DRINKING-CUPS.
For all across the sea, a lovely bed
Of precious gold, the work of Vulcan's hands,
Conveys the god; passing on rapid wings
Along the water, while he sleeps therein,
From the bright region of th' Hesperides,
To th' Ethiopian shore, where his swift car
And fiery horses wait within their stalls
Till bright Aurora comes again and opes
Her rosy portals. Then Hyperion's son
Ascends again his swift untiring car.
But Theolytus, in the second book of his Annals, says that the Sun crosses the sea in a cup, and that the first person who invented this statement was the author of the poem called the Battle of the Titans. And Pherecydes, in the third book of his Histories, having previously spoken about the ocean, adds—"But Hercules drew his bow against him, as if he meant to shoot him: and the Sun bade him desist, and so he, being afraid, did desist. And in return for his forbearance, the Sun gave him the golden cup in which he himself used to travel with his horses when he has set, going all night across the ocean to the east, where he again rises. And so then Hercules went in this cup to Erythea. And when he was at sea, Oceanus, to tempt him, appeared to him in visible form, tossing his cup about in the waves; and he then was on the point of shooting Oceanus; but Oceanus being frightened desired him to forbear."
40. There is also a cup of the name of ethanion. Hellanicus, in his account of the History and Manners of the Egyptians, writes thus—"In the houses of the Egyptians are found a brazen [Greek: phialê], and a brazen [Greek: kyathos], and a brazen [Greek: êthanion]."
There is another kind called hemitomus; a sort of cup in use among the Athenians, so called from its shape; and it is mentioned by Pamphilus, in his Dialects.
41. Then there is the cup called the thericlean cup; this kind is depressed at the sides, sufficiently deep, having short ears, as being of the class of cup called [Greek: kylix].[1] And, perhaps, it is out of a thericlean cup that Alexis, in his Hesione, represents Hercules to be drinking, when he speaks thus—is "probably from the same root as [Greek: kylindô], [Greek: kylindoros], from their round shape, for the [Greek: y] is against
ny connexion with [Greek: kyô] or [Greek: koilos]."]
- ↑ Liddell and Scott say the word [Greek: kylix
