DRINKING-CUPS.
And one man having stolen a psycter,
And his companion, who has taken away
A brazen cyathus, both lie perplex'd,
Looking for a chœnix and a cotylis.
But Alexis, in his Hippiscus, uses the diminutive form, and calls it a [Greek: psyktêridion], saying—
I went to see my friend while at his inn,
And there I met a dark-complexion'd man,
And told my slaves, for I brought two from home,
To put in sight the well-clean'd drinking-cups:
There was a silver cyathus, and cups
Weighing two drachmas each; a cymbium,
Whose weight was four; a [Greek: psyktêridion],
Weighing two obols, thinner than Philippides.
109. But Heracleon of Ephesus says, "The cup which we call [Greek: psygeus] some name the [Greek: psyktêria], but the Attic writers make jokes upon the [Greek: psygeus], as being a foreign name." Euphorion, in his Woman Restoring, says—
But when they call a [Greek: psygeus] a [Greek: psyktêria],
And [Greek: seutlion teutla], and the [Greek: phakê phakeus],
What can one do? For I rightly said,
Give me, I pray, Pyrgothemis, some change
For this your language, as for foreign money.
And Antiphanes, in his Knights, says—
How then are we to live? Our bedclothes are
A saddlecloth, and our well-fitting hat
Only a psycter. What would you have more?
Here is the very Amalthean horn.
And in the Carna he declares plainly that, when pouring out wine, they used the psycter for a cyathus. For after he had said—
And putting on the board a tripod and cask,
And psycter too, he gets drunk on the wine;
in the passage following, he represents his man as saying—
So will the drink be fiercer: therefore now,
If any one should say it is not fit
T' indulge in wine at present, just leave out
This cask, and this one single drinking-cup,
And carry all the rest away at once.
But Dionysius the pupil of Tryphon, in his treatise on Names, says—"The ancients used to call the psygeus dinus." But Nicander of Thyatira says, that woods and shady places dedicated to the gods are also called [Greek: psyktêres], as being places where one may cool oneself ([Greek: anapsyxai]). Æschylus, in his Young Men, says—
And gentle airs, in the cool, shady places ([Greek: psyktêriois]);
