_This famous idyl should rather_, _perhaps_, _be called a mimus_. _It
describes the visit paid by two Syracusan women residing in Alexandria_,
_to the festival of the resurrection of Adonis_. _The festival is given
by Arsinoë_, _wife and sister of Ptolemy Philadelphus_, _and the poem
cannot have been written earlier than his marriage_, _in_ 266 B.C. [?]
_Nothing can be more gay and natural than the chatter of the women_,
_which has changed no more in two thousand years than the song of birds_.
_Theocritus is believed to have had a model for this idyl in the
Isthmiazusae of Sophron_, _an older poet_. _In the Isthmiazusae two
ladies described the spectacle of the Isthmian games_.
* * * * *
_Gorgo_. Is Praxinoë at home?
_Praxinoë_. Dear Gorgo, how long it is since you have been here! She
_is_ at home. The wonder is that you have got here at last! Eunoë, see
that she has a chair. Throw a cushion on it too.
_Gorgo_. It does most charmingly as it is.
_Praxinoë_. Do sit down.
_Gorgo_. Oh, what a thing spirit is! I have scarcely got to you alive,
Praxinoë! 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!
_Praxinoë_. 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 neighbours. 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.
_Praxinoë_. Our Lady! the child takes notice. {77}
_Gorgo_. Nice papa!
_Praxinoë_. 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 spendthrift—Diocleides!
Yesterday he got what he meant for five fleeces, and paid seven shillings
a piece 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!
_Praxinoë_. Fine folks do everything finely.
_Gorgo_. What a tale you will have to tell about the things you have
seen, to any one who has not seen them! It seems nearly time to go.
_Praxinoë_. Idlers have always holiday. Eunoë, bring the water and put
it down in the middle of the room, lazy creature that you are. Cats like
always to sleep soft! {78a} 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_. Praxinoë, that full body becomes you wonderfully. Tell me how
much did the stuff cost you just off the loom?
_Praxinoë_. Don’t speak of it, Gorgo! 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. {78b}
_Praxinoë_. 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 gods, 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 passer-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! Eunoë, 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, Praxinoë. We are safe behind them, now, and they have
gone to their station.
_Praxinoë_. 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.
_Praxinoë_. 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.
_Praxinoë_. Women know everything, yes, and how Zeus married Hera!
_Gorgo_. See Praxinoë, what a crowd there is about the doors.
_Praxinoë_. Monstrous, Gorgo! Give me your hand, and you, Eunoë, catch
hold of Eutychis; never lose hold of her, for fear lest you get lost.
Let us all go in together; Eunoë, 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.
_Praxinoë_. How close-packed the mob is, they hustle like a herd of
swine.
_Stranger_. Courage, lady, all is well with us now.
_Praxinoë_. Both this year and for ever may all be well with you, my
dear sir, for your care of us. A good kind man! We’re letting Eunoë 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, Praxinoë. Look first at these embroideries. How
light and how lovely! You will call them the garments of the gods.
_Praxinoë_. Lady Athene, what spinning women wrought them, what painters
designed these 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?
_Praxinoë_. Lady Persephone, never may we have more than one master. I
am not afraid of _your_ putting me on short commons.
_Gorgo_. Hush, hush, Praxinoë—the Argive woman’s daughter, the great
singer, is beginning the _Adonis_; she that won the prize last year for
dirge-singing. {82} 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, lo, 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 Diônê,
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 Arsinoë, 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, lo, 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 cup-bearer! 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 lo, 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 bosoms bare will we begin our shrill
sweet song.
Thou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, thou only of the demigods 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 Hecabe, nor Patroclus, nor Pyrrhus,
that returned out of Troyland, nor the heroes of yet more ancient days,
the Lapithae and Deucalion’s sons, nor the sons of Pelops, and the chiefs
of Pelasgian Argus. 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_. Praxinoë, 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!