“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!”