“No, sir,” said she, “I have commands to you; but because you know what you can do, you’re proud; and if a lady wou’d receive a favor from you, I see she must buy it: For to what end are all those allurements, forsooth? the curl’d hair, the complexion advanc’d by a wash, and the wanton roll of your eyes, the study’d air of your gate? unless by shewing your parts, to invite a purchaser? For my part I am neither a witch, nor a conjurer, yet can guess at a man by his physiognomy. And when I find a spark walking, I know his contemplation. To be short, sir, if so be you are one of them that sell their ware, I’ll procure you a merchant; but if you’re a courteous lender, confer the benefit. As for your being a servant, and below, as you say, such a favor, it increases the flames of her that’s dying for you. ’Tis the wild extravagance of some women to be in love with filth, nor can be rais’d to an appetite but by the charms, forsooth of some slave or lacquy; some can be pleased with nothing but the strutting of a prize-fighter with a hacktface, and a red ribbon in his shirt: Or an actor betray’d to prostitute himself on th’ stage, by the vanity of showing his pretty shapes there; of this sort is my lady; who indeed,” added she, “prefers the paultry lover of the upper gallery, with his dirty face, and oaken staff, to all the fine gentlemen of the boxes, with their patches, gunpowder-spots, and toothpickers.” When pleas’d with the humor of her talk, “I beseech you, child,” said I, “are you the she that’s so in love with my person?” Upon which the maid fell into a fit of laughing. “I wou’d not,” return’d she, “have you so extremely flatter yourself. I never yet truckl’d to a waiter, nor will Venus allow I shou’d imbrace a gibbet. You must address your self to ladies that kiss the ensigns of slavery; be assur’d that I, though a servant, have too fine a taste to converse with any below a knight.” I was amaz’d at the relation of such unequal passions, and thought it miraculous to find a servant, with the scornful pride of a lady, and a lady with the humility of a servant. A still more elaborate scene concerns the techniques of recovering the faculty of erotic consummation. Encolpius, the narrator of the _Satyricon_, is attached homosexually to the young Gito. He is in a state of incapacity. At this juncture he receives a note from Circe, the mistress of the maid Chrysis, commenting on his inadequacy: Chrysis enter’d my chamber, and gave me a billet from her mistress, in which I found this written: