If the milk of our goats seems insipid to thee, I will hire for thee, as for an infant, a nurse with swollen breasts who will suckle thee each morning. If our bed seems rough to thee, I will buy thee all the soft cushions, all the coverlets of silk, all the cloths, soft with feathers, of the Amathusian merchants. All. But I should suffice thee, and though we sleep upon the earth, thou shouldst find it softer than the warm bed of a stranger. LXXVIII THE EYES Great eyes of Mnasidika, how happy you make me when love darkens your lids and quickens you and shadows you with tears: But how maddened, when you turn elsewhere, distracted by a woman who passes or by a remembrance which is not mine. Then my cheeks hollow themselves, my hands tremble and I suffer.... It seems to me from all parts, and before you, my life goes away. Great eyes of Mnasidika, cease not to regard me! or I will stab you with my needle and then you will see only the terrible night. LXXIX FARDS All, all my life, and my world, and the men, all that is not of her, is nothing. All that is not of her, I give to thee, passer-by. Does she know the labor I have accomplished to be fair to her eyes, with my hair and with my fards, with my robes and my perfumes? As long a time I would turn a millstone, I would wield the oar or labor in the earth, if it were a necessary price to retain her here. But perhaps she will never know, Goddesses who watch over us. The day she learns that I love her, she will seek another woman. LXXX THE SILENCE OF MNASIDIKA She had laughed all the day, and she even had mocked me a little. She had refused to obey me before many strange women. When we returned, I affected not to speak to her, and, as she cast herself upon my neck, saying: “Thou art offended?” I said to her: “Ah! thou art not as formerly, thou art not as on the first day. I no longer recognize thee, Mnasidika.” She did not respond to me. But she put on all the jewels which she had not worn for a long time, and the same yellow robe, broidered with blue, as on the day of our meeting. LXXXI SCENE “Where wast thou?--At the flower merchant’s. I have bought some very beautiful irises. Here they are, I have brought them to thee.--In so long a time thou hast bought four flowers?--The flower-woman detained me. “Thy cheeks are pale and thine eyes brilliant.--It is fatigue from the walk.--Thy hair is moist and tangled.--It is the heat and the wind which almost blew down my hair. “Someone has untied thy girdle. I made the knot myself, looser than this one.--So loose that it became undone; a slave who passed retied it for me.