Ancient Manners; Also Known As Aphrodite Part 19

Yet another:

"As an offering to thee, golden Cytherea, Timo consecrates this spiral bracelet. Mayest thou entwine vengeance round the throat of her thou wottest of, even as this silver serpent entwined itself around her naked arms."

Myrtocleia and Rhodis advanced, holding one another by the hand.

"Here are two doves of Smyrna, with wings white as caresses, with feet red as kisses.

"O! double G.o.ddess of Amathontis, accept them of our joined hands, if it be true that the tender Adonis is not alone sufficient for thee and that sometimes thy sleep is r.e.t.a.r.ded by a yet sweeter embrace."

A very young courtesan followed:

"Aphrodite Peribasia, receive my virginity with this blood-stained tunic. I am Pannychis of Pharos: I have dedicated myself to thee since last night."

Another:

"Dorothea conjures thee, O charitable Epistrophia to remove far from her spirit the desire that Eros has implanted in it, or else to inflame for her the eyes of him that says her nay. She offers thee this branch of myrtle, because it is the tree thou lovest best."

Another:

"On thine altar, O Paphia, Callistion places sixty silver drachmae, the balance of four minae she received from Cleomenos. Give her a lover still more generous if thou thinkest it a goodly offering."

There remained before the altar only a blus.h.i.+ng little child who had occupied the last place in the procession. She held nothing in her hand but a little crocus wreath, and the priest scorned her for the poverty of her offering.

She said:

"I am not rich enough to give you silver coins, O glittering Olympian G.o.ddess. Besides, what could I give thee that thou lackest? Here are flowers, yellow and green, pleated into a wreath for thy feet. And now . . ."

She unbuckled the clasps of her tunic; the tissue slipped down to the ground and she stood revealed quite naked.

"I dedicate myself to thee body and soul, beloved G.o.ddess. I desire to enter thy gardens and die a courtesan of the temple. I swear to desire naught but love, I swear to love but to love, I renounce the world and I shut myself up in thee."

Then the priest covered her with perfumes and enveloped her nudity in the veil woven by Tryphera. They left the nave together by the door opening into the gardens.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The procession seemed at an end, and the other courtesans were about to retrace their steps when another woman, a belated arrival, was seen upon the threshold. She had nothing in her hand, and it seemed as if she also had naught but her beauty to offer. Her hair appeared as two streams of gold, two deep waves full of shade, which engulfed the ears and were twisted in seven rolls over the back of the neck. The nose was delicate, with expressive nostrils which palpitated at times over a thick painted mouth, the corners rounded and throbbing. The flexible line of the body undulated at every step, animated by the rolling of the hips or the oscillation of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, under which bent the supple waist.

Her eyes were extraordinary: blue but dark and bright at the same time, changing and glinting like moonstones, half closed under drooping lashes.

Those eyes looked, as sirens sing . . .

The priest turned towards her, waiting for her to speak.

She said:

"Chrysis, O Chryseia, supplicates thee. Accept the poor gifts she lays at thy feet. Hear, love, and solace her that lives after thine example and for the cult of thy name, and grant her her prayers."

She held out her hands gilded with rings, and bent low with her legs close together.

The vague cantiele began again. The murmur of the harps rose up towards the statue with the swirling fumes of crackling incense from the priest's censer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "To thee, O Hetaira! . . . Chrysis consecrates her necklace."]

She drew herself up slowly to her full height and offered a bronze mirror which hung from her girdle.

"To thee, Astarte of the Night, that joinest hand to hand and lip to lip, and whose symbol is like to the footprint of the deer upon the pale soil of Syria, Chrysis consecrates her mirror. It has seen the haggard darkness of the eyelids and the glitter of the eyes after love, the hair glued to the temples by the sweat of thy battles, O! warrior-queen of ruthless hand, thou that joinest body to body and mouth to mouth."

The priest laid the mirror at the feet of the statue. Chrysis drew from her golden hair a long comb of red copper, the planetary metal of the G.o.ddess.

"To thee," she said, "Anadyomene, born of the rosy dawn and the sea-foam's smile; to thee. O nudity s.h.i.+mmering with tremulous pearls, that didst bind thy dripping hair with ribbons of green seaweed, Chrysis consecrates her comb. It has plunged into her hair tossed by thy convulsions, O furiously-panting mistress of Adonis, that furrowest the camber of the loins and racks the stiffening knee!"

She gave the comb to the old man and inclined her head to the right in order to take off her emerald necklace.

"To thee", she said, "O! Hetaira, that drivest away the blushes of shamefaced maidens and promptest the lewd laugh, for whom we sell the love that streams from our entrails, Chrysis consecrates her necklace.

It was given to her for her fee by a man whose name she knows not, and each emerald is a kiss on which thou hast lived an instant."

[Ill.u.s.tration]