“The things you are telling us lack gaiety,” objected young Stilpo, my neighbor at the table, then, readjusting a stray lock of his hair. “Let us therefore drain our cups, let us seek the superfluous in dissipations and delights, and sate ourselves with enjoyments. Long live uproar, as your uncle said, O Menander! Nothing is more eminent than the belly. The belly is your father and your mother. Glory and privileges, virtue and good mores, are merely vain baubles, the dreams of lunatics. The only real and solid thing that you will have possessed, definitively, is what you have eaten and drunk. The rest I only count as dust and illusory shadow.”
“Yes,” replied the parasite Criso, in the midst of general laughter, briskly swallowing a locust. “The mouthful that one holds between the teeth is the only positive thing, and, I even dare say, the sovereign good. When I see that my dinner is assured, I’m joyful; and when, on the contrary, I’m belabored by blows in the guise of amusement, I become sad. That, for me, is good and evil. I will always praise to his face the man who permits me to fill my paunch. If any of the guests dares to contradict me, I shall make it my task to taunt him and turned him to ridicule. Then, gorged on meat and wine I shall withdraw and, as I have no domestic to light my route, I shall crawl all the way in darkness and advance craftily, ever fearful of encountering the watchman making his round, who would not fail to belabor my back with blows...”
He stammered. Vivid tints reddened the cheeks of all the guests, announcing imminent drunkenness. For some time the cupbearers had been bringing pure wine.
Slaves distributed silver headbands as a precaution, and we wrapped them round our heads above the temples in order to prevent an excess of drunkenness, which might trouble our brains excessively.
Women from Rhodes who played the guitar entered the hall. From a distance they appeared to me to be naked, but he men, very sagacious in that matter, assured us that they were wearing discreet veils, molded to the body in the form of a sheath. Then we saw auletrides advancing, dressed as nymphs, pretending to be pursued by satyrs.
For a few seconds, I felt slightly dazed, and I was gazing distractedly at a mime who imitated by turns a pleading woman and a drunken old man when I felt the brush of a kiss tickle the nape of my neck.
It was my neighbor Stilpo, the young Epicurean. Placed beside me on the same bed, while biting my earlobe gently, he whispered: “Dear Naïs, you are the peace of the body, the ecstasy of the soul and the culmination of sensuality...”
But I pushed him away gently, saying: “You’re sounding beautiful but futile things in my ears, my friend. I’ve resolved to refuse myself amour for tonight.”
I said that to him because I could see Demetrius peering at me complaisantly, and, on the other hand, I sensed the gaze of Polemon, the rich and elegant philosopher who has the reputation of scorning women, fixed obstinately upon me.23
Stilpo was about to persist, but at that moment the cupbearers brought ewers in the form of tritons, and we washed our hands before passing on to the second tables.
Slaves entered a moment later carrying vessels shiny with grease, on which there were the rarest entremets and the finest delicacies: cheese mixed with multigrain flour, chickpeas grilled in butter, and virgin honeycombs. A gourd of lotus wine was then unsealed and Lamia, the tyrant’s mistress, filled a large golden cup with it.
“Friends,” she said, standing up, “the divine Demetrius invites us to drink. Let us drink to his health, and drain the cup without measure. There no peril in it unless you are overtaken by the pleasant adventure of the rude Arcadians who once sent an ambassador to King Antigonus. Having never tasted Thracian wine before, they soon lost their heads and pushed audacity so far as to lay hands on the royal concubines, within the sight of everyone.”
“In any case,” said Demetrius, laughing, “don’t be inhibited for so little. Everything is permitted here and everything is at the disposition of the guests, including the women. But since the wine is still according us a few moments of sagacity and one wearies of always discussing philosophy, I want to propose a new amusement to you. Assembled here are all the beauties of Greece, and we can, for that reason, repose our eyes on enchanting bodies. Nevertheless, these sirens that surround us are mortal. They can, therefore, only partially appropriate the charms of Venus, and each one is distinguished above all by the accomplished perfection of a single part of her body: one for her mouth, another for her waist, another for the sculpted treasures of her breasts.
“I therefore propose to offer, after preliminary examination, three golden crowns to the three most outstanding beauties. We shall award the first crown to the one that displays the most perfect breasts. We shall award the second to the one who possesses the most perfect hips. As for the third and most honorable crown, it will be given to the one who appears to us to excel in the difficult science of the kiss. By acting in that way, I believe that the essential attractions of womanhood will be united and exhausted.
“The breasts are the recipient of caresses, that which we contemplate as the eternal landscape while we float in the ardent infinity of sensuality. On the other hand, the hips summarize line and movement, painting and statuary. They are the vase of the flower, that which inspires and satisfies amour. Their divine curves, more perfect than those of the most beautiful mountains and the happiest valleys, trace naturally and in an occult fashion—in going from the armpit to the ankle, launching forth and easing down, rebounding and swelling—all the fatal signs of desire. It is the hips that create the amorous woman and consecrate her to the fervor of caresses.
“And what can one say of the kiss, the spark that ignites sudden conflagrations, the ardent breath that grants simultaneously burning and freshness, the tongue of amorous, mute and maddening, which expresses itself quite naturally and possesses the instinct of sagacity? It is the kiss that commences, realizes and completes all voluptuousness. There is laughter in it, the frisson, and there is also anguish and vertigo, and there is also sovereign bliss in a kiss. The mere contact of the lips thus runs the entire gamut of pleasure and substitutes for all the other joys. Lip upon lip, humans equal the gods.”
We applauded those words, and vices thickened by wine rose up to demand the competition.
Then Macedonian trumpets announced the end of the meal, and at the same time, the white curtains of the sanctuary were drawn back, to reveal the Amour of Phidias, the Bacchus of Praxiteles and the Pan of Lysippus, and a great many other statues, as well as several celebrated paintings, cleverly lighted by a multitude of golden lamps.
Lamia, Hymnis and Ioessa stood up to dispute the first prize, which did not interest me. I could not take part in it and therefore did not pay any attention to it. For myself, I like Hymnis’ breasts, which are soft and proud, like two roe deer fawns. I would have given the prize to my friend, but the opinion of the men was quite different. In order to flatter Demetrius they gave the crown to his mistress, Lamia.
When the second contest was proclaimed, everyone’s eyes turned toward me. I stood up, pushed by secret springs, feeling suddenly emboldened, sure of myself. In a single moment I was transfigured, dominating the wine, mastering fatigue, and also challenging all the surrounding covetousness.
O Venus! I thought, addressing a silent prayer to the goddess, let me be victorious in this struggle and I shall consecrate to you my silver mirror, still moist with my warmth.
I knew that only Stenelais would dare to compete with me, firstly because of our intimacy, and also because she has a perfect body.
I let her go forward first. She unfastened her belt and kicked off her sandals, but conserved a tunic of violet gauze, believing that her flesh would trouble the men more through the diaphanous shadows of the fabric. First she curved her arms like the handles of amphorae, tilted her head toward her left shoulder, and began to dance, swaying her hips rhythmically, flexing her torso and arching her back. Her entire body flowed and undulated like the water of a spring. It was truly beautiful. Gradually, the emotion of the flesh rose
invasively, and Stenelais appeared to awaken vehemently to passion.
And it was in the midst of a long murmur of admiration that I succeeded her.
I was conscious that chance was on her side and in the absence of a superhuman skill and a great sensual splendor, victory would escape me.
Then, with a rapid gesture, I undid my golden clasps and allowed my unfastened tunic to fall. Then, completely naked and natural, I turned my back to the spectators, graciously and mischievously, and as Apollodorus said later, made my hips laugh, so successful was I in making a violent and staccato movement by which all the flesh appeared to take fright and rebound as if suddenly enamored.
Then, without delay, turning to face the men and snatching one of the burning torches suspended from the columns, I approached it to my body and I illuminated with a trail of flame the most secret lines of my clean young flesh. A moment of quivering silence followed, and I read so much sensual inclination in all the gazes that a sort of disturbance took hold of me, and I know not what sudden timidity, some abrupt awakening of modesty. It is to that that I owe the victory, for my forehead was natural covered with red, and a decent flexion of the entire body concealed my nudity. At the same time, undoing my hair with a natural movement, I made myself a mask and a mantle by allowing it to stream and spread around me.
“By Jupiter, Lysippus,” said Demetrius, “do you not think that she is more gracious and more modest than the Cassandra that Polygnotus painted as she emerged confused from the arms of Ajax, son of Oileus?”
Then I heard the sound of applause, and then the king came to kneel before me and, advancing his head, he brushed my breast respectfully with his lips. I believed that I had collected my entire triumph, and could not suspect that Venus would deign to favor me further.
For the prize of the kiss we were all invited to enter the lists.
The king chose Epicurus as arbiter because of his great wisdom and his sharp and impenetrable soul.
Each of us , therefore, had to go to him and kiss him on the mouth.
Stenelais, who was the first to take her turn, was the most admirable. She had learned her art from the sacred hierodules of the temple of Dendera in Egypt. She approached Epicurus, and instead of leaning over for the kiss she extended her hands to him, drew him toward her and, capturing him with the aid of her gaze, she studied him for a moment, attentive, anxious and almost tragic. Then she darted a kiss at him, as rapid as a flash: a bitter and piercing kiss.
Then it was the turn of Laena, Epicurus’ lover, who, without kissing him, took his hand amicably and said to him: “Remember the long kisses of our bed.”
Among the others, the men esteemed, I believed, Ioessa, who closed her eyes dazedly and instead of kissing appeared to drink Epicurus’ lips avidly, and also Myrtale, whose tumescent mouth was like the bud of a poppy. She kissed in a swoon and a state of tender weakness.
All of them, however, had shown a profound understanding of sensuality. I approached in my turn without any illusion and without thinking of succeeding. I strove, instead, to be simple, and I remembered the kisses with which my Phoenician nurse had flattered and pampered me, gluttonous, effervescent and multiple kisses.
Forgetting all artifice, therefore, I leaned over and kissed Epicurus on the corner on the mouth. And after a first full kiss I gave him several others, rapid and reiterated, which the spectators scarcely saw because I repeated them without moving my lips by means of rapid touches of my teeth.
I felt Epicurus shiver, but I did not believe that it signified victory, until he turned to me at the end of the competition and said to me smiling:
“It was certain, and we ought to have divined it, that, possessed of the most beautiful body, you would also offer the sweetest liaison of the lips. In all the other kisses I recognized a skillful caress, sensuality consciously provoked, while in yours the avid and orgiastic force that moves the world burst forth and triumphed: primordial desire, the organizer of the universe, the same fecundating virtue that animates the sun and draws rising saps.”
It was my apotheosis. They all ran and united their arms in order to carry me in triumph. In truth, they all wanted to stroke me, to touch me, at least to experience the contact of my flesh, since they could not clasp me in their arms at greater length.
I had never sensed the bestial concupiscence of men more exuberantly, more nakedly and, more acutely. I savored the vehemence of the groping hands, the tactile impatience of fingers that tried to impregnate themselves with female nudity, as if it were a matter of the perfume of a flowerer. And the empire of desire was such that Demetrius, his eyes shining and his gestures feverish, spilled over my breasts, as if by accident, an amphora of red wine of Anthilia, and then followed me into the opisthodomos, where I went to wipe myself. And without caring that it was dark there, that he could not see my beauty, he possessed me on the bronze chest in which the treasure of the goddess had once been contained.
The wine was running in floods again when we returned to the banquet. Certain redoubtable plants were even mixed therein, which exited and exacerbated desire. And I can scarcely remember with any order the rest of the evening. I vaguely remember having participating in an orgy and having seen bodies lying asleep, cups overturned and trickling, and couples...
At one moment, as Apollodorus lifted me in his arms, I perceived the somber Crates, steeping Hipparchia’s breasts in wine and then kissing them, pensive and concentrated, as if he were accomplishing an ineffable ritual.
I went home at dawn, utterly exhausted by fatigue.
VII
Socrates claimed, it is said, that Amour was born from the furtive caress that Poverty obtained from the god Plutus. Personally, I think that it was rather Jealousy that engendered Amour. In any case, Jealousy aliments and sustains human ardors abundantly. Many a time, her sharp spur aids us to obtain and retain our lovers.
I remember a rich dye-merchant who sacrificed the entire cargo of his ship for me, and whom I kept on a string for eight full months. It was insinuated that I had cast a spell on him, but the only philter that I employed to lead his reason astray—I swear it by Adrasteia—was infidelity. When I saw his inclination becoming lukewarm, I arranged for him to find my door ajar, as if by chance, and to hear my sighs confounded with the moaning effusions of another man. Then he yearned to resume his chain, and desire flooded him again, young and ardent. Warmed by other kisses, I appeared to him to be embellished, not to say irresistible.
The same adventure is happening to me now with the young poet Posidippus.24 I had no motive to refuse to welcome him, since he is rich and likeable. But on the day when he took it into his head to come and declare himself, I was waiting for my faithful Cottavus, a reliable client who always pays me three minas and possesses imprescriptible rights over my body. For having been thus rejected by virtue of hazard and temporary necessity, Posidippus has been sighing after my favors every since, and follows my footsteps in a servile manner. The other day he sent me a spring crown with this gracious epigram:
“I am sending you this crown, which I have woven with my own hands with the most beautiful flowers. It includes a rosebud, a lily, a dewy anemone, a warm and living narcissus, and a secret violet. Thus crowned, cease your proud rigor toward me. You are blossoming now like these flowers, but do not forget that, in their example, you will fade.”
It even appears—at least, the parasite Cratias assures me of it—that Posidippus was so smitten with me that he wanted to come with his friends one night in order to abduct me.
However, he has Plangon for a mistress, and Plangon is a vivacious and desirable young woman. She is from amorous Delos, so highly reputed for its beautiful women, but Posidippus is disdaining her. Enfevered by my resistance, he is allowing himself to languish and etiolate. For my part, I am amusing myself by spurring his amour, disappointing his appetites. Such maneuvers will certainly complete his infatuation and put him at my mercy.
Today again, when going early in the morning to the rocks
of Phalera in order to bathe, I saw him waiting on the shore. He was holding a rod, pretending to fish, but the glances that he cast at the road, his disturbance on seeing me approach and his tender confusion told me the truth. It was not Neptune but the son of Venus who held him prisoner.
Far from fleeing, I headed negligently toward the rock where he was sitting. There, without looking at him, I took off my garments and got ready to go into the sea.
First I took off my sciadion and my crimson sandals, and then my emerald-colored robe in fabric from Cos. When I unfastened my hair and it covered me nothing remained over my body but a light tunic. But I did not separate myself from that yet; I lingered over unfastening the attachments one by one, in order that the stripes and erosions that the belt leaves on the skin would have time to fade.
The will of Boreas was otherwise, however, for before I could perceive it, an impetuous gust inflated my tunic, lifted it up like the hand of a lubricious old man, and exposed my legs and my bosom to the daylight. And I contemplated all the beauty of my body, reflected in the desirous eyes of Posidippus. That vision had inflamed him. He seemed bewitched by it, as if he had been admitted to sound with his gaze the goddess’ own girdle.
Then I rid myself of that final veil. In full confidence, for I knew that the light of dawn was always favorable to my charms, I went to met him and I said: “I beg you, young man, by the Nereids and Neptune, to watch my clothes while I’m in the water.”
He did not reply, dazzled and nonplussed, staring at me incessantly, but not daring to touch me.
Then, without appearing to pay any further heed to him, I advanced toward the sea, walking slowly, in order give him the leisure to gaze at my firm buttocks. Once in the water, I marched to assault the waves, making a white foam all around me by clapping my hands, and in that fashion, I seemed to be mounted in a snowy and tumultuous turbulence. Playing confidently with the sea, bounding and then falling backwards, I sometimes allowed my flank to show, prudently, sometimes the tip of my foot and sometimes the mysterious shadows where a black dove appeared to be feeding. When I finally wearied the waves by my frolicking I emerged, shivering, my body glistening with a thousand droplets, which reflected the silver morning variously.
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