[5] After the tables had been cleared away, and garlands distributed by Melissa, and we had poured libations, and the flute-girl, after playing a brief accompaniment for our libations, had withdrawn, then Ardalus, addressing Anacharsis, inquired if there were flute-girls among the Scythians.
He answered on the spur of the moment,
No, nor grape-vines either,
When Ardalus again said,
But the Scythians must have gods, he replied,
Certainly, they have gods who understand the language of men; they are not like the Greeks, who, although they think they converse better than the Scythians, yet believe that the gods have more pleasure in listening to the sounds produced by bits of bone and wood.
Thereupon Aesop said,
I would have you know, my friend, that the modern flute-makers have given up the use of bones from fawns, and use bones from asses, asserting that the latter have a better sound. This fact underlies the riddle
1
which Cleobulina made in regard to the Phrygian flute: Full on my ear with a horn-bearing shin did a dead donkey smite me. So we may well be astonished that the ass, which otherwise is most gross and unmelodious, yet provides us with a bone which is most fine and melodious.
That, without question, said Neiloxenus,
is the reason for the complaint which the people of Busiris make against us of Naucratis; for we are already using asses’ bones for our flutes. But for them even to hear a trumpet is a sin, because they think it sounds like the bray of an ass; and you know, of course, that an ass is treated with contumely by the Egyptians on account of Typhon.
2
Septem sapientium convivium. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1928.
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