Dialogi meretricii

Musarium He is so handsome with his smooth chin; and he loves me, and cries as he tells me so; and he is the son of Laches the Areopagite and Dinomache; and we shall be his real wife and mother-in-law, you know; we have great expectations, if only the old man would go to bye-bye.

Mother So when we want shoes, and the shoemaker expects to be paid, we are to tell him we have no money, ‘but take a

Musarium Oh well, mother, are the rest of them happier or better-looking than I am?

Mother No; but they have more sense; they know their business better than to pin their faith to the idle words of a boy with a mouthful of lover’s oaths. But you go in for constancy and true love, and will have nothing to say to anybody but your Chaereas. There was that farmer from Acharnae the other day; his chin was smooth too; and he brought the two minae he had just got for his father’s wine; but oh dear me no! you send him away with a sneer; none but your Adonis for you.

Musarium Mother, you ould not expect me to desert Chaereas and let that nasty working-man (faugh!) come near me. Poor Chaereas! he is a pet and a duck.

Mother Well, the Acharnian did smell rather of the farm. But there was Antiphon—son to Menecrates—and a whole mina; why not him? he is handsome, and a gentleman, and no older than Chaereas.

Musarium Ah, but Chaereas vowed he would cut both our throats if he caught me with him.

Mother The first time such a thing was ever threatened, I suppose. So you will go without your lovers for this, and be as good a girl as if you were a priestess of Demeter instead of what you are. And if that were all!—but to-day i is harvest festival; and where is his present?

Musarium Mammy dear, he has none to give.

Mother They don’t all find it so hard to get round their fathers; why can’t he get a slave to wheedle him? why not

Musarium Qh yes, he will. They have done everything to make him marry now; and he wouldn’t! that shows.

Mother I only hope it shows true. I shall remind you of all this when the time comes.