Bride, thy shape is all delight And thine eyes shine soft and bright, O’er thy fair cheek desire is shed And honor showered on thy head From the Lady of Love in heaven.
Congratulations were offered also to the bridegroom:
No other maiden lives to-day, Bridegroom, such as thine.
Himerius seems to be quoting such a song of greeting to bride and bridegroom: “Bride that teemest with rosy desires, bride the fairest ornament of the Queen of Paphos, hie thee to bed, hie thee to the couch whereon thou must sweetly sport in gentle wise with thy bridegroom. And may the Star of Eve lead thee full willingly to the place where thou shalt marvel at the silver-thronèd Lady of Wedlock” (Edmonds). Himerius also tells us that Sappho “brings Aphrodite in her Grace-drawn car with a bevy of Loves” to the wedding. And the joy of the earthly festival is repeated far up among the clouds of Olympus where the celestial feast is described (E. 146) in verses the lilt of which Professor Gildersleeve has thus reproduced in his unpublished version:
The mixing howl yonder Was filled with ambrosia, And Hermes ’gan ladle The drink to the gods all; The gods all uplifted Their beakers and pour’d out Libations and utter’d Fair wishes for bridegroom, [For fair bride fair wishes.]
Stebbing in his _Friends of Man_ has the Gods descend to the modest hall wherein the marriage feast is spread.
All the High Gods from Olympus, to bless the Two, descend. ... By an ample bowl Hermes, deftest of cupbearers, stands, Crowning the Gods’ goblets from the full flagon in his hands.
The function of what we Americans used to call the first groomsman, in the primitive times of wife-stealing, was to protect the bridegroom from pursuit and the name “best man” perpetuates the tradition. In the Greek wedding, where the passing and closing of the door was so essential a part of the ritual, he was the door-keeper, and there was much bantering and chaffing at his personal appearance on the part of the maidens, who made much use of the same jokes which have since been applied to the feet of maidens of Chicago. The feet of the porter were put in the laughing stocks somewhat after this fashion (E. 154):
Full seven fathoms stretch the feet of the porter, Full five ox-hides were used for his shoe-soles, Ten stout cobblers were needed to make them,