I'm reading the Odyssey for a class I teach--and in Book VI, there's a passage translated by Robert Fagles in reference to Nausicaa about to go take her laundry out to the river:

"With that
he [Alcinous] called to the stablemen and they complied.
They trundled the wagon out now, rolling smoothly,
backed the mule-team into the traces, hitched them up,
while the princess[Nausicaa] brought her finery from the room
and piled it into the wagon's polished cradle."

I'm surprised by this translation and wonder at its accuracy. Could there have been mules as far back as 800 B.C. or so?

Also, it would be good to know what a wagon's cradle is, but I can look that up.

I did find a site that indicated that mules were used on the desert in ancient Egypt.

So, that's that. Sorry, but I lost the url.

I should think that mules came along shortly after the first time some early farmer left a she donkey and a he horse alone together. I doubt it was intentional but I also doubt if the farmer objected.
do you think he originally called it a honkey or a dorse like the cross bred dog namers do.

Am I the only one here who saw the subject line and thought of McDonalds?!

the only one here

I most certainly hope so.

> hope so.

oh, good - wouldn't want to turn it into a cookery thread! ;)