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It is later, and Phye no longer sings. Pindaros suggested they play kottabos, and I, not knowing how it was played, stood under the lintel for a time to watch. Pindaros drew a circle on the floor and a line at some distance from it.
Everyone stood behind this line; and as each drained his cup, he threw the lees at the circle.
When several rounds had been played, Eurykles proposed that the loser of the next tell a tale, and Pindaros seconded him. Hypereides lost, and I sit listening to him (though I do not think I shall trouble to record his tale here) while I write.
CHAPTER XV-The Woman Who Went Out
Phye's tale had not yet begun when a shout of laughter woke me. No doubt she had missed the circle purposely, or perhaps one of the men had pinched her as she threw, or jostled her arm. I give here as much of it as I recall:
Once there was a woman whose husband was very rich but would never give her any money. They had an estate outside the city and a fine house in it, with many slaves and so on, but her gowns were still the gowns she had brought from her father's house, and her husband would not buy her so much as a comb.
One day when she lay weeping on her bed, her maid discovered her there. Now her maid was a Babylonian and as clever as all the people of that city are, and so she said, "My lady, I can guess easily enough why you weep. It's because all the other ladies hereabout have lovers to entertain them, and buy them silver bracelets and curios from Riverland, and talking birds that tell them how beautiful they are even when their lovers aren't around to do it. While you, poor thing, have only that ugly old fool your husband, a skinflint who never gives you so much as a sparrow."
"No," said her mistress, "it's because he never gives me any money."
"That's what I said," said her maid. "For we women, men and money are the same thing, after all. Have I ever told you how we girls get our dowries in Babylon?"
"No," said the mistress again. "But please do, even if it isn't a very good story. Because hearing even a poor story would be better than lying on this barren bed crying away my life."
"Why, it's no story at all," said her maid, "but the plain truth. When a girl in my city approaches the age of marriage, she sells herself to whatever men she likes for as much as they'll pay. In that way the best looking soon accumulate a great deal of money and so get a handsome husband, and soon after, many comely children. By the same token, homely girls get none, and thus it is that we Babylonians are the best-looking people in the whole world." (Here Phye, whom I was watching by this time through the doorway, patted her hair to considerable laughter and applause.) "Though you, my lady, would be thought lovely anywhere, I must say."
"That's extremely interesting," said her mistress, "and I certainly never knew it. But it doesn't do me the least good; I'm married already, so I don't need another dowry."
"True," said her maid. "But suppose you were to go out at night and make whatever handsome men you meet the same sort of offer our Babylonian girls do? You'd have a handsome lover for the night, and very quickly a great deal of money."
"It's certainly a most attractive idea," her mistress admitted, "but it seems to me that it's out of the question. My husband sleeps with me every night. If he were to wake and find me gone… Now that you mention it, I suppose it might be possible to administer some sort of mild and harmless medication that would assure him of a good night's sleep. Do you happen to know of a dealer in such preparations?"
Her maid shook her head sadly. "Most of them are ineffective, my lady, and even the worst cost a great deal. But I know a trick worth a dozen of them, if you can tell me where to find the last resting place of an amorous woman."
"Really?" said her mistress. "Magic? How fascinating! You know, my cousin Phyllis's grave is only a short walk from here. Would that do, do you think?"
"I don't know," said the maid. "Was she fond of men?"
"Extremely," said her mistress. "And when she died, one of my uncle's he-goats wouldn't eat for a month."
"Then she'd be perfect," said the maid. "Here's all we have to do. At di
"Night soil, you mean?" her mistress suggested.
The maid shook her head. "Too obvious… I have it! He's accustomed to rancid oil-it's the only sort he'll let us buy for the kitchen. Give me that old pin to take to the market, and I'll trade it for the freshest, purest oil I can find. That should make him sick, and he'll sleep overnight in the temple of the Healing God in the hope of a cure. When he's gone, you and I will dig some earth from the garden and take it to your cousin's grave. There you'll moisten it with a certain fluid I'll indicate to you-you have a plentiful supply-and we'll make a doll of clay, kneading a lock of your hair into it."
Her mistress clapped her hands with delight. "Why, this is much better than crying!"
"Then," her maid continued, "we'll lay the doll on her grave and engage in a recitation in which I shall prompt you. After that, whenever you want to leave at night, all you'll have to do is put the clay doll in your bed in your place. If your husband wakes, he'll see you beside him. And if he embraces the doll, he'll meet with such a reception as will endear you to him forever."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed her mistress, and that very night they carried out their plan with complete success.
The next night the lady waited until her husband was asleep, put the doll in their bed beside him, and enjoyed a succession of fascinating adventures in the city that left her a great deal wealthier than she had been before.
All went well for some time, she adventuring almost every night and her husband never complaining, though she noticed the clay doll was losing its proper shape. Early each morning when she returned, she would pat it until it looked as it had when she and the maid had formed it. But every night when she took it out again, she found that the clay had shifted downward in a most alarming fashion; and at last she told her maid the problem.
"Alas, my lady," said the maid. "I feared this might occur. In Babylon, we fire these figures in a potter's furnace-then there's no further trouble. But since you had no money and I didn't know of a potter here who'd be likely to cooperate without it, I neglected that step."
"What are you talking about?" said her mistress. "What's the matter with the doll?"
Her maid sighed. "It's a condition in which you would not, I think, wish to find yourself, my lady. If nature is allowed to take its course, there will soon be two clay dolls instead of one."
"How horrible!" said her mistress. "What can we do? Can't we bribe a potter to fire it now?"
"My lady," said her maid, "it would only crack later. I believe the best thing would be for us to bury the doll again in the place where we dug it up. You'll have to sleep with your husband-at least for a time-but that can't be helped. Do you by any chance remember the spot?"
"Why, yes," said her mistress. "It was under the apple tree."
"Then that would be the best place to put it," said the maid.
And so they did, and the woman began sleeping with her husband once more.
One day one of his rivals in business, a man as penurious as himself, found him moping about the market. "What's the matter?" he said. "Has someone cheated you?" For he would have been sorry indeed to hear that the husband had been cheated by anyone other than himself.
"No," said the husband. "It's my wife."
"Ah," said his rival. "There's a great deal of that going around these days, you know."