Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates, стр. 326

EROTIC IN GREEK LITERATURE

may still find here the very things for which he craves. The poem which describes the bargaining of a young man with one of those girls who are always ready to oblige for money is pretty, since it is dramatically enlivened. It is a play of question and answer, as the superscription in the MS. runs :

Good evening, miss. Good evening, sir, to you,

And what’s your name? What’s yours, I’d like to know.

You’re rather curious, miss. You're curious, too.

Are you engaged? To anyone I please.

Then sup with me: how much? No advance fees,

To-morrow you shall pay me at your ease.

Fair terms, my charmer ; now when will you come?

Just when you please. At once? Well, you are some ;

I'll tell you where I live, and you shall take me home.

Together with idle jests—e.g., that his name “ Philodemus ”’ accounts for his being obliged to love many girls called Demo—we find such an effective and lifelike picture as the words of the deceived lady-love: ‘‘ At midnight I left my husband’s bed and came secretly to thee, drenched with rain. That is why we sit doing nothing, nor do we sleep tired out, as lovers ought to sleep.”

Another time in beautiful words he calls upon Selene, the moon-goddess, to shed her mild light upon him in the work of love; she also has been once in love with Endymion, and hence knows what love is. A tender maiden, still almost a child, has a presentiment of the violent flame, which she will soon fan into a blaze ; already Eros is sharpening his unerring arrows on the whetstone.

His lady-love’s petty jealousies and amorous whims give him occasion to complain: “~ You weep, utter miserable words, look round curiously, are jealous, often touch me, often kiss me. ‘This is the behaviour of a lover; but when I say ‘I am

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