hissing of an adder, and whatever approached them they devoured.1 Another race of wild and grotesque spirits were the Kobaloi, companions of Dionysos, who doubtless subsist still in our woods and forests under the name of goblins and hobgoblins. Our Elves and Trolls and Fairies appear likewise to belong to the same brood, though in these northern latitudes, they have become less mischievous and more romantic, delighting the eyes of the wayfarers by their frolics and gambols, instead of devouring him. "Fairy elves, Whose midnight revels, by a forest side, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth Wheels her pale course; they on their mirth and dance At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds." Though, as we have seen, weak children were unscrupulously sacrificed at Sparta, they still made offerings to the gods in favour of the strong. The ceremony took place annually during certain festivals, denominated Tithenidia, when, in a moment of hospitality, they not only made merry themselves, but overlooked their xenelasia, and entertained generously all such strangers as happened to be present. The banquet given on this occasion was called Kopis, and, in preparation for it, tents were pitched on the banks of the Tiasa near the temple of Artemis Corythalis. Within these, beds formed of heaps of herbs were piled up and covered with carpets. On the day of the festival the nurses proceeded thither with the male children in their arms, and, presenting them to the goddess, offered up as victims a number of sucking pigs. In the feast which ensued loaves baked in an oven, in lieu of the extemporary cake, were served up to the guests. Choruses of Corythalistriæ or dancing girls, likewise performed 2 Schol Aristoph. Plut. 279. 3 Athen. iv. 16. 1 Lil. Gyrald. Hist. Deor. Synt. xv. 447. seq. in honour of the goddess; and in some places persons, called Kyrittoi, in wooden masks, made sport for the guests.1 Probably it may have been on occasions such as this that the nurses, like her in Romeo and Juliet, gave free vent to their libertine tongues, and indulged in those appellations which the tolerant literature of antiquity has preserved. When children were to be weaned, they spread, as the moderns do, something bitter over the nipple,3 that the young republican might learn early how "Full in the fount of joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flower its bubbling venom flings." 1 Meurs. Græc. Fer. 261. seq. 3 3 Athen. vi. 51. 144 CHAPTER III. TOYS, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES. HAVING described, as far as possible, the management of infants and young children, it may not be uninteresting to notice briefly their toys, sports, and pastimes; for, though children have been substantially the same in all ages and countries, the forms of their amusements have been infinitely varied, and where they have resembled each other it is not the less instructive to note that resemblance. The ancients1 have, however, bequeathed us but little information respecting the fragile implements wherewith the happiness of the nursery was in great part erected. Even respecting the recreations which succeeded and amused the leisure of boys our materials for working out a picture are scanty, so that we must content ourselves with little more than an outline. Nevertheless, though the accounts they have transmitted to posterity are meagre, they attached much importance to the subject itself; so that the greatest legislators and philosophers condescended to make regulations respecting 1 Plato had the utmost faith in the power of education over both mind and body; but his system embraced much more than is usually comprehended under the term, even taking charge of the infant before its birth, and immediately afterwards, in the hope of wisely regulating its physical developement. As the child grows most during the first five years, its size in the following twenty being seldom doubled, most care, he thought, should then be taken that the great impulses of nature be not counteracted. Much food is then consumed, with very little exercise; hence the multitude of deaths in infancy and diseases in after-life, of which the seeds are then sown. For this reason he would encourage the violent romping and sports of children, that the excess of nourishment may be got rid of. De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 2. seq. it. Thus Plato, with a view of generating a profound reverence for ancient national institutions, forbade even the recreations of boys to be varied with reckless fickleness; for the habit of innovation once introduced into the character would ever after continue to influence it, so that they who in boyhood altered their sports without reason, would without scruple in manhood extend their daring hands to the laws and institutions of their country.' 2 Amongst the Hellenes the earliest toy consisted, as in most other countries, of the rattle, said to be the invention of the philosopher Archytas. To this succeeded balls of many colours,3 with little chariots, sometimes purchased at Athens in the fair held during the feast of Zeus.* The common price of a plaything of this kind would appear to have been an obolos. The children themselves, as without any authority might with certainty be inferred, employed their time in erecting walls with sand," in constructing little houses," in building and carving ships, in cutting carts or chariots out of leather, in fashioning pomegranate rinds into the shape of frogs, and in forming with wax a thousand diminutive images, which pursued afterwards during school hours subjected them occasionally to severe chastisement." Another amusement which the children of Hellas shared with their elders was that afforded by puppets," which were probably an invention of the remotest antiquity. Numerous women appear to have earned 7 Aristoph. Nub. 877. sqq. et Schol. 8 Lucian. de Somn. § 2. 9 Buleng. de Theat. 1. i. c. 36. sqq. Muret. ad Plat. Rep. p. 645. Eustath. in Odyss. d. p. 176. Mount.Not. ad Dem. Olynth. ii. §5. Perizon. ad Æl. Var. Hist. viii. 7. See also the article Marionnette in the Encyclopédie Française; and Caylus, Rec. d'Antiq. t. vi. p. 287. t. iv. pl. 80. no. i. L their livelihood by carrying round from village to village these ludicrous and frolicsome images, which were usually about a cubit in height, and may be regarded as the legitimate ancestors of Punch and Judy. By touching a single string, concealed from the spectators, the operator could put her mute performers in action, cause them to move every limb in succession, spread forth the hands, shrug the shoulders, turn round the neck, roll the eyes, and appear to look at the audience.1 After this, by other contrivances within the images, they could be made to go through many humorous evolutions resembling the movements of the dance. These exhibitors, frequently of the male sex, were known by the name of Neurospastæ. This art passed, together with other Grecian inventions, into Italy, where it was already familiar to the public in the days of Horace, who, in speaking of princes governed by favourites, compares them to puppets in the hands of the showman. Tu, mihi qui imperitas, aliis servis miser; atque A very extraordinary puppet, in the form of a silver skeleton, was, according to Petronius Arbiter,3 exhibited at the court of Nero; for, like the Egyptians, this imperial profligate appears to have been excited Sap. ch. 2.-A story is told of an Ionian juggler who proceeded to Babylon to perform what he deemed a wonderful feat before the Great King, and the feat was this: fixing a long point of steel on a wall, and retiring to a considerable distance, he threw at it a number of soft round pellets of dough, with so nice an aim that every one of them was penetrated, the last pellet driving back the others. Max. Tyr. Diss. xix. p. 225. Anim. ad Poll. vii. 189. p. 532. |