And I mark that in the house itself many men are feasting: for the savour of meat arises from it, and therewith resounds the voice of the lyre, which the gods have made the companion of the feast.
γιγνώσκω δ᾽ ὅτι πολλοὶ ἐν αὐτῷ δαῖτα τίθενται
ἄνδρες, ἐπεὶ κνίση μὲν ἀνήνοθεν, ἐν δέ τε φόρμιγξ 270
ἠπύει, ἣν ἄρα δαιτὶ θεοὶ ποίησαν ἑταίρην.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Saturday, June 22, 2024
The Companion of the Feast
Homer, Odyssey 17.269-271 (tr. A.T. Murray):