Callisto once, who was nicknamed the Sow,
Was fiercely quarrelling with her own mother,
Who also was nicknamed the Crow. Gnathæna
Appeased the quarrel, and when ask'd the cause of it,
Said, "What else could it be, but that one Crow
Was finding fault with the blackness of the other?"
Men say that Hippe once, the courtesan,
Had a lover named Theodotus, a man
Who at the time was prefect of the granaries
And she on one occasion late in th' evening
Came to a banquet of King Ptolemy,
And she'd been often used to drink with him
So, as she now was very late, she said,
"I'm very thirsty, papa Ptolemy,
So let the cup-bearer pour me four gills
Into a larger cup." The king replied,
"You must have it in a platter, for you seem
Already, Hippe,[1] to have had plenty of hay."
A man named Morichus was courting Phryne,
The Thespian damsel. And, as she required
A mina, "'Tis a mighty sum," said Morichus,
"Did you not yesterday charge a foreigner
Two little pieces of gold?" "Wait till I want you,"
Said she, "and I will take the same from you."
'Tis said that Nico, who was call'd the Goat,
Once when a man named Pytho had deserted her,
And taken up with the great fat Euardis,
But after a time did send again for her,
Said to the slave who came to fetch her, "Now
That Pytho is well sated with his swine,
Does he desire to return to a goat?"
46. Up to this point we have been recapitulating the things mentioned by Macho. For our beautiful Athens has produced such a number of courtesans (of whom I will tell you as many anecdotes as I can) as no other populous city ever produced. At all events, Aristophanes the Byzantian counted up a hundred and thirty-five, and Apollodorus a still greater number; and Gorgias enumerated still more, saying that, among a great many more, these eminent ones had been omitted by Aristophanes—namely, one who was surnamed Paroinos, and Lampyris, and Euphrosyne: and this last was the daughter of a fuller. And, besides these, he has omitted Megisto, Agallis, Thaumarium, Theoclea (and she was nicknamed the Crow), Lenætocystos, Astra, Gnathæna, and her grand-daughter Gnathænium, and Sige, and Synoris (who was nicknamed the Candle), and Euclea, andmeaning a mare.]
- ↑ There is a pun here on her name,—[Greek: Hippê
