DRINKING-CUPS.
And then again she carries round to all
A cup of unmix'd wine.
And Euripides, in his Cretan Women, says—
Farewell all other things, as long
As cups of wine go freely round.
And then, when Leonidas the grammarian demanded a larger cup, and said,—Let us drink hard ([Greek: kratêrizômen]), my friends, (for that was the word which Lysanias the Cyrenean says that Herodorus used to apply to drinking parties, when he says, "But when they had finished the sacrifice they turned to the banquet, and to craters, and prayers, and pæans;" and the poet, who was the author of the poem called the Buffoons—a play which Duris says that the wise Plato always had in his hands—says, somewhere, [Greek: ekekratêrichêmes], for "we had drunk;") But now, in the name of the gods, said Pontianus, you are drinking in a manner which is scarcely becoming, out of large cups, having that most delightful and witty author Xenophon before your eyes, who in his Banquet says,—"But Socrates, in his turn, said, But it seems to me now, O men, that we ought to drink hard. For wine, in reality, while it moistens the spirit, lulls the griefs to sleep as mandragora does men; but it awakens all cheerful feelings, as oil does fire. And it appears to me that the bodies of men are liable to the same influences which affect the bodies of those things which grow in the ground; for the very plants, when God gives them too much to drink, cannot hold up their heads, nor can they expand at their proper seasons. But when they drink just as much as is good for them, and no more, then they grow in an upright attitude, and flourish, and come in a flourishing state to produce fruit. And so, too, in our case, if we take too much drink all at once, our bodies and our minds rapidly get disordered, and we cannot even breathe correctly, much less speak. But if our slaves bedew us (to use Gorgias-like language) in small quantities with small cups, then we are not compelled to be intoxicated by the wine; but being gently induced, we proceed to a merry and cheerful temperament."
112. Now, any one who considers these expressions of the accomplished Xenophon, may understand how it was that the brilliant Plato displayed such jealousy of him. But perhaps the fact may partly be because these men did from the very
