WIn Athens, daughters inherited only in default of male heirs.
WIn Athens, daughters inherited only in default of male heirs.
Much as Myrtale was absorbed in her grief, she felt the importance of the arrangements which would decide her fate. So it was a great relief to her when Polycles said that he was too old to take a young wife and, moreover, had been warned in a dream against marrying again. One night in his sleep he had seen his house decked with garlands as though for a bridal; but when he was leading the bride home the green wreath vanished and, in its place above the door, hungan oil-jar, twined with a blue ribbon, as though for an offering at a tomb. The interpreter of dreams being consulted had said that if Polycles married he would die on his wedding day.
Polycles then asked the young girl to consider him a second father, and added that he would not act against her wishes in the choice of a bridegroom.
During the day another shock of earthquake was felt, and though it did no damage except to open cracks in the ancient walls of the city, universal terror was aroused. Some fled to the market-place, and others, fearing another flood, to the nearest heights. This dread, however, proved groundless. On the contrary, the water in the inundated streets began to fall so rapidly that the boats were obliged to follow it in haste, and by noon they were again lying at their usual place, moored to the lime-stone quay, though this quay no longer rose so far above the surface of the tide and the whole of the old shore, with its pebbles, sea-weed, and mussel-shells, remained under the waves.
Simonides’ funeral was conducted as beseemed a wealthy family. The corpse, crowned with myrtle and resting on embroidered pillows, was displayed upon a couch, where it was seen during the day by a throng of citizens, old and young, rich and poor, some of the latter clad in grey or black clothes with closely cut hair, asserting by this mourning garb a distant relationship.
On the day of the funeral obsequies hundreds of persons assembled outside the house and, before the sunrose, the funeral procession started amid the mournful notes of Carian flutes, alternating with a chorus of men’s voices. This choir was followed by the dead man’s friends and acquaintances, numbering more than half the citizens of the place. Then came the bier, an ivory bed, borne by friends and freedmen, among them Lycon, to whom many hands pointed and many lips mentioned as the “preserver of the city, the quick-witted Athenian.” On the ivory couch lay the dead man, robed in white and covered with so many wreaths and blue and red sacrifice ribbons, that the magnificent purple carpet in which he was wrapped could scarcely be seen. By the side of the bier walked slaves bearing oil jars, boxes of ointment, and other articles belonging to the funeral rites. Then came a few elderly kinswomen, for Myrtale was too young to follow the corpse. The train was closed by a few sacrifice attendants in short parti-colored mantles and light half boots, who bore on their heads small offering-tables covered with offerings of the same kind as those the slaves carried beside the bier.
At the farthest end of Polycles’ garden the funeral train stopped on a height which afforded a view of the city, harbor, bay, and country beyond. This had always been Simonides’ favorite spot, and he had often expressed a desire to be laid to rest here.
At the foot of the hill was seen the huge funeral pyre, a heap of logs filled with combustible materials. After it had been adorned with the jars, vases, and dishes brought, and the bier lifted upon it, it waslighted by torches. Amid the sobs and wails of the spectators, the flames flared high into the air and in an instant the smoke and red blaze enveloped the bier, concealing it from every eye. Many an oil jar, many a box of ointment was now flung upon the fire as a last token of affection and, when it was once more possible to see the pyre, the bier had crumbled into a dark, shapeless mass, from which rose a column of black smoke.
The majority of the procession returned to Polycles’ house and there, as the dead man’s guests, partook of a festal banquet. Some few, among them Lycon, remained until the ashes were collected and the bones committed to the bosom of the earth.
Three days after the first, and nine days after the second offering to the dead was brought to the grave. About a week later a marble column was erected upon it, crowned with a capital made of colored acanthus leaves. The thirtieth day after the funeral obsequies Myrtale twined the memorial column with blue and red sacrifice ribbons from which hung small oil jars, after which she poured milk, honey, spring-water, and mixed wine on the ground as a sacrifice to the rich man’s shade, taking careful heed to throw each one of the vessels she had used over her shoulder, so that they were shattered, for none of the articles which had served at a funeral ceremonial could be used by the living.
With this offering the time of mourning ended.
A few days later Polycles and Myrtale visited Simonides’ country-house to look after a vineyard whose fruit, in Polycles’ opinion, was the best in Thessaly. When they returned home, accompanied by a male and female slave, evening was approaching. The sun was sinking behind some hills, and the atmosphere glowed with orange and crimson hues. The road they were following was only marked by a few deep wheel tracks in the grass; on the right was a clump of gnarled olive trees, whose foliage as usual reflected the color of the sky, so that now in the sunset radiance they seemed covered with a golden veil; on the left a brook flowed between hedges of flowering laurel. A light mist was rising from the meadows, and the whole air was filled with the spicy odor of blossoms. Ever and anon a faint twitter echoed from the bushes; sometimes a bee, apparently bewildered and drowsy, buzzed upward from the grass at their feet, and through the profound stillness of the country a dog’s bark was heard in the distance.
There was something in the peacefulness of the evening which invited familiar conversation. Polycles took Myrtale’s hand.
“Dear child,” he said. “It is time to think of your affairs.”
“What do you mean, Polycles?”
“I am wondering whether among the youths of the city, whom you must have seen on festival days, there is not one you would like for a husband.”
Myrtale blushed faintly, but shook her head.
“There is Theagenes, the son of Straton, the dyer. True, he is rather stout for a young man, but he is clever, talks well, and has a fortune at least as large as your own.”
Myrtale made no reply; but struck, with the tassel on the corner of her upper robe, the head of a dandelion growing by the roadside, so that its white down flew in every direction.
Polycles understood that the proposed suitor was excluded from the list.
“There is Eumolpus, son of Socles the rope-maker!” he continued. “He is slender, well-formed, and handsome. True, he is on intimate terms with a hetaira, but after marriage....”
Myrtale made no answer in words; but the tassel was put in motion with the same result as before.
“There is also,” added Polycles, “young Nicias, your neighbor’s son. I don’t deny that since his visit to Athens he has become a dandy; but....”
This was too much for Myrtale; she forgot the reserve required of a young girl and wrathfully exclaimed:
“The coxcomb!”
“But is there no one?”
Myrtale silently lowered her eyes; then, to change the conversation, said:
“How is the house in the Street of the Bakers? Has it been much damaged by the flood and the earthquake?”
“Only one of the pillars in the peristyle was twisted awry; but the damage has been repaired and, so far as your home is concerned, you can have the wedding there any day.”
As they approached the city Myrtale became more and more thoughtful. Suddenly she sighed, drew her hand from her companion’s clasp, and remarked:
“It’s a pity that Lycon is a slave!” Then, as if fearing she had said too much, she hastened to add: “Don’t you think so, too?”
Polycles looked keenly at her and, in spite of the dusk of evening, he noticed that her cheeks were flushed.
“You are mistaken, child,” he replied. “Lycon is no slave. Your father freed him on the day of his death.”
“And I knew nothing about it?”
“You were standing at the hearth, preparing the decoction the physician had ordered.”
“My dear father!” exclaimed Myrtale, deeply moved, kissing her fingers as if she had seen the dead man alive before her.
“But that doesn’t settle everything,” said Polycles gravely. “In Athens Lycon is a spurious citizen and subject to the penalty of the law. He would be made a slave there.”
Myrtale started.
“Do what you can for him,” she said hurriedly, clasping Polycles’ hand in both her own.
“That is no easy matter,” replied Polycles, who found a secret satisfaction in being entreated to do what he himself intended. “It’s no easy matter, I tell you.”
“Youcanfree him, if youwish. Remember what he has done for the city. Besides, did he not save my father’s life and mine?”
“I’ll think of it,” said Polycles.
“No, no, you must promise me!” exclaimed Myrtale. “Save him from the punishment of the law, and I will be a daughter to you!” And raising herself on tiptoe, she flung her arms around Polycles’ neck and kissed him on the cheek.
Polycles felt the soft pressure of Myrtale’s youthful figure and, when he had taken leave of her at the door of the women’s apartment in his house, he stood still, absorbed in thought.
“By Aphrodite!” he cried, “the girl is bewitching, and I am not so old....”
But at the same instant he beheld, as he had done in his dream, the oil-jar suspended by a blue ribbon over the door of his house. He pressed his hands upon his eyes and, when he entered his lonely sleeping-room, he said, sighing:
“Polycles, you are a greater simpleton than I had supposed.”
The next morning the public criers summoned the citizens to a popular assembly, and soon after the streets were filled with young and old, rich and poor, who, amid hubbub, shrieks, and laughter, flocked towards the theatre, the place where popular assemblies were usually held in the smaller cities.
Thessaly, renowned for its beautiful river valley, its fine horses, and its powerful sorceresses, was at that time under the sole rule of Alexander of Pherae—a man who treated his subjects so harshly that he ordered some to be buried alive and had others dressed in bear-skins and torn to pieces by dogs. Like all tyrants, he lived in perpetual fear. He had so little faith in his own body guard that he had himself watched by a dog; he spent the night in the upper loft of his stately palace, that he might be able to draw the ladder up after him. The family to which he belonged had raised themselves from Tagoi, chiefs elected by the people, to sovereigns, and he himself, like his predecessor, had paved his way to power by murder.
But heavily as Alexander’s yoke rested upon the city of Pherae, it was comparatively little felt in Methone, though the latter was scarcely a day’s journey away. When the little city had sent its quota of men to the army and paid its taxes, the citizens had full liberty to attend to their own affairs, while the descendantsof the original inhabitants of the country, as slaves, penestae, performed all the field work and drudgery. Whoever did not know better might have easily believed that Methone was a free state.
On the way to the place of assembly, Polycles followed the least frequented streets. Suddenly he signed to the slaves who accompanied him to keep back and, throwing his arm over Lycon’s shoulder, he said to him:
“My friend, I have important matters to discuss with you to-day! You know that Simonides, in his last will, left me his fortune and his daughter. But, as I am too old to marry a young wife, I want to ask if you are willing to take the girl with a dowry of eighteen talents?”
Lycon stopped, but did not utter a word in reply. If the rude statue of Poseidon in front of the temple of the god had suddenly descended from its pedestal and come towards him, he could not have been more speechless with bewilderment.
“That this may be done,” Polycles continued smiling, “I will adopt you as a son and make you my heir. True, I should have preferred a suitor who was the girl’s equal in birth, but as she seems to incline to you, I will submit to her wish.”
Lycon drew a long breath, and passed his huge hand over his face several times.
“I thank you, Polycles,” he said at last, “I thank you from my heart! But how is this to be? I am a freedman, it is true; but you forget....”
“I forget nothing,” answered Polycles. “But one thing you must know—the citizens must hear the whole story ... your condition of slave, your sin, and the punishment whose mark you bear. In a little place like Methone nothing can be hidden, so it is better to confess everything yourself rather than have it discovered by others. Besides, matters relating to inheritance, marriage, and other kindred affairs are often discussed in our popular assemblies. Here, where all the citizens know each other, no distinction is made between public and private business.”
In front of the theatre the city police were busily engaged in urging on the groups of gossiping, laughing citizens by threatening to mark them with ropes covered with red paint. These ropes left ugly stains on mantles, and the people therefore tried to avoid them.
But the largest crowd outside of the theatre was not disturbed by the police. It consisted of slaves waiting for the close of the assembly to attend their masters to the market, baths, or gymnasium. These slaves were no less merry than the citizens. Their attention was specially directed to the flat roofs of the nearest houses, where a group of young slave-girls were busily sunning rugs and cushions, to get an opportunity to see the throngs of men and be seen by them. Signs, not always the most seemly, were sometimes exchanged between the square before the theatre and the roofs.
At the entrance the recording clerk objected to admitting Lycon; but Polycles patted him on the shoulder,saying: “If this man isn’t a citizen of Methone, he will soon become one. Let him go in.”
The interior of the theatre presented a deep, semi-circular recess, surrounded by a mound of earth slanting upward, covered with stone benches, and supported by a thick encircling wall. About the center of the place, between the seats rising around, stood the altar, where, at the moment Polycles and Lycon entered, a priest in a long white robe, with a garland on his hair, was in the act of offering the customary sacrifice of purification. When this short ceremony was over the chief magistrate took his seat and a struggle, half jest, half earnest, followed, for all wanted places in the front row where they could hear best.
The chief magistrate opened the meeting by relating the misfortunes which had recently overwhelmed the place. When he spoke of the efficient service rendered by the boats during the flood, a smith rose in the crowd and in a deep voice shouted:
“Let us not forget the brave Athenian, Lycon. But for him many of us would have perished. It is he who saved us by first unmooring the boats.”
“Yes, yes, the smith is right!” responded many voices, with an earnestness which showed that the speakers themselves had been among the number of those rescued.
The dead and missing had not even one word of remembrance. Human life was of little value in those days. On the other hand, the magistrate did not forget to mention that the lands of the city had sufferedvery little damage, almost all of them having been too high to be reached by the flood. The shocks of earthquake had caused warm springs, which possibly possessed healing powers, to bubble up in many places, and in that case they might become a source of great wealth to the city and perhaps render it as much frequented as Aedepsus in Eubœa.
As exaggerated rumors of the injury sustained by the city had been in circulation, this report was received with joy, and the assembly was in the best humor when a tall, thin man, with hollow cheeks and a long beard, stepped forward saying:
“I am a friend of the simple, frugal customs of our ancestors.”
“That’s why you go ragged and shoeless,” shouted a youthful voice from one of the nearest passages between the seats.
The speaker was a little disconcerted, but recovered his composure.
“I do not favor the new custom of bestowing on any one who does the place a trifling service the high-sounding title of benefactor of the city, and overwhelming him with rewards and marks of distinction. If we keep on so there will soon be as many benefactors as citizens; one after another is not only released from paying taxes, but granted money to boot, while the really useful citizens, the instructors of youth and the people....”
“Who is that speaking?” asked a white-beardedold man on the front row of seats, holding his hand to his ear to catch the answer:
“That is the orator, Philopator,” replied the person addressed, with a scornful emphasis on the word “orator.”
“He’s also called the man with the mustard face,” added another.
As these explanations were given to a deaf man, Philopator could not avoid hearing them. Perceiving that the current of feeling was against him, he continued more rapidly with visible irresolution.
“The gods forbid that I should envy anybody. No one can feel a deeper reverence for actual services, deeds truly great, exploits really noble. But, my friends, is there anything great in saving a few people in a boat? That requires neither the sage’s sagacity, the warrior’s courage, nor the sacrifice of self. It is a thing any one can do, the ignorant as well as the expert.”
“Then you ought to have done it, Philopator,” shouted the smith’s deep voice, and as there was something in Philopator’s appearance that showed he had never handled an oar, the interruption caused immoderate laughter.
Philopator wiped the perspiration from his brow.
“I have never boasted of seamanship,” he replied.
The words were received with a fresh outbreak of mirth.
“You have talked enough!” cried a voice.
“We know what you want to say!” shouted a second.
“Back to your seat!” added a third.
Then, as the luckless orator still remained standing, a terrible tumult arose and at the same time deafening shouts burst like a gust of wind or a sudden tempest over the assembly.
The wretched Philopator, at whom hundreds of throats were yelling, became fairly frantic. He turned deadly pale, tore his hair, and ran to and fro in the level space as though out of his senses. As his voice would have been lost amid the shouts, he threw himself humbly on his knees and extended his arms towards the benches from which echoed the most furious cries. At last the storm subsided and the smith’s deep voice said:
“Go back to your seat, Philopator, that’s the best thing to do.”
The orator followed the good advice and, trembling from head to foot, slunk back to his place, where he cowered making himself as small as possible.
Polycles signed to Lycon to seat himself behind the bema, where he was concealed from every one; then he himself stepped forward, apparently as calm as when moving among the guests in front of his house.
“Fellow citizens,” he said, “I am no professional orator like Philopator yonder, but perhaps you will listen to me, since I wish to speak to you of a man who came to us in an evil time and who, within a few days, has become dear to the whole city.”
“Speak, speak!” shouted numerous voices.
“Much evil and much good can be told of him. I will begin with the evil.... You think Lycon is an Athenian—he is not. You think Lycon is a citizen—he is not that either. He is a freedman, who a little more than a month ago was a slave.”
This statement was followed by silence so profound that no one would have believed himself to be in the same place and among the same men who a short time before were yelling at Philopator. Amid the breathless expectation of the throng, external surroundings suddenly seemed like a revelation from another world. The wind was heard sighing through the tree-tops and the swallows twittering in the air. Many on the back seats rose and held their hands behind their ears, that they might not lose a single word.
Polycles did not spare Lycon, but told the people that his dead friend Simonides a few years before had bought a young slave named Zenon, who, after being branded for theft, had fled to Poseidon’s altar. For a long time Zenon had served his new master well; but when he saw a man from Hypata pay Simonides a large sum of money, he ran away with it during the night.
A movement passed through the assembly, one man muttered to another. Polycles foresaw a fresh storm.
“Friends and fellow citizens,” he said in a jesting tone; “we know each other, so I shall not ask you to keep quiet. On the contrary, I will beg you to chatterand yell to your hearts’ content, in order to have it over the sooner.”
Some of the men laughed; but most were already too angry to allow themselves to be softened by a jest.
“A branded slave!” cried some.
“And we have been permitted to do him honor!”
“Why did no one tell us?”
“Let us drive this Zenon out of the city!”
“We’ll stone him!”
“Truly a fine benefactor to add to the rest of the city’s benefactors!” shouted Philopator. But those who sat nearest seized his robe and forced him back into his seat. As he made wild gestures with his arms and assumed the air of a deeply injured man, the smith turned towards him.
“Philopator!”
He merely uttered the man’s name, but in precisely the same tone as if he had been a dog. Philopator made no reply, but shrunk into as small a space in his corner as possible.
At the sight of this submission, which could only be explained by a thorough respect for the smith’s brawny fists, a noisy expression of mirth ran through the assembly.
Polycles continued:
“I will now speak of Lycon’s good qualities,” and he related how the latter had been respected as a citizen and popular with all in Athens. “We Methonians,” he added, “have cause to be proud that an insignificant slave from this city was found worthy toassociate with the leading men in Athens, so that he was daily seen arm in arm with the rich Timotheus, son of Conon.”
Polycles knew his fellow citizens, the Methonians. If anything could flatter their pride, it would be to have one of their own number, and a poor slave into the bargain, win favor and affection in Athens.
“Even if the man did once take what belonged to others,” observed a friendly philosopher, “there may be some good in him.”
“Yes, Lycon is really a good man,” replied Polycles, and now related how the latter, who was living so prosperously in Athens, had no sooner heard of Simonides’ illness and the slaves’ neglect than he sold everything he possessed and came to Methone to restore order in the household and obtain his master’s forgiveness.
“That was a noble act! Yes, by Zeus, a noble act!” shouted many voices.
Polycles then spoke of the flood and, by a clever inspiration, described how Philopator, who thought it was so easy to save a few people in a boat, would have behaved. At sight of the gigantic billow that rolled in, threatening to sweep everything away, he would surely have been no less disconcerted than at the storm which had recently burst upon him in the assembly. He would have fled at full speed up the street, but would have been overtaken by the water and met his death with the men in the boats. But how had Lycon behaved? Instead of flying before the flood, he hadjumped into the nearest boat and, instead of thinking solely of himself, in the midst of the peril had remembered others and warned the men in the rest of the boats. “Had it not been for Lycon,” said Polycles, raising his voice, “not only would thirty men in the boats have perished, but a number of free citizens, as well as slaves, would have lost their lives in the flooded streets. For, on that day of misfortune, Lycon, with perhaps a score of boats, saved from about twenty flooded houses eighty citizens, men, women and children, besides more than two hundred and seventy slaves. So great is the number of those who owe their lives to Lycon.”
A deafening tumult of joy arose, a storm of applause, and it was long ere Polycles could again be heard.
“I think, therefore,” he added, “that Lycon has some claim—even if Philopator does not consider it—to deserve the name of benefactor of the city.”
Just at that moment a voice from one of the back seats shouted: “Where is Lycon? We want to see him.”
The cry was instantly taken up by all, and the whole theatre echoed with the call: “Where is Lycon?”
“It seems to me,” said Polycles, smiling, “that the very men who a short time ago wanted to drive Lycon out of the city and stone him, are now shouting the loudest.”
These words roused much noisy hilarity. Theworthy Methonians could not help laughing themselves at the ease with which they passed from one extreme to the other.
“As I knew you would want to see Lycon,” Polycles added, “I have, with the chief magistrate’s permission, brought him with me.” He beckoned to Lycon and the latter, pale with emotion but apparently calm, now came forward before the rampart of human faces formed by the seats towering before him.
At the sight of Lycon’s frank, good-natured face and powerful form, a new and long continued storm of applause arose.
“Dear friends and fellow citizens,” Polycles began again, “I will propose to you to reward this man in a way that will bring no great expense upon the city and yet, perhaps, best suit his own wishes. Simonides, as you know, bequeathed me his fortune with his daughter. But, as I am too old to take a young wife and the girl has a fancy for Lycon, I thought of giving her to him in marriage, by which he will come into possession of the greater part of her property. But, to do this, you must make him a citizen; then I will adopt him as a son and name him my heir, that he may become a proper suitor. But to prevent any one in future from taunting Lycon with having been a branded slave, I propose to you that as a public reward, you bestow upon him exemption from taxes and a free maintenance in the Prytaneium.
“Lastly, let there be hung in the temple of Poseidon a tablet bearing a representation of Lycon’s deedat the time of the flood and a short account of his life, in which it should be stated that he had been a branded slave. Coming generations could then read there that the city of Methone did her duty even to the most insignificant person. This, dear fellow citizens, is my proposal concerning Lycon. If any one has a better plan to suggest, I will gladly recall it.”
The rope-maker, Socles, rose. He was a small, stout man, with big, prominent eyes and a wide half open mouth, which gave him an extremely foolish air.
“I can vote for no reward to this Lycon,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because, by Zeus, he seems to me one of the most foolish of men!... If he was living so merrily and contentedly at Athens as is said, why doesn’t he stay there? What does he want here of us?”
Lycon laughed and asked:
“Of what city is this man a native?”
“Of Chæroneia.”
“Aha!” exclaimed Lycon laughing, “I thought the man who reproached me for my return to Methone, the only good deed I ever performed, must be a—Bœotian!”
Socles did not know what to answer and, seeing him stand there with his mouth wide open, an image of Bœotian stupidity, the whole assembly burst into a roar of laughter, so scornful, noisy, deafening in its mirth, that it seemed as if every stone in the theatre was laughing.
Socles stood for a moment as though paralyzedwith bewilderment. Then, wrapping his mantle around him, he started with crimson face for the nearest entrance, slipping through the crowd, striding over empty places in the stone benches, and forcing his way through the groups in the passages. It was done so quickly that it looked as if the fat little man was blown away over the seats by the unbridled laughter of the throng.
“Why, why, how he jumps!” shouted the smith, shaking with glee as, fairly convulsed with merriment, he loudly slapped his thigh.
“Lycon has made Socles a deer!” cried a second voice.
“He skips like a discus behind the mark!” added a third.
When silence was partially restored, the chief magistrate put Polycles’ proposal to vote. All raised their hands except Philopator. But when the smith, who still kept an eye on him, cleared his throat loudly and looked askance at him, Philopator’s hand also rose, though slowly and reluctantly.
The chief magistrate, a white-haired old man of venerable aspect, embraced Lycon in the presence of the whole assembly and said to him in a tone so loud and distinct that amid the deep silence it was heard in the most distant seats:
“You are now a citizen of Methone and a guest of the Prytaneium. May you have happiness and prosperity.”
The next day Polycles sent by a trustworthy messenger a letter to the ship-owner in Athens who had been the demarch of Lycon’s district. The wine-dealer knew him, for the latter had visited Methone more than once in his ship. Ten days after the answer came, stating that if Lycon would pay a fine of ten minae his name would be erased from the list of citizens, thereby avoiding any legal prosecution.
At this message Lycon drew a deep breath, like a man who has reached dry land after fighting a long time for his life among the waves.
“The gods be praised!” he exclaimed. “Now, for the first time, I can use my liberty as a thing which belongs to me, and which no man has a right to take away.”
Myrtale embraced Polycles, and said with her brightest smile:
“So you, too, are a benefactor! Have you not saved the city’s deliverer from becoming a slave in a strange place?”
A few days after Lycon, attended by Conops, made an excursion to the neighboring city of Ormenium, the place where he had been a slave before he fled to Poseidon’saltar in Methone. In Ormenium he visited his former master, a physician, and remained a long time with him. On his departure the physician accompanied him part of the way to Methone and, as they took leave of each other, he asked Lycon if he was serious in the request he had made him. When Lycon answered in the affirmative, the doctor laughed and shook his head as though it was very extraordinary. “Take it then,” he said, handing him something wrapped in cloth, which Lycon carefully concealed in the folds of his robe.
After having been elected a citizen of Methone, Lycon had gone to live in the house in the Street of the Bakers. Much of the furniture had been ruined by the flood so, with the help of Myrtale’s nurse, he was obliged to provide the women’s apartment with many things ere a bride could be received and a new household established.
One day, early in the morning, the old mansion was adorned with garlands and the door, especially, was decked and surrounded with ropes of flowers decorated with tassels of blossoms. Polycles’ house, the bride’s present home, was ornamented in the same way.
Darkness had scarcely closed in, when the roll of wheels and the hum of many voices were heard outside of the door of the latter dwelling. Accompanied by a numerous train, a chariot drawn by white mules stopped before the door, ready to bear the bride home. Lycon and his chosen bridesman, Polycles, entered thehouse and received from the hand of an elderly female relative the closely-veiled bride to conduct her to the chariot, where each took a seat beside the muffled figure.
The nuptial torches were lighted, and the procession started. The flames cast their red glare over the magnificent holiday robes; the flutes sounded, and the hymeneal hymns echoed far through the stillness of the evening.
The inhabitants had all gathered outside the doors of their houses, and within the dusky vestibules appeared the heads of male and female slaves. All who were passing stopped and greeted the procession with the words: “Happiness and prosperity!”
“How peaceful and beautiful it is here,” whispered Lycon to his bride. “In Athens, on the contrary, on such an evening there is more noise and bustle than usual. Every bridal procession is surrounded by beggars, carrying tame crows in their hands.”
“Crows?” repeated Myrtale in surprise.
“It is really so,” replied Lycon, smiling. “Among the Athenians the crow is the bird sacred to bridals, and when a beggar carries one in his hand no one can forbid him to follow the procession into the house, to sing the ancient vulgar crow-song and then make himself at home.”
On reaching home the wedded pair, according to custom, were overwhelmed with a shower of little cakes, figs, dried grapes, and small coins—emblematical of the prosperity to be expected.
The festal hall was lighted by tripods bearing numerous lamps; on one side stood tables for the men, on the other for the women. Among the guests were the old chief magistrate who had presided at the popular assembly, the citizens who had been on the most intimate terms with Simonides, and some of the female relatives of the bride. Young slaves in new garments, with purple fillets around their hair, placed between the couches little tables bearing favorite dishes.
When the wedding cakes were eaten it was nearly midnight. The oldest female relative now led the young couple across the peristyle to the quiet sleeping room. All the guests followed, and the nuptial hymn was sung once more outside of the closed door. But when the last visitor had gone and the porter closed the heavy house-door with a noise that echoed through the peristyle, Lycon clasped Myrtale’s hand, saying:
“That noise is dearer to me than the notes of the nuptial hymn. Now we are alone; now I have you forever.”
He drew her towards him and his lips sought hers, but Myrtale, reared in the seclusion of the virgin-chamber, had never been alone with any man, and blushing deeply, averted her face.
Lycon took the clay lamp, shaped like a couch on which lay a sleeping Eros, and pointing to the little god, said:
“The love that fills my breast will never slumber until my hair is white and my back bowed with age. It would be an evil omen if I let this lamp burn on ourbridal night. Neither now nor in the future shall it shine for us.”
With these words, he flung it down so that it was broken in the fall and lay shattered on the tiled floor.
In the intense darkness which had surrounded them, he drew Myrtale to his breast. His heart throbbed as it never had before, and the gloom seemed filled with little dancing flames like those of the broken lamp. With the perfume from Myrtale’s hair, he felt as if he were breathing an atmosphere of warm, ardent youth, and in the silence which Eros commands his mouth again sought the small, fresh lips.
This time Myrtale did not avert her face.
Time passes swiftly to the happy; ere they realized it a year had gone by.
One day every door in the house was adorned with an olive garland—a son had been born to its owner. Lycon said that the child should be reared. The father was at liberty to expose or even kill it.
The infant was carried by the midwife around the blazing household altar. Parents, relatives, and even slaves gave it a multitude of presents, principally platagai, children’s rattles.
At the great sacrificial banquet on the tenth day after the boy’s birth, Lycon, to Myrtale’s delight, named the child Simonides.
Lycon took pride in enlarging his dead master’s business, but never commenced any great enterprise without having consulted the clever and experienced Polycles. On the day that the latter completed his sixtieth year, Lycon, to his great joy, gave him the vineyard which, in his opinion, produced the best wine in Thessaly.
This present had cost Lycon more than Polycles ever knew. When he first spoke of it to Myrtale, she eagerly opposed the plan and made many objections.
“Polycles is rich enough,” she said.
“But not too rich to have this gift please him.”
“It is a man’s duty to bequeath what he possesses to his children.”
“It is also a man’s duty to show his gratitude to one who has done him many kindnesses and helped make him prosperous.”
“So you will give Polycles the vineyard?”
“I shall.”
“Even against my wish?”
“You forget, dear one, that but for Polycles I should have had nothing.”
The blood rushed into Myrtale’s cheeks and her eyes flashed.
“And you forget,” she said, “that everything you possess is mine.”
The words had scarcely escaped her lips ere she regretted them.
Lycon passed his huge hand over his face, rose, and left her.
Myrtale stole after him. She saw him cross the peristyle and enter a little room where part of the furniture was kept. Through the door, which stood ajar, she watched him open a box and take out something wrapped in cloth. But, as she cautiously pushed the door in order to see better, her shadow fell on Lycon’s arm and he turned.
“What have you there?” asked Myrtale, slightly confused at being discovered.
“What is mine—it belongs to no one else.”
Myrtale understood the reproof. Her eyes filled with tears as she sank at Lycon’s feet and clasped his knees.
“Forgive me,” she whispered humbly, “forget my wicked words.”
“Forget them—I cannot. But I will treat you as if you had never uttered them.”
Myrtale still remained on her knees; Lycon raised her and she pressed her lips upon his shoulder.
“What have you there?” she timidly repeated.
“A peacemaker. The image of a good spirit.”
“Let me see it.”
“No,” replied Lycon, wrapping the cloth closer. “If any one else should look at the image it would lose its power. So promise me that you will never,—either now or in future—ask to see it.”
Myrtale pointed to an ivory couch which stood in the little room; Lycon reclined upon it, and she took her seat on the edge at his side.
“What harm would it do if I, your wife, should see it?” she whispered coaxingly, putting her arm around Lycon’s neck.
“I have told you,” replied Lycon. “Do what I ask.”
“Well then,” murmured Myrtale sighing, “I promise.”
But at the same moment she turned pale, as if she felt a sudden chill.
“Confess!” she cried in a strangely altered tone. “It is the picture of an Athenian woman.”
Lycon shrank from the fierce expression of her face and, ere he could prevent it, she had seized the little article which he had laid on the edge of the couch in front of her.
She tore off the cloth with her teeth. A clumsy square bit of iron appeared. She turned and twisted it in her hands until, on one end, she discovered the letter K formed of three raised lines.
It was the stamp of the brand Lycon bore on his shoulder.
Myrtale instantly understood why he kept the rough bit of iron. To him, as he had said, it was the image of a good spirit.
By keeping this sign of his humiliation, he not only crushed all arrogance, but learned to judge mildly, govern himself, and become a better man. By rememberingthat he had been a slave, he made others forget it.
Myrtale felt a new emotion. Her heart swelled with affection, and throwing herself into her husband’s arms, she covered his face with tears and kisses.
“The gods be praised for what has happened!” she exclaimed. “To-day you have become doubly dear to me! For the first time I know you wholly.”