Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/179

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THE USE OF PARTICULAR WORDS.

Why did you not desire him to place
The goblets on the board ([Greek: parapherein])?

And Sophron, in his Female Actresses, uses the word in a more general sense, where he says—

O Cocoas, bring ([Greek: paraphere]) me now a goblet full.

And Plato, in his Lacedæmonians, says—

Let him bring forward ([Greek: parapheretô]).

And Alexis, in his Pamphila, says—

He laid the table, then he placed on it ([Greek: parapherôn])
Good things in wagon loads.

But concerning the word [Greek: geumata], meaning anything which is tasted, food, the exclusive knowledge about which you have claimed for yourself, it is time for you now to tell us, O Ulpian, what you do know. For as to the verb [Greek: geusai], we have that in Eupolis, in his Goats, where he says—

Take now of this, and taste ([Greek: geusai]) it.

And Ulpian said, Ephippus in his Peltastes says—

There there were stations for the horses and asses,
And wine to drink ([Greek: geumata oinôn]).

And Antiphanes, in his Twins, says—

Now he drinks wine ([Greek: oinogeustei]) and walks about in splendour,
Wreathed with flowery garlands.

26. On this the cook said—I, then, will relate to you now, not an ancient contrivance, but a device of my own, in order that the flute-player may escape being beaten; (for Eubulus, in his Lacedæmonians or Leda, says—

But I have heard of this, I swear by Vesta,
That when the cook at home makes any blunder,
The flute-player is always beaten for it.

And Philyllius, or whoever the poet may have been who wrote the play of The Cities, says—

Whatever blunders now the cook may make,
The flute-player receives the stripes for them.)

And I mean the device about the pig half-roasted, half-boiled, and stuffed, without having had any apparent incision made in him. The fact is, the pig was stuck with a very short wound under his shoulder; (and he showed the wound.) Then when the greater part of the blood had flowed from it, all the entrails, with the intestines, I washed (and the word [Greek: exairesis], O you revellers who think so much of words, means