Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/51

 I showed some surprise, he explained that anyone who is attacked by sheepdogs has only to sit down and let go his walking-stick or gun or other offensive weapon, and the dogs, understanding that a truce has been called, will sit down round him and maintain, so to speak, a peaceful blockade. On subsequent occasions I tested the shepherd's counsel, beginning prudently with one dog only and, as I gained assurance, raising the number: it is uncomfortable to remain sitting with a blood-*thirsty Molossian hound at one's back, ready to resume hostilities if any suspicious movement is made; but I must own that, in my own fairly wide experience, Greek dogs, as they are sans peur in combat, are also sans reproche in observing a truce. The traveller may fare worse than by following the example of guileful Odysseus.

But if the scene of the encounter be not a mountain-path but the approach to some cottage, the dogs' master will, like Eumaeus, hasten to intervene, 'chiding them and driving them this way and that with a shower of stones ,'—for the Greek dog does not heed mere words,—and again like Eumaeus will assure his visitor that he himself would have been 'covered with shame ' if the dogs had done his guest any hurt. Then he will conduct his guest into his cottage and bid him take his fill of bread and wine before he tells whence he is come and how he has fared : for Greek hospitality spares the guest the fatigue of talking until he is refreshed. The visitor therefore sits at his ease, silent and patient, while his host catches and kills such beast or fowl as he may possess, cuts up the flesh in small pieces, threads these on a spit, and holds them over the embers of his fire till they are ready to serve up : similarly, in Homeric fashion, he mixes wine and water ; and then, all the preparations being now complete, he urges his guest to the meal.

Thus the hospitality of to-day, in its details no less than in its spirit, recalls the hospitality of the Homeric age. The(Od. 14. 32) which Odysseus would have endured for some time but for the intervention of Eumaeus. Otherwise the line must have been inserted by someone who did not appreciate the guile of Odysseus.]

to Book 14 of the Odyssey]