Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/223

 Sleep on the hardest bed; and then that Lion, Thudippus, did congeal us all with fear; Then hunger pinch'd us And so we went unto the fiery Dion. But even he had nought with which to help us; So running to the excellent Telemachus, The great Acharnian, I found a heap Of beans, and seized on some and ate them up. And when that ass Cephisodorus saw us, He by a most unseemly noise betray'd us.

From this it is plain that Telemachus, being a person who was constantly eating dishes of beans, was always celebrating the festival Pyanepsia.

74. And bean soup is mentioned by Heniochus the comic writer, in his play called the Wren, where he says—

A. I often, by the Gods I swear, consider In my own mind how far a fig surpasses A cardamum. But you assert that you Have held some conversation with this Pauson, And you request of me a difficult matter. B. But having many cares of divers aspects, Just tell me this, and it may prove amusing; Why does bean soup so greatly fill the stomach, And why do those who know this Pauson's habits Dislike the fire? For this great philosopher Is always occupied in eating beans.

75. So after this conversation had gone on for some time, water for the hands was brought round; and then again Ulpian asked whether the word [Greek: chernibon], which we use in ordinary conversation, was used by the ancients; and who had met with it; quoting that passage in the Iliad—

He spoke, and bade the attendant handmaid bring The purest water of the living spring, (Her ready hands the ewer ([Greek: chernibon]) and basin held,) Then took the golden cup his queen had fill'd.

But the Attic writers say [Greek: chernibion], as Lysias, for instance, in his speech against Alcibiades, where he says, "With all his golden wash-hand basins ([Greek: chernibiois]) and incense-burners;" but Eupolis uses the word [Greek: cheironiptron], in his Peoples—

And he who runs up first receives a basin ([Greek: cheironiptron]), But when a man is both a virtuous man And useful citizen, though he surpass In virtue all the rest, he gets no basin ([Greek: cheironiptron]).

But Epicharmus, in his Ambassadors for a Sacred Purpose, uses the word [Greek: cheironibon] in the following lines:—