"Sleep on, and love and longing
Breathe in each other's breast,
But fail not when the morn returns
To rouse you from your rest;
With dawn shall we be stirring,
When, lifting high his fair
And feathered neck, the earliest bird
To clarion to the dawn is heard.
O God of brides and bridals,
Sing, 'Happy, happy pair!'"

A fragment of Anacreon has preserved for us an example of the morning
nuptial chant, sung by the chorus to greet the bride and groom on their
awakening:

"Aphrodite, queen of goddesses; Love, powerful conqueror; Hymen, source
of life: it is of you that I sing in my verses. 'Tis of you I chant,
Love, Hymen, and Aphrodite. Behold, young man, behold thy wife! Arise, O
Straticlus, favored of Aphrodite, husband of Myrilla, admire thy bride!
Her freshness, her grace, her charms, make her shine among all women.
The rose is queen of flowers; Myrilla is a rose midst her companions.
Mayst thou see grow in thy house a son like to thee!"

Then begins a second fete day for the bridal pair. Husband and wife
receive visits and gifts from relatives and friends, and exchange
presents with each other. The festivities are concluded with a banquet
in the husband's home, at which the wife's position in the clan of her
husband's family is recognized; and she may now appear without her veil,
as the mistress of her new home.

Wedding scenes are frequently the subject of illustration in antique
art. The most remarkable of these is the splendid wall painting known as
the _Aldobrandini Wedding_, preserved in the Vatican. It represents,
painted on one surface, three different scenes of the marriage ceremony.
The central picture represents a chamber of the _gynoe onitis_, where
the bride, chastely veiled, reclines on a beautiful couch; "Peitho, the
goddess of persuasion, sits by her side, as appears from the crown on
her head and from the many-folded peplus falling over her back. She
pleads the bridegroom's cause, and seems to encourage the timorous
maiden. A third female figure, to the left of the group, leaning on a
piece of a column, seems to expect the girl's surrender; for she is
pouring ointment from an alabastron into a vase made of shell, so as to
have it ready for use after the bridal bath. Most likely she represents
the second handmaiden of Aphrodite, Charis, who, according to the myth,
bathed and anointed her mistress with ambrosial oil in the holy grove of