She lived like the free, poor courtesans whom the Athenian youths called "she-wolves" on account of their howling. At first she spent whole days without eating, but she considered herself more happy than her former companions of the port of Phalerum, or in the district of Estiron, slaves of the masters of the dicteria. Her market now was the Cerameicus, a large district of Athens, along the wall between the gates of the Cerameicus and the Dipylon, in which were the garden of the Academy and the tombs of the illustrious citizens who had died for the Republic. By day the great hetæræ went or sent their slaves to see if their names were written in charcoal on the wall of the Cerameicus. The Athenian who desired a courtesan would write her name, with the sum offered, and if this were to the liking of the hetæra she tarried near the inscription until the coming of the favored proponent. In broad daylight the great courtesans appeared there, almost nude, wearing purple sandals, wrapped in flowered mantles, wearing crowns of fresh roses on their hair, powdered with gold. The poets, the rhetoricians, the artists, the distinguished citizens strolled through the green groves of the Cerameicus or along the porticos adorned with statues, chatting with the courtesans, having to rack their brains to keep even with their repartee.
When night came on an irruption of wretched, ragged women filled the promenade, dispersing among the tombs of the renowned dead. It consisted of the dregs of Athenian gayety which lived in liberty under cover of the darkness—old courtesans who, trusting in the night, came out to conquer bread in the same place where in other times they had reigned with the power of beauty; fugitive dicteriadai, slave women who had run away from their owners for a few hours, and women of the plebs seeking alleviation of their poverty. Hiding behind the tombs, among the clumps of laurels, they remained as motionless as sphinxes, and scarcely did the steps of a man disturb the silence of the Cerameicus, than from all sides arose faint howls calling to the new arrival. Frequently they fled in mad race on recognizing the official whose duty it was to collect the pornikontelos, a tax imposed by Solon upon the courtesans and one which constituted the largest revenue of Athens. At midnight the passer-by crossing the Cerameicus on his return from a banquet, would hear around him the rustle and whispering of an invisible world which seemed to sweep over the turf and the gleaming sand. The poets jestingly averred that the ghosts of the great departed were groaning in their capacious tombs.
Thus Myrrhina lived until she was fifteen, spending the night in the Cerameicus and the day in the hut of an old woman of Thessaly who, in common with all her countrywomen enjoyed great fame as a witch, and assisted at births as well as sold love-philters, and retouched the faces of those who were fading.
Innumerable things the little lupa learned at the side of the old woman, bony and ugly as a Parca! She helped her grind the white lead which, mixed with isinglass, filled the wrinkles of the face; she prepared the bean flour to anoint the breasts and abdomen, to make the skin tight and elastic; she filled little flasks with antimony to give brilliancy to the eyes; she made a liquid preparation of carmine for coloring with light touches the paste-filled wrinkles, and she listened with profound attention to the wise counsels with which the old woman instructed her pupils, so that they might show off their particular charms to the best advantage and hide their defects. The old Thessalian advised the girls with plump bodies to use cork soles inside their shoes, and the tall ones to wear light sandals, and to shrink their heads down between their shoulders; she made pads for the thin, whalebone corsets for the stout, she stained the gray hair with soot, and those who had good teeth she obliged to carry a stalk of myrtle between their lips, counseling them to smile at the slightest word.
The young girl possessed the old witch's confidence to such an extent that she assisted her in the most dangerous part of her science, the confection of love-philters and the making of charms, which had more than once caused her to be prosecuted by the officials of the Areopagus. The richest hetæræ consulted her about their desires and revenges, and she gave them the benefit of her knowledge. To accomplish the impotence of a man or the sterility of a woman, it was only necessary to give them a glass of wine in which a barbel had been stewed; to attract a forgetful lover a cake of unleavened dough was burned in a fire made of branches of thyme and laurel; and to convert love into hatred it was only necessary to follow the man, stepping in his tracks the opposite way, placing the right foot where he had put his left, and murmuring at the same time: "I am upon you, I step on you." If one wished to cause a satiated lover to return, the old woman rolled a bronze ball which she carried in her bosom, asking Venus to cause the lover to roll in over the threshold of the door in the same manner, and if the conjury produced no effect, the wax image of the person beloved was thrown into the brazier while asking the gods to melt the frozen heart with love even as the figure melted. With these enchantments, accompanied by mysterious invocations, went philters composed of aphrodisiacs and exciting herbs, which frequently led to death.
One moonlight spring night Myrrhina had an adventure in the Cerameicus, which resulted in her abandoning the den of the Thessalian. Seated behind a tomb, her howl soft as a lament attracted a man wrapped in a white mantle. By the brilliancy of his eyes and the insecurity of his step he seemed to be intoxicated. He wore on his head a crown of withered roses.
Myrrhina divined that he was a distinguished citizen coming from a banquet. It was the poet Simalion, a young aristocrat who had won a crown in the Olympian games, and in whom Athens saw revived the inspiration of Anacreon. The richest hetæræ sang his verses at banquets to the music of the lyre, and virtuous dames murmured them in the solitude of the gynæceum, flushing with emotion. The most famous beauties of Athens contended for the poet, and he, already an invalid in his young manhood, and unable to resist the strain of worldly adoration, took refuge in the temple of Æsculapius when the cough compelled him to spit blood; he went on a pilgrimage to the healing springs throughout Greece and the islands; and no sooner did he begin to feel stronger, with new blood surging through his veins, than, scorning the doctors, he began once more the round of banqueting with business men and artists of Attica, in company with famous hetæræ and genteel Cyprians, rolling from the arms of one to another; paying for the caresses with verses which the city afterward repeated; ever ardent, and consuming his life like the torch which at the nocturnal feasts of Dionysus was passed by the chain of bacchantes from hand to hand until lost in the infinite.
Coming from one of these orgies he met Myrrhina, and contemplating in the moonlight her youthful beauty, undimmed and almost childlike there in a place frequented by the filthy lupas, he raised his hand to his eyes as if he feared he were being deceived by the aberrations of intoxication. This must be Psyche with those firm, harmoniously curving breasts, round as cups; with those correct and gentle outlines which would have been the despair of sculptors at the Academy. The poet experienced the same satisfaction as when, after hours of solitary plodding along the wall of Themistocles from Athens to the port, he hit upon the culminating verse of an ode.
She started to drag him to the old Thessalian's hut, but Simalion, dazzled by the marble flesh which seemed to shine through the rags, took her to his beautiful residence on the Street of Tripods, and there Myrrhina remained like a lady, with slaves and luxurious garments.
This caprice of the poet astounded all Athens. In the Agora and in the Cerameicus they talked of nothing but Simalion's new love. They marveled at the rescue of a precious stone, forgotten and lost in the sands, which suddenly shone forth on the forehead of a grandee.