“You have had a strange dream, philotata,” soothed Lysistra, shifting the pillows, “lie still and rest.”
But Hermione shook her shining brown head and repeated, many times:—
“No dream! No dream! I have seen Glaucon face to face. In that instant he spoke and looked on me I knew him. He lives. He saved me. Ah! why does he stay away?”
Lysistra, whose husband had not deemed it prudent to inform her of Themistocles’s revelations, was infinitely distressed. She sent for the best physicians of the city, and despatched a slave to the temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus—not distant—to sacrifice two cocks for her daughter’s recovery. The doctors looked wise and recommended heavy doses of spiced wine, and if those did not suffice, said that the patient might spend a night in the temple of the Healer, who would no doubt explain the true remedy in a dream. A “wise woman” who had great following among the slaves advised that a young puppy be tied upon Hermione’s temples to absorb the disaffection of her brain. Lysistra was barely persuaded not to follow her admonitions. After a few days the patient grew better, recovered strength, took an interest in her child. Yet ever and anon she would repeat over Phœnix’s cradle:—
“Your father lives! I have seen him! I have seen him!”
What, however, puzzled Lysistra most, was the fact that Cleopis did not contradict her young mistress in the least, but maintained a mysterious silence about the whole adventure.