ay
this myrtle bough was not delivered in order, but from bed to bed;
and when the uppermost of the first table had sung, he sent it to the
uppermost of the second, and he to the uppermost of the third; and so
the second in like manner to the second; and from these many windings
and this circuit it was called [Greek omitted] CROOKED.

QUESTION II. WHETHER THE ENTERTAINER SHOULD SEAT THE GUESTS, OR LET
EVERY MAN TAKE HIS OWN PLACE.

TIMON, A GUEST, PLUTARCH, PLUTARCH'S FATHER, LAMPRIAS, AND OTHERS.

My brother Timon, making a great entertainment, desired the guests as
they came to seat themselves; for he had invited strangers and citizens,
neighbors and acquaintance, and all sorts of persons to the feast. A
great many being already come, a certain stranger at last appeared,
dressed as fine as hands could make him, his clothes rich, and
an unseemly train of foot-boys at his heels; he walking up to the
parlor-door, and, staring round upon those that were already seated,
turned his back and scornfully retired; and when a great many stepped
after him and begged him to return, he said, I see no fit place left for
me. At that, the other guests (for the glasses had gone round) laughed
abundantly, and desired his room rather than his company.

But after supper, my father addressing himself to me, who sat at another
quarter of the table,--Timon, said he, and I have a dispute, and you
are to be judge, for I have been upon his skirts already about that
stranger; for if according to my directions he had seated every man in
his proper place, we had never been thought unskilful in this matter, by
one

Whose art is great in ordering horse and foot.
("Iliad," ii 554.)

And story says that Paulus Aemilius, after he had conquered Perseus the
king of Macedon, making an entertainment besides his costly furniture
and extraordinary provision, was very critical in the order of his
feast; saying, It is the same man's task to order a terrible battle and
a pleasing, entertainment, for both of them require skill in the art
of disposing right, and Homer often calls the stoutest and the greatest
princes [Greek omitted] disposers of the people; and you use to say
that the great Creator, by this art of disposing, turned disorder into
beauty, and neither taking away nor adding any new being, but setting
everything in its proper place, out of the most uncomely figure and
confused chaos produced this beauteous, this surprising face of