The great hetæræ, who had never succeeded in making complete conquest of the fickle poet, were amazed at seeing him devotedly attached to a young girl from a dicterion, who was remembered by many adventurers in the Piræus. He took her out in his chariot, driving three horses with close-cropped manes, and to all the great feasts in the temples of Attica; in the morning he composed verses in her honor, and he awoke her by reciting them, while he flung a shower of rose petals upon her couch. He gave banquets to his artist friends that he might revel in their envy and admiration, when, at their conclusion, he had her exhibit herself nude upon the table, in all the magnificence of that perfect beauty which aroused a religious emotion in the Greeks.
Faithful to Simalion from gratitude at first, and finally enamored of the poet and of his works, Myrrhina adored him as teacher as well as lover. In a short time she learned to play the lyre, to recite verses in all the known styles, she read in her lover's library so diligently that she was able to hold her own among the guests at the banquets of artists, and was invited out among the most brilliant hetæræ of Athens.
Simalion, constantly growing more enthusiastic over his beloved, dissipated his fortune and his life. He ordered for her from Asia transparent mantles embroidered with fantastic flowers, through which shone her pearly flesh; gold dust to sprinkle upon her hair, making her like the goddesses, which the poets and artists of Greece always painted blonde; he charged the navigators to buy roses in Egypt of marvelous freshness. He was steadily growing more emaciated, his skin more pallid, and his gaze glowing with fever, coughing and lying in the arms of his mistress, his strength slipping away.
Thus two years passed, until one autumn afternoon, stretched on the lawn in his garden, his head resting on the knees of his beautiful inamorata, he heard his verses sung for the last time by the clear voice of Myrrhina, accompanied by the fluttering of her white fingers over the chords of the lyre. The setting sun caused Minerva's lance aloft by the Parthenon, dominating the city, to glow like a coal of fire; his boyish hand could scarce sustain the golden cup of honey and wine. He made an effort to kiss his mistress; the roses which crowned him fell apart, covering Myrrhina's breast with a shower of petals, and, uttering a plaint like that of a woman, he closed his eyes, falling upon that breast where he had lavished the last strength of his life.
The young girl wept for him with the desperation of a widow. She cut her splendid hair to lay it as an offering upon his tomb. She put aside her dazzling costumes, she dressed in dark wool like the Athenian women of virtuous homes, and remained in retirement in her house, which she kept closed and silent as a gynæceum.
The necessity of living, of maintaining the luxury to which she had become accustomed, of keeping a chariot and slaves and grooms, forced her, however, to consider her beauty, and the most celebrated hetæræ became alarmed at the new rival. Covered with a dark red wig to hide the tonsure of mourning, wrapped in fine veils from which her throat emerged adorned with pearls, her fresh and alabastrine arms loaded to the shoulders with bracelets, she showed herself at an upper window of her house with the grave majesty of a goddess awaiting veneration. The richest men of Athens paused by night in the Street of Tripods to gaze at the poet's widow, as the women in the Ceramaeicus sarcastically called her. Some, more daring, or tremulous with desire, raised the index finger in mute question; but vainly they awaited her affirmative reply—the customary sigil of the hetæræ, touching thumb to index finger as it were an annulus.
Few managed to gain entrance to the famous courtesan's house. They grumbled that some nights, in moments of tedium, she had opened her door to young students who were modeling their first statues in the gardens of the Academy, or reciting their unrenowned verses to the idle in the Agora—youths who could only afford to spend on pleasures a few oboli, or at most a drachma. On the other hand the rich, who offered golden stateres or several minæ to enter the house, were considered too poor to win favor. The old courtesans whispered into one another's ears, with a degree of respect, that a petty Asiatic king, on passing through Athens, had given Myrrhina two talents for one visit—as much as any republic in Greece would spend in a year—and that the beautiful hetæra, unmoved by such a fortune, had suffered his presence only while her clepsydra emptied itself once, for, tired of men, she measured prurience by her water-clock.
Fabulously rich merchants, on arriving at the Piræus, sought access to Myrrhina's house through the good offices of friends. They heaped presents upon the vagabond artists who were the courtesan's familiars, that they might be admitted to her suppers; and more than one, arriving at the port with a fleet loaded with rich merchandise, hastened to sell everything without waiting to discharge his cargo, so that he might stay in the poet's house; and he returned to his country with the help of charity, content with his poverty when he saw the envy and respect which he inspired among his companions.
Thus she met Bomaro, a young Iberian merchant from Zacynthus, who had come to Athens with three ships laden with hides. The courtesan was attracted by his sweetness, which contrasted with the rudeness of the other merchants brutalized by their contact with the great ports. He spoke little and blushed, as if the silence of his long stays at sea had given him the timidity of a virgin. If she forced him to relate his adventures as a navigator he did so with simplicity, without mentioning the dangers he encountered. He displayed particularly a childish admiration for Grecian culture.
Myrrhina, during the supper at which she saw him for the first time, surprised his eyes fixed on her with the expression of tenderness and respect of one gazing at a goddess impossible of possession. The navigator, reared among barbarians, in a remote colony scarcely retaining traces of its mother Greece, began to interest the courtesan more than the young Athenians and opulent merchants who surrounded her. Tremulous and hesitant he craved the grace of a single night, and spent it near her with more admiration than enjoyment, adoring her regal beauty, thrilled by her voice, put to sleep by it like a warm maternal lullaby, accompanied by the lyre.