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

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Met.: Ask her to come in. Who is it?

Thr.: Gylls.

Met.: Mother Gyllis? Take yourself off, girl. [Threissa goes out.| What destiny persuaded you to visit me, Gyllis? Why have you come like a god to men? For I think it is about five months since anyone has seen you coming to my door, even in a dream.

Gy.: I live a long way off, my child, and in the streets the mud comes up to one’s knees. I am no more good than a fly, for old age is dragging me down and the shadow of death is near.

Met.: Hush! don’t tell lies about your age, for you are still able, Gyllis, to hug some more men.

Gy.: Jeer as much as you like, it is the nature of you young women to do so; but don’t get excited. But, my child, what a lonely life yours must be, wearing yourself away on a solitary couch. For since Mandris started for Egypt it is ten months, and he has not even written to you ; he has forgotten you and has drunk anew of the cup of love. ‘There is the home of Aphrodite; for anything—all that there is or has been anywhere—is in Egypt : wealth, palaestrae, power, peace, glory, goddesses, philosophers, gold plate, young court favourites, the sacred precincts of the two deified brothers, the good king, the museum, wine, every good thing you can want, and women—what numbers of them ! By the queen of Hades, the sky cannot boast of having as many stars, women to look at like the goddesses who once hurried to Paris to be judged in beauty—may I not be heard to mention their names. How does it feel warming your empty couch? You will waste away unseen and the ashes of decay will consume your ripe beauty. Look somewhere else and for two or three days change your course, and be happy with another friend ; a ship moored with a single anchor is unsafe. If Mandris goes below, he is dead and done, for

65 FE