Greek Women Part 20

GORGO.--Oh, what a thing spirit is! I have scarcely got to you alive, Praxinoe! What a huge crowd, what hosts of four-in-hands! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! And the road is endless; yes, you really live _too_ far away!

PRAXINOE.--It is all the fault of that madman of mine. Here he came to the ends of the earth and took--a hole, not a house, and all that we might not be neighbors. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite!

GORGO.--Don't talk of your husband Dinon like that, my dear girl, before the little boy--look how he is staring at you! Never mind, Zopyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking about papa.

PRAXINOE.--Our Lady! the child takes notice,

GORGO.--Nice papa!

PRAXINOE.--That papa of his the other day--we call every day "the other day"--went to get soap and rouge at the shop, and back he came to me with salt--the great big endless fellow!

GORGO.--Mine has the same trick, too, a perfect spend-thrift--Diocleides! Yesterday he got what he meant for five fleeces, and paid seven shillings apiece for--what do you suppose?--dogskins, shreds of old leather wallets, mere trash--trouble on trouble! But come, take your cloak and shawl. Let us be off to the palace of rich Ptolemy, the king, to see the _Adonis_; I hear the queen has provided something splendid!

PRAXINOE.--Fine folks do everything finely.

GORGO.--What a tale you will have to tell about the things you have seen, to anyone who has not seen them! It seems nearly time to go.

PRAXINOE.--Idlers have always holiday. Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of the room, lazy creature that you are. Cats like always to sleep soft! Come, bustle, bring the water; quicker! I want water first, and how she carries it! give it me, all the same; don't pour out so much, you extravagant thing! Stupid girl! Why are you wetting my dress? There, stop, I have washed my hands, as heaven would have it. Where is the key of the big chest? Bring it here.

GORGO.--Praxinoe, that full bodice becomes you wonderfully. Tell me, how much did the stuff cost you just off the loom?

PRAXINOE.--Don't speak of it, Gotgo! More than eight pounds in good silver money,--and the work on it! I nearly slaved my soul out over it!

GORGO.--Well, it is _most_ successful; all you could wish.

PRAXINOE,--Thanks for the pretty speech! Bring my shawl, and set my hat on my head, the fashionable way. No, child, I don't mean to take you.

Boo! Bogies! There's a horse that bites! Cry as much as you please, but I cannot have you lamed. Let us be moving. Phrygia, take the child and keep him amused, call in the dog, and shut the street door.

(_They go into the street_.)

Ye G.o.ds, what a crowd! How on earth are we ever to get through this coil? They are like ants that no one can measure or number. Many a good deed have you done, Ptolemy; since your father joined the Immortals, there's never a malefactor to spoil the pa.s.ser-by, creeping on him in Egyptian fashion--oh! the tricks those perfect rascals used to play.

Birds of a feather, ill jesters, scoundrels all! Dear Gorgo, what will become of us? Here come the king's war horses! My dear man, don't trample on me. Look, the bay's rearing; see, what temper! Eunoe, you foolhardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? The beast will kill the man that's leading him. What a good thing it is for me that my brat stays safe at home!

GORGO.--Courage, Praxinoe. We are safe behind them now, and they have gone to their station.

PRAXINOE.--There! I begin to be myself again. Ever since I was a child, I have feared nothing so much as horses and the chilly snake. Come along, the huge mob is overflowing us.

GORGO (_to an old woman_).--Are you from the Court, mother?

OLD WOMAN.--I am, my child.

PRAXINOE.--Is it easy to get there?

OLD WOMAN.--The Achaeans got into Troy by trying, my prettiest of ladies.

Trying will do everything in the long run.

GORGO.--The old wife has spoken her oracles, and off she goes.

PRAXINOE.--Women know everything; yes, and how Zeus married Hera!

GORGO.--See, Praxinoe, what a crowd there is about the doors!

PRAXINOE.--Monstrous, Gorgo! Give me your hand; and you, Eunoe, catch hold of Eutychis; never lose hold of her, for fear lest you get lost.

Let us all go in together; Eunoe, clutch tight to me. Oh, how tiresome, Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already! For heaven's sake, sir, if you ever wish to be fortunate, take care of my shawl!

STRANGER.--I can hardly help myself, but, for all that, I will be as careful as I can.

PRAXINOE.--How close-packed the mob is, they hustle like a herd of swine!

STRANGER.--Courage, lady; all is well with us now.

PRAXINOE.--Both this year and forever may all be well with you, my dear sir, for your care of us. A good, kind man! We're letting Eunoe get squeezed--come, wretched girl, push your way through. That is the way.

We are all on the right side of the door, quoth the bridegroom, when he had shut himself in with his bride.

GORGO.--Do come here, Praxinoe. Look first at these embroideries. How light and how lovely! You will call them the garments of the G.o.ds.

PRAXINOE.--Lady Athena! what spinning women wrought them, what painters designed those drawings, so true they are? How naturally they stand and move, like living creatures, not patterns woven! What a clever thing is man! Ah, and himself--Adonis--how beautiful to behold he lies on his silver couch, with the first down on his cheeks, the thrice-beloved Adonis,--Adonis beloved even among the dead!

A STRANGER.--You weariful women, do cease your endless cooing talk! They bore one to death with their eternal broad vowels!

GORGO.--Indeed! And where may this person come from? What is it to you if we _are_ chatterboxes! Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend to command ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are Corinthians by descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. Dorian women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume?

PRAXINOE.--Lady Persephone!--never may we have more than one master! I am not afraid of _your_ putting me on short commons.

GORGO.--Hush, hush, Praxinoe! the Argive woman's daughter, the great singer, is beginning the _Adonis_; she that won the prize last year for dirge singing. I am sure she will give us something lovely; see, she is preluding with her airs and graces.

THE PSALM OF ADONIS

O Queen that lovest Golgi, and Idalium, and the steep of Eryx, O Aphrodite, that playest with gold, Io, from the stream eternal of Acheron they have brought back to thee Adonis--even in the twelfth month they have brought him, the dainty-footed Hours. Tardiest of the Immortals are the beloved Hours, but dear and desired they come, for always, to all mortals, they bring some gift with them. O Cypris, daughter of Dione, from mortal to immortal, so men tell, thou hast changed Berenice, dropping softly in the woman's breast the stuff of immortality.

Therefore, for thy delight, O thou of many names and many temples, doth the daughter of Berenice, even Arsinoe, lovely as Helen, cherish Adonis with all things beautiful.

Before him lie all ripe fruits that the tall trees' branches bear, and the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of silver, and the golden vessels are full of incense of Syria. And all the dainty cakes that women fashion in the kneading tray, mingling blossoms manifold with the white wheaten flour, all that is wrought of honey sweet, and in soft olive oil, all cakes fashioned in the semblance of things that fly, and of things that creep, Io, here they are set before him.

Here are built for him shadowy bowers of green, all laden with tender anise, and children flit overhead--the little Loves--as the young nightingales perched upon the trees fly forth and try their wings from bough to bough.

O the ebony, O the gold, O the twin eagles of white ivory that carry to Zeus, the son of Cronos, his darling, his cupbearer! O the purple coverlet strewn above, more soft than sleep! So Miletus will say, and whoso feeds sheep in Samos.

Another bed is strewn for beautiful Adonis, one bed Cypris keeps, and one the rosy-armed Adonis. A bridegroom of eighteen or nineteen years is he, his kisses are not rough, the golden down being yet upon his lips!

And now, good-night to Cypris, in the arms of her lover! But Io, in the morning we will all of us gather with the dew, and carry him forth among the waves that break upon the beach, and with locks unloosed, and ungirt raiment falling to the ankles, and bosom bare, will we begin our shrill, sweet song.

Thou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, thou only of the demiG.o.ds, dost visit both this world and the stream of Acheron. For Agamemnon had no such lot, nor Aias, that mighty, lord of the terrible anger, nor Hector, the eldest born of the twenty sons of Hecuba, nor Patroclus, nor Pyrrhus, that returned out of Troy land, nor the heroes of yet more ancient days, the Lapithae and Deucalion's sons, nor the sons of Pelops, and the chiefs of Pelasgian Argos. Be gracious now, dear Adonis, and propitious even in the coming year. Dear to us has thine advent been, Adonis, and dear shall it be when thou comest again.

GORGO.--Praxinoe, the woman is cleverer than we fancied! Happy woman to know so much, thrice happy to have so sweet a voice! Well, all the same, it is time to be making for home. Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man is all vinegar--don't venture near him when he is kept waiting for dinner.--Farewell, beloved Adonis, may you find us glad at your next coming!

This idyl of Theocritus suggests the freedom of movement and the ordinary pursuits of the Alexandrian lady in the days of Arsinoe. A lost work of Callimachus, the aetia, has also an importance in our quest, since it contained one of the earliest love stories in literature, showing the ideals of feminine character which were popular at that time. As the literary original of that sort of tale which makes love and marriage the beginning and end of the plot, and which emphasizes the constancy and purity of female love, this story, which was the model for the Greek novel of later generations, is evidence that in an age infamous for the wickedness of those in high places the people yet delighted in stories of domestic affection and innocence. The tale of Callimachus, according to Mahaffy, ran in this wise: