Part 9 (2/2)

G. (to an old woman). Mother, are you from the palace?

Old Woman. Yes, my dears.

G. Has one a tolerable chance of getting there?

O.W. My pretty young lady, the Greeks got to Troy by dint of trying hard; trying will do anything in this world.

G. The old creature has delivered herself of an oracle and departed.

P. Women can tell you everything about everything. Jupiter's marriage with Juno not excepted.

G. Look, Praxinoe, what a squeeze at the palace gates!

P. Tremendous! Take hold of me, Gorgo, and you, Eunoe, take hold of Eutychis!--tight hold, or you'll be lost. Here we go in all together.

Hold tight to us, Eunoe. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Gorgo, there's my scarf torn right in two. For heaven's sake, my good man, as you hope to be saved, take care of my dress!

Stranger. I'll do what I can, but it doesn't depend upon me.

P. What heaps of people! They push like a drove of pigs.

Str. Don't be frightened, ma'am; we are all right.

P. May you be all right, my dear sir, to the last day you live, for the care you have taken of us! What a kind, considerate man! There is Eunoe jammed in a squeeze. Push, you goose, pus.h.!.+ Capital! We are all of us the right side of the door, as the bridegroom said when he had locked himself in with the bride.

G. Praxinoe, come this way. Do but look at that work, how delicate it is! how exquisite! Why, they might wear it in heaven!

P. Heavenly patroness of needle-women, what hands we hired to do that work? Who designed those beautiful patterns? They seem to stand up and move about, as if they were real--as if they were living things and not needlework. Well, man is a wonderful creature! And look, look, how charming he lies there on his silver couch, with just a soft down on his cheeks, that beloved Adonis--Adonis, whom one loves, even though he is dead!

Another Stranger. You wretched woman, do stop your incessant chatter.

Like turtles, you go on forever. They are enough to kill one with their broad lingo--nothing but a, a, a.

G. Lord, where does the man come from? What is it to you if we are chatterboxes? Order about your own servants. Do you give orders to Syracusan women? If you want to know, we came originally from Corinth, as Bellerophon did; we speak Peloponnesian. I suppose Dorian women may be allowed to have a Dorian accent.

P. Oh, honey-sweet Proserpine, let us have no more masters than the one we've got! We don't the least care for you; pray don't trouble yourself for nothing.

G. Be quiet, Praxinoe! That first-rate singer, the Argive woman's daughter, is going to sing the Adonis hymn. She is the same who was chosen to sing the dirge last year. We are sure to have something first rate from her. She is going through her airs and graces ready to begin.

And here the voices die away in the remote past. How difficult it is to believe that this dialogue took place more than two thousand years ago!

As a last glimpse of such a beautiful, modernly remote gem of conversation, we will give a few more words to show what those ancient gossipy ladies thought of their husbands.

The following are the last surviving words which Gorgo gave to the world:

Gorgo. Praxinoe, certainly women are wonderful things. That lucky woman, to know all that; and luckier still to have such a voice! And now we must see about getting home. My husband has not had his dinner. That man is all vinegar, and nothing else; and if you keep him waiting for his dinner he's dangerous to go near. Adieu! precious Adonis, and may you find us all well when you come next year!

He might have been a husband of yesterday!

For how many years have the husbands been coming home from work daily to partake of a meal which an attentive and tender wife has prepared for him? This was twenty-two hundred years ago.

<script>