Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/154

132 132 HISTORY OF THE fresh stratagems ; the Batrachomyomachia, which we shall have occa- sion to mention hereafter as an example of parody ; the Seven times shorn Goat (aU tTrrcnreKTog), and the Song of the Fieldfares (iiriKi)(i$£G)t which Homer is said to have sung- to the hoys for field- fares. Some few such pleasantries have come down to us, particularly the poem of the Pot-kiln (Kafuvos v Ktpa/xic), which applies the imagina- tion and mythological machinery of the epic style to the business of pottery. § 5. These humorous poems are too innocuous and too free from personal attacks to have much resemblance to the caustic iambics of Archilochus. More akin to them undoubtedly were the satirical songs which, according to the Homeric hymn to Hermes, the young men sang extemporaneously in a sort of wanton mutual defiance*. At the public tables of Sparta, also, keen and pointed raillery was permitted, and con- versation seasoned with Spartan salt was not held to afford any reasonable ground of offence to those who took part in it. But an occasion for yet more audacious and unsparing jest was afforded to the Greeks by some of the most venerable and sacred of their religious rites — the per- mission, or rather encouragement to wanton and unrestrained jokes on everything affording matter for such ebullitions of mirth, con- nected with certain festivals of Demeter, and the deities allied to her. It was a law at these festivals that the persons engaged in their cele- bration should, on certain days, banter all who came in their way, and assail them with keen and licentious raillery t. This was the case at the mystic festival of Demeter at Eleusis, among others. Hence, also, Ari- stophanes in the Frogs introduces a chorus of the initiated, who lead a blissful life in the infernal regions, and makes them pray to Demeter that she would grant them to sport and dance securely the livelong day, and have much jocose and much serious talk ; and, if the festival had been worthily honoured by jest and merriment, that they might be crowned as victors. The chorus also, after inviting the jolly god Iacchus to take part in its dances, immediately proceeds to exercise its wit in satirical verses on various Athenian demagogues and cowards. M/3»r«) 6u.'ir,tri •xa.^a.'ipoXa xigrofciouo'iv. f Concerning the legality of this religious license there is an important passage in Aristotle, Pol. vii. 15. We will set down the entire passage as we understand it : " As we banish from the state the speaking of indecent things, it is cli -r that we also prohibit indecent pictures and representations. The magistrate must therefore provide that no statue or picture of this kind exist, except for certain deities, of the class to which the law allows scurrilous jesting (eTj koc) rov rwtatrfiov a-TroViivait o v'npos). At temples of this kind the law also permits all persons of a mature age to pray to the gods for themselves, their children and wives. But younger persons ought to be prohibited from being present at the recitation of iambic verses, or at comedies, until they have reached the age at which they may sit at table and drink to intoxication."
 * V. 55 seq.) ahroff^ii'm; .... riirt kcZ/ioi