THE WORD [Greek: PAROPSIS .]
But for such men there's an old answer fitting,
"That may be your opinion, this is mine."
But with good arguments one may persuade
The wise with ease: for always men of sense
Do prove the easiest pupils.
5. And my excellent friend Myrtilus,—for I have taken the words out of your mouth, Antiphanes,—in his Bœotian, has used this word [Greek: paropsis] for a vessel, where he says—
After she has invited you to supper,
She sets before you a [Greek: paropsis] full of. . . .
And Alexis, in his Hesione, says—
But when he saw two men well loaded with
The table and conveying it in-doors,
Groaning beneath a number of [Greek: paropsides],
Looking no more at me, he said. . . .
And the man who was the author of the plays which are attributed to Magnes, says in his first Bacchus—
These things are now [Greek: paropsides] of ill to me.
And Achæus, in his Æthnon, a satyric drama, says—
And let these savoury boil'd and roasted meats
On the [Greek: paropsides] be carved in pieces.
And Sotades the comic writer says, in his Man wrongly Ransomed—
I a [Greek: paropsis] seem to Crobylus.
Him he devours alone, but me he takes
But as a seasoning to something else.
But the word is used in an ambiguous sense by Xenophon, in the first book of his Cyropædia. For the philosopher says, "They brought him [Greek: paropsidas], and condiments of all sorts, and food of all kinds." And in the works of the author of Chiron, which is usually attributed to Pherecrates, the word [Greek: paropsis] is used for seasoning; and not, as Didymus, in his treatise on Words used in a Corrupted Sense, asserts, for a vessel. For he says—
By Jove, as [Greek: paropsides] are praised or blamed
Because of the way in which they flavour meat,
So Caletas esteems these people nothing.
And Nicophon, in his Sirens, says—
Others may fight the [Greek: paropsis] for their seat.
And Aristophanes says, in his Dædalus,—
All women have one set of principles,
And have a lover, like a [Greek: paropsis], ready.
