“Chrysis offers up her prayer to thee, O Chrysea. Receive the paltry offering she lays at thy feet. Hear and aid, love and solace her who lives according to thy pattern and for the worship of thy name.”
She extended her hands golden with rings and bowed her knees before the Goddess.
The vague chant recommenced. The sound of the harps ascended towards the statue with the smoke of the incense which the priest was burning in a swinging censor.
She slowly rose and presented a bronze mirror which had been hanging at her girdle.
“To thee,” she said, “Astarte, Goddess of the Night, who minglest hands and lips and whose symbol is like unto the footprint of the hinds upon the earth of Syria, Chrysis consecrates her mirror. It has seen the eyes and the gleam of love in them, the hair clinging to the temples after the rites of thy ceremonial, O thou warrior with relentless hands thou mingler of bodies and mouths.”
The priest placed the mirror at the foot of the statue. Chrysis drew from her golden hair a long comb of red copper, the sacred metal of the Goddess.
“To thee,” she said, “Anadyomene, who wast born of the blood-hued dawn and the foaming smile of the sea, to thee, whose nakedness is like the gleam of pearls, who fastenest thy moist hair with ribbons of seaweed, Chrysis dedicates her comb. It has been plunged in her hair disordered by movements in thy name.”
She handed the comb to the old man and leant her head to the right to take off her emerald necklace.
“To thee,” she said, “O Hetaira, who wipest away the blushes of shamefaced virgins and teaches them the immodest laugh, to thee, for whom we barter our love, Chrysis dedicates her necklace. She received it from a man whose name she does not know and each emerald represents a kiss where thou hast dwelt for a moment.”