“‘Pretty Clytie, raise your eyes to mine; for here, in your mother’s presence, I swear that you and no one else shall become my wife.’
“The young girl turned pale and snatched her hand from my clasp, but she did what I asked. She raised her large dark eyes and fixed them on mine—it seemed to me not with dislike.
“The mother, however, was very angry and thrust me away, saying:
“‘Who are you, Youth, who dares to speak so boldly to a modest maiden? Clytie—your wife! May all the gods forbid! Know that her father has promised her to another....’
“‘By Zeus!’ I interrupted, ‘that other shall yield, were he the king of Persia himself.’”
Myrmex looked up at his master and laughed in his beard at his audacity.
“The next morning,” Hipyllos continued, “on the walls, the bark of the trees, and the stones along the roadside were the words written by different hands:
‘Clytie is beautiful. No one
is lovelier than Clytie.’
“I alone did not write; but, at the hour that everybody was going to market, I rode my black Samphora steed through the narrow lane. It was very rare to hear the sound of hoofs there and, as I had anticipated, the pretty maid appeared at the peep-hole. Her room was where I had expected. She hastily drew back, but I saw by her glance that she had recognized me. The next day I again rode by. She did not vanish so quickly; but I didn’t speak to her, for I did not know whether she was alone. The last time I rode through the street I passed close by the house and laid a laurel-blossom in the loop-hole; when I came back it had been exchanged for a narcissus flower, which lay where it could be easily taken. I then sent Manidoros—whom you know: the boldest and most cunning of my slaves—to Phalerian street. He speedily ingratiated himself with Doris, the youngest of Xenocles’ female slaves, and how happy I was when one afternoon he came home and said:
“‘Everything has happened as you wish. Doris told me that her young mistress has seemed wholly unlike herself ever since she saw you. She weeps, dreams, and murmurs your name. But the man to whom her father has promised her—he is a great orator and writer of tragedies—she hates worse than death. Doris declares you have used some spell, and that the girl is bewitched.’”