Book 6

1.1. So when I had cured Melite, I said to her, "But see that you provide me safety in my flight, and the other things you promised about Leucippe." "Have no concern," she said, "for the part that touches her, but consider that you already have Leucippe. Now put on my clothes, and hide your face with the veil.

1.2. Melantho will lead you on the way to the doors, and a young man will be waiting for you at the very doors, who has been instructed by me to bring you to the house where you will find both Cleinias and Satyrus, and

1.3. Leucippe will be there with you." As she said this she dressed me as herself, and kissing me she said, "How much more handsome you have become in this garb! I once saw an Achilles like this in a painting. But may you be safe, dearest, and keep this clothing as a memorial; leave me yours, that I may have it to put on

1.4. and feel myself wrapped about you." She gave me a hundred gold pieces too, and called Melantho, who was one of her trusted maids and kept watch at the doors. When she came in, Melite told her what had been arranged about me, and bade her return again to her once I was outside the doors.

2.1. In this way, then, I slipped out, and the guard of the chamber withdrew, supposing me to be the mistress, since Melantho had nodded to him; and through the empty parts of the house I came to a door not lying on the road, and the man appointed by Melite for this took me up.

2.2. He was a freedman, one of those who had sailed with us, and otherwise well disposed toward me. When Melantho returned, she found the guard just then locking up the chamber, and bade him open again.

2.3. When he had opened it and she had gone in and announced my departure to Melite, she summoned the guard; and he, as was natural, on seeing a most astonishing sight, was struck dumb and stood in silence.

2.4. So she said to him, "It was not from distrust that you might be unwilling to let Clitophon go that I needed this stealth, but in order that you might have your release from blame before Thersander, as one who had no part in it.

2.5. These ten gold pieces are a gift to you—a gift, if you stay here, from Clitophon; but if you think it better to flee, money for the journey." And Pasion—for that was the guard's name—said, "What seems good to you, mistress,

2.6. seems good to me as well." So Melite decided that for now he should withdraw, and that, once she had set matters with her husband on a good footing and his anger had come to calm, he should then return.

3.1. So he did this; but my customary fortune set upon me again and contrived a new drama against me; for she brought Thersander back once more, returned. For, persuaded by the friend to whom he had gone not to sleep away from home, he dined and was returning again to the house.

3.2. It was the sacred festival of Artemis, and everything was full of drunken revelers, so that through the whole night a crowd of people filled the entire marketplace. And I supposed this alone to be the trouble; but another, harsher thing had been born for me unawares.

3.3. For Sosthenes, who had bought Leucippe, whom Melite had ordered to give up the stewardship of the country estate, learning that his master had come, neither let go of the estate nor would give it up, and wished to take revenge on Melite.

3.4. And first, getting in ahead, he informed against me to Thersander—for he was the one who had slandered me; then about Leucippe too he said something fashioned very plausibly. For since he had himself despaired of winning her, he played the pander to his master, that he might draw him away from Melite. "I bought a girl,

3.5. master," he said, "a thing of beauty beyond belief. So far trust her by hearsay, as if by sight. I was keeping her for you; for I had heard you were alive, and I believed it, and therefore wished it; but I did not bring her out, that you might catch your wife red-handed, and that no dishonorable foreign adulterer should mock you.

3.6. The mistress took her from me yesterday and was about to send her away; but Fortune has kept her for you, that you might gain such great beauty. She is now in the country, sent off by her, I know not why. So before she comes back again, if you wish, I will shut her up and keep her for you, that she may be in your power."

4.1. Thersander approved and ordered him to do this. So Sosthenes went in great haste to the country, and having seen the hut where Leucippe was to spend the night, he took two of the laborers and bade them go round by a trick to the maidservants who were with Leucippe, and, calling them away, keep them as far off as possible in conversation;

4.2. then, bringing two others, when he saw Leucippe alone, he leaped in, and stopping her mouth, seized her, and made off by the side opposite the maidservants' diversion, carrying her into a secret chamber; and setting her down he said to her, "I have come bringing you a heap of blessings; only see that in your good fortune you do not forget me.

4.3. Do not fear this seizure, nor think it has happened for your harm; for it gains you my master as a lover." She, struck dumb by the unexpectedness of the calamity, kept silence; and he went to Thersander and told him what had been done. Thersander happened to be returning to the house.

4.4. When Sosthenes told him about Leucippe and made a tragedy of her beauty, he became filled, from what was said, as it were with a phantom of beauty, of a natural beauty; and since it was an all-night festival and there were four stades between to the estate, he bade Sosthenes lead the way and was about to go to her.

5.1. Meanwhile I was wearing Melite's clothing, and heedlessly I fell in face to face with them, and Sosthenes, recognizing me first, said, "But look—here comes that adulterer, reveling against us

5.2. and carrying off the spoils of your wife." The young man happened to be going ahead, and seeing it first, fled, having no chance, out of fear, to give me any warning. But they, seeing me, seized me, and Thersander shouted, and a crowd of the revelers came running together.

5.3. Then Thersander made an even greater outcry, shouting things speakable and unspeakable—the adulterer, the thief—and led me to the prison and handed me over, bringing a charge of adultery.

5.4. But none of this grieved me—neither the outrage of the bonds nor the abuse of the words; for I was confident that by argument I should prove I was no adulterer, but had married openly. Yet fear gripped me for Leucippe, since I had not yet clearly recovered her.

5.5. Souls are by nature prophets of evils, since of good things we least often hit the mark by prophecy. So I conceived nothing wholesome about Leucippe, but everything was suspect to me and full of dread.

6.1. I, then, was thus ill in soul; but Thersander, having thrown me into prison, rushed off to Leucippe just as his impulse carried him. When they came to the chamber, they found her lying on the ground, dwelling in mind on what Sosthenes had said, showing on her face grief and dread at once.

6.2. For the mind does not seem to me to have been well called wholly invisible; for it appears precisely, as in a mirror, on the face: pleased, it shines forth in the eyes an image of joy; pained, it draws the face down into the look of misfortune.

6.3. So when Leucippe heard the doors opening—there was a lamp within—she looked up a little, then lowered her eyes again. And Thersander, seeing her beauty in passing, like a snatched flash of lightning—for it is chiefly in the eyes that beauty is seated—gave up his soul to her and stood bound by the sight, watching for when she would look up at him again.

6.4. When she bent toward the ground, he said, "Why do you look down, lady? Why does the beauty of your eyes flow down to the ground? Let it flow rather upon my eyes."

7.1. When she heard this, she was filled with tears, and even her tears had their own peculiar beauty. For a tear lifts up the eye and makes it more glistening; and if the eye is ugly and rustic, it adds to its ugliness; but if it is sweet, and has the dye of black gently crowned with white, then, when moistened with tears, it is like a spring's swelling breast.

7.2. As the brine of the tears is poured around the circle, the white grows richer, and the black turns purple, and the one is like a violet, the other like a narcissus; and the tears rolling within the eyes smile.

7.3. Such were Leucippe's tears, having turned grief itself into beauty; and if, falling, they could have congealed, the earth would have had a new amber. Thersander, seeing it, gaped at her beauty, and at her grief was driven mad, and held his own eyes pregnant with tears.

7.4. For a tear is by nature most apt to draw pity from those who see it, and a woman's most of all; the more abundant, the more bewitching. And if she who weeps is beautiful and the beholder a lover, not even his eye stays still, but imitates the weeping.

7.5. For since beauty is seated in the eyes of the fair, flowing from there it settles upon the eyes of the beholders and draws along with it the spring of tears. And the lover, receiving both, snatches the beauty into his soul and keeps the tear in his eyes, and prays to be seen, and though able to wipe it away, will not, but holds the tear, as best he can, and fears lest it escape too soon.

7.6. He even holds back the motion of his eyes, lest it choose to fall quickly before the beloved has seen it; for he reckons this a testimony that he too loves.

7.7. Something of this sort had befallen Thersander; for he was weeping for display, having suffered something human, as was natural, but making a fine show before Leucippe, as though he wept for this reason: that she too was weeping.

7.8. So he bent down and said to Sosthenes, "For now, tend to her, for you see how full of grief she is; so I will withdraw, much against my will, that I may not be a nuisance; but when she has grown gentler, then I will speak with her.

7.9. And you, lady, take heart; for I will soon cure these tears of yours." Then, going out again, he said to Sosthenes, "See that you speak fitting things about me; and come to me at dawn, having succeeded." On these terms he departed.

8.1. While this was happening, Melite, immediately after her converse with me, happened to have sent a young man to Leucippe in the country, to hasten her return, since she no longer had any need of drugs.

8.2. So when he came to the country, he found the maidservants seeking Leucippe and greatly troubled; and since she was nowhere to be found, he ran ahead and reported what had happened.

8.3. When Melite heard about me, that I had been thrown into prison, and then about Leucippe, that she had vanished, a cloud of grief was poured over her.

8.4. And she could not find the truth, but suspected Sosthenes; and wishing to make her search open through Thersander, she devised an artifice of words, which had the truth mingled with the trick.

9.1. For when Thersander, coming into the house, shouted again, "You stole the adulterer away; you loosed him from his bonds and sent him off out of the house; the deed is yours. Why then did you not follow him? Why do you stay here, and not go off to your beloved, that you may see him bound in stronger chains?"—Melite said, "What adulterer? What is the matter with you? For if you will lay aside your madness and hear the whole, you will easily learn the truth.

9.2. One thing, then, I ask of you: be to me an impartial judge, and having cleansed your ears of the slander and cast the anger out of your heart, set up your reason as an unbiased judge, and listen. This young man was neither my adulterer nor my husband, but by race a Phoenician, second to none of the Tyrians; and he too sailed with no good fortune, but all his cargo became the sea's.

9.3. Hearing his misfortune, I pitied him, and remembered you, and gave him a hearth, saying, 'Perhaps Thersander too is wandering somewhere thus; perhaps,' I said, 'some woman will pity him also. But if he has truly died at sea, as the report says,

9.4. come, let us honor all the shipwrecked.' How many others have I fed who were shipwrecked? How many of the sea's dead have I buried? If I came upon a timber from a wreck cast upon the land, I would say, 'Perhaps Thersander sailed on this ship.'

9.5. This man too was one of those saved from the sea; in honoring him I was gratifying you. He sailed as you did; I honored, dearest, the likeness of your misfortune. How then did I bring him here with me?

9.6. The story is true. He happened to be mourning his wife, but she, it seems, had not died after all; someone told him this, and that she was here with one of our stewards—he named Sosthenes. And so it was;

9.7. for we came and found the woman. For this reason he followed me. You have Sosthenes; the woman is there at the estate. Examine each of the things I have said. If I have lied in anything, I have committed adultery."

10.1. This she said, pretending not to know of Leucippe's disappearance; reserving for herself, in case Thersander should seek to find out the truth, that she would bring the maidservants who had gone off with her, should he come near dawn, to say, as was the fact, that the girl was nowhere to be seen.

10.2. For thus she meant to press the search openly, so as to compel even Thersander. Having played this part plausibly, she added these words too: "Believe me, husband; you have never condemned me, dearest, in all the time of our life together;

10.3. do not now suppose any such thing. The report has gone abroad from the honor shown to the young man, the many not knowing the cause of our fellowship.

10.4. For you too are reported dead. Now Report and Slander are two kindred evils: Report is the daughter of Slander. And Slander is sharper than a sword, fiercer than fire, more persuasive than the Sirens; while Report is more fluid than water, swifter than wind, faster than wings.

10.5. So when Slander shoots forth a word, it flies out like an arrow and wounds the absent one against whom it is sent; and the hearer is quickly persuaded, and a fire of anger is kindled in him, and he rages against the one struck. And Report, born of the shaft, flows at once in great abundance and floods the ears of those who meet it, and rushes far and wide, storming with the wind of the word, and flies up, lightened by the wing of the tongue.

10.6. These two make war on me; these have seized your soul and shut the doors of your ears against my words."

11.1. As she spoke she touched his hand and wished to kiss it. He had grown gentler, and the plausibility of what she said soothed him, and Leucippe's being in agreement with Sosthenes' account transferred part of his suspicion; yet he did not fully believe, for jealousy, once it has fallen into a soul, is hard to wash out.

11.2. So he was disturbed because he heard the girl was my wife, and therefore hated me the more. For the moment, then, saying that he would investigate what had been said, he went off to sleep by himself; while Melite was ill in soul, as having failed of her promise to me.

11.3. And Sosthenes, after escorting Thersander a little way and making promises about Leucippe, returned again to her, and shaping his face to gladness said, "We have succeeded, Lacaena. Thersander loves you and is mad for you, so that perhaps he will even make you his wife; and this success is mine.

11.4. For I told him many wonders about your beauty and filled his soul with imaginings. Why do you weep? Rise and sacrifice to Aphrodite for your good fortune; and remember me too."

12.1. And Leucippe said, "May such good fortune come to you as you bring to me." But Sosthenes, not understanding the irony, and thinking she meant what was really so, added kindly, "I wish to tell you too who Thersander is, that you may be the more pleased.

12.2. He is the husband of Melite, whom you saw in the country, and by birth first of all the Ionians; his wealth is greater than his birth, and above his wealth is his goodness; and you saw what his age is—that he is young and handsome,

12.3. which most delights a woman." At this Leucippe could not bear Sosthenes' nonsense, but said, "O you evil beast, how long

12.4. will you defile my ears? What have I to do with Thersander? Let him be handsome to Melite and rich to the city, good and great-souled to those in need; but to me none of these things matters, whether he is nobler than Codrus or richer than Croesus.

12.5. Why do you recite to me a heap of praises that are nothing to me? I will praise Thersander as a good man then, when he ceases to outrage other men's women."

13.1. And Sosthenes, in earnest, said, "You are joking." "How am I joking?" she said. "Let me alone, man, to be crushed by my own fortune and the divinity that holds me; for I know I am in a den of pirates." "You seem to me," he said, "to be mad with an incurable madness.

13.2. Does this seem to you to be a den of pirates—wealth and marriage and luxury, with such a husband received from Fortune, whom the gods so love that they brought him up even from the midst of the gates of death?" Then he recounted the shipwreck, exalting how he was saved, and making a marvel of it beyond the dolphin of Arion.

13.3. When Leucippe said nothing more to him as he told his tales, he said, "Consider for yourself what is better, and see that you say none of these things to Thersander, lest you provoke a good man;

13.4. for when angered he is unbearable. Goodness, when it meets with gratitude, grows the greater; but when insulted, is roused to anger. For what is excessive in kindness has an equal measure of wrath for vengeance."

14.1. Thus, then, stood matters with Leucippe. But Cleinias and Satyrus, learning that I had been shut up in prison—for Melite had announced it to them—came in haste to the chamber at once that night. And they wished to stay there with me, but the keeper of the prison would not allow it on account of the chains, but bade them depart as quickly as possible.

14.2. So he drove them off against their will, and I, having charged them about Leucippe—that if she should appear, they should come to me in haste toward dawn—and having told them of Melite's promises, held my soul on the balance of hope and fear, and my hope feared and my fear hoped.

15.1. When day came, Sosthenes hurried to Thersander, and Satyrus and his companions to me. When Thersander saw Sosthenes, he asked how matters stood with the girl as to her persuasion toward him.

15.2. He did not tell the true story, but contrived something very plausible. "She refuses," he said, "yet I do not think her refusal is so simple as that, but she seems to me to suspect that you, having had your way once, will let her go,

15.3. and she shrinks from the disgrace." "But on that score," said Thersander, "let her take heart; for my feeling toward her is such as to be undying. One thing only I fear and am eager to learn about the girl—whether she has truly become the young man's wife, as Melite told me."

15.4. Talking thus, they came to Leucippe's chamber. And when they were near the doors, they heard her lamenting. So they stood noiselessly behind the doors.

16.1. "Alas, Clitophon"—for this she said often—"you do not know where I have come to and where I am shut up; nor do I know what fortune holds you, but we are unfortunate in the same ignorance.

16.2. Has Thersander perhaps caught you in the house? Have you too suffered some outrage? Often I wished to ask Sosthenes, but I had no way to ask. If as about my own husband, I feared lest I might stir up some evil for you, provoking Thersander against you; and if as about some stranger, that too would have been a cause for suspicion.

16.3. For what does a woman care about what is not her own? How many times I forced myself, yet could not persuade my tongue to speak, but only said this: 'Husband Clitophon, husband of Leucippe alone, faithful and steadfast, whom no other woman has persuaded even by sleeping with him—though I, the unfeeling one, believed it,

16.4. when, after so long, I saw you in the country and did not kiss you.' Now then, if Thersander comes asking, what shall I say to him? Shall I uncover the pretense of the drama and tell the truth? Do not think me a slave,

16.5. Thersander. I am the daughter of a general of Byzantium, the wife of the first of the Tyrians; I am no Thessalian; I am not called Lacaena; this is a pirate's outrage—I have been robbed even of my name.

16.6. My husband is Clitophon, my country Byzantium, Sostratus my father, Pantheia my mother. But you will not believe me even when I say it. And I fear that, even if you believe about Clitophon, the untimeliness of my freedom may destroy my dearest. Come, let me put on my drama again; come, let me put on Lacaena again."

17.1. Hearing this, Thersander, withdrawing a little, said to Sosthenes, "Did you hear words past belief, full of love—how much she said, how much she lamented, how she reproached herself? My adulterer prevails everywhere; I think he is a robber and a sorcerer. Melite loves him, Leucippe loves him.

17.2. Would, O Zeus, that I were Clitophon!" "But you must not be soft, master," said Sosthenes, "toward the work, but must go to the girl herself.

17.3. For even if she now loves this accursed adulterer, so long as she knows him alone and has had no fellowship with another, she suffers in her soul on his account; but if you once come together with her—for you far surpass him in comeliness—she will forget him utterly.

17.4. For a new love withers an old love; and a woman loves especially what is present, and remembers the absent only until she has found something new; but having taken another, she wipes the former from her soul."

17.5. Hearing this, Thersander was roused; for a word of hope toward attaining one's love is easily persuasive; for desire, taking what it wishes as an ally, rouses up hope.

18.1. So, waiting a little after what Leucippe had said to herself, that he might not seem to have overheard anything of what she had spoken, he came in, having shaped himself into what he supposed more alluring to look upon. When he saw Leucippe, his soul was inflamed,

18.2. and she seemed to him then to have become more beautiful. For having nourished the fire all night, for as long a time as he was away from the girl, he suddenly rekindled it, taking the sight as fuel for the flame, and nearly fell upon her and embraced her. But controlling himself, he sat down beside her and talked, joining now these words, now those, that made no sense.

18.3. For such are lovers when they seek to talk to their beloved. For not having set their reason over their words, but holding their soul on the beloved, they speak with the tongue alone, without the charioteer of reason.

18.4. So, talking with her at the same time, he laid his hand on her neck and embraced it, as if about to kiss her; but she, foreseeing the path of his hand, bent down and sank into her bosom.

18.5. He none the less embraced her and tried by force to lift her face; but she sank down in resistance and warded off the kisses. As time passed in the wrestling of the hand, an amorous rivalry seized Thersander, and putting his left hand under her face below, and taking her hair with his right, he drew with the one backward, and with the other, propping her chin, pushed it up.

18.6. When at last he ceased from the force—whether having got his way or not, or being wearied—Leucippe said to him, "You act neither as a free man nor as a noble one; you too imitate Sosthenes; the slave is worthy of his master. But keep off henceforth, and do not hope to succeed, unless you become Clitophon."

19.1. Hearing this, Thersander did not know what to become; for he both loved and was angry. Wrath and love are two torches. For wrath too has its own fire, and in nature it is most opposite, but in its violence alike.

19.2. For the one provokes to hatred, the other compels to love; and the spring of their fire is neighbor to one another. For the one is seated in the liver, the other rages about the heart.

19.3. So when both seize a man, the soul becomes a balance for them, and the fire of each is weighed. They both fight for the inclination; and for the most part love is wont to conquer, when it succeeds in its desire; but if the beloved dishonors it, it calls wrath to its alliance.

19.4. And wrath, as a neighbor, is persuaded, and both kindle the fire. But if wrath once takes love beside itself, and, when love has fallen from its own seat, holds it, then, being by nature implacable, it does not, as a friend, fight alongside desire, but, having fettered it as a slave of desire, masters it, and does not permit it to make peace with the beloved, even if it wishes.

19.5. And love, drenched by wrath, sinks down, and wishing to leap back to its own domain is no longer free, but is compelled to hate what it loves. But when wrath, foaming, is filled, and, sated with its license, overflows, it grows weary from satiety, and being wearied, slackens; and love takes its revenge and arms desire and conquers wrath, now sleeping.

19.6. And seeing the outrages it committed drunkenly against its dearest, it grieves and makes its defense to the beloved, and calls for converse, and promises to soften wrath with pleasure.

19.7. So, attaining what it wished, it grows gracious; but dishonored again, it sinks down into wrath. And wrath, sleeping, is awakened and does its old work; for in love's dishonor wrath is its ally.

20.1. Thersander, then, at first, hoping to succeed in his love, was wholly Leucippe's slave; but having failed of what he hoped, he gave the reins to wrath. He struck her across the cheek, saying, "You miserable slave, and truly love-sick—for I overheard everything of yours.

20.2. Are you not content that I speak to you, and do you not think it a great good fortune to kiss your master, but play coy and shape yourself to disdain? I think you have even been a harlot; for you love an adulterer.

20.3. But since you will not take the trial of me as a lover, you shall take the trial of a master." And Leucippe said, "If you wish to play the tyrant, then I too will be tyrannized over—only you shall not force me;" and turning to Sosthenes she said, "Bear witness how I stand toward outrages; for you have wronged me

20.4. even more." And Sosthenes, ashamed as one convicted, said, "This woman, master, must be carded with whips and meet with a thousand tortures, that she may learn not to despise her master."

21.1. "Be persuaded by Sosthenes," said Leucippe; "for he counsels well. Set out the tortures. Let him bring the wheel; here are my hands, let him stretch them. Let him bring whips too; here is my back, let him strike. Let him bring fire;

21.2. here is my body, let him burn it. Let him bring iron too; here is my throat, let him cut it. Behold a new contest: against all the tortures one woman contends, and conquers them all. And then you call Clitophon an adulterer, while you yourself are an adulterer? Do you not fear even your own Artemis, tell me, but force a virgin in the city of the Virgin? Mistress, where are your arrows?" "A virgin?" said Thersander;

21.3. "what audacity and what a joke! A virgin, who has spent so many nights with pirates? Did the robbers become eunuchs for you? Was the den of pirates a school of philosophers? Did none of them have eyes?"

22.1. And Leucippe said, "Whether I am a virgin even after Sosthenes, ask Sosthenes; for this man has truly become a pirate to me; those others were more moderate than you,

22.2. and none of them was so insolent. But if you do such things, this is the true den of pirates. And are you not ashamed to do what even the robbers did not dare? You do not realize that you give me greater praise by this shamelessness of yours; and someone will say, if you now in your madness murder me, 'Leucippe a virgin after the herdsmen, a virgin after Chaereas too, a virgin after Sosthenes.' But these are modest praises;

22.3. the greater praise is, a virgin even after Thersander, who is more wanton than the robbers; who, when he cannot outrage,

22.4. murders. Arm yourself, then; now take up against me the whips, the wheel, the fire, the iron; and let your counselor Sosthenes campaign with you. I am naked and alone and a woman, yet I have one weapon: my freedom, which is neither cut down by blows nor severed by iron nor consumed by fire. This I will never give up; and even if you burn me, you will find no fire hot enough."