Book 3
2
Of course, he didn’t tell you what he did, mother, or you wouldn’t take the part of one who behaved so outrageously. He left me and prattled with Thais, Lamprias’ girl, for Lamprias himself had not yet arrived. After he had seen that I was angry, and I’d shown him how I disapproved of his behaviour, he laid hold of the tip of Thais’ ear, bent her neck, and kissed her so hard, that she could scarcely get her lips free. I cried, but he laughed, and whispered a lot into her ear—all of it directed against me, no doubt—and Thais kept looking at me, and smiling. But after they’d seen Lamprias coming, and had at last decided they’d had enough of kissing each other, I went in spite of it all and lay by his side, so that he wouldn’t have something more to cast up to me afterwards. Thais jumped up and was the first to dance, with her dress pulled up high, as if she was the only one with a pretty pair of ankles; when she’d finished, Lamprias kept quiet and said nothing, but Diphilus praised her to the skies for her fine dancing and her outfit, for the skill of her feet in keeping time with the lyre, and for her pretty ankles, and so on ad infinitum, as if he were praising the Sosandra of Calamis, A statuary of Periclean Athens; the Sosandra, a statue of Aphrodite, was somewhere on the Acropolis, Cf. Essays in Portraiture 4. rather than Thais, whose appearance you know, as she goes to the baths with us. And how she started to mock me the next moment! “Anyone”, said she, “who isn’t ashamed of having skinny legs will get up and dance too.” What could I say, mother? I got up and danced. What else was I to do? Sit still, and prove the truth of the taunt, by allowing Thais to be queen of the party?
3
You took yourself too seriously, my dear. You shouldn’t have let it bother you. But tell me what happened next.
3
The others all praised me, but Diphilus stretched himself on his back and went on staring at the ceiling, till I tired and stopped.
