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THE NILE. 
Some Fragments omitted in the Second Boolc of the 
Deipnosophists of Athenceus. 
86. Menander says- 
It is a troublesome thing to fall in with 
An entire party of none but relations; 
Where as soon as he has taken his cup in his hand 
The father first begins the discourse, 
And stammers out his recommendations: 
Then after him the mother, in the second place; 
And then some old aunt gossips and chatters - 
And then some harsh-voiced old man, 
The father of the aunt aforesaid; then too 
Another old woman calls him her darling: 
And he nods assent to all that is said. 
87. And a little afterwards he -says- 
Before the shade they wear a purple cloth, 
And then this comes after the purple; 
Being itself neither white nor purple, 
But a ray of the brilliancy of the woof a% it were 
Of divers colours curiously blended. 
Antiphanes says: "What do you say Q     Will you not bring 
something hither to the door which we may eat? and then 
I will sit on the ground and eat it as the beggars do: and 
any one may see me.". 
*          *                    * - 
The same man says in another place- 
Prepare then 
A fanner to cool me, a dish, a tripod, a cup, 
An ewer, a mortar, a pot, and a spoon. 
.          *         * 
About the Ascent of the Nile.- 
88. Thales the Milesian, one of the seven wise men, says 
that the overflowing of the Nile arises from the Etesian winds; 
for that they blow up the river, and that the mnuths of the 
river lie exactly opposite to the point from which they blow; 
and accordingly that the wind blowing in the opposite direc- 
tion hinders the flow of the waters; and the waves of the sea, 
dashing against the mouth of the river, and' coming on with 
a fair wind in the same direction, beat back the river, and 
in this manner the Nile becomes fifll to overflowing.  But 
Anaxagoras the natural philosopher says that the' fulness of 
the Nile arises from  the snow  melting; and so, too, says 
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