GORGO: Praxinoa at home?
PRAXINOA: Gorgo dear! It's been an age!
She is at home. I'm amazed that even now you're here.
Eunoa, see to a chair for her and a cushion too.
GORGO: It does beautifully just as it is.
PRAXINOA: Do sit down.
GORGO: I was out of my mind to come! What with the crowd and the
horses
I scarcely got here to your place alive, Praxinoa.
Soldiers' boots and men in military cloaks
everywhere you looked! And the road went on forever.
And your house was always further and further along.
PRAXINOA: That's that moron of mine! He comes to the ends of the
earth
and takes a hovel, not a house, so that we can't be neighbors.
Sheer spite! The jealous brute. He's always the same.
GORGO: Don't talk about your husband, Dinon, like that, my dear,
before the little one. See how he's staring at you?
Never mind, Zoppie, my sweet. She doesn't mean Daddy.
PRAXINOA: Good heavens, the baby understands.
GORGO: Lovely Daddy!
PRAXINOA: Yes, well, that daddy of his the other day,
it was just the other day, I said to him, I did,
Papa, go buy me some soap and some rouge from the shop.
He came back with salt, the big six-foot lummox!
GORGO: Mine's the same. Money means nothing to Diocleidas.
Yesterday for the price of seven drachmas he got
five fleeces, just dog's hair, only the pluckings
of old purses, all filth, endless work for me.
But come, put on your cloak and your gown. Let's go to see
the Adonis at rich King Ptolemy's palace. I hear that the
queen
is arranging a lovely spectacle.
PRAXINOA: All's rich with the rich.
GORGO: What you've seen you can talk about afterward to someone
who hasn't. It's time to get going.
PRAXINOA: For the lazy it s always a
holiday.
Eunoa, scarface, pick up that spinning and put it back
with the rest. Cats like to sleep soft. Get a move on. Quick,
bring me some water. First I need water--she brings soap.
Never mind, just give it here. Not so much!
Pour the water. Idiot, you've splashed my dress.
Enough! With the gods' help I've got myself washed!
Now where's the key to the big chest? Bring it here.
GORGO: Praxinoa, that dress with the long pleats becomes you.
Tell me, what did the cloth cost you off the loom?
PRAXINOA: Don't remind me, Gorgo! More than two minas
of hard cash--and my very soul into the work.
GORGO: It's turned out very well. You can certainly say that.
PRAXINOA: Bring me my coat and my straw hat. Put them on
properly. I'm not going to take you, baby. Boo,
horsey bite! Cry all you like. No need for you
to be maimed. Let's go, Phrygia, take the little one
and play with him. Call in the dog and lock the door.
My god, what a crowd! How are we going to get through
this mob? Ants--you can't count or measure them.
I will say, you've done us many a favor, Ptolemy,
since your father joined the immortals. Nowadays
no criminal sneaks up to attack you on the street,
Egyptian-style. The wicked tricks those bands of crooks
used to play--demons, every last one of them!
Dear Gorgo, what's to become of us? The royal chargers!
My good man, don't trample me. That bay is rearing!
Look how wild it is! Get out of the way, Eunoa,
you reckless girl! He'll kill the groom that's leading him.
How glad I am that I left the baby safe at home!
GORGO: It's all right, Praxinoa. We've got behind them now.
They've gone where they belong.
PRAXINOA: And I've collected my wits.
Since childhood a horse and a cold snake have frightened
most of all. Let's get on. This mob is swamping us.
GORGO: From the palace, mother?
OLD WOMAN: I am, my dears.
GORGO: Easy to get in?
OLD WOMAN: The Achaeans got into Troy by trying,
my pretties. They always say, where there's a will, there is a
way.
GORGO: The old lady gave her oracles and left.
PRAXINOA: Women know all--even how Zeus seduced Hera.
GORGO: Praxinoa, look, what a crowd around the doors!
PRAXINOA: Fearsome! Gorgo, give me your hand, and you, Eunoa,
take Eutychis's, and mind, you don't wander off.
We'll all go in together. Stick close to us, Eunoa.
Oh dear, oh dear, already, Gorgo, my summer wrap
is ripped in two. For heaven's sake, my good sir,
as you hope for god's blessing, watch out for my summel
STRANGER: It's not my fault, but I'll try.
PRAXINOA: It really is a mob. They shove like pigs.
STRANGER: There now, ma am, we re all right.
PRAXINOA: May you be all right, kind sir, to the very end of your
days
for taking care of us. A kind, considerate man!
Our Eunoa's being squeezed. Come on, you coward, shove!
That's fine. "All inside," as he said when he locked in the br
GORGO: Praxinoa, come here. Look at these tapestries--
how delicate, how charming garments for the gods!
PRAXINOA: Lady Athena! What weavers they were to make them--
what artists to draw the lines so accurately! The figures
stand and turn so realistically in it--
they're alive, not woven. Oh, the skill of human beings!
And look how marvelously he lies on his silver couch,
the fine down just showing on his temples and cheeks,
thrice-loved Adonis, even in Acheron loved.
SECOND STRANGER: For goodness sake, ladies, do stop that ceaseless
prattle!
Turtledoves! Those broad alphas will wear me out!
PRAXINOA: Dear me, where's this gentleman from? What's it to you
if we do coo? Order your slaves. It's Syracusans
you're bossing about. We're Corinthians, I'd have
you know, by descent, just like Bellerophon. We talk
Peloponnesian. Dorians, I assume, are allowed
to speak Dorian. Persephone, no more masters, please!
One's enough. It's nothing to me. You're wasting your breath!
GORGO: Quiet, Praxinoa. She's going to sing the Adonis, the
daughter
of the Argive woman, the accomplished singer who did the best
in last year's dirge. She'll give us something lovely, I know.
Listen, she's just clearing her throat--about to begin.
Lady, you who love Golgi and Idalium,
and sheer Eryx, Aphrodite of golden toys,
see how in the twelfth month the dear Hours,
soft of foot and slowest of the Blessed, have brought
Adonis to you from ever-flowing Acheron.
Longed for, they come, bringing a gift to every mortal.
Cyprian child of Dione, you, men say, have made
Berenice immortal from mortal state, distilling ambrosia
into her woman's breast. To please you, O goddess
of many names and many shrines, Berenice's daughter,
Arsinoa, fair as Helen, favors Adonis with every
lovely thing: in season all that fruit trees bear
and delicate gardens kept in little silver baskets
and golden flasks of Syrian scent and all the cakes
that women make on the kneading tray, mixing colors
of every kind with white wheat flour and those they make
from sweet honey and also those from moist oil.
Every creature of earth and air is there as well,
and green arbors are built, twined with tender dill,
and little boy Loves flutter above like baby
nightingales that flit from branch to branch to try
their fledgling wings. O ebony, O gold, O eagles
of shining ivory bearing to Zeus, the son of Cronus,
a boy to pour his wine. And crimson coverlets,
more soft than sleep. Miletus will say and the shepherd of Samos,
"It's we who have strewn the conch with wools for the lovely
Adonis."
The Cyprian lies in Adonis' rosy arms and he
in hers. Of eighteen or nineteen years is the bridegroom.
His kisses do not prick. The reddish down is still
upon his lip. And now good-bye to Cypris as she
embraces the groom. All together at dawn with the dew
we shall bear him out to the waves that splash upon the beach,
and there, letting down our hair and baring our breasts
and letting our dresses fall to the ankle we shall begin
our shrill lament. O dear Adonis, you alone,
as they say, of demigods came here and to Acheron.
This happened not to Agamemnon nor mighty Ajax,
that hero of heavy wrath, nor Hector, the eldest of Hecuba's
twenty sons, nor to Patroclus or Pyrrhus, returning
from Troy, nor the earlier Lapiths and Deucalion's kind,
nor to the Pelopidae and Pelasgian kings of Argos.
Be propitious, O dear Adonis, another year.
You have found us happy now in your coming, Adonis, and when
you come back again, you will come to us as one beloved.
GORGO: Praxinoa, that woman is the cleverest thing, blessed
in all that she knows, totally blessed to sing so sweetly.
Still, it's time to get home. Diocleidas hasn't been fed.
The man's all vinegar. Don't, when he's hungry, even go near!
Good-bye, beloved Adon, come back to find us content.