“Aiboi! a piece of ill-luck!” he muttered, dropping the pebble, “she isn’t alone.”
Then kissing his hand to the bright ray of light, he passed on half reluctantly, farther in the direction of the Cerameicus, the northwestern part of the city.
Myrmex did not think much; but when an idea once entered his brain he did not let it go easily, and now asked for the third time:
“Master, master, what have you taken into your head?”
This time Hipyllos heard him. He cast a glance at his companion and, seeing his troubled face, understood the connection of ideas and burst into a loud laugh.
“Poor Myrmex,” he said, pinching the old man’s cheeks, “are you afraid of the thumb-screws? Pooh! You’ll escape! This is no matter of life and death, and a citizen can be compelled to have a slave tortured only in an affair of life and death.... Have you heard,” he continued, mischievously, “the story of Killikon from Miletus? He betrayed his native place to the citizens of Priene, and when his friends, during the preparations, asked what he had in view, constantly replied: ‘Nothing but good.’ Well then! when you ask what I have taken into my head I can, with still better reason, answer: ‘Nothing but good.’ For the maiden belongs to a highly-respected family, and I intend that she shall become my wife.”
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: