Kitap 12
1
So, Lysias, you’re turning up your nose at me? It serves me right, seeing that I never asked money of you, or locked you out when you came, telling you I had another man with me, or forced you to cheat your father or rob your mother to bring me something. That’s what all the other courtesans do, but I let you come in from the start, though you didn’t pay me anything or contribute your share of the meal, and I sent away ever so many lovers, as you know, men such as Theocles, who’s an important man in the Council at the moment, and Pasion, the shipowner, and your companion, Melissus, though he lost his father the other day and now has control of the estate. But you were my only love, my Phaon, For Phaon see note on page 96. and I wouldn’t look at anyone or have anyone near me but only you. For I thought in my folly that your vows were true, and for that reason I’ve devoted myself to you and lived as chaste a life as Penelope, though my mother shouts at me and runs me down before her friends. But ever since you realised that I doted on you, and you had me under your thumb, you’ve been having jokes with Lycena, before my very eyes, to annoy me, or at other times praising Magidium, the harp-girl, when we were dining together. These things make me cry and feel insulted. Only the other day, when you were drinking with Thraso and Diphilus, the company also included the flute-girl Cymbalium, and Pyrallis, whom I loathe. As you know that, I didn’t worry particularly at your kissing Cymbalium five times. To kiss a woman like that was an insult to yourself! But oh! the way you kept on making signs to Pyrallis, and would lift up your cup to her, when you drank, and whisper in the slave’s ear, when you returned the cup, telling him not to give anyone a drink unless Pyrallis asked for one! In the end you bit off a piece of your apple, when you saw Diphilus was busy talking to Thraso, and, bending forward, shot it with skilful aim into her bosom, without any attempt to hide it from me. She kissed it, and, dropping it between her breasts, tucked it under her girdle.
