"No," he answered, "Miriam herself is living poetry."
"The Jewess is proud," grumbled Massurius, "she scorned my gold with a look as if no one had ever bought a woman before."
"So the haughty Goth," said Lucius Licinius, "who walks with an air as if he earned all heaven's stars upon his curly head, has condescended to a Jewess."
"So I thought, and I determined, at the next opportunity, to laugh at the youth for his predilection for musk. But nothing of the sort! A few days later, I was obliged to go to Capua. I started before daybreak to avoid the heat. I drove out of the town through the Porta Capuana, just as it was dawning, and as I rattled over the hard stones before the Jews' tower, I thought with envy of Totila, and said to myself that he was then lying in the embrace of two white arms. But at the second milestone from the gate, walking towards the town, with two empty flower-baskets hanging over his breast and back, dressed in a gardener's costume, just as before, whom should I meet but Totila! Therefore he was not lying in Miriam's arms; the Jewess was not his sweetheart, but perhaps his confidante; and who knows where the flower that this gardener cherishes blooms? The lucky fellow! Only consider that on the Via Capuana stand all the villas and pleasure-houses of the first families of Neapolis, and that in these gardens flourish and bloom the loveliest of women."
"By my genius!" cried Lucius Licinius, lifting his wreathed goblet, "in that region live the most beautiful women of Italia--cursed be the Goths!"
"No," shouted Massurius, glowing with wine, "cursed be Kallistratos and the Corsican! who offer us strange love-stories, as the stork offered the fox food from narrow-necked flasks. Now, O mine host, let your girls in, if you have ordered any. You need not excite our expectation any further."
"Yes, yes! the girls! the dancers! the players!" cried the young guests all together.
"Hold!" said the host. "When Aphrodite comes, she must tread upon flowers. This glass I dedicate to thee, Flora!"
He sprang up, and dashed a costly crystal cup against the tabled ceiling, so that it broke with a loud ring. As soon as the glass struck the ceiling, the whole of it opened like a trap-door, and a thick rain of flowers of all kinds fell upon the heads of the astonished guests; roses from Pæstum, violets from Thurii, myrtles from Tarentum; covering with scented bunches the tesselated floor, the tables, the cushions, and the heads of the drinkers.
"Never," cried Cethegus, "did Venus descend more beautifully upon Paphos!"