Some of the most charming of the comic fragments are descriptions of sleep. A comedy variously ascribed to Antiphanes and Alexis bears the name of Sleep, and contains a dialogue (p. 570), of which the following is a version:
_A._ Not mortal, nor immortal, but of both Blent in his being, so that gods nor men Can claim him for their own; but ever fresh He grows, and then dies off again to nothing, Unseen by any, but well known to all.
_B._ Lady, you always charm me thus with riddles.
_A._ Yet what I say is clear and plain enough.
_B._ What boy is this that has so strange a nature?
_A._ Sleep, O my daughter, he that cures our ills.
Scarcely less delicate are the two following lines (pp. 749, 607):
#ho ti proika monon edôkan hêmin hoi theoi, ton hypnon,#
#hypnos ta mikra tou thanatou mystêria.#[129]
In this connection I may quote a beautiful fragment from Diphilus (_Incert. Fab._ fr. 5, p. 647) on Death and Sleep:
There is no life without its share of evil, Griefs, persecutions, torments, cares, diseases: Of these death comes to cure us, a physician Who gives heart's ease by filling us with slumber.
Before engaging in a group of fragments more illustrative of common Greek life, I will call attention to the examples of Attic slang furnished by Anaxandrides (_Odysseus_, fr. 2, p. 424). To translate them into equivalent English would tax the ingenuity of Frere; but it is worth noticing that this _argot_, like that of our universities or public schools, is made up of the most miscellaneous material. Religious ritual, the theatre, personal peculiarities, the dust that is the plague of Athens, articles of dress, and current fables all supply their quota. It is, in fact, the slang of cultivated social life.
Next to cooks, parasites, and fishwives, the _demi-monde_ of Athens plays the most prominent part in comedy of the middle period.[130] The following couplet from a play of Philetærus (_Kunegis_, fr. 3, p. 477) might be chosen as a motto for an essay on this subject:
#ouk etos hetairas hieron esti pantachou, all' ouchi gametês oudamou tês Hellados.#
This pithily expresses the pernicious relation in which the mistress, dignified by the name of companion, stood in Attic Hellas towards the married wife. The superiority of the former over the latter in popular appreciation is set forth with cynical directness by Amphis (_Athamas_, fr. 1, p. 480).