συχον ὕπνου χάριν παρέξεις, φίλα;[[288]]
These are but the traces of a class of songs, which without doubt were employed by the Greek mothers and nurses to lull the children to sleep. From the very nature of these songs, it is highly improbable that any lullaby should survive in the literature.
CHAPTER V
MONUMENTS TO THE NURSE
The relations between nurse and master were of that sacred character which cease not with death. Her sincere and tender affection was not only repaid during life by the master’s solicitude for her well-being; but after death her memory was frequently perpetuated by the erection of monuments.
The unearthing of many of these has proved a fertile source of information concerning the nurse. Her name, sometimes her parentage, and even details of her life and virtues find expression in the sepulchral inscriptions.
The commonest form of grave-stone erected to the memory of the nurse is the “Stele”, a horizontal grave-relief more or less ornamented, and usually representing the nurse seated, bidding farewell to her master or mistress. Conze in his Die attischen Grabreliefs describes several of these.
The nurse Melitta, daughter of Apollodorus, the metic, is honored by a monument erected by her master, Hippostrates, who is also represented on the relief. Beneath is the following inscription:
Ἐνθάδε τὴν χρηστὴν τίτθην κατὰ γαῖαν καλύπτει
Ἱπποστράτης· καὶ νῦν ποθεῖ σε.
καὶ ζῶσάν σ’ ἐφίλουν, τίτθη, καὶ νῦν σ’ ἔτι τιμῶ