"While I was discoursing in this manner, one of the priests of Apollo, whose name was Charicles, with whom I had contracted some intimacy, said, 'I am pleased with what you say, and agree with you entirely, for I have heard the same account of this matter from the priests at the cataracts of the Nile.'--'And have you been as far as there,' said I?--'I have,' he replied.--'On what account?'--'On occasion of some family misfortunes, which, however, at last became the course of my happiness.' When I expressed some surprize at this, 'You would not wonder,' said he, 'if you were to hear the whole matter as it happened; and you may hear it whenever you please.'--'I should be very glad to hear it at once,' said I.--'Attend then,' said Charicles; 'for I have long, and from an interested motive, wished for an opportunity of relating my story to you:'--and, dismissing the general company, he began as follows: "'I had been married a considerable time without having children;[30] I wearied the gods with supplications; and at last, in an advanced stage of life, I became the father of a little daughter, but who was born, as the gods foretold, not under auspicious destiny. She became marriageable, and had many suitors. I married her to him whom I thought most worthy of her; and on the very wedding night she was burnt in her bed, her apartment having been set on fire either by accident or lightning. The hymeneal song, which was still resounding, was turned into a dirge: she was carried from the marriage apartment to her grave; and the torches, which had illuminated the nuptial procession, now lighted the funeral pile. "'My evil genius added yet another calamity to this tragedy, and took from me the mother of my child, who sank under her sorrows. "'Such a series of misfortunes was almost too much for me. It was with difficulty I abstained from laying violent hands upon myself; I had however strength of mind sufficient to refrain from an action which the teachers of religion pronounce unlawful. But being unable to bear the solitude and silence of my house, I left my country, for to deaden memory by turning the eyes upon new objects is a great palliative to grief. I wandered into various parts, and came at last into your Egypt, and to Caladupa,[31] in order to visit the cataracts of the Nile: this, my friend, was the occasion of my coming into your country, which you inquired after. I must now proceed to a digression, though it more properly forms the principal reason of my entering at all into this narration.