METRIKHE:
Threissa, there’s a knock at the door, go look and
see if it’s one of our own, come in from the field.
THREISSA:
Who knocks?
GYLLIS:
It’s me.
THREISSA:
Who’s me? Why are you so nervous
of being seen?
GYLLIS:
Here, you see me, I’ve come nearer.
THREISSA:
Who are you?
GYLLIS:
—Gyllis, and mother of Philainis,
Tell the one seated in there, Metriche, I’ve come.
THREISSA:
It’s—
METRIKHE:
Who is it?—
THRESSIA:
—Gyllis—
METRIKHE:
—old Mama Gyllis.
Depart from us, slave. Which fate has brought you here now,
Gyllis, to visit, goddess amongst human kind.
I would say that it might be all of some five months
now in all, Gyllis, I swear by the Moirai, since
anyone’s dreamed that you would come to this doorway.
GYLLIS:
I live a far distance, my child, the puddles in the
alleys here splash the filth all up to the knee,
I’m a match for the fly in strength, you know, old age
pulls us downward, forever casting its shadow.
METRIKHE:
(Oh, hushup now) and don’t use age as an excuse,
Gyllis there’s a few more embraces left in you.
GYLLIS:
You mock! Those things are for the new style of woman
to enjoy. Now, this isn’t going to warm your breast.
But, O, my child, you’ve borne this separation such
a long time, grinding alone in the bed of koitos.
Since he went into Egypt, Mandris has been gone
a full ten months, but doesn’t scrawl a letter of
coming, casting you from mind, imbibing the new.
There the goddess has found a home. Everything you
can find elsewhere, they’ve got there now in Egypt:
wealth, wrestling grounds, dynamism, climate, repute,
theatres, philosophers, gold, and boys in bright youth,
temples of Theos Adelphos, a gentle king,
the Mouseion, wine, every desired good thing,
women, so many that, by Hades’ parthenos,
Ouranos cannot boast to have so many stars,
who are as lovely as those who came to Paris
to be judged for their charms, may they forgive me so.
. . . my dear, what kind of mind is this to have,
sitting just to keep your chair warm; before too long
(you’ll be old), your beautiful youth drunk in decay.
. . . so have a look around
for two or three days, and let your eye be gladdened.
. . . another. You know a single
anchorage is never safe. If death should grip you
. . . cannot make us rise
again . . . . . . the coming of a violent storm
. . . It is known to no one
amongst such weak creatures what future a man has.
. . . But there’s no one about,
is there?
METRIKHE:
Nobody at all—
GYLLIS:
—Well listen here then
to what I say, which is what I came here to tell.
Pataikion’s girl Mataline’s son Gryllos,
a five-time victor when just a boy at Pythos,
and having placed first at Corinth twice in his youth
and beaten men twice in the boxing at Pisa,
wealthy to the point of beauty, and so very
gentle too, a seal untouched by Cytherea’s arts,
saw you at the parading of Mise’s descent
and felt the surging swell rising up in his heart
and now neither by night or daybreak will he leave
my house, my dear, but makes such clamorous keening
and calls me his dearest, near dead with longing too.
Thus, oh my dear Metrikhe, please grant this one boon:
in the name of the goddess, hang yourself on her
altar, lest you find old age glaring back at you.
And you’ll gain two different ways: some (fun in life and)
you might get more than you planned. Consider this then
and take my advice, for I love you, by the fates.
METRIKHE:
Gryllis, those white hairs on your head have thinned out your
mind alarmingly. By Mandris’ homeward voyage
to me, and dear Demeter I swear, I wouldn’t
have borne any of this from any other woman,
these lame songs would have been sung with a limp after
my lesson and wouldn’t have been welcomed at my door.
Don’t you ever come here again, dear, peddling a
story like that. You should be telling old womens’
tales to the younger women among your circle.
Let Pythee’s daughter, Metriche, keep this seat warm.
No one has a laugh at my Mandris’ expense.
But you don’t need, so you’ll say, to speak to Gyllis
like this. Threissa, give that black kylix there a rinsing,
and then pour in it a half measure of the pure,
with a little water. Let her take a nip.
GYLLIS:
Lovely.
METRIKHE:
There, Gyllis, drink.
GYLLIS:
Show . . .
Persuasion only came in honour of the goddess.
METRIKHE:
For which service to me, Gyllis . . .
GYLLIS:
. . . very well, my child . . .
Very pleasing; by Demeter, Metriche, I
swear a sweeter wine old Gyllis has never drunk.
I wish you good fortune, my child, and please take care
of yourself. I’ve still got Myrtale and Sime,
whom I hope to stay young long as Gyllis inspires.
MIMIAMB 4
KYNNO:
Greetings, Lord Paion, you who rule over Trikkha,
who has made honey-bright Kos and Epidauros
your homes; to Koronis and Apollo also
greetings, and she who you so touch with you right hand
Hygeia, and to those honoured owners of these
altars, Panake, Epio and Ieso,
Khaire, and so to those who brought Leomedon’s
home and walls to fall, healers of savage disease;
that Podaleirios and Makhaon we greet,
and whatever other gods and goddesses line
the breadth of your hearth, father Paion. Accept from
me this cockerel, who has been the Keryx of
my own house, and whom I offer in supplementary
sacrifice; our well is neither abundant nor
profound, or we should hasten with an ox or sow,
multipily trimminged, rather than this cock in
offering for the healing of the disease you cleansed,
lord, with a stretching forth of your grace-bearing hand.
Be bequeather of the Pinakes, Kokkale,
there to Hygeia’s right—
KOKKALE:
—O, how beautiful, dear
Kynno, these statues are. Who made such mastered
marble and by whom were they dedicated here?
KYNNO:
The sons of Praxiteles, see the autograph
inscribed on the base, dedicated by Euthies,
son of Prexon—
KOKKALE:
—May Paion shed grace upon them
and Euithes for the beauty of all these works.
KYNNO:
Look, my love, at that girl whose sights aspire up
upon that apple, her own Eros will lay her
flat if she can’t reach that far up the branch it seems.
KOKKALE:
And there, Kynno, the old man. By the great Moirai,
how that goose is strangulated by the boy.
KYNNO:
If you didn’t know stone stood before our feet, you’d
swear he was going to speak; with the patience of time
man will soon strike divine sparking life from marble.
KOKKALE:
Yes, Kynno, for can’t you see how Batale poses,
she, this blooming andrias, daughter of Myttes,
if you’d never seen Battale herself, looking
on her portrait here you would never feel the need.
KYNNO:
Come, my darling, with me and observe a beauty
greater than any the like seen in your whole life.
Kydilla, go and fetch the little temple sweep;
I’m talking to you, yourself, whilst you gape and gaze;
Mother, she hasn’t heard a word of what I have said,
just stands there staring from empty orbs like a crab.
I’ll say again, go fetch the little temple sweep.
You eating machine, whom neither good women
nor secular can praise, all-conqueringly lazy.
My witness, Kydilla, is the god standing here,
Your making me burn when I had no such desire,
he as my witness, I say the day will soon rise
when I will give you reason to rub your forehead.
KOKKALE:
Don’t let everything give you such heartache, Kynno.
She’s a slave, slave indolence spreads out from the ear.
KYNNO:
But day has come and the crowds now begin to throng.
You, stay here, for the doors are now open, and the
curtain draws—
KOKKALE:
—have you no eyes, Kynno my lovely,
for these works here. The mark of Athena seems there
on each beautiful thing. Greetings my goddess queen,
If I were to prick this boy in his nakedness,
the wound would bleed, wouldn’t it, Kynno. His skin is
shimmering as if a hot, hot spring ran bright through
seams in the paint. And those fire bearing tongs,
if seen by Myellos or that Pataikiskos,
Lamprion’s son, would elevate their eyes on storks
thinking they gazed on real Argentinian wares.
O, the ox and his leader, the girl attendant,
those giant-nosed men, those with disordered hair,
bring a vision of life in Hemera’s brightness,
and if it wasn’t injurious to womanhood
I would have bellowed in fear of that great oxen;
that still glares on me, Kynno, from the other eye.
KYNNO:
In truth, my love, the hand of the Ephesian
is all apparent in the Apellian line;
it can’t be said the man saw one thing and ignored
another, but what came to eye was given bright
being in immaculate touches of the divine.
She, viewing such works without the right all-awed mind,
deserves to be dangling footed with the laundry.
NEOKOROS:
Beautifully received, O ladies, your sacred gift
portends auspiciously. Nobody has made Paion
more greatly delighted than yourselves on this day.
Ie, Ie, Paion, smile kindly on this
beautiful sacrifice and on these women and
all their genos, whether of marriage or of blood.
Ie, Ie, Paion let all this be achieved.
KOKKALE:
And so, O majesty of gods, may we follow
with yet greater sacrificial gifts borne by our
husbands and children—
KYNNO:
—Kokkale, now remember
to make a cutting of the bird’s beautiful little
foot in reverence to the young man. And to slot
the cake coin in the serpent’s box with beautiful
silent hand. Moisten the cakes. And we’ll eat the rest
when at home. Don’t mistake to take some sacral bread,
you, and then hand it out as freely as you can,
for after sacrifice there’s pleasure in one’s lot.
