But when they'd eaten thus, and drank their fill,
Each to his room retired, not dreaming ill.
66. But the men of modern times, pretending to be sacrificing to the gods, and inviting their friends and nearest kinsmen to the sacrifice, vent imprecations on their children, and abuse their wives, and treat their slaves with indignity, and threaten the multitude, almost verifying the line of Homer:—
But now with speed let's take a short repast,
And well refresh'd to bloody conflict haste.
Nor do they ever give a thought to what has been said by the poet who wrote the poem entitled Chiron, whether it is Pherecrates, or Nicomachus, the teacher of rhythm, or whatever else his name may have been:—
When you have ask'd a friend to come to supper,
Do not be angry when you see him come;
That is the part of an unworthy man;
But give yourself to happy thoughts of joy,
And study to amuse your friend and guest.
But now men utterly forget all these rules, and they recollect only the lines which follow them, which are all written in imitation of the Great Eoæ which are attributed to Hesiod, and which are also meant as a parody on his great work, Works and Days:—
When any of us does celebrate
A sacrifice, and bids his friends to th' feast,
Still, if he come, we're vex'd and look askance,
And wish him to depart without delay.
And he his want of welcome soon perceives
And reassumes his shoes; when some one rises
Of the surrounding revellers, and says,
"Here, my friend, do not go; why won't you drink?
Take off your shoes." And then the host again
Is angry with the guest who calls him back,
And quotes some scraps of poetry against him,—
"Remember, always speed the parting guest,
And when a man is sleeping let him rest."
Do not we in this manner oft behave
When feasting those we choose to call our friends?
And, moreover, we add this:—
Let not a numerous party vex your mind,
For more are pleased, and the cost's near the same.
67. And when we are sacrificing to the gods, we spend as little as possible upon our sacrifices, and give them the most ordinary presents; as the admirable Menander tells us, in his Drunkenness:—