him to pay a visit to Persephone. In some parts of the country, however, the children have a rude distich which they frequently bawl in chorus, when in summer-time their sports are interrupted by a long-continued shower:—
“Rain, rain, go to Spain;
Fair weather, come again.”
The Muïnda was our “Blindman’s-buff,” “Blind Hob,” “Hobble ’em-blind,” and “Hood-man-blind,” in which, as with us, a boy moved about with his eyes bandaged, spreading forth his hands, and crying “Beware!” If he caught any of those who were skipping around him, the captive was compelled to enact the blind-man in his stead. Another form of the game was for the seers to hide, and the blind man to grope round till he found them; the whole probably being a rude representation of Polyphemos in his cave searching for the Greeks who had blinded him. A third form was, for the bystanders to strike or touch the blindfolded boy until he could declare who had touched him, when the person indicated took his place. To this the Roman soldiers alluded when they blindfolded our Saviour and smote him, and cried, “Prophesy who struck thee.”[[481]] In the Kollabismos,[[482]] the Capifolèt of the French, one person covered his eyes with his own hands, the other then gave him a gentle blow, and the point was, for the blindfolded man to guess with which hand he had been stricken. The Χαλκὴ Μυῖα,[[483]] or Brazen Fly, was a variety of Blindman’s-buff, in which a boy, having his eyes bound with a fillet, went groping round, calling out, “I am seeking the Brazen Fly.” His companions replied, “You may seek, but you will not find it”—at the same time striking him with cords made of the inner bark of the papyros; and thus they proceeded till one of them was taken. Apodidraskinda (“hide and seek,” or “whoop and holloa!”) was played much as it is now. One boy shut his eyes, or they were kept closed for him by one of his suspicious companions, while the others went to hide. He then sallied forth in search of the party who lay concealed, while each of them endeavoured to gain the post of the seeker; and the first who did this turned him out and took his place.
Another game was the Ephedrismos, in which a stone called the Dioros was set up at a certain distance, and aimed at with bowls or stones. The one who missed took the successful player upon his back, and was compelled to carry him about blindfolded, until he went straight from the standing-point to the Dioros. This latter part of the game has been described by several ancient authors, under the appellation of Encotyle, though they are rightly, by Hesychius,[[484]] considered as different parts of the same sport. The variety called Encotyle,—the “Pick-back” or “Pick-a-back,” of English boys, consisted in one lad’s placing his hands behind his back, and receiving therein the knees of his conqueror, who, putting his fingers over the bearer’s eyes, drove him about at his pleasure. This game was also called the Kubesinda and Hippas,[[485]] though, according to the conjecture of Dr. Hyde, the latter name signified rather our game of “Leap-frog,”—the “mazidha” of the Persians, in which a number of boys stooped down with the hands resting on the knees, in a row, the last going over the backs of all the others, and then standing first.
In the game called Chytrinda, in English[[486]] “Hot-cockles,” “Selling of pears,” or “How many plumbs for a penny,” one boy sat on the ground, and was called the chytra or pot, while his companions, forming themselves into a ring, ran round, plucking, pinching, or striking him as they went. If he who enacted the chytra succeeded in seizing upon one of the buffeters the captive took his place. Possibly it was during this play that a mischievous foundling, contrary to rule, poking, as he ran round, the boy in the centre with his foot, provoked from the latter the sarcastic inquiry, “What! dost thou kick thy mother in the belly?” alluding to the circumstance of the former having been exposed in a chytra.[[487]] Another form of the Chytrinda required the lad in the centre to move about with a pot on his head, where he held it with his left hand, while the others struck him, and cried out, “Who has the pot?” To which he replied, “I Midas,” endeavouring all the while to reach some one with his foot,—the first whom he thus touched being compelled to carry round the pot in his stead.[[488]]
Another game, peculiar to girls, was the Cheli Chelone, or “the tortoise,” of which I remember no representative among English pastimes. It somewhat resembled the Chytrinda of the boys. For one girl sat on the ground and was called the tortoise, while her companions, running round, inquired “Tor-tortoise what art thou doing there in the middle?” “Spinning wool,” replied she, “the thread of the Milesian woof;” “And how, continued they, was thy son engaged when he perished?” “He sprang from his white steeds into the sea.”[[489]] If this was, as the language would intimate, a Dorian play, I should consider it a practical satire on the habits of the other Hellenic women, who remained like tortoises at home, carding and spinning, while their sons engaged in the exercises of the palæstra or the stadium. Possibly, also, originally the name may have had some connection with καλλιχέλωνος “beautiful tortoise,” the figure of this animal having been impressed on the money of the Peloponnesians; in fact, in a fragment of the Helots of Eupolis, we find the obolos distinguished by the epithet of καλλιχέλωνος.[[490]]
The Kynitinda was so called from the verb κυνέω to kiss, as appears from Crates in his “Games,” a play in which the poet contrived to introduce an account of this and nearly all the other juvenile pastimes. The form of the sport being little known, the learned have sometimes confounded it with a kind of salute called the chytra in antiquity, and the “Florentine Kiss” in modern Italy, in which the person kissing took the other by the ears. Giraldi[[491]] says he remembers, when a boy, that his father and other friends, when kissing him, used sometimes to take hold of both his ears, which they called giving a “Florentine kiss.” He afterwards was surprised to find that this was a most ancient practice, commemorated both by the Greek and Latin authors. It obtained its name, as he conjectures, from the earthen vessel called chytra, which had two handles usually laid hold of by persons drinking out of it, as is still the practice with similar utensils in Spain. This writer mentions a present sent from the peninsula to Leo X, consisting of a great number of chytræ of red pottery, if we may so call them, of which he himself obtained one. Crates, as Hemsterhuis[[492]] ingeniously supposes, introduced a wanton woman playing at this game among the youths in order that she might enjoy the kisses of the handsome.
The Epostrakismos[[493]] was what English boys call “Ducks and Drakes,” and sometimes, among our ancestors at least, “A duck and a drake and a white penny cake,” and was played with oyster-shells. Standing on the shore of the sea at the Peiræeus, for example, they flung the shells edgeways over the water so that they should strike it and bound upwards again and again from its surface. The boy whose shell made most leaps before sinking, won the game. Minucius Felix gives a very pretty description of this juvenile sport. “Behold, he says, boys playing in frolicsome rivalry with shells on the sea-shore. The game consists in picking up from the beach a shell rendered light by the constant action of the waves, and standing on an even place, and inclining the body, holding the shell flat between the fingers, and throwing it with the greatest possible force, so that it may rase the surface of the sea or skim along while it moves with gentle flow, or glances over the tops of the waves as they leap up in its track. That boy is esteemed the victor whose shell performs the longest journey or makes most leaps before sinking.”[[494]]
The Akinetinda was a contention between boys, in which some one of them endeavoured to maintain his position unmoved. Good sport must have been produced by the next game called Schœnophilinda, or “Hiding the Rope.” In this a number of boys sat down in a circle, one of whom had a rope concealed about his person, which he endeavoured to drop secretly beside one of his companions. If he succeeded, the unlucky wight was started like a hare round the circle, his enemy following and laying about his shoulders. But on the other hand, if he against whom the plot was laid detected it, he obtained possession of the rope and enjoyed the satisfaction of flogging the plotter over the same course.