Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.8.2 · 1.8.2
A golden bed under a Babylonian canopy
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Ἦν δʼ αὐτοῖς ὁ θάλαμος ⟨οὕτως⟩ πεποιημένος· κλίνη χρυσῆ στρώμασιν ἔστρωτο πορφυροῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς κλίνης Βαβυλωνία ἐπεποίκιλτο σκηνή· παίζοντες Ἔρωτες, οἱ μὲν Ἀφροδίτην θεραπεύοντες (ἦν δὲ καὶ Ἀφροδίτης εἰκών), οἱ δὲ ἱππεύοντες ἀναβάται στρουθοῖς, οἱ δὲ στεφάνους πλέκοντες, οἱ δὲ ἄνθη φέροντες·
Their chamber had been prepared like this. A golden bed had been spread with purple covers, and over the bed was a Babylonian canopy, embroidered with Erotes at play: some were serving Aphrodite (there was an image of Aphrodite too), some were riding sparrows like horsemen, some were weaving garlands, and some were carrying flowers.
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The setting
Book 1, chapter 8. The narrator stops at the door to describe the bridal chamber.
A note on this passage
The Erotes are Eros in the plural, a crowd of little boy-gods. Theocritus describes them at the festival of Adonis in Alexandria, flying over green bowers like young nightingales, beside couches spread with purple coverlets for Aphrodite and Adonis (Idyll 15.119–128). His ἔστρωται κλίνα, "a couch is spread" (15.127), has the same verb and noun as Xenophon's golden bed. The sparrows they ride are Aphrodite's birds: in Sappho's hymn to her, sparrows draw her chariot down from the sky (Sappho, fragment 1.9–12).
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