Complete Works of Achilles Tatius

by Achilles Tatius

  8. While all this was happening, it chanced that Melitte, after her visit to me, had sent a young man to the country seat after Leucippe, to bid her hasten to return, as there was no longer any need for the philtre. On his arrival there, he found the serving-maids looking for Leucippe, and greatly disordered; as she could not be found anywhere, he hurried back and related all he knew to his mistress. Having first heard my case, how I had been clapped into gaol, and now about the disappearance of Leucippe, a cloud of grief descended upon her. She had no means of finding out the truth, but suspected Sosthenes; and desiring to shed light on her enquiry by means of Thersander, she devised an artful plan to be put into effect by means of questions, mingling a little truth with the story she had made up.

  9. When Thersander then came into the house, and began shouting again: “You have spirited away your gallant; you have loosed him from his fetters; you have got him out of the house! This is all your work; why do you not follow him? Why do you stay here? Why do you not get off to your beloved and see him now fettered in stronger bonds?”

  “What gallant?” replied Melitte. “What is the matter with you? If you can but drop this fury of yours, and hear the whole story, you will have no difficulty in realising the truth. I only ask one thing of you — be an impartial judge, clear your ears of all the slander you have heard; expel anger from your heart and put reason into its place, the only unbiased arbiter. This young man has been neither my gallant nor my husband; he is a Phoenician by birth, and of a stock second to none among the people of Tyre. He too had an unfortunate voyage, and the whole cargo that he had shipped became the prey of the sea. I heard of his mishap and took pity on him; I thought of you, and offered him my hospitality. ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘Thersander is now a wanderer like him; perhaps some woman will take pity on him too. And if he has really perished at sea, as the report tells, let us do our best then for all the victims of shipwreck.’ How many others in such a plight did I not befriend? How many of the sea’s dead did I not bury, if but a plank of a wreck were washed ashore? and ‘Perhaps,’

  I would say, ‘Thersander used to sail on the very ship of which this was a part?’ This man, then, was the last of my refugees saved from the waters; I thought that I was doing what I could for you by looking after him. He had gone on a voyage like you; I was honouring, my dear, the parallel to your fate. How then did I happen to be here in his company? I will tell you the whole true story. He happened to be mourning for the loss of his wife; but though he had lost her, she was not dead. Somebody informed him of this, and also that she was here, in the possession of one of our bailiffs; and told him the bailiff’s name, Sosthenes. This was actually the case; we found the woman here when we arrived. This was the reason that he came with me. You have Sosthenes at your disposal, and she is here at our country place; make inquiries as to the truth of every particular that I have told you. If my story is false in any respect, I admit myself convicted of unfaithfulness.”

  10. This was the story she told, pretending that she knew nothing of Leucippe’s abduction; but on the other hand she held in reserve her power, if Thersander should attempt to discover the truth, of bringing forward the serving-maids in whose company Leucippe had departed, to say, if she did not reappear in the morning, that she could not be found anywhere. She could thus openly continue her search for the girl, and at the same time compel Thersander to reveal his own plans. In addition to the plausible story that she had already contrived, she went on as follows: “Trust me, my husband; in all the period of our married life, you have never, my dear, had anything with which to reproach me, and do not now suspect me of anything of the kind. This rumour got abroad because of the care which I took of the young man; the community did not know the real reason of our association; and by rumour, you, too, were dead. Rumour and Slander are two kindred Furies: Rumour is Slander’s daughter. Slander is sharper than any sword, stronger than fire, more persuasive than a Siren; Rumour is more slippery than water, runs faster than the wind, flies quicker than any winged bird. When Slander shoots forth a lying report, it flies like an arrow and wounds him at whom it is aimed even though he is not present where the word is spoken; the hearer quickly believes it, the fire of his anger is kindled, and he is soon furious and mad against the object of the shot. Rumour, brought into being by the act of shooting, at once flows onward gaining in volume, and overwhelms the ears of all whom she meets; she travels far, like a wind, carried storm-wise on the gale of words; she flies, (The metaphors seem a little mixed, but they are only repeating the three similes applied to Rumour in § 4 above.) borne aloft by the wings of the human tongue. These two plagues are my enemies: they have captured your mind, and by their arguments they have shut against me the doors of your ears.”

  11. While she was still speaking, she took his hand and made as though to kiss him. He was already somewhat calmed by her words; and was both coaxed by the plausibility of what she said and had part of his suspicions removed by the harmony of her story with that of Sosthenes. However, he did not yet completely trust her: for when jealousy has once entered the heart, it is hard indeed to remove its stain. Then he was greatly vexed at hearing that the maiden was my wife, and this made him but hate me the more. For the time, he said that he would make further inquiries about the story that she had told him, and retired alone to bed; Melitte, the while, was greatly distressed in that she had failed to perform her promise to me.

  Sosthenes, after accompanying Thersander on part of his journey home and encouraging him to hope for Leucippe’s favours, turned back again and went to her. He composed his face to wear an expression of delight, and, “We have succeeded, Lacaena,” he said. “Thersander is in love with you, madly in love, so that he is likely to make you his wife. All this success was my doing; for it was I who dilated at great length to him of your beauty, and have filled his heart with a violent fancy for you. Why do you weep? Up, and sacrifice to Aphrodite for your good fortune; and then mind you remember me too.”

  12. “I pray,” said Leucippe, “that you may have just such good fortune as you come and bring me now.” Sosthenes did not in the least understand her sarcasm, and went on in high good humour: “I want to tell you all about Thersander, to give you the better conceit of your good luck. He is the husband of Melitte, the lady whom you saw at the country place; he is the very highest of all the lonians in birth, his riches are above his birth, and his amiability above his riches. His looks you could see for yourself; how he is young and well-favoured, things that women particularly appreciate.” At this point Leucippe could no longer bear the vapourings of Sosthenes, but burst out: “You vile beast, how much longer are you going on polluting my ears? What do I care about Thersander? Let him be well-favoured for his Melitte, and rich for his city, and amiable and generous for those who need it; I care for none of all these, whether he be nobler than Codrus, or richer than Croesus. Why go on piling up another’s praises to me? I shall esteem Thersander as a good man, when he stops forcing his attentions on other men’s wives.”

  13. Sosthenes’ tone then changed to earnest. “I suppose you are joking?” said he. “What could be my object in joking?” she cried. “Leave me alone, fellow, with my ill-fortune and the fate that constrains me; I know now that I have fallen among pirates.”

  “You seem to me,” he replied, “to be mad; and incurably mad. Is this what you call falling among pirates — wealth, marriage, luxury, when you get from Fortune a husband such as Thersander, whom the gods love so dearly that they saved him from the very gates of death?” And he went on to relate to her the story of his shipwreck, making his escape a matter of divine providence, and embroidering it with more miracles than Arion and his dolphin. Leucippe made no answer to him as he was recounting his marvels; so he went on: “You had better regard your own interests, and not indulge in any of this kind of talk to Thersander, in case you should anger a naturally amiable man; for once roused to fury, there is no stopping him. Amiability grows and multiplies if it meets with gratitude,
while if it meets with contempt it is irritated into anger; the more a man is naturally inclined to friendliness, the more forward is he to avenge a slight.” So much then for Leucippe’s plight.

  14. Clinias and Satyrus learning, by the information of Melitte, that I was shut up in gaol, at once came hurriedly by night to the prison, and were anxious to stay there with me; but the gaoler refused and bade them begone about their business as quick as might be. They were thus driven away by him, though greatly against their will, after I had conjured them to come to me without delay in the morning to tell me if Leucippe had reappeared; I also related to them all Melitte’s promises, and then I had to stay with my heart on the balance between hope and fear, my hopes afraid and my terrors with a vestige of hope.

  15. As soon as it was day Satyrus and his friends returned to me, while Sosthenes hurried to Thersander. Directly that Thersander saw him, he began to question him as to what progress was being made in the attempt to win Leucippe for him; to which question he did not reply the truth, but contrived an ingenious and plausible story. “She still refuses,” he said, “but I do not think that her refusal is genuine and final; I fancy she suspects that after once enjoying her favours you will cast her off, and she shrinks from the insult that is thus offered to her.”

  “As far as that goes,” said Thersander, “she need have no apprehensions; my feelings towards her are of such a nature that they can never die. There is only one thing about her of which I am really afraid, and I am exceedingly anxious to know the truth about it — whether she is really that young man’s wife, as Melitte told me.” As they thus talked, they arrived at the cottage where Leucippe was, and as they approached the door, they heard her deliriously murmuring to herself; they therefore took up their position behind the door without making any noise.

  16. “Alas, Clitophon,” she was saying over and over again, “you do not know what has become of me and where I am imprisoned; and I know not either what has befallen you: the same ignorance is the unhappy lot of both of us. Did Thersander come upon you at the house? Have you too suffered insult and violence? Many is the time that I have desired to ask Sosthenes about you, but knew not how to inquire. If I asked of you as of my own husband, I was afraid that I might bring some new trouble upon you by embittering Thersander’s rage against you; if as of a stranger, that too would have been a matter of suspicion: for what should a woman care about others than those of her own family? How often did I try to force myself to ask, but could not persuade my tongue to speak! I could only keep on saying this: ‘My husband Clitophon, husband of Leucippe alone, faithful and steadfast! Another woman could not persuade you to be her own, no, not though she slept by your side, though I, heartless I, believed that you were hers! When I saw you in the garden after so long an interval of time, I would not even kiss you.’ And now if Thersander comes again to ask me about myself, what shall I answer him? Shall I strip off the whole make-up and pretence of the long story and declare the truth? Think not, Thersander, that I am some servile chattel! I am the daughter of the commander-in-chief of the Byzantines, the wife of the first in rank among the people of Tyre; no Thessalian I, and my name is not Lacaena: this is but another instance of pirates’ violence; my very name too has been stolen from me. My husband is Clitophon, my fatherland Byzantium: Sostratus is my father, Panthea my mother. But you will hardly believe my words — and if you did, I should be afraid for Clitophon’s sake; my untimely frankness might be the ruin of him who is dearest to me. Come, let me play my part once more: let me once again assume the character of Lacaena!”

  17. When he had heard this Thersander drew away a little, and said to Sosthenes;— “Did you hear her love-sick words, almost incredible as they were? What things she uttered! How she wailed! How she reproached herself! That leeher has the better of me everywhere; I think the cut-purse must be a wizard too. Melitte loves him, Leucippe loves him; would God that I might become Clitophon!”— “No,” said Sosthenes, “you must not weaken in your task, my master: you must once more approach the girl yourself. Even if now she is in love with this damned spark, it is only that as long as she has known him alone, and has no experience of others, she feeds her heart with love of him; once you step into his place — you are a far more handsome figure than he is — she will utterly forget him. A new love makes an old passion wither away; a woman is best pleased with things present before her, and only remembers the absent as long as she has failed to find something new: when she takes a new lover, she wipes off the impression of the old from her heart.” When Thersander heard this exhortation, he roused himself; for words containing the prediction of success in love are efficacious in their power of persuasion: desire takes its own object as its ally, and so awakes the sentiment of hope.

  18. He therefore waited for a little while after Leucippe had finished her soliloquy, so that he might not seem to have been listening to it, and then, composing himself to an expression which he thought would make him more acceptable in her sight, went into the hut. At the sight of Leucippe, his heart burned up into fresh love: she seemed to him at that moment to have become more beautiful than ever. All night long — the whole time that he had been absent from her — he had been nursing the fire of his passion; and now, the sight of her adding fresh fuel to its flames, it suddenly burst out, and he was all but falling upon her and embracing her. But he mastered himself and sat down by her side, beginning to converse with her and stringing together remarks with no particular meaning. This is characteristic of lovers, when they try to talk with the women they love; they put no sense into what they say, but, their whole heart fixed on the object of its love, they let their tongue prattle on without the guidance of reason. As he conversed with her and put his hand on her shoulder, he began to embrace her, making as though he would kiss her; but she, seeing the course which his hand was about to make, bent her head down and let it drop on her bosom; at which he did but encircle her neck the more, trying to compel her to lift up her face, while she in return still bent down and tried to avoid his kisses. Some time passing in this wrestling against the force of his hand, Thersander was overcome by love’s anger and strife: he put his left hand beneath her face, while with the right he took hold of her hair; and pulling her head backward with the one and pushing upward beneath her chin with the other, he made her lift up her head. When he presently desisted from the force he was employing, either because he had been successful in his object, or because he had been unsuccessful in it, or because he was tired, Leucippe exclaimed to him, “You are not acting as a free man or as one that is noble; you behave like Sosthenes; the man is worthy of his master. Stop now, and know that you can never attain your wishes, unless you become Clitophon.”

  19. At these words Thersander was utterly distracted; he loved, he was wroth. Anger and love are two flames: yes, anger possesses a second fire, as opposite as possible to the other in its nature, but of equal strength. The one stirs up to hatred, the other forces on to love; and near to each other are the sources of both; the one has its seat in the bile, (Literally, the liver. But the mention of that organ seems medical, and almost ridiculous to our ears in such a connexion.) the other flutters madly round the heart. When both these passions together attack a man, his soul becomes a balance between them, with fire in either of its scales; they fight as to which shall weigh down the balance, and generally love wins, if it attain the object of its desire; but if the beloved scorn it, it calls in anger to be its ally; like a true neighbour it responds to the call, and both combine together in making the flames burn more fiercely. But (The whole of the rest of this chapter is a τόποs or patch, half physiological and half psychological, of a character extremely tiresome to modern readers. It is difficult to translate into any English that does not appear to us ludicrous, and I have departed more than usual from a closely literal rendering of the Greek.) if once anger, associating with love, has driven it from its proper place and keeps it without, it is an implacable foe, and will not fight together with it as a frien
d with a view of accomplishing its desire, but rather keeps it bound as its desire’s serf; it will not allow it, even though it be anxious to do so, to come to terms with the beloved. Then love is overwhelmed by anger and sinks in its flood; and when it wishes to revert to its former power, it is no longer free, but is forced to hate the object of its affections. Anger, however, first froths up to its full and has complete fruition of its power; then it grows weary and begins to weaken from satiety, and when the weakening has once begun its power relaxes: then love takes the offensive, puts desire into arms, and wins the mastery over anger which has already begun to doze. It sees the wrongs which it has done to those very dear to it in its moment of frenzy; il feels remorse, it expresses its sorrow to the beloved and proposes terms of agreement, promising to soften anger by the power of pleasure. If it gains the object of its desires, it becomes agreeable and gentle; but if it is once more rejected, it is again overwhelmed by anger, which is aroused from its slumbers and acts as it did before. Anger is the ally of love suffering under scorn.