DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13851#0615
Qi? THE MISCELLANY CUSTOMS OF GREECE.
587
Where the poet advises that women be permitted to grow to maturity in
four years, i. e. four after ten, and marry in the fifth, i. e. the fifteenth I
others think he means they must continue unmarried four years after their
arrival at woman's estate, i. e. at fourteen years, and marry in the fifth,
i. e. the nineteenth : but as the women were sooner marriageable than
men, so their time was far shorter, it being common for men to marry
much older than women could expect to do, as Lysistrate complains in
Aristophanes (1) :
AT. Tlipt rmi't x-opav h ro7; d-axd/uoi; y»$a0-*xTuv dvirifxtu.
17P. Oixsv y' ctvtTggf yvpia&ww ; AT. Mst Al' «'» ti"u; Qfxeicy,
o yiptinaiv {*iv,x<zv « voxik, t^xP 7rci^u- k*/>»v ytyxuiitff
T>K tTi yi/vaixo; fAix.pt; 6 itaipo;, x.iv <rVro V^iaWai.*
Li. 'Tis some concera to me when I reflect
On the poor girls that must despair of man,
And keep a stale and loathed virginity.
PR. What, ha'nt the men the same hard measures then ?
LY. Oh! no, they have a more propitious fate,
Since they at sixty, when their vigour's past,
Can wed a young and tender spouse, to warm
Their aged limbs , and to repair their years:
But women's joys are short and transient;
For if we once the golden minutes miss,
There's, no recalling, so severe'* our doom ;
We must then long ia vain, in vain expect,
And by our ills forewarn posterity. A,
The times or seasons of the year most proper for marriage were, accord-
ing to the Athenians, some of the winter months, especially January,
which, for that reason, was called yx^Xiav (2) : hence the person in Te-
rence, the scene of whose fable is laid in Greece, affirms the soothsayers
had forbidden to etiter upon matrimony tiil winter : the most convenient
season was when there happened a conjunction of the sun and moon, at
which time they celebrated their festival called ©soyc^ia, or marriage of
the gods (3). Clytetnnestra in Euripides having asked Agamemnon when
he designed to give Iphigenia in marriage to Achilles, he answers, that
the full moon was the fittest lime :
'Ot*v e-ehnvm siTU^H?«x8>i Kuithot (4).
When the full moon darts forth her lucky rays.
Themis in Pindar advises that Thetis be married to Feleus in the same
season (5) ; for by &^Qj^.$gg eoVeVcu, he means the full moon, which
happens in the middle of lunar months, which were used in the old Gre-
cian computations. The poet's words run thus :
-ev S'f^ofJ.YIfthTO-l
As tT7ripzt;t ipu,<rov
&yol J66V '/aKtviy v-
<p' Hpuii Trop^iyta.:.
When crescent Phcehe is about to shine,
In a full orb with radiant light,
Then may he marry, then may she invite
The hero, both their loves to join,
Then let them blend and tie, their joys, their all combine. i. 1,
{1) Lysistrate. (3) Hesiodi Scholiastes.
(8) Olvmpiodorus inMeteora Aristotelis. Eu- (4) Iphigen. in Aulid. v. 717.
-atius in Iliad. <r. (5) Isthm. Od, h. p. 751. edit. Benedict,.
587
Where the poet advises that women be permitted to grow to maturity in
four years, i. e. four after ten, and marry in the fifth, i. e. the fifteenth I
others think he means they must continue unmarried four years after their
arrival at woman's estate, i. e. at fourteen years, and marry in the fifth,
i. e. the nineteenth : but as the women were sooner marriageable than
men, so their time was far shorter, it being common for men to marry
much older than women could expect to do, as Lysistrate complains in
Aristophanes (1) :
AT. Tlipt rmi't x-opav h ro7; d-axd/uoi; y»$a0-*xTuv dvirifxtu.
17P. Oixsv y' ctvtTggf yvpia&ww ; AT. Mst Al' «'» ti"u; Qfxeicy,
o yiptinaiv {*iv,x<zv « voxik, t^xP 7rci^u- k*/>»v ytyxuiitff
T>K tTi yi/vaixo; fAix.pt; 6 itaipo;, x.iv <rVro V^iaWai.*
Li. 'Tis some concera to me when I reflect
On the poor girls that must despair of man,
And keep a stale and loathed virginity.
PR. What, ha'nt the men the same hard measures then ?
LY. Oh! no, they have a more propitious fate,
Since they at sixty, when their vigour's past,
Can wed a young and tender spouse, to warm
Their aged limbs , and to repair their years:
But women's joys are short and transient;
For if we once the golden minutes miss,
There's, no recalling, so severe'* our doom ;
We must then long ia vain, in vain expect,
And by our ills forewarn posterity. A,
The times or seasons of the year most proper for marriage were, accord-
ing to the Athenians, some of the winter months, especially January,
which, for that reason, was called yx^Xiav (2) : hence the person in Te-
rence, the scene of whose fable is laid in Greece, affirms the soothsayers
had forbidden to etiter upon matrimony tiil winter : the most convenient
season was when there happened a conjunction of the sun and moon, at
which time they celebrated their festival called ©soyc^ia, or marriage of
the gods (3). Clytetnnestra in Euripides having asked Agamemnon when
he designed to give Iphigenia in marriage to Achilles, he answers, that
the full moon was the fittest lime :
'Ot*v e-ehnvm siTU^H?«x8>i Kuithot (4).
When the full moon darts forth her lucky rays.
Themis in Pindar advises that Thetis be married to Feleus in the same
season (5) ; for by &^Qj^.$gg eoVeVcu, he means the full moon, which
happens in the middle of lunar months, which were used in the old Gre-
cian computations. The poet's words run thus :
-ev S'f^ofJ.YIfthTO-l
As tT7ripzt;t ipu,<rov
&yol J66V '/aKtviy v-
<p' Hpuii Trop^iyta.:.
When crescent Phcehe is about to shine,
In a full orb with radiant light,
Then may he marry, then may she invite
The hero, both their loves to join,
Then let them blend and tie, their joys, their all combine. i. 1,
{1) Lysistrate. (3) Hesiodi Scholiastes.
(8) Olvmpiodorus inMeteora Aristotelis. Eu- (4) Iphigen. in Aulid. v. 717.
-atius in Iliad. <r. (5) Isthm. Od, h. p. 751. edit. Benedict,.