A. We'll anoint you
All over with a richly-smelling perfume.
B. Will you not give me first a jug of water
To wash my hands with?
A. Surely; the dessert (τράπεζα)
Is now being clear'd away.
And Aristophanes, in his Wasps, says—
Bring water for the hands; clear the dessert.[92]
And Aristotle, in his treatise on Drunkenness, uses the term δεύτεραι τράπεζαι, much as we do now; saying,—"We must therefore bear in mind that there is a difference between τράγημα and βρῶμα, as there is also between ἒδεσμα and τρωγάλιον. For this is a national name in use in every part of Greece, since there is food (βρῶμα) in sweetmeats (ἐν τραγήμασι), from which consideration the man who first used the expression δευτέρα τράπεζα, appears to have spoken with sufficient correctness. For the eating of sweetmeats (τραγηματισμὸς) is really an eating after supper (ἐπιδορπισμὸς); and the sweetmeats are served up as a second supper." But Dicæarchus, in the first book of his Descent to the Cave of Trophonius, speaks thus: "There was also the δευτέρα τράπεζα, which was a very expensive part of a banquet, and there were also garlands, and perfumes, and burnt frankincense, and all the other necessary accompaniments of these things."
49. Eggs too often formed a part of the second course, as did hares and thrushes, which were served up with the honey-cakes; as we find mentioned by Antiphanes in the Leptiniscus, where he says,—