And if I could cease to love, the world would wag as well as may be. But now,—now,—as they say, Thyonichus, I am like the mouse that has tasted pitch. And what remedy there may be for a bootless love, I know not; except that Simus, he who was in love with the daughter of Epicalchus, went over seas, and came back heart-whole,—a man of my own age. And I too will cross the water, and prove not the first, maybe, nor the last, perhaps, but a fair soldier as times go. _Thyonichus_. Would that things had gone to your mind, Aeschines. But if, in good earnest, you are thus set on going into exile, PTOLEMY is the free man’s best paymaster! _Aeschines_. And in other respects, what kind of man? _Thyonichus_. The free man’s best paymaster! Indulgent too, the Muses’ darling, a true lover, the top of good company, knows his friends, and still better knows his enemies. A great giver to many, refuses nothing that he is asked which to give may beseem a king, but, Aeschines, we should not always be asking. Thus, if you are minded to pin up the top corner of your cloak over the right shoulder, and if you have the heart to stand steady on both feet, and bide the brunt of a hardy targeteer, off instantly to Egypt! From the temples downward we all wax grey, and on to the chin creeps the rime of age, men must do somewhat while their knees are yet nimble. IDYL XV _This famous idyl should rather_, _perhaps_, _be called a mimus_. _It describes the visit paid by two Syracusan women residing in Alexandria_, _to the festival of the resurrection of Adonis_. _The festival is given by Arsinoë_, _wife and sister of Ptolemy Philadelphus_, _and the poem cannot have been written earlier than his marriage_, _in_ 266 B.C. [?] _Nothing can be more gay and natural than the chatter of the women_, _which has changed no more in two thousand years than the song of birds_. _Theocritus is believed to have had a model for this idyl in the Isthmiazusae of Sophron_, _an older poet_. _In the Isthmiazusae two ladies described the spectacle of the Isthmian games_. * * * * * _Gorgo_. Is Praxinoë at home? _Praxinoë_. Dear Gorgo, how long it is since you have been here! She _is_ at home. The wonder is that you have got here at last! Eunoë, see that she has a chair. Throw a cushion on it too. _Gorgo_. It does most charmingly as it is. _Praxinoë_. Do sit down. _Gorgo_. Oh, what a thing spirit is! I have scarcely got to you alive, Praxinoë! What a huge crowd, what hosts of four-in-hands! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! And the road is endless: yes, you really live _too_ far away! _Praxinoë_. It is all the fault of that madman of mine. Here he came to the ends of the earth and took—a hole, not a house, and all that we might not be neighbours. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite!