COURTESANS.
Who was a courtesan as well as she;
And when Dexithea put aside with care
Nearly all the daintiest morsels for her mother,
She said, "I swear by Dian, had I known
How you went on, Dexithea, I would rather
Have gone to supper with your mother than you."
When this Gnathæna was advanced in years,
Hastening, as all might see, towards the grave,
They say she once went out into the market,
And look'd at all the fish, and ask'd the price
Of every article she saw. And seeing
A handsome butcher standing at his stall,
Just in the flower of youth,—"Oh, in God's name,
Tell me, my youth, what is your price ([Greek: pôs istês]) to-day?"
He laugh'd, and said, "Why, if I stoop, three obols."
"But who," said she, "did give you leave, you wretch,
To use your Carian weights in Attica?"
Stratocles once made all his friends a present
Of kids and shell-fish greatly salted, seeming
To have dress'd them carefully, so that his friends
Should the next morning be o'erwhelm'd with thirst,
And thus protract their drinking, so that he
Might draw from them some ample contributions.
Therefore Gnathæna said to one of her lovers,
Seeing him wavering about his offerings,
"After the kids[1] Stratocles brings a storm."
Gnathæna, seeing once a thin young man,
Of black complexion, lean as any scarecrow,
Reeking with oil, and shorter than his fellows,
Called him in jest Adonis. When the youth
Answer'd her in a rude and violent manner,
She looking on her daughter who was with her,
Said, "Ah! it serves me right for my mistake."
They say that one fine day a youth from Pontus
Was sleeping with Gnathæna, and at morn
He ask'd her to display her beauties to him.
But she replied, "You have no time, for now
It is the hour to drive the pigs to feed."
44. He also mentions the following sayings of Gnathænium, who was the grand-daughter of Gnathæna:—
It happen'd once that a very aged satrap,
Full ninety years of age, had come to Athens,
And on the feast of Saturn he beheld
Gnathænium with Gnathæna going out
From a fair temple sacred to Aphrodite,
And noticing her form and grace of motion,
.
—vii. 53. </poem> ]
- ↑ The Kids was a constellation rising about the beginning of October,
and supposed by the ancients to bring storms. Theocritus says—
<poem>
[Greek: chitan eph' hesperiois eriphois notos hygra diôkê
kymata
