Who Knew Xenophon Was Part of Your Hairdresser's Training?

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SonOfTheExiles
Posts: 2649
Joined: December 20th, 2013, 1:14 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by SonOfTheExiles »

Xenophon (430-354 BC), historian, soldier, mercenary, student of Socrates, and apparently the Lurve Doctor of ancient Athens, weighs in with relationship advice for those pestered by asses. The solution? Hair extensions. :hmm:

From his work On Horsemanship : "The mane, forelock, and tail are gifts of the gods bestowed on the horse for beauty. A proof is that brood mares, so long as their hair is flowing, are not so apt to admit asses, whence all breeders of mules cut off the hair from their mares preparatory to covering."
Currently on sabbatical from Librivox
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MARTIN GEESON
Posts: 2606
Joined: February 8th, 2009, 11:30 am
Location: Haslemere Surrey UK

Post by MARTIN GEESON »

Mules play quite a large part in literature, largely thanks to their symbolic status as embodiments of perverse stubbornness and immobility. One very vivid example occurs in Tristram Shandy - please listen from 16'30" onwards:

http://www.archive.org/download/tristramshandy4_1008_librivox/tristramshandy4_01_sterne.mp3

Martin
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