Book 13
49
A lover of hers once sent his seal to Lais the Corinthian, and desired her to come to him; but she said, I cannot come; it is only clay. Thais was one day going to a lover of hers, who smelt like a goat; and when some one asked her whither she was going, she said— To dwell with Aegeus,Punning on the similarity of the name αἰγεὺς to αἲξ, a goat. great Pandion's son. Phryne, too, was once supping with a man of the same description, and, lifting up the hide of a pig, she said, Take it, and eatPunning on the similarity of κατατράγω, to eat, and τράγος, a goat. it. And once, when one of her friends sent her some wine, which was very good, but the quantity was small; and when he told her that it was ten years old; It is very little of its age, said she. And once, when the question was asked at a certain banquet, why it is that crowns are hung up about banqueting-rooms, she said, Because they delight the mind. The Greek word is ψυχαγωγοῦσι, which might perhaps also mean to bring coolness, from ψῦχος, coolness. And once, when a slave, who had been flogged, was giving himself airs as a young man towards her, and saying that he had been often entangled, she pretended to look vexed; and when he asked her the reason, I am jealous of you, said she, because you have been so often smitten. The young man says πολλαῖς συμπέπλεχθαι (γύναιξι scil.), but Prhyne chooses to suppose that he meant to say πολλαῖς πληγαῖς, blows. Once a very covetous lover of hers was coaxing her, and saying to her, You are the Venus of Praxiteles; And you, said she, are the Cupid of Phidias. This is a pun on the name φειδίας, as if from φείδω, to be stingy.
