And drink all day. And she, as I do think,
Has the same fate the eagles have; for they,
When they are young, down from the mountains stoop,
Ravage the flocks and eat the timid hares,
Bearing their prey aloft with fearful might.
But when they're old, on temple tops they perch,
Hungry and helpless; and the soothsayers
Turn such a sight into a prodigy.
And so might Lais well be thought an omen;
For when she was a maiden, young and fresh,
She was quite savage with her wondrous riches;
And you might easier get access to
The satrap Pharnabazus. But at present,
Now that she's more advanced in years, and age
Has meddled with her body's round proportions,
'Tis easy both to see her and to scorn her.
Now she runs everywhere to get some drink;
She'll take a stater—aye, or a triobolus;
She will admit you, young or old; and is
Become so tame, so utterly subdued,
That she will take the money from your hand.
Anaxandrides also, in his Old Man's Madness, mentions Lais, and includes her with many other courtesans in a list which he gives in the following lines:—
A. You know Corinthian Lais?
B. To be sure;
My countrywoman.
A. Well, she had a friend,
By name Anthea.
B. Yes; I knew her well.
A. Well, in those days Lagisca was in beauty;
Theolyta, too, was wondrous fair to see,
And seemed likely to be fairer still;
And Ocimon was beautiful as any.
27. This, then, is the advice I want to give you, my friend Myrtilus; and, as we read in the Cynegis of Philetærus,—
Now you are old, reform those ways of yours;
Know you not that 'tis hardly well to die
In the embraces of a prostitute,
As men do say Phormisius perished?
Or do you think that delightful which Timocles speaks of in his Marathonian Women?—
How great the difference whether you pass the night
With a lawful wife or with a prostitute!
Bah! Where's the firmness of the flesh, the freshness
Of breath and of complexion? Oh, ye gods!
What appetite it gives one not to find
Everything waiting, but to be constrain'd
