Hector the radiant spoke, and reached out his arms for the baby;
But the infant cried out, and hid his face in the bosom
Of his nurse gayly-girdled, fearing the look of his father,
Scared by the gleam of the bronze, and the helmet crested with
horse-hair,
Dreading to see it wave from the lofty height of the forehead.
In the same manner, too, as the feelings and tastes of children have
not been changed by time, they are little altered by civilization, so
that similar usages may be acceptable both to the cultivated nations of
Europe and to the simpler races on their borders.
It is natural, therefore, that the common toys of children should be
world-old. The tombs of Attica exhibit dolls of classic or ante-classic
time, of ivory or terra-cotta, the finer specimens with jointed arms
or legs. Even in Greece, as it seems, these favorites of the nursery
were often modelled in wax; they were called by a pet name, indicating
that their owners stood to them in the relation of mamma to baby; they
had their own wardrobes and housekeeping apparatus. The Temple of
Olympian Zeus at Elis contained, says Pausanias, the little bed with
which Hippodamia had played. But the usage goes much further back.
Whoever has seen the wooden slats which served for the cheaper class of
the dolls of ancient Egypt, in which a few marks pass for mouth, nose,
and eyes, will have no difficulty in imagining that their possessors
regarded them with maternal affection, since all the world knows that a
little girl will lavish more tenderness on a stuffed figure than on a
Paris doll, the return of affection being proportional to the outlay of
imagination.
When Greek and Roman girls had reached an age supposed to be superior
to such amusements, they were expected to offer their toys on the
altar of their patroness, to whatever goddess might belong that
function, Athene or Artemis, Diana or Venus Libitina. If such an act
of devotion was made at the age of seven years, as alleged, one can
easily understand that many a child must have wept bitterly over the
sacrifice. To this usage refers the charming quatrain, a version of
which we have set as the motto of our chapter.
Children's rattles have from the most ancient times been an important
article of nursery furniture. Hollow balls containing a loose pebble,
which served this purpose, belong to the most ancient classic times.
These "rattles," however, often had a more artistic form, lyre-shaped
with a moving plectrum; or the name was used for little separate
metallic figures--"charms," as we now say--strung together so as to
jingle, and worn in a necklace. Such were afterwards preserved with
great care; in the comic drama they replace the "strawberry mark" by
which the father recognizes his long-lost child. Thus, in the "Rudens"
of Plautus, Palæstra, who has lost in shipwreck her casket, finds a
fisherman in possession of it, and claims her property. Both agree to
accept Dæmones, the unknown father of the maiden, as arbiter. Dæmones
demands, "Stand off, girl, and tell me, what is in the wallet?"
"Playthings."[27] "Right, I see them; what do they look like?" "First,
a little golden sword with letters on it." "Tell me, what are the
letters?" "My father's name. Then there is a two-edged axe, also of
gold, and lettered; my mother's name is on the axe.... Then a silver
sickle, and two clasped hands, and a little pig, and a golden heart,
which my father gave me on my birthday." "It is she; I can no longer
keep myself from embracing her. Hail, my daughter!"
In the ancient North, too, children played with figures of animals.
The six-year-old Arngrim is described in a saga as generously making a
present of his little brass horse to his younger brother Steinolf; it
was more suitable to the latter's age, he thought.
The weapons of boys still preserve the memory of those used by
primitive man. The bow and arrow, the sling, the air-gun, the yet
more primeval club or stone, are skilfully handled by them. Their
use of the top and ball has varied but little from the Christian
era to the present day. It is, therefore, not surprising that many
games are nearly the same as when Pollux described them in the second
century.[28] Yet it interests us to discover that not only the sports
themselves, but also the words of the formulas by which they are
conducted, are in certain cases older than the days of Plato and
Xenophon.[29]
We have already set forth the history contained in certain appellations
of the song and dance. If the very name of the _chorus_ has survived
in Europe to the present day, so the character of the classic round
is perpetuated in the ring games of modern children. Only in a single
instance, but that a most curious one, have the words of a Greek
children's round been preserved. This is the "tortoise-game," given by
Pollux, and we will let his words speak for themselves:
"The _tortoise_ is a girl's game, like the _pot_; one sits, and is
called _tortoise_. The rest go about asking:
"O torti-tortoise, in the ring what doest thou?"
She answers:
"I twine the wool, and spin the fine Milesian thread."
The first again:
"Tell us, how was it that thy offspring died?"
To which she says:
"He plunged in ocean from the backs of horses white."
Our author does not tell us how the game ended; but from his comparison
to the "pot-game"[30] we conclude that the tortoise immediately dives
into the "ocean" (the ring) to catch whom she can.
This quaint description shows us that the game-formulas of ancient
times were to the full as incoherent and obscure as those of our
day frequently are. The alliterative name of the tortoise,[31] too,
reminding us of the repetitions of modern nursery tales, speaks volumes
for the character of Greek childish song.
Kissing games, also, were as familiar in the classic period as in later
time; for Pollux quotes the Athenian comic poet Crates as saying of a
coquette that she "plays kissing games in rings of boys, preferring the
handsome ones."
It must be confessed, however, that we can offer nothing so graceful
as the cry with which Greek girls challenged each other to the race,
an exclamation which we may render, "Now, fairies!"[32]--the maidens
assuming for the nonce the character of the light-footed nymphs of
forest or stream.
Coming down to mediæval time, we find that the poets constantly refer
to the life of children, with which they have the deepest sympathy, and
which they invest with a bright poetry, putting later writers to shame
by comparison. That early period, in its frank enjoyment of life, was
not far from the spirit of childhood. Wolfram of Eschenbach represents
a little girl as praising her favorite doll:
None is so fair
As my daughter there.