Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

THE CLASSICAL PERIOD

countries journeyed to see her because of the rarity of her disposition. When then the wedded husband of this lady died and was removed from the world, she was not contented with accompanying the corpse with dishevelled hair after the usual custom, and beating her bare breast before all the people, but she followed him even to his grave.

‘The dead man was brought in the Greek fashion into a vault, where she began to keep watch over his dead body and to weep day and night. Her grief was so violent that she wanted to starve herself to death; neither kinsfolk nor friends could dissuade her.

“ At last all the magistrates were sent to her, but were obliged to retire with a refusal. She had already passed five days without food, and everybody was touched by the virtue of the extraordinary woman, wept with her, and was deeply grieved on her account.

“This inconsolable lady was accompanied bya girl who was unusually attached to her, and wept, shedding tears with her as if the last man on earth had died : and if the lamp in the tomb seemed likely to go out, she refilled it with fresh oil. Nothing else was talked about in the city. Great and small, young and old with one accord confessed that the only true example of the purest chastity and love had appeared amongst them.

“Meanwhile, the commander of the province had crucified some rascals not far from the vault where the lady lamented her dead husband. The next night a soldier, who kept watch by the cross, so that no one might steal and bury any of the dead criminals, observed a bright light beneath the monuments and heard a mournful whimpering from that direction. After a mistake common to the whole human race his heart leaped up in his body in his anxiety to know what it was and what was going on there.

“ Accordingly he crept up and entered the vault,

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