The poet introduces the “Lesbian maid,” explaining the riddle, and this passage of the Athenian comic writer may be regarded as the original of those fine lines in Ovid, which Pope has so elegantly translated:
Heaven first taught LETTERS for some wretch’s aid,
Some banish’d lover, or some captive maid,
They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires,
The virgin’s wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush and pour out all the heart,
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.
By this time, however, the reader will probably be of opinion, that we have lingered long enough about the dinner-table and its attendant pastimes. We shall therefore hasten the departure of the guests, who after burning the tongues of the animals that had been sacrificed, to intimate that whatever had been uttered was to be kept secret, offered libations to Zeus, Hermes, and other gods, and took their leave, in ancient times before sunset; but afterwards, as luxury and extravagance increased, the morning sun often enabled them to dispense with link-boys. Examples, indeed, of similar perversions of the night occur in Homer and Virgil, but always among the reckless or effeminate in the palaces of princes, whence, in all ages, the stream of immorality has flowed downward upon society to disturb and pollute it. The company assembled at Agathon’s, also, sit up all night in Plato; and Aristophanes represents drunken men reeling home through the agora by daylight.