GLAUCON AND MYRINA
Glaucon, the statesman and soldier, walked homeward from the Prytaneum
where the city had received certain strangers of note, envoys to Athens.
With him moved Theodorus the sculptor, and behind the two several
attendant slaves. The air was fine, with a breeze from the sea.
Theodorus made his companion remark the light that fell upon Mount
Lycabettus. Glaucon looked and said that the effect was good, but said
it in a tone of abstraction. His mind was yet in the Prytaneum, engaged
with his speech that the occasion had prompted. Glaucon’s phrases yet
echoed in Glaucon’s ears. They had been good phrases and Glaucon thought
them good. He would have judged “sententious” and “strong” to be
applicable words. Those, and “at times eloquence, like the light upon
Mount Lycabettus.” Yet was the statesman Glaucon by no means impudent of
his merit nor a common braggart. He had spoken well and for the right as
he saw it, and he saw more than many. And behind what Glaucon said
stood, for men to see, many known courageous acts of Glaucon.
The two lived near the Diomean Gate. Now, making way through the crowded
streets, the hour being one when men were abroad, they reached a
palæstra and saw about to enter several of their acquaintance--Lycias
the poet, Ion, Lysander, Hippodamus, and others. These called to the two
to enter also and observe Thracian wrestlers. All went in together and,
mingled with a crowd, watched the mighty-thewed. When the match was over
the group, leaving the palæstra, but still talking of the body and its
powers, went along until there was reached the small temple of Hestia.
Here the steps rose invitingly free of the crowd, and the space between
the pillars smiled and invited. The light yet shone upon the mountains
and upon the temples of the Acropolis. Lycias and Theodorus would pause
and in the porch of Hestia continue the conversation while observing the
beauty of the evening. Glaucon remarked that he had business at home.
“Let it take its rest!” said Lycias. “You are a poet, also, Glaucon, and
a painter and a maker of statues--just as I converse familiarly with
envoys and undoubtedly fought at Megara, though I cannot just now recall
having done so! Every man sacrifices in every temple. Stay and put up
your hands to beauty, and let business go throw herself down from the
wall!”
“He was only a moment ago a poet,” said Theodorus. “You should have
heard him at the Prytaneum upon Justice!”
They turned into the porch of Hestia. Despite the light upon the
temples, and despite the interposed action of the wrestling match,
Glaucon, in an inner voice, was yet saying over this or that part of the
Prytaneum speech. The difference lay in the fact that he was now saying
them over to Myrina.
“An encomium?” asked Ion.
“You would have thought it a voice from the Golden Age!”
Glaucon’s ears and at last Glaucon’s mind caught the statement of
Theodorus and were pleased thereby. He turned from the praise-honey
that Myrina would serve to the immediate feast.
“I love to hear,” said Hippodamus, “lovers speak of love, poets of
poetry, physicians of healing, soldiers of soldiering, and legislators
of the relations between states and among men.”
“Oh!” cried Lycias. “Glaucon is a lover, too.”
“Who is the youth?” asked Ion.
Laughter arose. “Ion is newly come to town--he does not know! Address
your question, Ion, to Glaucon.”
“I will save him the trouble, Lycias,” said Glaucon. “Know, Ion, that I
am like the barbarians and hold in hatred affection in that kind.”
“But say to Glaucon the word Myrina--”
“Who is Myrina?”
“Myrina is a woman.--Lysander the silent, have you seen the new
colonnade by the temple of Æsculapius?”
“Knock! Knock!” quoth Lycias. “Doorkeeper and dog say ‘Not at
home!’--Now, in the speech at the Prytaneum--Oh, here he is at home! Oh,
voice from the Golden Age, discourse to us anew of Justice!”
“I said of Justice,” answered Glaucon, “what a man of knowledge should
say.”
“He will not tell!--Veil your face, O Glaucon, for I am not modest for
my friend!--Diocles and Timotheus overcrowed the envoys with the glories
of the Athenian state. They sat with a downward look, and saw on the
earth their bound hopes. Then arose Glaucon, and Apollo inspired him.”
“Fighting for the envoys and their country?”
“By Apollo!” said Glaucon, “fighting for the right of things!”
“First, good as any rhapsode, he gave five lines from Homer! Then he
spoke of his own motion, or of Apollo’s motion. He would have Justice
reign over the countries of men, and none take advantage of his
neighbour!”
“Hmmm!”
“So sounded the Prytaneum.--I find that I cannot give all his arguments,
but they were good ones. There was opposition--not from the envoys; they
breathed softly and seemed to feel the warmth of the sun after
winter--but Diocles and Timotheus and their following drove in in a
mighty counter-current. Then might you have seen Odysseus fight the
seas!”
“Justice--”
“Later he brought in friendship and alliance, and the love of a friend
for the true and the beautiful in his friend, and the friend’s desire
that always his friend should lift with him. So that, climbing the
mountain, one should not cry down to another, ‘Lo, now the sea opens
before me! lo, now I see all Hellas!’ while the other cries sorrowfully
up to him, ‘Still am I in the woods and briars and among the caves!’ He
made application to states.”
“By Ares!” interrupted Hippodamus, “that is not the way I look at it!”
“No, Hippodamus. But that makes appeal to Glaucon. He made application
to states, and, inspired by Apollo, he laid down a principle. The true
lover of man will have man free and noble wherever he be found. The true
statesman wishes as much for every state.”
“Father Zeus!” cried Hippodamus, “would you have Sparta, who is already
as brave, become as wise as we? This little, weak country does not
matter, but Sparta--!”
“I am not speaking, Hippodamus, but Glaucon--Glaucon speaks. ‘The great
friend, that is to say the great statesman, denies to none place and
garlands! He says to none, “Lie forever on the mat at my door, be
forever dog at my heels!”’ Says Glaucon, ‘Shall a state withdraw wisdom
from another state, leaving it dark of knowledge so that that state no
longer knows how best to help itself? Shall a state be jealous of wisdom
in a fellow state? Shall a state turn aside from its fellow the rivers
of wealth? Shall it say, “Mine are all the rivers! Not for you ease of
your own!” Shall a state desire to soften the body of its fellow? Shall
it say, “Not for you gymnastic nor the diet of the strong! So, if we
come to battle, you will not see the glint of any god’s eye, standing in
your ranks! No! But you shall shamefully flee, and I will have you in
laughter, and my heart will swell with pride where I stand fast.” Shall
a state work that, or wish to work that, toward its fellow? Shall a
state say to its fellow, “Be fair for me, send me dancers and
flute-players, send me grapes from your vineyards and wine from your
wine presses, be for me rich views and pleasant ports, grow wheat for
me, send me marble out of which I may carve the forms of the gods, but
move not of yourself nor for yourself! Be much if you will, but be not
free!”--O Apollo! O Apollo! Thy arrow that is drawn against that
thus-speaking state was made by Justice in her deep cave at the head of
the world! Turn--turn--turn, thus-speaking state! Make libations, pray
for nobility!’”
Theodorus the sculptor looked again at the light upon Mount Lycabettus.
“Something like that was what Glaucon said.”
Lycias spoke. “By Pallas, a good speech!--But now propound--Does Athens
take into alliance the country that sent the envoys?”
Said suddenly Lysander the silent: “I came by the cross streets from the
Agora and overtook an acquaintance who had been at the Prytaneum in the
train of the Archon Timotheus. He said that he would stake his fortune
that Athens would do no such thing!”
“Father Zeus! I should think not!” said Hippodamus.
“Oh, then,” said Lycias, “Glaucon spoke in a dream to dream-listeners!”
Glaucon looked at the light that was now but a thin crown upon the
mountains. “I think that I was dreaming,” he said. “I have strange
dreams sometimes!” He gathered his mantle about him.--“Theodorus, are
you for home?”
The two left the porch and, the slaves attending, went away in the
purple twilight toward the Diomean Gate. Lycias and the others followed
them with their eyes.
“Who is Myrina?” again asked Ion the stranger.
“How short a while have you been in Athens!--Myrina! Ask the first
street urchin you meet! He will say to you: ‘O Arcadian, for sense and
wit the hetæræ are among women as is Hellas among countries! As is
Athens to other cities of the Hellenes so is Myrina (and one or two
others) among the hetæræ. For the rest,’ continues your urchin, ‘she is
now the mistress of Glaucon the statesman.’”
“Is Glaucon wived?”
“‘O thou Arcadian!’ says the street urchin, shaking his finger, ‘what of
that? Know, O woodland stranger, that wives are to bear us children that
we may reasonably believe to be our own, and likewise to keep in order
our houses. Hetæræ are for delight. Shall not a Hellene have children,
house-order, and delight?’ Then will he gather his rags together and
depart, shaking his head.”
“Let us, too, depart,” said Lysander the silent. “The light is fading,
and there is a mist gathering over the earth.”
In the mean time Glaucon and Theodorus pursued their way along a street
not now so crowded. “Why do you not sup with Myrina?” asked the
sculptor.
“That is for to-morrow.--To-night there is drudgery at home. I have made
a trading venture to Egypt and to-night the master of the ship is to
meet me and give account.”
“Cannot Cleita--?”
“Cleita!--No, she keeps household accounts, but this is man’s work.”
They came, as they spoke, to the portico of Glaucon’s house. Those that
lounged there sprang up to greet the master; the doorkeeper opened both
leaves of the door. The two entered, were brought water for hands and
feet, had the dust brushed from their garments. A dog came and sprang
upon Glaucon, giving welcome. The master enquired for supper. It was
ready, and the two proceeded to the banquet-room. Presently came the
master of the ship trading to Egypt. Glaucon had a couch placed for him.
Moschus the shipmaster muttered something about plain men and being at a
loss among gentlemen ways, then, taking the couch, reclined with an air
of listening for the steersman’s call. Supper was brought, and after
food wine in a great cup. The talk was of the sea-master’s adventures,
for he was dead on other sides. But he could well discourse of these,
and of ships and cargoes and harbour merchants, and he knew the middle
sea from Tyre to the Pillars of Hercules; and had glimpsed the
River-Ocean beyond. In his talk was spice of perils withstood, and of
action in the breadths and narrows of the sea. Also, rich terms of
commerce rose like fair islets or played like dolphins.
Glaucon and Theodorus found enjoyment in the talk of Moschus, widening
knowledge. “O Hermes!” cried Glaucon, “I think that I also have built a
boat and adventured, and borne metals and weapons and oil and wine afar
in trade! How good it is for man to widen until he brings all within his
ring!”
Moschus at last produced his tablets and the talk fell to one voyage’s
profit and loss. Theodorus dozed over his wine. Then Moschus and Glaucon
concluded their business, and Moschus, standing up, thanked Glaucon for
good entertainment, and would go to his inn until dawn light upon the
road to Phalerum. Shaking off sleep, Theodorus declared he would
accompany him, for he had yet to hear about mermaiden. Sculptor and
shipmaster went away together. Glaucon drank wine and talked with a
trusted servant, then rising from the couch left the banquet-room and
went to the women’s part of the house. Here he found Cleita in tears.
He sat down beside her. “What is the matter, Cleita?”
Cleita continuing to weep, Gorgo her maid undertook to answer. “O
Glaucon, my master, we do not know! I have asked her. Lycia here has
asked her, Daphne has asked her. For a long time she has been pining--We
would have her see the physician, but she says she has no suffering in
her body--”
Cleita drew toward her a scarf of Egyptian linen and with it wiped her
eyes. “I am tired of this house and these maids!”
“Do you wish to go out to the farm for a time?”
“I am tired of that house and those maids!”
“What, then, Cleita, do you wish to do?”
Cleita wept afresh. “O ye gods, I do not know!”
Glaucon drew a breath and prayed for patience. “Be a reasonable woman,
Cleita! Discontent without knowing why--wanting things without knowing
what--is not reason!”
Cleita raised her head. “All day you have been going up and down and to
and fro! You have been entertained.”
“Entertainment is not all in life, my Cleita.”
“That, my master,” said Gorgo, “is just what we have been telling her!”
“I never said that it was;” said Cleita. She wrapped her head in the
Egyptian scarf and again dropped it upon her arms.
Glaucon seriously considered her. “Have you not the children, Cleita?
Have you not the management of the house?”
“That,” said Gorgo, “is unanswerable!”
Glaucon sat upon the edge of the couch. “The gods, Cleita, have parted
one way of life to women and another to men. Will you deny the gods
wisdom? All of us, at times, know discontent. The soldier thinks his
life hard, the statesman often would lay down his cares, the mechanic
grumbles, the servant repines. But the gods have willed degrees and
duties. If women--if Athenian wives and mothers--went abroad from the
house, if they were seen by all men everywhere, if we met them in the
streets, the market-place, the theatre, the school, the palæstra, where
not, there would arise in the state great confusion! In a short while we
should be no better than barbarians! But the gods have set comely bounds
for women, as they have given to men freedom under the sky. Strive not
against the decrees of the gods! Cease this hungering and fretting for
what is not good for you. There is impiety, O my Cleita, in your
discontent!”
Gorgo drew a breath of rapture. “We do not need to go to Delphi!”
“Uncover your head, Cleita,” said Glaucon. “Sit up and cease this
weeping!”
Cleita lay still. Then she raised herself upon her elbow, and drew the
linen a little aside. “Myrina--”
“O Eros, give me patience!” thought Glaucon. He stood up. “Myrina--?”
“Myrina lives free. The hetæræ have joy and light.”
“I am speaking,” said Glaucon, “not of hetæræ, but of Athenian wives and
mothers.” Cleita again sank her head. Glaucon, regarding her, strove at
once to be master and wise. “You are a child, Cleita! If you smother
there, you have yourself to thank!”
Nothing further coming from beneath the linen, he turned, after waiting
until he was assured that it would come not, and left the gynecæum.
Going, he said to himself, “She is a child! To-morrow I will buy her
some basket or fan or piece of silk.”
Once more in the banquet-room he sat down and fingered the tablets
covered with the accounting of Moschus the shipmaster. At last he pushed
these aside, and with his elbows upon the table brought together his
hands and rested his brow upon them. “Myrina--Myrina--Myrina! Deep and
flowing and ever about me like River-Ocean--”
Myrina, from her own house, bought with earned gold, watched, too, that
day, the light upon Mount Lycabettus. She saw it caress the temples upon
the Acropolis, and of the great statue of Athena make a torch, a star,
blazing gold. Myrina, walking in her garden, had driven a thorn into her
unsandalled foot. After three days it yet troubled her, and this day she
would go to the temple of Æsculapius. She went in an adorned litter,
borne by slaves, her nurse beside her, behind her more slaves. The
litter’s curtains were partly drawn aside. Athens might see a beautiful
woman within, and, coming closer, demanding of those who knew, learn
that it was Myrina.... Respect--they gave it in seeming abundance. Here
was a learned and fair and rich woman, with great men for lovers!
Gradually there grew about and behind the moving litter a crowd of the
well-beseen. Dion walked upon one side, Simonides upon the other. Myrina
spoke of the thorn in her foot, and the temple of Æsculapius, and then
of a new poet and a new song and a new statue and a new comedy. She had
rich laughter; she span a ball of warmth, and far and wide made it,
rose-hued, enclose herself and all that approached. When they came to
the temple of Dionysus, Daphnis and Menalcas and Strephon joined the
procession of the litter. When they came to the plane trees and the
colonnade and the court of the temple of Æsculapius the slaves brought
the litter close to the ground. Forth stepped Myrina and halted upon one
foot. Arms were outstretched, Strephon’s and Daphnis’s eyes brightened,
they flushed rosy-red when she rested hand upon either, used them as
staves for support. Priests of Æsculapius came to meet the rich train.
Here was an inner court where a fountain bubbled clearly and flowers
diffused their odours, and here were seats of marble for patients of
high note. Myrina sat, and her nurse, kneeling, drew off the sandal. The
light struck upon and made bright copper of Myrina’s red-brown head.
The physician came, examined the foot, at last drew out the troubling
thorn. “By Pallas!” said Myrina, “that goes better!--I dreamed, last
night, Hippias, an old dream of mine. I fought a beast with fire in a
wood. What, servant of Æsculapius, do you think that that signifies?”
“I think that it signifies, Myrina, that you dreamed that you fought a
beast with fire in a wood.”
“Not so! I took the dream to a soothsayer. He asked me where I would go
this day, and when I told him, he said that the wood signified the new
colonnade, the beast the thorn in my foot, and the fire the art of
Æsculapius. O Proteus’s daughter, by name Interpretation! What marvels
dost thou work!”
Myrina stood up. “Give me the pearl, Xanthus! Now will I go to the altar
and make thank-offering.”
The altar was reached and the altar was left by way of the main court
with the colonnade around it, and all about, in the sun and in the
shade, reclining or seated or standing, the many who would consult the
servants of Æsculapius. Here were men and here were women, and the
patients were attended by friends and kindred or by slaves. By all save
the too much suffering the train of Myrina was watched across and across
the temple court. Especially did Athenian wives and daughters watch the
courtesan, watch with a keen and jealous look!
Myrina, going homeward, drew her train with her. It was then that she
marked the light upon Mount Lycabettus. At her own portico she sent away
the following. No, none might enter! She was not to-night for wine and
song and flowers. The slaves bore her litter through the doors; the
doorkeeper brought clangorously to the leaves, dropped in place the iron
bars. Those who had convoyed her home fell back, turned in the narrow
street, and went off with grumbling, laughter, and singing. “Nowadays,
nowadays, only Glaucon lives in the world!”
In her chamber, when the lights had been brought, Myrina said to the old
woman, Phrygia, her nurse: “Athenians should teach their wives better
manners! I feel as if I had been bathed in vinegar!”
“They are jealous, and they would be scornful,” said Phrygia, fastening
the sandal.
“Poor, dull, wing-clipped, house-kept wrens and sparrows!”
“You are proud and would be scornful!” said Phrygia.
“Is it not something to be not as they are?”
“A many women are slaves and poor,” said old Phrygia. “And another many
are these wives of free Hellenes, liking not bright birds loose in the
barnyard, while they have a chain at the foot! And another many are the
courtesans. But these struggle among themselves, and if their beauty
goes not even their wit can save them.”
“Mother Demeter! How many have beauty and wit?”
“Lo, you, now,” said old Phrygia, “how the bright bird sings! Where the
dark is for so many, can you hold the light?”
“Glaucon--Glaucon!”
“You care for naught beside if only you have Glaucon!”
“Is there aught beside?”
“Were all the world afire, so that the light made your toy to shine--!
So have been others before you and will be after you, mistress!”
Myrina lay down to sleep amid lambs’ wool and fine Egyptian linen. In
the bright dawn she waked and lay regarding from her warm bed the room
that the dawn turned a pale rose. Out from the wall was placed a statue
of the old-and-young god Eros, and it was a marvellous piece of work,
and Myrina’s eyes caressed it. The warmth of the bed was good, the clear
rose feel of the room, the just-heard, slow breathing of the two
slave-girls sleeping at the door. Myrina lay still and indolent. It was
good not to have to go forth and fend for food, whether for yourself or
for others.... Glaucon--Glaucon!... Warmth and idleness wove ten
thousand magic chains.
Yesterday he had not come because he had been at the Prytaneum. Her mind
opened upon that place. The Prytaneum ... the House of the central
hearth, of the sacred fire, the formal “Home” of the people. When
colonies went forth the men took a brand from the hearth of the
Prytaneum, kindled afar another hearth and built around it a Prytaneum.
The City Hearth, Hall, Home--the Country Hearth--the Hearth and Middle
Fire.... Myrina, lying in the room that was like a shell tossed upon a
silver bank, filled only with the dream sound of dream tides, saw as it
were the hearth afar, and the forms around it, that were all the forms
of men, for men made that hearth to glow and burn.
Myrina turned upon her arm.
Later in the morning she rose and bathed, and the slave-girls put upon
her a festival dress. To-day was to be held a celebration, choice and
beautiful, before the Temple of Athena of the Victory. Myrina would go
observe it, and perhaps afterwards for a little excursion beyond the
walls, beside the shady Ilissus. Glaucon would not come till sunset--the
day must somehow be passed!
Athena of the Victory and her throng helped by the limping hours. When
there was no more good to be gotten there Myrina proceeded in her
litter, slave-borne, through the southern Gate, and so on to the cool,
brown stream, plane- and olive-shaded. Here, descending from the litter,
she sat upon a rich cloth that they spread for her beneath a tree, huge,
with mossed trunk and branches where the cicadas were making music. With
her were Dion and Simonides, Phrygia her nurse, and a Thessalian
slave-girl. Dion had a roll overwritten with poems. He read, and they
discussed the verses that were read.
Came by an unsandalled man with a grey beard, and gave them good-day
beneath the tree. “Good-day, Myrina the fair woman!”
“Good-day, Myrrhus the philosopher! Will you drink with me a cup of
wine?”
“That will I!” said Myrrhus, “and with thanks for the boon!”
The slaves poured the wine, and the philosopher drank. Said Myrina:
“Dion and Simonides and I were disputing--Make me a gift in return, O
Myrrhus, and answer three questions.”
“If I may, I will, Myrina the fair. What is the first?”
“Why, Myrrhus, when the sculptors make great forms of goddesses who are
women, and why, when the poets write with so great beauty of goddesses
who are women, and why when all hearts grant to these, who are surely
women, power and attributes, why do the Hellenes rate women so low?”
“Those others,” said Myrrhus, “are Olympian women.”
“Am I answered?--This is the second question. Does Æschylus speak truly
for Apollo when he causes him to say--
“‘The mother bears, but never truly makes the child,
Only the father makes’?”
“I, O Myrina, am not a poet but a philosopher.--So Æschylus said Apollo
said.--Women cry to Demeter for many things, but never, that I heard of,
for vengeance upon Æschylus! So, none objecting, it must be true.”
The cicadas made music in the tree. Myrina regarded the dust at her
feet. She laughed, a dry sound like the cicadas’ tune. “Low things,
rated lowly, put up low claims.--Give me wine, Xanthus.”
Dion, who, and he might, would have had Glaucon’s place, whispered to
her, “You are not as other women, but sit among the Olympians.”
Myrina drank wine, and drank self-praise and lover’s praise, and laughed
again, this time with loosened and golden throat. “Here, O Myrrhus, is
the third and easy question!--What is wisdom?”
“Wisdom is to lift ourselves from ourselves.--And now, Myrina, having
given gift for gift, I go on to the feast at the house of Callicles the
sophist.”
Myrina, too, looked at the sun. “It is in the Glaucon quarter!” she
cried to herself. Going homeward, she seemed to listen, but was not
listening to those beside her. “Glaucon--Glaucon--Glaucon--Glaucon--”
With the last light upon the mountains came Glaucon. Much Athenian
business had filled his day, but now he was here, white-robed, garlanded
and bright-eyed, with arms that strained, with lips that pressed.
Myrina’s arms strained back, Myrina’s lips pressed his lips. “I love
you!” said Myrina. “I love you!”
They sat in a flower-decked room, and though Myrina had flute-girls
playing in the distance, and though slaves came and went bringing
dishes and wine, they heeded these not.
“I love you!”
“I love you!”
“I love you most!”
“No, I love you most!”
There was something in the word “most” that brought them back to it.
That was when they had eaten, though sparingly, when dishes had been
taken away but wine left, when the flute-girls cascading endlessly sweet
sound, seemed to go farther away, when the slaves had been dismissed
after bringing perfumed lamps, when there was before them the round dark
pearl of the richer night.
“You love me not as I love you!”
“Ah, Glaucon!--Ah, Glaucon!”
“Did you love me as I love you--You were in my mind all day--”
“And were you not in my mind?”
“I know that you went to Athena of the Victory. And then you would fare
farther forth, be a nymph of Ilissus--”
“Were you not in my mind for all that?”
“_No!_ It is not so that you would take absence, did you love me truly!”
“Did you not do many things this day? Yesterday also? Yet you swear that
you love me!”
“That is a man’s work. That must go on.--But you, alas! You rove in a
garden for pleasure!”
“You speak less than the truth!”
“Was not Dion beside you? By Hermes, I bear his footfall beside your
litter!”
“If he was, what then? Am I not free?”
“Free? Who is free that loves? I have tied your chains about my heart.
Drag free, if you can!”
“If I love you not, I am free!”
“So you love me not, but love Dion!”
“Take your hand from me!--What fiends are you men!”
“No! But you are fiends--”
“Loved--loved--”
“Loved--”
“Glaucon--Glaucon!”
“Myrina--Myrina--Myrina!”
The two embraced with a stormy passion. They held each other’s hands.
The fluting, fluting of the musicians, far among the columns, hidden by
flowering bushes, sounded sweet as springtime on Olympus. “I have loved
you from the first!”--“And I you!”--“I will love you always!”--“And I
you!”
Spring joy, fair harmony, held while the moon without mounted above the
olive trees. Then, little by little, again the voices grew iron and
poison came into the taste.
“But if you loved me--!”
“But if you loved me--!”
“Dion’s footfall beside your litter.... Strephon’s music in your ear!
Every day, through Athens, goes your litter, and there is drawn a
throng. On high days, at spectacles, you are pointed out to strangers.
There is Myrina, that Glaucon the statesman thinks loves him--”
“I would not live indoors like a wife--sampling the sun only under
favour!”
“I would that the law held you by the arm as it does the wife--”
“Father Zeus, Poseidon, Hades--these three have parted among them earth,
sea, and sky! Beneath Olympus, they have given to men their favourites,
earth and sea and sky! Now, what will men give to women? Their
love!--Oh, oh, their love!”
“Woman’s love? What is that? It is craft--it is sold for ease! Love from
the snake--love from the fox--”
“Maybe so, man the wolf!”
“Will you forbid Dion and these others your company? Will you stay
closely in the house, go not abroad?”
“And live not till you come? And live only when you come?”
“Yes!”
“No!”
Myrina and Glaucon stood over against each other, each breathing hard.
Then cried Glaucon, “You are false! I hear no music in this house
to-night, smell no flowers!” He lifted his robed arm between them, burst
from the room, called to his slave Milo. Myrina heard the doorkeeper
opening the door at his imperious word. Glaucon was gone in black anger
and jealousy.
The nurse Phrygia came into the room, and found Myrina seated, Asian
fashion, upon the floor before the marble figure of Aphrodite.
“Phrygia,” said Myrina, “men and women are beings without reason.”
“Will you send for him back?”
“Will he come?”
“If you give him his way.... It is dangerous for you to quarrel with a
man who is a statesman and giver of laws! In Athens the hetæræ live free
and esteemed. Change may come; I would have you beware!”
“Glaucon--Glaucon--Glaucon--Glaucon!... I will not send.”
“Ah, woman, yes, you will!” said Phrygia.
Light rose, light fell, rose, fell, rose--Glaucon returned not. Myrina
went abroad to temple and spectacle. The great in Athens came about her;
she used beauty and wit and a kind, even, of goodness--and all the time
her heart ached and ached and said, “Glaucon--Glaucon--Glaucon!”
The third day she did not go out, but sat all day upon the floor before
the statue of Aphrodite.
In the evening Phrygia brought her food. “You are growing hollow-eyed.
If you lose your beauty, night comes down without a star!”
“Glaucon--Glaucon!”
Phyrgia sat down the silver dish. “Listen, mistress,--send for
Glaucon--promise him all he wishes--forswear for him the light of the
sun and the company, were it so, of the blessed gods! What! No state of
affairs lives forever! His pride is fed--mayhap next month he will leave
you free again! Demeter knows we all are children! Yet we must live and
keep the red in our cheeks and the light in our eyes.... Man is master,
but we can manage the master.”
“All slaves alike.”
“Give in, and gain the more--”
“Wolf and snake and fox.”
“Or, if you do not love him, let him go.”
“How can I do that? I know not the trick.”
“Say one word only, and I will put myself in the way to find him.... Say
naught, then! Stay only as you are.”
“For the throne of Zeus can one pay too dear?”
Old Phrygia, rising, made to steal from the place. Myrina caught at her
dress. “Not yet--not ever, if I have courage!”
Light rose, light fell, came again a bright, a hot, and dusty day.
Glaucon rose from no-sleep, and went forth upon Athenian business. The
afternoon found him upon the Acropolis, near the precinct of Artemis. He
was passing a grove of olive and myrtle--the light was sinking--when he
heard his name breathed.
He gestured to those with him to go on, he himself turned under the
trees. “Myrina....”
“So fearing and base a thing is woman when she is named Myrina!... Be my
lover, Glaucon, and I will forswear light!”
“Did you come to me?--I would, at last, have come to you!”
“_I_ came.... Will you go home with me?”
“I did not wholly mean unkindness.... I am not truly man the wolf.”
“Will you come? Perhaps I am only woman the snake.”
Glaucon went with her. They went together from the Acropolis into the
narrow ways.