Another quote from "Notre Dame de Paris" of Victor Hugo:
"Now I maintain that this bold metaphor is admirable, and the natural history of the stage has no occasion on a day of allegory and royal epithalamium to take exception at a dolphin who is son to a lion. "

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Definition: \Ep`i*tha*la"mi*um\, n.; pl. {Epithalamiums}, L.
{Epithalamia}. [L., fr. Gr. ?, orig. an adj., nuptial; 'epi`
upon, at + ? bride chamber.]
A nuptial song, or poem in honor of the bride and bridegroom.

The kind of poem which was called epithalamium . . .
sung when the bride was led into her chamber. --B.
Jonson.