32 / 154
''Eat, drink and be merry.' '-ECCLESIASTES, viii, 15; and LUKE xii, 19.
At all manner of outdoor festivals, roof-garden entertainments or summer
indoor parties Cups a re always in fashion and all first-class caterers and
mixologists are supposed to know the art of brewing them ..
The words ''cup'' and ''bumper,' ' and many of our social terms, can
be traced to the convi vial usages of the ancients. The custom .of dedicating
a cup to a favorite deity led by an easy transition to that of pledging each
other-the origin of modern toasts. According to Casaubon the ancients took
three cups at their banquets-one to allay thirst, another for pleasure, and a
third as a libation to Jupi ter Servator.
Ho! boy, t here, a cup! Brim full to the new moon.
Ho! boy, there, a cup! Brim full for the midnight.
Ho
I
boy, there, a cup! Br.im full to the health
Of him we would honor, Murena the
Augur.-Horace.
'rhe duty of serving the wine among the ancient Romans was given to boys
-slaves, who were well dressed-the wine being kept in large earthen vases,
into which the
cyantlws,
or goblet, was aclroitly clipped when it r equired
replenishing. The
cyantlms
contained about as much as our modern wine
glass, or else bow could they say:-
Let our bumpers, while jovial we give out the toast
In gay compotations, be ten at the most;
The ninth to the Muses in order must follow,
The tenth a libation be made to Apollo.
It
was a'lso of sufficient capacity to give rise to the phrase, ''To get into
one's cups,'' which originated with the Romans. Pisander mentions that
Hercules crossed the ocean in bis cup, which may have ha nded clown the
phrase '' half seas over,' ' in this sense.
How you lotter, good feet
I
Have a care of my bon es !
If
you
fail
me, I pass all night on these stones.
The "Cup of H ercules".-which was drnnk otr and caused the death of
Alexander the Grcat-contaiu ed iiearly fo ur English quarts. "Here," says
Seneca, " is this hero, unconquered by :o.ll the toils of prodigious ma rches.
by the dangers of sieges and combats, by the most violent extremes of heat
aPd cold-here he lies, st1bclued by intemperance, and struck to the earth.' '