While Tanakil and Arsinoe were looking at parasols as well as other wares, Mikon said, “Turms and Dorieus, my friends, this is a city of folly. Watching those two women I foresee that we will be here until evening. In the meantime, the only sensible thing we three can do is to drink ourselves intoxicated.”
Watching Arsinoe’s quick fingers feeling the cloth and fringe of the parasols and listening to her light laugh as she bartered with the Phoenician, I clutched my head in my hands to see whether it was still in place.
“Why in truth should we worry about tomorrow?” I asked. “At least the wine can make nothing worse, for matters are already as bad as they can be.”
The Phoenician sent his slave to fetch some wine. The smell of the incense and the wares made us so queasy that we moved outside and seated ourselves on the backs of the stone lions framing the door. Before many blinks of an eye we had emptied a jug of expensive sweet wine.
“We are behaving like barbarians,” I said, “for we haven’t even a mixing vessel and I for one have never drunk wine from the edge of ajar.”
Dorieus said then, “This wine has a musty taste. It is preserved with flavorings that make the belly loose. Let us have honest resinous wine instead.”
We drank a wineskin of it and sprayed it on one another in lieu of an offering. Arsinoe came to the doorway to try a delicate nose ring in her nostrils and to ask us how we liked it.
Mikon covered his face with his hands and groaned, “I thought my wife Aura had died, but there she is again as large as life!”
“Don’t begin to see visions again as you did last night,” Dorieus said contemptuously. “She is only the goddess who appears in the temple. I recognize her by her ears. But she is nothing compared to Tanakil. She is as though one dipped a finger in honey and licked it clean. But when I enfold Tanakil in my embrace it is as though I were falling head first into a well. Soon we will be man and wife according to both Phoenician and Dorian laws, and then you can both try her if you wish. A Spartan refuses his friends nothing.” He thought for a moment, eyes dull from the wine, and then added, “But if you do I shall kill you. That would be best, for once having embraced Tanakil you would crave death more than life. It is difficult to rise from the bottom of a well.”
He buried his face in his hands and wept with heaving shoulders.
Mikon also shed tears. “All three of us are alone in the world. Alone we have come here and alone we shall return. Let us not quarrel among ourselves but drink wine moderately and with deliberation, just like this. Have I already told you that last night I descended to the underworld to accompany my wife Aura, or at least to see her on her way?”
Just then Arsinoe came out of the shop and showed us the parasol she had chosen. It was no more than the width of several hands, square and edged with fringe, undeniably a fine thing; but it would not have shielded even a frog from the sun.
“Oh, Turms, I am so pleased with this parasol!” she exclaimed. “The merchant also promised to repair my old one, so that now I have two. But I must leave now. I will surely remember you, Turms, especially when I look at this enchanting parasol. Have a good journey, and do not forget me immediately, either.”
“Arsinoe,” I said threateningly, “remember that I gave you a new name. With it I control you whether you wish it or not.”
She patted my cheek and laughed giddily. “Of course, dear Turms, just as you wish. But at this moment you are just drunk enough not to be able to answer for your words.”
She turned and went down the street, holding the new parasol daintily on her shoulder and lifting the hem of her robe with the other hand as she jumped lightly over the obstacles heaped by the storm. As I tried to run after her I stumbled over the first timber, crashed onto my face and was unable to rise until Dorieus and Mikon helped me to my feet. Holding onto one another we started back to the inn, Tanakil behind us with a large parasol over her shoulder.
5.
I awakened in the middle of the night to a paralyzing agony, as though the venom of a snake were spreading through my veins. At the moment of awakening I knew and remembered everything that had happened, and I knew that the goddess had seized me in her power. She had made me love a frivolous woman whose words I could not believe and whose very body lied in my embrace.
But even as I thought the worst of her I saw distinctly her changing face and slanting brows, and her eyes grew dark before me. Perhaps she had experienced a thousand men. Perhaps she was a slut, as Tanakil claimed. But at the very thought of her my mind was torn by desire, tenderness and longing, and I knew that every moment apart from her was mortally dreadful.
I staggered to the courtyard and drank some cold water from a clay container hanging by the door. The sounds had stilled and the lamps had been extinguished in the city. The firmament was full of stars and the new moon, a cruel sickle, threatened me from the edge of the sky.
I went into the stable and in a basket found the pegs belonging to Tanakil’s travel tent. Then I crept through the night to the gate of the temple. It was closed, but the guard was not on the wall and no sound came from within. I circled the wall until I found a suitable place, thrust one tent peg between the stones, rose onto it and then thrust in another. In that manner I built steps for myself and reached the top of the wall. Crawling on my belly I finally found the guard’s stairs and descended into the inner courtyard.
Heaps of rubble left by the storm were still there. Dimly I saw the gleam of the marble peristyle around the fountain and groped my way to it.
I prostrated myself by the fountain and prayed, “You foam-born, by your eternal fountain, heal me of the agony of my love. You kindled it and only you can extinguish it.”
By leaning over the edge I managed to touch the surface of the water with a willow twig and thus got a few drops into my mouth. Carefully I tossed a silver coin into the fountain. The light of the new moon brightened and the goddess Artemis watched me ominously from the sky. But I had no regret. I was not afraid of her fatal arrows, and around my neck was the moonstone which shielded me from madness.
“Come,” I called, “appear before me, you most glorious of deities- without a priest, without the mediation of a mortal woman, though I burn to ashes at sight of you.”
From the depths of the fountain I heard a gurgle as though someone had replied to me. Looking into the water I thought I saw ripples. I began to feel dizzy and had to sit up and rub my eyes to remain conscious.
For a long time nothing happened. Then a shadowy body of light began to assume shape before me. It was winged and naked but so immaterial that I could see the columns through it. She was fairer than all mortal women and even Arsinoe’s living beauty was but the shadow of this body of light in mortal clay.
“Aphrodite, Aphrodite!” I whispered. “Is it you, goddess?”
She shook her head sadly and looked at me with reproachful eyes. “Do you not know me? No, I see that you do not. But some day I will enfold you in my arms and bear you away on powerful wings.”
“Who are you then, that I may know you?” I asked.
She smiled a radiant smile that pierced my heart. “I am your guardian spirit,” she said. “I know you and am bound to you. Pray not to earthly gods nor surrender yourself to their power. You yourself are immortal if you but dare admit it.”
She shook her beautiful head forlornly. “Images of you will be sculptured,” she said, “and offerings made to you. I am within you and of you until that final moment when you recognize me and I kiss the mortal breath from your mouth. Oh, Turms, bind not yourself to earthly deities. Both Artemis and Aphrodite are but jealous, capricious and malevolent spirits of the earth and air. They have their power and their sorcery and they are both competing for you. But neither the moon nor sun will give you immortality, merely the seat of oblivion. And e-gain you must return, again you will bind me to the pain of your birth fad to your living, greedy human body.”