“By Zeus, there’s no difficulty about that. Make yourself small as he makes himself great—feign to be timid, and let him show himself brave. Then, when he has puffed himself up well, give him a real fright. Pretend that the meetings of the hetaeriae are discovered, that the house is surrounded by bowmen, and when he is trembling with terror and doesn’t know where to hide, do as Stratocles did with the cowards—give him an excuse to slip away, and he’ll speedily show the hollows under the soles of his feet.”
Hipyllos laughed. The pair talked together some time longer, and when the young man went away all anxiety and doubt had forsaken him.
XV.
Hipyllos’ letter was a joy and comfort to Clytie, but it did not soothe her. Five days was so short a time! Amid tears and caresses she confided in her mother, and described Hipyllos with such loving eloquence that Maira (her mother) was won over to her wishes. Though Clytie had little faith in her intercession, she went to her and by entreaties and persuasions induced her to promise to tell her story to Xenocles. Two of the five days had already passed, so there was no time to lose.
The next evening, when the husband and wife were supping together, the husband comfortably extended on a couch and the wife sitting humbly on its outer edge, Maira—not without a secret tremor—ventured to mention the subject; but the hot-tempered little man scarcely understood what she was talking about, ere he started up and repulsed her in such a way that she dared not revert to the matter again. Every hope of Maira’s assistance was thus cut off, and to speak to her father herself did not even enter the young girl’s mind. She could do nothing but fix her last faint hope on Hipyllos.
Yet, when the day before the wedding arrived without any prospect of deliverance, Clytie ceased to weep and fell into a state of dull insensibility, like a person who is utterly hopeless. “What is the use of pretending to be ill?” she thought. They will say: “It is nothing—it will pass off! Can I oppose them all? Can I keep the bridal procession waiting? No, even if I complain of sickness, they will lift me into the chariot and let that man carry me to his house.”
From that moment she felt as though she had no will in anything.
When evening came, the last evening she was to spend under her parents’ roof, her mother and a few female slaves were busied about her in her maiden-bower. It was a small room with reddish-brown walls, lighted by a clay lamp which stood on a brass tripod. Clytie sat on a low chair, with her face turned from the lamp, and Doris stood behind her in the act of fastening her hair into a knot. At the back of the room Maira and a middle-aged slave, who had been Clytie’s nurse, were busied in examining robes, kerchiefs, girdles, and over-garments, which they spread out on the young girl’s bed, a small maple-wood couch, covered with embroidered pillows and coverlets.
A sorrowful, troubled mood prevailed. Even the atmosphere of the little room was heavy, as though saturated with the peculiar damp freshness of women’s clean garments, mingled with a penetrating odor of ointments and Median apples, the latter being laid between the stuffs to perfume them. Now and then Clytie’s mother and the nurse exchanged a few words, but as softly as if they were trying not to disturb some sick person. Clytie resigned herself in perfect silence to the care of her favorite attendant, and even the latter’s nimble tongue was still.
Suddenly a girl’s merry voice was heard outside. According to ancient custom the bride, on her marriage eve, bathed in water brought from the Fountain of Enneacrunus.