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Supper now ended, and Melissa having distributed
the garlands, we offered sacrifice; and when the minstrel
had played us a tune or two, she withdrew. Then Ardalus
enquired of Anacharsis, if there were women fiddlers at
Scythia. He suddenly and smartly replied, There are no
vines there. Ardalus asked a second question, whether the
Scythians had any Gods among them. Yes, quoth Anacharsis, and they understand what men say to them; nor
are the Scythians of the Grecian opinion (however these
last may be the better orators), that the Gods are better
pleased with the sounds of flutes and pipes than with the
voice of men. My friend, saith Esop, what would you say
if you saw our present pipe-makers throw away the bones
of fawns and hind-calves, to use those of asses, affirming
they yield the sweeter and more melodious sound? Whereupon
[p. 13]
Cleobulina made one of her riddles about the Phrygian flute, ... in regard to the sound, and wondered that
an ass, a gross animal and no lover of music, should yet
afford bones so fit for harmony. Therefore it is doubtless,
quoth Niloxenus, that the people of Busiris accuse us Naucratians of folly for using pipes made of asses' bones, it
being an insufferable fault in any of them to listen to the
flute or cornet, the sound thereof being (as they esteem it)
so like the braying of an ass; and you know an ass is
hateful to the Egyptians on account of Typhon.
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