But the couch (κλισμὸς) was more adapted for reclining on; and the δίφρος is something simpler than these things. Accordingly, in the book where Ulysses appears as a beggar the servants place for him, as Homer tells us,

A humble chair (δίφρος), and spread a scanty board.

But their goblets, as their name (κρατῆρες) indicates, were supplied full of wine mixed with water (κεκραμένοι); and the youths ministered to them from the larger goblets, always, in the case of the most honourable of the guests, keeping their small cups full; but to the rest they distributed the wine in equal portions. Accordingly Agamemnon says to Idomeneus[[307:2]]—

To thee the foremost honours are decreed,
First in the fight, and every graceful deed;

[[308]] For this in banquets, when the generous bowls
Restore our blood, and raise our warrior souls,
Though all the rest with stated rules are bound,
Unmix'd, unmeasured are thy goblets crown'd.

And they used to pledge one another, not as we do, (for our custom may be expressed by the verb προεκπίνω rather than by προπίνω,) but they drank the entire bumper off—

He fill'd his cup, and pledged great Peleus' son.

And how often they took meat, we have already explained—namely, that they had three meals, because it is the same meal that was at one time called δεῖπνον, and at another ἄριστον. For those men who say that they used to take four meals a day, are ridiculously ignorant, since the poet himself says—

But do thou come δειελιήσας.

And these men do not perceive that this word means, "after having remained here till evening." But, nevertheless, no one can show in the poet one instance of any one taking food even three times in the day. But many men are led into mistakes, placing these verses in the poet all together—