IV

Women at the Temple

KYNNO: May you rejoice, Paeon lord, who rule
Tricca and inhabit sweet Cos
and Epidaurus, and may Coronis who gave
you birth and Apollo rejoice and Hygeia
whose right hand you touch and those whose
honored altars these are, and may
Panake and Epio and Ieso
rejoice and those who sacked Laomedon's house
and walls, Machaon and Podaleirius,
healers of savage illnesses, and all
the gods and goddesses who share your hearth,
Paeon father. Graciously accept
this cock I sacrifice, a little dessert.
He was the herald of my household walls.
Our well is neither ready nor deep or else
we'd have offered an ox or a sow of crackling skin
and not a cock for the healing of illnesses
that you wiped away, O Lord, with the stretching forth
of your gentle hands. Kokkale, put the dish
on Hygeia's right. PHILE: Ah, what lovely statues,
Kynno dear! What sculptor cut this stone,
and who set it up in dedication here?

Ky: The sons of Praxiteles. Don't you see
the letters on the base? Euthies,
Prexon's son, set it up. Phi: May Paeon
bless them and Euthies too for lovely works.

Ky: Phile, look at that girl gazing up there
at the apple. Wouldn't you say that she'd just faint
dead away if she couldn't have it?

Phi: But, Kynno, that old man . . . Ky: By the Fates,
that little boy is throttling his fox-goose.
If we couldn't see close up that it's a stone,
you'd swear that it could speak. The time will come
when men will learn to put life into dead stone.

Phi: Look at this statue here of Batale,
daughter of Myttes, Kynno, how she steps.
If someone's not seen Batale but sees
this statue, she won't miss the real thing.

Ky: Come with me, Phile, and I'll show you
something lovelier than you've seen in all
your life. Kydilla, go call the custodian.
Do you hear me, girl -- gaping and gawking like that?
My god, she pays no heed to what I say
but stands staring at me -- worse than a crab!
Go on, I say, and call the custodian.
Glutton! As hopeless in the temple as you are
at home -- everywhere you go the same!
Kydilla, I call this god to witness how
you burn me up though I don't want to burst.
I call him to witness, I say. The day will come
when you'll have cause to scratch that head of you'

Phi: Kynno, don't be so easily upset
by everything. She's just a slave, and slaves
you know, haven't got much between the ears.

Ky: She's soft and getting shoved more and more.
But wait -- the door is just open, the curtain
undone. Phi: Don't you see, Kynno dear,
what works of art they are? You'd say Athena
had carved these lovely things -- bless the Lady.
This naked boy -- if I scratch him, Kynno dear,
won't I leave a welt? For his flesh lies
upon him, pulsing like warm warm water
in the picture. As for his silver fire tongs --
wouldn't Myllos or Pataikiskos,
the son of Lamprion, pop out their eyes,
supposing them really made of genuine silver?
The ox and the man leading it and the girl
and this hook-nosed man with the bristly hair --
don't they look as real as the living day?
If I didn't think it unbecoming a woman,
I'd have screamed for fear that the bull harm me -- the way
he looks, Kynno, out of the side of his eye.

Ky: The workmanship of Apelles from Ephesus
is accurate in all he painted, Phile.
You can't say, "The man saw one, rejected
another." Whatever came to his mind he was quick
and eager to try. Anyone who's looked
at his work without the proper appreciation
ought to be hung by the feet in a fuller's shop.

NEOKORAS: Ladies, your sacrifice was correctly performed
and propitious too. No one has pleased Paeon
more than you. Ië, Ië, Paeëon.
Be gracious for these lovely sacrifice
to these women, their husbands, and all their kin.
Ië, Ië, Paeëon, may these things be.

Ky: May they be, O greatest one, and may
we come in good health to sacrifice
again with husbands and young. Kokkale,
be sure to carve a drumstick off and put
a scone in the serpent's box, auspiciously,
and drench the barley tarts with honey. We'll eat
the rest at home ....................