Book 3

1.1. On the third day of our voyage, out of a wide clear sky a mist suddenly spread over us, and the light of day was lost. A wind rose up from below, out of the sea, full against the ship's prow, and the helmsman ordered the yard to be swung round.

1.2. The sailors hauled it round in haste, gathering the sailcloth to one side, up the yard, by main force—for the wind, falling more violently, would not let them haul against it—and now to the other side, keeping the former measure by which the wind happened to be favourable to the turning.

1.3. The vessel heeled over to one hollow side and rose up on the other, and was tilted altogether on end, and it seemed to most of us that it would capsize outright as the wind struck it. So we all shifted to the higher side of the ship, that we might lighten the part that was being submerged, and by adding our weight bring it down little by little to a balance.

1.4. But we accomplished nothing more; for the deck of the ship, rising to a peak, lifted us up more than we weighed it down.

1.5. For some time we wrestled thus with the ship as it tilted upon the waves, striving to bring it down to a balance; but suddenly the wind shifted to the other side of the ship, and the vessel was nearly submerged, the side that had been leaning into the wave springing up with a sharp recoil, while the other, which had been hanging aloft, crashed down into the sea.

1.6. So a great wailing arose from the ship, and again a migration and a rush, with shouting, back to the old positions. And a third and a fourth time, and often, suffering the same thing, we shared this wandering with the vessel. For before we had finished the first shift, a second double-course caught us.

2.1. So carrying our baggage about the ship all day long, we toiled at this measureless marathon, ever expecting death; and death, as was likely, was not far off.

2.2. For about midday the sun was utterly snatched away, and we saw one another as in moonlight. Fire flashed from the clouds, the sky bellowed with thunder, and the air was full of the din; from below, the conflict of the waves bellowed back, and between sky and sea the sound of many winds went whistling.

2.3. The air had the blare of a trumpet, the ropes fell about the sail and rattled as they beat against one another; and there was fear too that the timbers of the ship, splitting, might open it bit by bit as the bolts were torn away; and wicker screens were spread over the whole ship.

2.4. For much rain came pouring down, and we crept beneath the screens as into a cave and waited there, giving ourselves up to fortune, having flung away our hopes.

2.5. Great triple-waves came from every side, some against the prow, some against the stern of the ship, dashing one upon another. The ship was forever rising toward the swelling of the sea and then sinking toward the wave that had already run by and grown low. Of the waves, some were like mountains, others like chasms.

2.6. And the cross-waves on either side were more terrible still. For the sea, climbing up over the ship, rolled in through the screens and covered the whole vessel.

2.7. For the wave, raised on high, touching the very clouds, appeared from afar to the ship a mountain of such a height; but as you saw it coming on, you expected the ship to be swallowed up.

2.8. So there was a battle of winds and waves, and we could not keep our place for the heaving of the ship. A confused cry arose of everything: the wave roared, the wind blustered, women shrieked, men shouted, the sailors called their orders—all full of dirges and wailing.

2.9. And the helmsman ordered the cargo to be thrown over; and there was no distinction of silver and gold from any cheap thing, but we cast everything alike out of the ship. Many of the merchants too, taking up their own goods, in which their hopes lay, pushed them over in their haste. And by now the ship was bare of its freight; but the storm made no truce.

3.1. At last the helmsman, giving up, threw the steering-oars out of his hands, abandoned the ship to the sea, and made ready the ship's boat; and ordering the sailors aboard, he led the way down the ladder. They at once leapt down at his heels.

3.2. Then indeed the terrors began, and there was hand-to-hand combat. For those who had already got aboard were cutting the cable that bound the boat to the ship; and each of the passengers strove to leap across to where they saw the helmsman, and clung to the cable; but those in the boat would not let them cross over.

3.3. They had axes and knives too, and threatened to strike anyone who tried to board; and those from the ship, arming themselves as best they could, one snatching up a fragment of an old oar, another a piece of the ship's benches, fought back. For the sea made might its law, and it was a new kind of sea-battle.

3.4. Those in the boat, fearing to be sunk by the throng of those boarding, struck with axes and knives at the men leaping in; the others brought down blows with clubs and oars as they leapt.

3.5. Some, just grazing the edge of the boat, slipped off; some, having already boarded, grappled with those in the boat; for there was no longer any law of friendship or shame, but each, looking to his own safety, took no thought of fair dealing toward others. So great dangers dissolve even the laws of friendship.

4.1. Then a sturdy young man from the ship seized the cable and drew the boat toward him, and it was now near the ship, and each made ready to leap into it if it came close.

4.2. Two or three succeeded, though not without bloodshed; but many, trying to leap, were rolled off the ship into the sea. For the sailors quickly cast off the boat, cutting the cable with an axe, and held their course where the wind drove them; and those on the ship prayed that the boat might sink.

4.3. The vessel tumbled, dancing about on the waves, and before we knew it struck an unseen reef and was wholly broken to pieces; and as the ship was driven back, the mast, falling to one side, shattered part of it and submerged part.

4.4. Now those who at once drank the brine and were held under fared the more moderately, as misfortunes go, not lingering in the fear of death.

4.5. For a slow death at sea kills before the suffering comes; for the eye, filled with the open sea, stretches the fear out beyond measure, so that one suffers a greater death even by this; for as great as the size of the sea, so great is the fear of death.

4.6. Some, trying to swim, were dashed by the wave against the reef and destroyed; many, falling upon broken timbers, were pierced like fish; others swam half-dead.

5.1. So when the ship had broken up, some good spirit preserved for us a part of the prow, on which Leucippe and I sat down and were borne along by the current of the sea; but Menelaus and Satyrus, with others of the passengers, chancing upon the mast, fell upon it and swam.

5.2. Near at hand we saw Clinias too swimming about on the yardarm, and we heard this cry from him: "Hold to the timber, Clitophon!" And even as he spoke a wave covered him from behind;

5.3. and we cried out. At the same time a wave bore down on us too; but by some chance, coming near us, it ran past beneath us, so that the timber was lifted high on the crest of the wave, and we saw Clinias again.

5.4. So I cried aloud, "Have pity, lord Poseidon, and make a truce with us, the remnants of your shipwreck. Many deaths already have we endured through fear; but if you wish to kill us, do not divide our end—let one wave cover us both; and if it is fated for us to become the food of beasts, let one fish devour us, let one belly hold us,

5.5. "that even among fishes we may be buried together." A little after this prayer the greater part of the wind ceased, and the savagery of the wave was stilled. The sea was full of dead bodies. Menelaus and his companions the wave brought sooner to land; and this was the seaboard of Egypt, which was then held in all that region by pirates.

5.6. But we, toward late evening, came by some chance to shore at Pelusium, and gladly taking hold of land we praised the gods; then we mourned for Clinias and Satyrus, thinking that they had perished.

6.1. Now in Pelusium there is a holy statue of Zeus Casius. The statue is of a young man, more like Apollo, for it was of that age. His hand is held forward and holds a pomegranate upon it; and the meaning of the pomegranate is mystic.

6.2. So having prayed to the god and asked for a sign concerning Clinias and Satyrus—for they said the god was prophetic—we went round the temple.

6.3. In the rear chamber we saw a double picture, and the painter's name was inscribed: Evanthes was the painter, and the picture was of Andromeda and Prometheus, both prisoners—and for this reason, I think, the artist had brought them together into one—and the paintings were sisters too in the rest of their fortune.

6.4. Rocks were the prison of both, and beasts were the executioners over both, his from the air, hers from the sea. And helpers came to them, two kinsmen of Argos: to him Heracles, to her Perseus; the one shooting the bird of Zeus, the other contending against the sea-monster of Poseidon. But the one is set shooting his bow on the earth, while the other hangs in the air upon his wing.

7.1. The rock had been hollowed out to the measure of the girl; and the hollow seemed to declare that no hand had made it, but that it was native to the place; for the painter had roughened the cleft of the stone, as the earth had borne it.

7.2. She is set within the shelter, and the sight, if you looked at her beauty, was like a strange statue; but if you looked at the bonds and the monster, like an improvised tomb. On her face beauty and dread are mingled.

7.3. For on her cheeks dread sits, but from her eyes beauty blooms. Yet the pallor of her cheeks was not wholly without colour, but lightly tinged with red, nor was the bloom of her eyes carefree, but like violets just beginning to fade. So the painter had adorned her with a fear that became her.

7.4. Her hands he had spread out upon the rock, a bond above binding each to the stone; her wrists hang like clusters of a vine. And the arms of the girl, white beyond measure, had turned to a livid hue, and her fingers seem to be dying.

7.5. So she is bound, awaiting death, but she stands arrayed as a bride, adorned as though a bride for Hades. Her tunic reaches to the feet, a white tunic; the weave is fine, like the spinning of spiders' webs, not like the wool of sheep, but like the fine-fleeced wools from which the Indian women weave, drawing their threads, as it were, from the trees.

7.6. The monster, facing the girl, rising from below, opens the sea; and most of its body is wrapped in the wave, the head alone stripping off the sea. Beneath the brine of the wave the shadow of its back was painted, showing the swellings of the scales, the curvings of the neck, the crest of spines, the coils of the tail.

7.7. The jaw is great and long, opened wide all the way to the joining of the shoulders, and at once comes the belly. Between the monster and the girl Perseus was painted, descending from the air; and he descends upon the beast wholly naked, a cloak only about his shoulders and a sandal about his feet, near the wing; a cap covers his head, and the cap hinted at the helmet of Hades. In his left hand he holds the head of the Gorgon and thrusts it forward like a shield.

7.8. And it is terrible even in its colours: it has spread out its eyes, bristled the hair of its temples, raised its serpents; so it threatens even in the painting. This is the weapon in Perseus' left hand; in his right he is armed with a twofold iron, split into a sickle and a sword.

7.9. For the haft begins below from one piece for both, and for half its length it is a sword; but breaking off from there, one part is sharpened to a point and the other is curved. And the sharpened part remains a sword, as it began, while the curved becomes a sickle, that with a single blow the one may drive home the slaughter and the other secure the cutting. Such was the drama of Andromeda.

8.1. Next to it had been wrought the drama of Prometheus. Prometheus is bound with iron and rock, and Heracles is armed with bow and spear. A bird feasts upon Prometheus' belly; for it stands opening it,

8.2. already opened; but its beak is set into the hollow, and it seems to dig out the wound and seek the liver; and the liver shows just so far as the painter has opened the gash of the wound; and it presses the points of its talons upon Prometheus' thigh.

8.3. He, in his pain, is drawn together everywhere, and his side is contracted, and he raises his thigh against himself; for he draws it up toward the bird, toward his liver; and his other leg is stretched straight downward in the spasm and tapers off to the toes.

8.4. The rest of his posture shows his agony: his brows are arched, his lip drawn in, his teeth shown. You would have pitied even the painting as though it suffered.

8.5. Heracles brings relief to the sufferer. For he stands shooting his bow at Prometheus' executioner; an arrow is fitted to the bow, his left hand is thrust forward pushing the horn of the bow, he draws his right toward his breast, and, drawing the string, his elbow is bent back.

8.6. So everything is folded together at once—the bow, the string, the right hand. The bow is bent by the string, the string is doubled by the hand,

8.7. and the hand leans toward the breast. And Prometheus is full of hope and fear at once; for now he looks toward his wound, now toward Heracles, and he wishes to see him with his whole eyes, but his agony draws away half his gaze.

9.1. So having spent two days there and recovered ourselves from our troubles, we hired an Egyptian boat—for we had a little gold, which we happened to have carried in our belts—and made our voyage up the Nile to Alexandria, having resolved above all to make our stay there, and thinking we might perhaps find our friends, if they had been carried thither.

9.2. But when we came opposite a certain city, suddenly we heard a great shouting. And the sailor, saying "the herdsman!", turned the boat round, as though to sail back again; and at the same time the land was full of fearful and savage men—all of them tall, of black colour, not the pure black of the Indians, but such as a half-blood Ethiopian would be, bare-headed, slight of foot, but thick of body; and they all spoke a barbarous tongue.

9.3. And the helmsman, saying "we are lost," stopped the boat, for there the river was at its narrowest; and four of the robbers, boarding, took everything in the boat, and carried off our gold, and binding us and shutting us into a hut, went away, leaving us guards, intending to take us the next day to the king—for by this name they called the greater robber. And it was a journey of two days, as we heard from those captured along with us.

10.1. So when night came and we lay bound, as we were, and the guards were asleep, then, as I was now free to, I began to weep for Leucippe. And reckoning of how many evils I had been the cause to her, with a deep wailing in my soul, and stealing from my mind the sound of the wailing, I said, "O gods and spirits, if you are anywhere and hear, what so great wrong have we done, that in a few days we should be plunged into so great a multitude of evils?

10.2. "And now you have even handed us over to Egyptian robbers, that we may not even meet with pity. For a Greek robber a voice can move and a prayer can soften; for speech often procures pity, since the tongue, ministering to the soul's distress with a plea for mercy, calms the anger in the soul of those who hear.

10.3. "But now with what voice are we to plead? What words are we to offer? Even if one should prove more persuasive than the Sirens, the murderer does not hear. I must beg only with nods and make my plea by gestures. Oh, the misery of it! Already I shall dance the dirge.

10.4. "My own troubles, even if they surpass all calamity, I grieve for less; but yours, Leucippe—with what mouth shall I lament them? With what eyes shall I weep? O faithful to the constraint of love, kind to a lover in his misfortune.

10.5. "How fair are the adornments of your wedding! Your bridal chamber is the prison, your couch the ground, your necklaces and bracelets are cables and a noose, and a robber sleeps beside you as your bridesman, and instead of wedding-songs someone sings you a dirge.

10.6. "In vain, O sea, did we acknowledge gratitude to you; I blame your kindness; you have been kinder to those you killed, and in saving us you have rather killed us. You grudged us to die untouched by robbers."

11.1. So I lamented quietly, but I could not weep; for this is the peculiar way of the eyes in great evils. For in moderate misfortunes the tears flow freely, and they are to the sufferers a plea against those who chastise them, and they empty the sufferers of their pain, as of a swelling wound; but in overwhelming terrors the tears flee and betray the eyes.

11.2. For grief, meeting them as they rise, checks them at their height and turns them aside, bearing them down with itself below; and being diverted from the road to the eyes, they flow down into the soul and make its wound the harder. So I said to Leucippe, who kept wholly silent, "Why are you silent, dearest, and speak nothing to me?" "Because, Clitophon," she said, "before my soul my voice has died."

12.1. While we were talking thus, dawn came upon us unawares; and a man riding a horse came up, with a great wild head of hair; and the horse too was unkempt. The horse was bare and had no trappings; for such are the horses of robbers. He had come from the robber-chief and said, "If there is any maiden among the captives, take her to the god, to be a sacrifice

12.2. "and a purification for the army." They turned at once to Leucippe; and she clung to me and hung upon me, crying out. Of the robbers some dragged her away, others struck; they dragged Leucippe, and struck me. So lifting her aloft they carried her off, and led us, bound, at our leisure.

13.1. And when we had gone two stades from the village, a great clamour was heard, and the sound of a trumpet, and a phalanx of soldiers appeared, all heavy-armed. The robbers, seeing them, took us into their midst and waited for them to come on, meaning to defend themselves.

13.2. And before long there were about fifty in number, some with shields reaching to the feet, others with light shields. The robbers, being far more numerous, took up clods from the ground and pelted the soldiers.

13.3. And of all clods the Egyptian clod is the worst, being heavy and rough and uneven; and its unevenness is the sharp points of the stones; so that, thrown, it makes a double wound at once—a bruise as from a stone,

13.4. and gashes as from a missile. But the soldiers, receiving the stones on their shields, took little heed of those who threw them. So when the robbers were weary of throwing, the soldiers opened their phalanx, and from behind their shields ran out men lightly equipped, each bearing a spear and a sword, and they hurled their javelins all together, and there was none who did not hit his mark.

13.5. Then the heavy-armed men flowed in upon them; and the battle was hard, with blows on both sides and wounds and slaughter. And the experience of the soldiers made up for what they lacked in numbers; while those of us who were prisoners, watching for the labouring part of the robbers' line, came together and cut through their phalanx and ran out toward the other side.

13.6. The soldiers at first tried to kill us, not knowing who we were; but when they saw us naked and in bonds, suspecting the truth, they received us within their ranks and, passing us to the rear, let us rest.

13.7. Meanwhile cavalry too came flowing in, and when they were near, extending the phalanx by either wing, they rode around the robbers in a circle, and so, hemming them into a small space, they cut them down. And some lay dead, and others, half-dead, still fought; but the rest they took alive.

14.1. It was toward evening; and the general, taking each of us aside, asked who we were and how we had been captured. One told one thing, another another, and I told my own story. So when he had learned everything, he ordered us to follow, and promised to give us arms; for he had resolved to wait for an army and then attack the great robber-band, which was said to number about ten thousand.

14.2. As for me, I asked for a horse, for I was very well trained in riding. And when one was provided, I rode the horse about and displayed in rhythm the figures of warriors, so that the general praised me highly. So that day he made me his table-companion, and over dinner asked of my affairs, and hearing them pitied me.

14.3. A man who listens to the troubles of others is somehow disposed to sympathy, and pity often procures friendship; for the soul, softened toward the grief of what it has heard, and gradually moved in fellow-feeling by the recital of the suffering, gathers the compassion into friendship and the grief into pity.

14.4. So by my recital I so affected the general that I even drew him to tears; but we could do nothing more, since Leucippe was held by the robbers. He gave me also an Egyptian servant to attend on me.

15.1. The next day he made ready for the crossing and set about filling in the canal, which lay in the way. For we saw the robbers standing in arms on the other side of the canal with their greatest force; and they had a kind of improvised altar made of clay, and a coffin near the altar.

15.2. Then two of them led up the girl, her hands bound behind her. Who they were I could not see, for they were armed; but the girl I recognized as Leucippe.

15.3. Then, pouring a libation over her head, they led her round the altar in a circle, and someone piped to her, and the priest, as was likely, sang an Egyptian song; for the shape of his mouth and the drawn-out look of his face suggested a song.

15.4. Then at a signal all withdrew far from the altar, and one of the young men, laying her on her back, bound her to stakes fixed in the ground, as the makers of clay figures represent Marsyas bound to the tree; then taking a sword he plunged it into her heart and, drawing the sword down into the lower belly, ripped it open;

15.5. and the entrails at once leapt out, which they drew out with their hands and laid upon the altar; and when they were roasted, they all cut them into portions and ate them. And as the soldiers and the general saw each thing as it was done, they cried out and turned their eyes away from the sight; but I, against all reason, sat there and watched.

15.6. It was sheer stupefaction; for the evil, being beyond measure, struck me dumb. And perhaps the legend of Niobe was no falsehood, but she too, suffering some such thing at the destruction of her children, gave by her stillness the appearance of having turned to stone.

15.7. When the deed was finished, as I thought, they put the body into the coffin and left it, setting a lid upon it, and overturning the altar fled without looking back. For so the priest had instructed them to do by his oracle.

16.1. When evening came the whole canal had been filled in, and the soldiers, crossing over, encamped a little above the canal and were at dinner; and the general tried to comfort me in my distress.

16.2. About the first watch of the night, watching until all were asleep, I went forth with my sword, to slay myself upon the coffin.

16.3. And when I came near, I raised the sword and said, "Leucippe, wretched and most unlucky of all human beings, I do not lament your death alone, nor that you died in a foreign land, nor that your slaughter was done by violence, but that these were the playthings of your misfortunes—that you were made a purification of unclean bodies, and that they cut you open alive, alas, and watching the whole dissection; that they parcelled out the mysteries of your belly, and gave you for burial to a wretched altar and coffin.

16.4. "And your body lies here, but your entrails—where? If the fire had consumed them, the calamity were less; but as it is, the burial of your entrails has become the robbers' food. Oh, the wicked torchlight upon the altar! Oh, the strange mysteries of feasting!

16.5. "And over such sacrifices did the gods look down from above, and the fire was not quenched, but endured to be polluted and bore up to the gods the savour of the offering? Take, then, Leucippe, the libations that befit you from me."

17.1. Saying this I raised the sword aloft, to bring it down upon my own throat, and I saw two men running hard toward me from the opposite side—for it was moonlight. So I held back, thinking they were robbers, that I might be killed by them.

17.2. Meanwhile they came near and both cried out; and it was Menelaus and Satyrus. Yet seeing my friends alive, against all reason, I neither embraced them nor was overcome with joy; so utterly had grief at my calamity deafened me.

17.3. So they seized my right hand and tried to take away the sword; and I said, "By the gods, do not grudge me a noble death, or rather a cure for my evils; for I can no longer live, even if you now force me,

17.4. "Leucippe being thus slain. You will take away this sword; but the sword of my grief is fixed within and cuts me little by little. Do you wish me to die by an immortal slaughter?" Then Menelaus said, "If it is for this that you wish to die, it is time for you to hold your sword; for Leucippe will now come back to life for you."

17.5. So looking at him I said, "Do you still mock me in so great a calamity? A fine thing, Menelaus, your remembering Zeus the protector of strangers!" But he struck the coffin and said, "Since, then, Clitophon disbelieves, do you bear witness for me, Leucippe,

17.6. "if you are alive." And as he spoke he struck the coffin two or three times, and from below I heard a voice, very faint. Trembling at once seized me, and I looked toward Menelaus, thinking he was a magician.

17.7. He at the same time opened the coffin, and Leucippe rose up from below—a fearful sight, O gods, and most terrible. Her whole belly was open and emptied of its entrails; but she fell upon me and embraced me, and we clung together, and both of us fell down.

18.1. So scarcely reviving I said to Menelaus, "Will you not tell me what this is? Do I not see Leucippe? Do I not hold her and hear her speaking? What, then, were the things I saw yesterday? For either those were dreams, or these are.

18.2. "But look, here is a kiss, real and living, as sweet as that kiss of Leucippe." "But now," said Menelaus, "she will get back her entrails too, and her breast will grow whole again, and you shall see her unwounded. But cover your face; for I call upon Hecate for the work." And I, believing, covered myself.

18.3. He began to play the wonder-worker and to recite some incantation; and as he spoke he took away the contrivances on Leucippe's belly and restored her to her former state,

18.4. and said to me, "Uncover yourself." And I, scarcely and in fear—for I really thought Hecate was present—yet drew my hands from my eyes and saw Leucippe whole.

18.5. So, more amazed still, I begged Menelaus, saying, "Dearest Menelaus, if you are some minister of the gods, I beg you, where on earth am I, and what are these things I see?" And Leucippe said, "Stop, Menelaus, frightening him, and tell him how you deceived the robbers."

19.1. So Menelaus said, "You know that I am Egyptian by birth; for I told you this before, on the ship. Now most of my property was about this village, and the chiefs of it were known to me.

19.2. "So when we met with the shipwreck, and the wave then cast me up on the seaboard of Egypt, I was seized, together with Satyrus, by the robbers who keep watch there. And as I was being led to the robber-chief, some of the robbers, quickly recognizing me, loosed my bonds, and bade me take courage and join their work, as one of their own.

19.3. "So I asked for Satyrus too as mine. They said, 'But first you must show yourself bold to us.' And at that time they received an oracle to sacrifice a maiden and purify the band, and to taste the liver of the victim, and then, handing the rest of the body over to a coffin, to withdraw, that the army of the enemy might pass beyond the place of the sacrifice. Tell now the rest, Satyrus, for from here the story is yours."

20.1. And Satyrus said, "While I was being driven along to the camp, master, I wept and lamented, having learned what concerned Leucippe, and begged Menelaus by every means to save the girl.

20.2. "And some good spirit helped us. We happened, on the day before the sacrifice, to be sitting by the sea in grief and considering these things, when some of the robbers, seeing a ship that had strayed by ignorance, set out against it.

20.3. "And those on the ship, perceiving who they were, tried to row back again; but as the robbers got ahead and caught up with them, they turned to defend themselves;

20.4. "for there was among them one of those who act out Homer in the theatres. Arming himself in the Homeric gear and arming his companions likewise, he set about fighting.

20.5. "Against the first who came on they made a very stout stand; but when more pirate craft sailed up, they sank the ship and killed the men as they fell out.

20.6. "Now a chest, fallen overboard, was, unnoticed, carried by the wreck and the current toward us, and Menelaus took it up; and withdrawing somewhere, with me present too—for he expected something of value to be inside—he opened the chest, and we saw a cloak and a sword, the haft about four palms long, but the blade upon the haft very short,

20.7. "about three fingers. And when Menelaus, taking up the sword, unwittingly turned it on the side of the blade, that short little sword ran out from the haft, as from a hole, as much as the length of the haft; but when he turned it back the other way, the blade sank in again. With this, then, as is likely, that wretched man in the theatres used to perform his counterfeit slaughters."

21.1. "So I said to Menelaus, 'If you are willing to prove kind to us, a god will fight on our side; for we shall be able both to save the girl and to escape the robbers' notice.

21.2. "'Hear in what way. Let us take a sheepskin, as supple as may be, and sew it up into the shape of a bag, the size of a human belly; then, filling it with the entrails and blood of beasts, let us sew up this counterfeit belly, so that the entrails will not easily fall out, and dress the girl in this fashion, and, throwing a robe over her on the outside, bound about with girdles and sashes, let us conceal this contrivance.

21.3. "'And the oracle too is altogether useful to us for concealment. For the oracle says that she is to be cut open through the middle of her clothing while fully dressed. You see how this sword is contrived.

21.4. "'For if one presses it against any body, it flees into the haft as into a sheath; and the onlookers think the blade is plunged into the body, but it has run up into the hollow of the haft, and leaves only the point, just enough to cut the false belly, and the haft comes against the skin of the one being slaughtered; and if one draws the blade out of the wound, the sword falls down again from the hollow, as much as the part of the haft that is lifted up, and in the same way deceives the onlookers.

21.5. "'For it seems to go down in the slaughter as much as it comes up from the contrivance. So when this is done, the robbers will not know the trick. For the skins are hidden, and the entrails will leap forth at the slaughter, which we shall take out and offer on the altar.

21.6. "'And from then on the robbers will not approach the body, but we shall lay it in the coffin. You heard the robber-chief saying a little before that we must show some bold deed to them, so that you may go to him and promise this display.' Saying this I begged him, calling on Zeus the protector of strangers, and reminding him of our common table and our common shipwreck."

22.1. "And this good fellow said, 'The task is great, but for a friend, even if one must die, the danger is noble and the death is sweet.' 'And I believe,' I said, 'that Clitophon too is alive.

22.2. "'For the girl, when I asked, told me that he had been left, bound, among those captured by the robbers, and the robbers who escaped to the robber-chief said that all those taken by them had escaped the battle into the camp; so that your favour will be stored up with him, and at the same time

22.3. "'you will have pitied a wretched girl from so great an evil.' Saying this I persuaded him, and Fortune helped. So I set about the contrivance of the device; and just as Menelaus was about to speak to the robbers about the sacrifice, the robber-chief, getting ahead by some chance, said, 'It is our custom that the first initiates begin the holy rite, especially when a human is to be sacrificed.

22.4. "'It is time, then, for you to make ready by tomorrow for the sacrifice; and your servant too must be initiated along with you.' 'Indeed,' he said, 'we will do our best to prove no worse than any of you.

22.5. "'But we ourselves must dress the girl suitably for the dissection.' 'The victim is yours,' said the robber-chief.

22.6. "So we dressed the girl in the aforesaid manner by ourselves, and bade her take courage, going over each detail and telling her that she must remain inside the coffin, and that even if sleep released her sooner, she must stay within for the day. 'And if anything goes wrong with us, save yourself to the camp.' Saying this we led her out to the altar. And the rest you know."

23.1. So when I heard this, I was in every kind of mood and was at a loss what worthy thing to do for Menelaus. But the most common course—I fell upon him and embraced him and did obeisance to him as to a god, and pleasure poured in floods over my soul.

23.2. And when things stood well for me concerning Leucippe, I said, "And Clinias—what has become of him?" And Menelaus said, "I do not know; for after the shipwreck I saw him at once take hold of the yardarm, but where

23.3. "he has gone I do not know." So I wailed aloud in the midst of my joy; for quickly some spirit grudged me my pure pleasure;

23.4. for him who had appeared nowhere for my sake, who after Leucippe was my master, this one the sea kept from all, that he might lose not only his life

23.5. but his burial too. "O sea without understanding, you have grudged us the whole drama of your kindness." So we went together to the camp, and going into my tent we spent the rest of the night there; and the matter did not escape the notice of the many.

24.1. At dawn I brought Menelaus to the general and told him everything; and he rejoiced with me and made Menelaus his friend, and asked how great a force the enemy had. He said that the whole next village was full of desperate men and that a great robber-band had gathered, to the number of ten thousand.

24.2. So the general said, "But these five thousand of ours are enough against twenty thousand of theirs; and besides these another two thousand will arrive before long, of those stationed about the Delta and the City of the Sun

24.3. "against the barbarians." And even as he spoke, a boy ran in saying that a forerunner of the army from the Delta had come from that quarter, and reported that the two thousand were five days' march distant; for the barbarians making raids had ceased; and that, the force being about to come, the sacred bird had visited them, bringing its father's burial; and that there was need to delay the expedition for that many days.

25.1. "And what is this bird," I said, "that has been thought worthy of such honour? And what burial is it that it brings?" "The bird's name is the Phoenix, and its race is Ethiopian; its size is that of a peacock;

25.2. "in colour the peacock is second to it in beauty. Its wings are blended with gold and purple, and it boasts the Sun as its lord; and its head bears witness, for a bright circle crowns it; and the crown of the circle is an image of the sun.

25.3. "It is dark blue, like roses, fair to look upon, with rays for hair, and these are the risings of its feathers. The Ethiopians have its life as their share, the Egyptians its death.

25.4. "For when it dies—and this it suffers only after a long time—the young bird carries it to the Nile, having improvised its burial too. For it digs with its beak a lump of the most fragrant myrrh, enough for a bird's burial, and hollows it out in the middle, and the hollow becomes a tomb for the dead.

25.5. "And placing and fitting the bird into this coffin, and closing the gap with an earthen mound, it flies thus to the Nile, carrying its work. And a chorus of other birds follows it, like a bodyguard, and the bird is like a king setting out from home, and it does not stray from the City of the Sun.

25.6. "This is the bird's migration of its dead. So it stands on a height, watching, and awaits the ministers of the god. There comes an Egyptian priest, carrying a book from the inner shrine, and tests the bird from the writing.

25.7. "And the bird, knowing that it is disbelieved, shows the hidden parts of its body and displays the dead one, and is its own funeral orator. And the sons of the priests of the Sun, receiving the dead bird, bury it. So, living, it is Ethiopian by its nurture; dying, it becomes Egyptian by its burial."