They both my fane shall leave, and oceans past,
In regions torrid shall arrive at last;
There shall the gods reward their pious vows,
And snowy chaplets bind their dusky brows.”[108]
Calasiris at the urgent request of Cnemon described all the ceremonies attendant on the sacrifice to Neoptolemus: the hecatomb and the other victims, the Thracian maidens bearing offerings, the hymn to the Hero, the dance, the procession of the fifty armed horsemen led by Theagenes, the radiant appearance of Chariclea in a chariot. All this description was the brilliant setting for the meeting of Theagenes and Chariclea, for when Theagenes took from the priestess’ hand the torch to light the sacrificial pyre, in them both the flame of first love was kindled.
The next day Chariclea lay abed very ill in her apartment in the temple. Calasiris feared it was due to “fascinatio.” Calasiris after meeting Theagenes had a vision in which Apollo and Diana consigned Theagenes and Chariclea to his care and bade him take them to Egypt. The next morning Theagenes confessed to Calasiris his love and besought his aid. Charicles begged him to heal his daughter. This enabled him to talk to her.
Chariclea recovered sufficiently the next day to attend the contest of the men in armor and to award the palm to the victor, Theagenes. But her passion and her illness increased after this second meeting and Calasiris was again summoned to treat her. Her disease was diagnosed as love and Calasiris persuaded her father to let him see the fillet found with the exposed baby. Calasiris was able to read the inscription on it. It was a letter from her mother, Persinna, queen of the Ethiopians, revealing that she had borne a white daughter because at her conception she had been looking at a picture of Andromeda; then fearing the charge of adultery she had exposed her baby with the fillet and the jewels. All this Calasiris told to Chariclea. Calasiris then made a plot with her by which she was to pretend to become affianced to Alcamenes, the nephew of Charicles, as her foster-father wished. Charicles was delighted although he was nervous because of a dream in which an eagle from the hand of Apollo bore his daughter away. He gave her all the jewels.
Then Calasiris persuaded some Phoenician merchants to take him and two friends on their ship as far as Sicily; and he ordered Theagenes and his young friends to kidnap Chariclea. She consented to the plan after Theagenes had bound himself by an oath never to force her love. After they were off, Charicles roused the city to pursuit of them. Calasiris after telling of the arrival of the Phoenician ship at Zacynthos interrupted his narrative to rest. Nausicles returned to the house and unknown to the others had brought Chariclea with him.
(Here the author himself gave a résumé of the adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea from the time they parted with Cnemon. In the cave the lovers had a long talk and made an agreement as to what they would do in case fortune again separated them: they would inscribe on temple, statue, herm or boundary stone, Theagenes the name Pythicus, Chariclea Pythias; the direction in which each departed; to what place or people; also the time of writing. For recognition if they met disguised they decided to use as signs Chariclea’s ring and Theagenes’ scar from a boar. Their watchwords were to be a lamp for her, a palm-tree for him. They sealed this covenant in kisses, then left the cave taking Chariclea’s sacred robes, her bow and quiver and her jewels.
Soon they met an armed band and were taken prisoners. The commander was Mithranes, an officer of Oroondates, viceroy of Egypt. Nausicles had persuaded him for pay to make this expedition to the island in search of his Thisbe. Nausicles on seeing Theagenes and Chariclea cleverly pretended that Chariclea was Thisbe, the object of his quest. Mithranes demanded Theagenes as his prize and despatched him to Oroondates as a fine youth for service with the Great King.)