human
I do not choose that my messengers should allow themselves to be detained, be it by whom it may--do you hear! Leave Me this instant and go to your room, and stay there till I want you to undress me this evening. Andromeda--do you hear, old woman?--you can bring my brother to me, and he will let you return quicker than Thais, I fancy. You need not leer at yourself in the glass, you cannot do anything to alter your wrinkles. My head-dress is already done. Give me that linen wrapper, Olympias, and then he may come! Why, there he is already! First you ask permission, brother, and then disdain to wait till it is given you.
gpt
Longing and waiting, replied Euergetes,
human
From my lips?
gpt
There are none that can speak better, whether by the Nile or the Ilissus.
human
What do you want of me?
gpt
I--of you?
human
Certainly, for you do not speak so prettily unless you want something.
gpt
But I have already told you! I want to hear you say something wise, something witty, something soul-stirring.
human
We cannot call up wit as we would a maid-servant. It comes unbidden, and the more urgently we press it to appear the more certainly it remains away.
gpt
That may be true of others, but not of you who, even while you declare that you have no store of Attic salt, are seasoning your speech with it. All yield obedience to grace and beauty, even wit and the sharp-tongued Momus who mocks even at the gods.
human
You are mistaken, for not even my own waiting-maids return in proper time when I commission them with a message to you.
gpt
And may we not to be allowed to sacrifice to the Charites on the way to the temple of Aphrodite?
human
If I were indeed the goddess, those worshippers who regarded my hand- maidens as my equals would find small acceptance with me.
gpt
Your reproof is perfectly just, for you are justified in requiring that all who know you should worship but one goddess, as the Jews do but one god. But I entreat you do not again compare yourself to the brainless Cyprian dame. You may be allowed to do so, so far as your grace is concerned; but who ever saw an Aphrodite philosophizing and reading serious books? I have disturbed you in grave studies no doubt; what is the book you are rolling up, fair Zoe?
human
The sacred book of the Jews, Sire, replied Zoe;
gpt
I find passages in it which show a profound knowledge of life, and others of which no one can dispute the high poetic flight, replied Cleopatra.
human
Much of it has no doubt a thoroughly barbarian twang, and it is particularly in the Psalms--which we have now been reading, and which might be ranked with the finest hymns--that I miss the number and rhythm of the syllables, the observance of a fixed metre--in short, severity of form. David, the royal poet, was no less possessed by the divinity when he sang to his lyre than other poets have been, but he does not seem to have known that delight felt by our poets in overcoming the difficulties they have raised for themselves. The poet should slavishly obey the laws he lays down for himself of his own free-will, and subordinate to them every word, and yet his matter and his song should seem to float on a free and soaring wing. Now, even the original Hebrew text of the Psalms has no metrical laws.