In fact, the heads of the honest people were filled with very serious meditations, being all in love, and endeavouring to discover how each might excel the other in absurdity. Philip began to fear, therefore, that he had carried his jests to a bad market, and, in reality, made many vain attempts to kindle the spirit of mirth, and call home the imaginations of persons who had evidently suffered them to stray as far as the clouds. Aware that success on this point was indispensable to his subsistence, the jester grew piqued at the indifference of his hearers, and breaking off in the midst of his supper, wrapped up his head in his chlamys, and lay down like one about to die. “What, now!” cried Callias. “Has any sudden panic seized on thee, friend?”—“The worst possible, by Zeus!” replied Philip; “for, since laughter, like justice, has taken its leave of earth, my occupation is gone. Hitherto I have enjoyed some celebrity in this way, living at the public expense, like the guests of the Prytaneion, because my drollery was effective, and could set the table in a roar. But it is all over, I see, with me now, for I might as soon hope to render myself immortal as acquire serious habits.” All this he uttered in a pouting, desponding tone, as if about to shed tears. The company, to humour the joke, undertook to comfort him, and the effect of their mock condolences, and assurances that they would laugh if he continued his supper, was so irresistibly ludicrous, that Autolychos, a youthful friend of Callias, was at length unable to restrain his merriment; upon which the jester took courage, and apostrophising his soul, informed it very gravely, that there would be no necessity for them to part company yet.[[761]]
The Greeks had, properly speaking, no drawing-rooms, so that, instead of retreating to another part of the house, they had the tables themselves removed immediately after dinner. Libations were then poured out to Zeus Teleios, and having sung a hymn to Phœbos Apollo, the amusements of the evening commenced. Professional singers and musicians were always hired on these occasions. They were female slaves, selected in childhood for their beauty and budding talents, and carefully educated by their owners.[[762]] When not already engaged, they stood in blooming bevies in the agora, waiting, like the Labourers of Scripture, until some one should hire them, upon which they proceeded, dressed and ornamented with great elegance, to the house of feasting. But, besides these, there were other artistes who contributed to the entertainment of the demos, persons that, like our Indian jugglers, performed wonderful feats by way of interlude between the regular exhibitions of the damsels from the agora.[[763]]
Xenophon introduces into that living picture of Greek manners called the Banquet, a company of this kind. Finding Philip’s jokes dull things, he brings upon the scene a strolling Syracusan, with a beautiful female flute-player, a dancing girl who could perform surpassing feats of activity, and a handsome boy, who, besides performing on the cithara, was likewise able, on occasion, to sport the toe like his female companions.
But, where philosophers were present, amusements of this kind were not allowed to occupy their whole attention. Every thing that occurred was made a handle for conversation, so that discussions, more or less lively, according to the temperament or ability of the interlocutors, formed the solid ground-work upon which the flowers of gaiety and laughter were spread. It was usual, immediately after supper, to perfume the guests, and great was the variety of unguents, essences, and odorous oils, made use of by the rich and vain upon these occasions; but when Callias proposed conforming to the mode in this particular, Socrates objected, observing, that the odour of honourable toil was perfume enough for a man.[[764]] Women, indeed, to whom every thing sweet and beautiful naturally belongs, might, he admitted, make use of perfume, and they did so most lavishly as we have already shown, when we entered their dressing-room and assisted at their toilette.
The Greeks, however, were careful not to convert their pleasure-parties into a mere arena for the exhibition of dialectic power. They from time to time glanced at philosophy, but only by the way, in the moments of transition from one variety of recreation to another. Their conversation was now and then brought to a pause by the rising of dancing girls,[[765]] robed elegantly, as we behold them still on vases and on bas-reliefs, in drapery adapted to display all the beauty of their forms. Hoops were brought them, and while musicians of their own sex called forth thrilling harmonies from the flute, they executed a variety of graceful movements, in part pantomimic,—now casting up the hoops, now catching them as they fell, keeping time exactly with the cadences of the flute. Their skill in this accomplishment was so great, that many were enabled to keep up twelve hoops in the air at the same time, while others made use of poniards.[[766]]
When the novelty of this exhibition was worn off a little, other different feats followed. A hoop stuck all round with upright swords was placed in the midst of the apartment, into which one of the dancing girls threw herself head foremost, and while standing on her head balanced the lower part of her body round over the naked points, to the infinite terror of the spectators. She would then dart forth between the swords, and, with a single bound, regain her footing without the circle.[[767]] To add to the entertainment of the company, some parasitical buffoon would at times undertake to exhibit his awkwardness as a foil to the grace of the dancers, frisking about with the clumsy heaviness of a bear, and exaggerating his own ignorance of orchestics to excite a laugh. Sometimes the female dancer, like our own fair tumblers, would throw back her head till it reached her heels, and then putting herself in motion, roll about the room like a hoop.[hoop.][[768]] To these, as a relief and a change, would succeed, perhaps, a youth with fine rich voice, who accompanied himself on the lyre with a song.
But nothing could entirely restrain the Greeks from indulging in the pleasure of listening to their own voices. The buzz of conversation would soon be heard in different parts of the room, which, when Socrates was present, sometimes provoked from him a sarcastic reproof. For example, at Callias’s dinner, observing the company broken up into knots, each labouring at some particular question in dialectics, and filling the apartment with a babel of confused murmurs; “As we talk all at once,” said he, “we may as well sing all at once;” and without further ceremony he pitched his voice and began a song.[[769]]
But when professed jugglers happened to be present, gentlemen were not long abandoned to their own resources for amusement. Trick followed trick in rapid succession. To the pantomimic dances, and the sword circle, succeeded the exhibition of the potter’s wheel, in which a young girl seated on this machine, like a little Nubian at a cow’s-tail in a sakia, was whirled round with great velocity,[[770]] but retained so much self-possession as to be able both to write and to read. These, however, were merely sources of momentary wonder. Other amusements succeeded capable of exciting superior delight, such for example, as the mimetic dance, which, like that of the ghawazi, could tell a whole story of love, of adventure, of war, of religious frenzy and enthusiasm, transporting by vivid representations the fancy of the spectators to warmer or wilder scenes, calling up images and reminiscences of times long past, or steeping the thoughts in poetical dreams, filled with the caverned nymphs, the merry Seileni, the frisking satyrs, Bacchos, Pan, the Hours, the Graces, sporting by moonlit fountains, through antique woods, or on the shelled and sand-ribbed margin of the ocean.[[771]]
On some occasions a slight dramatic scene was represented. Clearing the centre of the banqueting hall, the guests ranged themselves in order as at the theatre. A throne was then set up in the open space, and a female actor, representing Ariadne, entering, took her seat upon it, decked and habited like a bride, and supposed to be in her Thalamos at Naxos. Dionysos, who has been dining with Zeus, comes flushed with Olympian nectar into the harem to the sound of the Bacchic flute, while the nymph who has heard his approaching footsteps makes it manifest by her behaviour that her soul is filled with joy, though she neither advances nor rises to meet him, but restrains her feelings with difficulty, and remains apparently tranquil. The god, drawing near with impassioned looks, and dancing all the while, now seats himself, and places the fair one on his knee. Then, in imitation of mortal lovers, he embraces and kisses her, nothing loth; for, though she hangs down her head, and would wish to appear out of countenance, her arms find their way round his neck and return his embrace. At this the company, we may be sure, clapped and shouted. The god, encouraged by their plaudits, then stood up with his bride, and going through the whole pantomime of courtship, not coldly and insipidly, but as one whose heart was touched, at length demanded of Ariadne if in truth she loved him. Sometimes the mimic scene concealed beneath it all the reality of passion. From personating enamoured characters, the youthful actor and his partner learned in reality to love; and what was amusement to others contained a deep and serious meaning for them. This, Xenophon says, was the case with the youth and maiden who enlivened the banquet of Callias. Absorbed in the earnestness of their feelings, they seem to have forgotten the presence of spectators, and instead of a stage representation, gave them a scene from real life, where every impassioned look and gesture were genuine, and every fiery glance was kindled at the heart.[[772]]
This, however, may be considered a serious amusement, and something like broad farce was necessary to awaken the guests from the reverie into which the love scene had plunged them. Jesters were, therefore, put in requisition; and, as even they sometimes failed to raise a laugh, their more humorous brethren the wits and jesters of the forests, or, in the language of mortals, monkeys were called upon to dissipate the clouds of seriousness. These were the favourite buffoons of the Scythian Anacharsis,—not the Abbé Barthélemy’s,—who said, he could laugh at a monkey’s tricks, because his tricks were natural, but that he found no amusement in a man who made a trade of it.[[773]] Nor could Euripides at all relish punsters and manufacturers of jokes, whom he considered, with some reason, as a species of animal distinct from mankind.