with yoke chariot bearing down from heaven...
Come to me...free me from trouble...
P
Today I received a letter from Aesop, written at Adelphi. It is a joy to hear from him. I thought he had forgotten me. What a good companion he was, all those days in Corinth... Companion? He was more like a father!
His handwriting is the most perfect I have ever seen. Each letter formed so patiently, each thought expressed so beautifully. Does he strive for perfection because be cannot forget his deformity?
I remember his eyes used to transfix me with their brown hypnosis.
He must be fifty, I think.
He had his beard trimmed and his hair curled, every morning. His robes, so elegant, so clean, were always perfumed. I seldom saw him without his doll, that bull-leaping doll of Cretan ivory, brightly painted! But his apartment was simple, tastefully furnished, elegant as his clothes. Each bath towel, I recall, bore a brilliant red octopus.
When he looked after Alcaeus and me, we ate with him every day at least one meal. Through all the years of our exile, he remained our most faithful friend. His friends were our friends. His house was ours. His servants. He treated everyone with equal respect.
“I never forget that I was a slave,” he often said.