Sunday, April 24, 2016
Pleasures
Homer, Odyssey 8.248-249 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):
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And always the feast is dear to us, and the lyre and dancesJ.B. Hainsworth ad loc.:
and changes of clothing and our hot baths and beds.
αἰεὶ δ' ἡμῖν δαίς τε φίλη κίθαρις τε χοροί τε
εἵματά τ' ἐξημοιβὰ λοετρά τε θερμὰ καὶ εὐναί.
These lines naturally attracted the animadversions of the censorious, e.g. Heracleides Ponticus (ap. schol. Od. xiii 119) συνειδότας γὰρ ἑαυτοῖς φιληδονίαν καὶ ἀπολαυστικὸν τρόπον ..., Hor. Epp. i 2 28-9 'sponsi Penelopae, nebulones, Alcinoique | in cute curanda plus aequo operata iuventus'. But the lines merely summarize the delights of a society at peace...
