II.
Hipyllos walked on silently for some time, then suddenly exclaimed:
“Myrmex, you don’t know—no words can tell how pretty she is.... It’s a little more than a month since I first saw her. She was returning home from the temple of Demeter, accompanied by her mother and several slaves. The wind raised her veil and revealed a face which, crimsoned with blushes at the notice she was attracting, was the loveliest I had ever seen. The young girl was tall and wore a snow-white robe with a broad violet-blue border; her shining black hair was drawn high above her neck, and over her veil a gold clasp ornamented with a large blue stone glittered on her brow. Her silver-wrought sandal-straps fitted her small feet so trimly, that even men usually blind to the secrets of beauty uttered a murmur of admiration. Whenever the breeze tightened her garments, making her movements more visible, her bearing showed a reserve and modesty impossible to describe in words and, as she passed, I seemed to feel an atmosphere of freshness mingled with the faint fragrance of some costly ointment.... Never has any woman so bewitched me! At night I dreamed of her dazzlingly white neck and soft black hair—heavenly powers, how pretty she is! But you don’t understand me, Myrmex; I might as well confide in the trees and stones by the wayside.... All the young men she met turned—no one was content with merely seeing her pass. Here, where the girls spend their days in the narrow limits of the women’s apartment, it isn’t three times in a man’s life that he meets such a maiden on the highway.
“As she and her mother approached the house where we just saw the light shining, one of the slaves ran into the Phalerian street to knock at the door, and I now knew who the young girl was. The mansion belonged to the architect Xenocles, and the maiden was doubtless his daughter Clytie, whose beauty I had often heard praised. At the corner of the wall the wind blew stronger, so that the women were obliged to struggle against it. Suddenly the young girl’s veil was loosened and flew away on the breeze. Uttering a loud shriek, she stopped and covered her face with her hands. Rushing on in advance of the rest after the veil, which was whirling around in the air, I caught it as it fell and hung on a slender branch. As I approached the young girl, who had let her hands fall and stood blushing crimson, with eyes bent on the ground, she looked so bewitchingly beautiful that, fairly beside myself, I grasped the hand with which she took the veil, exclaiming:
“‘Pretty Clytie, raise your eyes to mine; for here, in your mother’s presence, I swear that you and no one else shall become my wife.’
“The young girl turned pale and snatched her hand from my clasp, but she did what I asked. She raised her large dark eyes and fixed them on mine—it seemed to me not with dislike.
“The mother, however, was very angry and thrust me away, saying:
“‘Who are you, Youth, who dares to speak so boldly to a modest maiden? Clytie—your wife! May all the gods forbid! Know that her father has promised her to another....’
“‘By Zeus!’ I interrupted, ‘that other shall yield, were he the king of Persia himself.’”
Myrmex looked up at his master and laughed in his beard at his audacity.
“The next morning,” Hipyllos continued, “on the walls, the bark of the trees, and the stones along the roadside were the words written by different hands:
‘Clytie is beautiful. No one
is lovelier than Clytie.’
“I alone did not write; but, at the hour that everybody was going to market, I rode my black Samphora steed through the narrow lane. It was very rare to hear the sound of hoofs there and, as I had anticipated, the pretty maid appeared at the peep-hole. Her room was where I had expected. She hastily drew back, but I saw by her glance that she had recognized me. The next day I again rode by. She did not vanish so quickly; but I didn’t speak to her, for I did not know whether she was alone. The last time I rode through the street I passed close by the house and laid a laurel-blossom in the loop-hole; when I came back it had been exchanged for a narcissus flower, which lay where it could be easily taken. I then sent Manidoros—whom you know: the boldest and most cunning of my slaves—to Phalerian street. He speedily ingratiated himself with Doris, the youngest of Xenocles’ female slaves, and how happy I was when one afternoon he came home and said:
“‘Everything has happened as you wish. Doris told me that her young mistress has seemed wholly unlike herself ever since she saw you. She weeps, dreams, and murmurs your name. But the man to whom her father has promised her—he is a great orator and writer of tragedies—she hates worse than death. Doris declares you have used some spell, and that the girl is bewitched.’”
Old Myrmex shook his head.
“May all this give you happiness!” he murmured.