_This Idyl_, _like the next_, _is dramatic in form_. _One Aeschines
tells Thyonichus the story of his quarrel with his mistress Cynisca_.
_He speaks of taking foreign service_, _and Thyonichus recommends that of
Ptolemy_. _The idyl was probably written at Alexandria_, _as a
compliment to Ptolemy_, _and an inducement to Greeks to join his forces_.
_There is nothing_, _however_, _to fix the date_.
* * * * *
_Aeschines_. All hail to the stout Thyonichus!
_Thyonichus_. As much to you, Aeschines.
_Aeschines_. How long it is since we met!
_Thyonichus_. Is it so long? But why, pray, this melancholy?
_Aeschines_. I am not in the best of luck, Thyonichus.
_Thyonichus_. ’Tis for that, then, you are so lean, and hence comes this
long moustache, and these love-locks all adust. Just such a figure was a
Pythagorean that came here of late, barefoot and wan,—and said he was an
Athenian. Marry, he too was in love, methinks, with a plate of pancakes.
_Aeschines_. Friend, you will always have your jest,—but beautiful
Cynisca,—she flouts me! I shall go mad some day, when no man looks for
it; I am but a hair’s-breadth on the hither side, even now.
_Thyonichus_. You are ever like this, dear Aeschines, now mad, now sad,
and crying for all things at your whim. Yet, tell me, what is your new
trouble?
_Aeschines_. The Argive, and I, and the Thessalian rough rider, Apis,
and Cleunichus the free lance, were drinking together, at my farm. I had
killed two chickens, and a sucking pig, and had opened the Bibline wine
for them,—nearly four years old,—but fragrant as when it left the
wine-press. Truffles and shellfish had been brought out, it was a jolly
drinking match. And when things were now getting forwarder, we
determined that each of us should toast whom he pleased, in unmixed wine,
only he must name his toast. So we all drank, and called our toasts as
had been agreed. Yet She said nothing, though I was there; how think you
I liked that? ‘Won’t you call a toast? You have seen the wolf!’ some
one said in jest, ‘as the proverb goes,’ {72} then she kindled; yes, you
could easily have lighted a lamp at her face. There is one Wolf, one
Wolf there is, the son of Labes our neighbour,—he is tall,
smooth-skinned, many think him handsome. His was that illustrious love
in which she was pining, yes, and a breath about the business once came
secretly to my ears, but I never looked into it, beshrew my beard!
Already, mark you, we four men were deep in our cups, when the Larissa
man out of mere mischief, struck up, ‘My Wolf,’ some Thessalian catch,
from the very beginning. Then Cynisca suddenly broke out weeping more
bitterly than a six-year-old maid, that longs for her mother’s lap. Then
I,—you know me, Thyonichus,—struck her on the cheek with clenched
fist,—one two! She caught up her robes, and forth she rushed, quicker
than she came. ‘Ah, my undoing’ (cried I), ‘I am not good enough for
you, then—you have a dearer playfellow? well, be off and cherish your
other lover, ’tis for him your tears run big as apples!’ {73}
And as the swallow flies swiftly back to gather a morsel, fresh food, for
her young ones under the eaves, still swifter sped she from her soft
chair, straight through the vestibule and folding-doors, wherever her
feet carried her. So, sure, the old proverb says, ‘the bull has sought
the wild wood.’
Since then there are twenty days, and eight to these, and nine again,
then ten others, to-day is the eleventh, add two more, and it is two
months since we parted, and I have not shaved, not even in Thracian
fashion. {74a}
And now Wolf is everything with her. Wolf finds the door open o’ nights,
and I am of no account, not in the reckoning, like the wretched men of
Megara, in the place dishonourable. {74b}
And if I could cease to love, the world would wag as well as may be. But
now,—now,—as they say, Thyonichus, I am like the mouse that has tasted
pitch. And what remedy there may be for a bootless love, I know not;
except that Simus, he who was in love with the daughter of Epicalchus,
went over seas, and came back heart-whole,—a man of my own age. And I
too will cross the water, and prove not the first, maybe, nor the last,
perhaps, but a fair soldier as times go.
_Thyonichus_. Would that things had gone to your mind, Aeschines. But
if, in good earnest, you are thus set on going into exile, PTOLEMY is the
free man’s best paymaster!
_Aeschines_. And in other respects, what kind of man?
_Thyonichus_. The free man’s best paymaster! Indulgent too, the Muses’
darling, a true lover, the top of good company, knows his friends, and
still better knows his enemies. A great giver to many, refuses nothing
that he is asked which to give may beseem a king, but, Aeschines, we
should not always be asking. Thus, if you are minded to pin up the top
corner of your cloak over the right shoulder, and if you have the heart
to stand steady on both feet, and bide the brunt of a hardy targeteer,
off instantly to Egypt! From the temples downward we all wax grey, and
on to the chin creeps the rime of age, men must do somewhat while their
knees are yet nimble.