Cnemon upon this burst out into an immoderate fit of laughter in his turn. "See," said he, "my dear Calasiris, the mighty magic of this name; it is not only a bugbear which disturbs, as you say, all my faculties, but it has the same effect upon Nausicles; with this difference, however, that the certainty of her death inclines me to laughter, when the same news seems to make him sorrowful, who was before so disposed to be merry at the expense of others."--"Spare me," said Nausicles; "you have sufficiently revenged yourself: but I conjure you by the gods of hospitality and friendship--by the kind and sincere reception which you have met with at my house and table--that you will tell me how you became so well acquainted with the name of Thisbe--whether you really have known her, or only pretend to have done so, out of sport, and to vex me?"--"It is now your turn, Cnemon," said Calasiris, "to turn narrator. You have frequently promised to make me acquainted with your condition and adventures, and as often, on some pretext or other, have put it off: you cannot have a better opportunity of doing so than the present: you will oblige both Nausicles and me; and lighten, by your story, the fatigues of our journey." Cnemon suffered himself to be persuaded, and entered upon his history, relating briefly, what he had before told more at length to Theagenes and Chariclea--That he was an Athenian--that his father was Aristippus, and his stepmother Demæneta--her execrable love, and the snares she laid for him on its disappointment, by the ministry of Thisbe--the particulars of these--his flight from his country, and condemnation as a patricide--his exile at Ægina--his hearing from Charias of the death of Demæneta, betrayed by her own wicked assistant Thisbe--what Anticles related to him of the distress his father fell into; the family of Demæneta combining against him, and persuading the people that he had murdered her--the flight of Thisbe from Athens, with a Naucratian merchant, who was in love with her--his sailing with Anticles to Egypt, in search of Thisbe; in order, if he could find her, to bring her back to Athens, to clear his father, and punish her--the various difficulties and dangers he went through, both by sea and pirates--how, having escaped these, and arrived in Egypt, he was again taken by the pirates--his meeting and connection with Theagenes and Chariclea--the death of Thisbe--and every thing in order, till he came to his meeting with Calasiris and Nausicles, and to those facts and events with which they were acquainted.