Book 7

1.1. Hearing this, Thersander was of every kind at once: he grieved, he raged, he deliberated. He raged as one outraged, he grieved as one rejected, he deliberated as one in love. So, his soul torn apart, he said nothing to Leucippe and leaped away.

1.2. Having rushed out, ostensibly in anger, but in fact giving his soul leisure to sort out the storm, deliberating at the same time with Sosthenes, he went to the keeper of the prison and begged that I be done away with by poison.

1.3. When he could not persuade him—for the man feared the city, since another keeper before him had been taken and put to death for working such a poisoning—he made a second request to him: to throw someone into the chamber where I happened to be bound, as though he too were one of the prisoners, pretending he wished to learn my affairs through that man.

1.4. He was persuaded and received the man. This man, instructed by Thersander, was to introduce, very artfully, a story about Leucippe—that she had been murdered, Melite having contrived the murder.

1.5. The trick had been devised by Thersander, so that I, despairing that my beloved was still alive, even if I escaped the trial,

1.6. might no longer turn to seeking her. And Melite was attached to the murder so that, not supposing Leucippe dead, I should not marry Melite and stay as one in love with her, and thereby give him some fear of not holding Leucippe in safety; but, hating Melite, as was natural, for having killed my beloved, I might depart from the city altogether.

2.1. So when the man came near me, he began his drama. Wailing very villainously, he said, "What life shall we live henceforth, and what shall we guard against for a life free of danger? For the just way of life is not enough for us; the fortunes that fall upon us drown us. I ought to have foretold who it was that walked along with me

2.2. and what he had done." These things and the like he said to himself, seeking a beginning for his verbal craft against me, so that I might ask what he had suffered.

2.3. But I gave little thought to what he was bewailing; another of those bound with us, however—for a man in misfortune is curious to listen to others' troubles, since fellowship with another in suffering is a remedy for the grief of what one has himself suffered—said, "What has befallen you

2.4. from Fortune? For it is likely that you, having done no wrong, have fallen in with an evil spirit. I judge from my own case." And at the same time he recounted his own affairs, for which he was bound. But I gave heed to none of these things.

3.1. When he had finished, he claimed the exchange of the tale of misfortunes, saying, "You too should tell your own story." And the man said, "I happened to be walking yesterday on the road from the city;

3.2. I was traveling the road toward Smyrna. When I had gone forward four stades, a young man approached from the fields, and greeting me and walking a little way with me, said, 'Where are you bound?' 'For Smyrna,' I said. 'And I,' he said, 'the same way—good fortune to it.' From then on we traveled together and talked, as is natural on a road.

3.3. When we came to an inn, we breakfasted together; and at the same time four men sat down beside us, and they too pretended to breakfast, but kept eyeing us closely and nodding to one another.

3.4. I suspected that the men had designs upon us, yet I could not understand what their nods meant; but he grew pale little by little and ate more reluctantly, and by now a trembling held him too.

3.5. When they saw this, they sprang up and seized us and bound us at once with thongs, and one of them struck him across the cheek; and struck, as if having suffered a thousand tortures, he recounted, though no one questioned him, 'I killed the girl, and I took a hundred gold pieces from Melite, the wife of Thersander; for she hired me for the murder.

3.6. But look, I bring you the hundred gold pieces; so why do you destroy me and begrudge yourselves the gain?' And I, when I heard the names of Thersander and Melite, taking no heed of the rest of the time, but roused in soul by the word as if struck by a gadfly, turned to him and said, 'Who is this Melite?' And he said, 'Melite is one of the first women here.

3.7. She fell in love with a certain young man—a Tyrian, I think they say he is; and he happened to have a beloved, whom he found sold in Melite's house. And she, inflamed with jealousy, having deceived this woman, seized her and handed her over to the man who has now, by my evil fortune, traveled with me, bidding him kill her.

3.8. So he does this unholy deed; but I, wretched man, neither having seen him nor having shared in any deed or word, was led off bound with him, as a partner in the deed. And what is harsher, a little way from the inn, they took the hundred gold pieces from him and let him flee, but lead me to the magistrate.'"

4.1. When I heard the tale of my woes, I neither wailed nor wept; for I had neither voice nor tears, but a trembling at once spread over my body, and my heart gave way, and only a little of my soul was left in me.

4.2. Sobering a little from the drunkenness of the tale, I said, "In what manner did the hireling kill the girl, and what did he do with the body?" But he, since he had once driven the gadfly into me and so done his work against me, for which he had come, was silent and said nothing.

4.3. When I asked again, he said, "Do you think that I too shared in the murder? This only I heard from the one who did it, that he had killed the girl; but where and in what manner, he did not say." Then tears came to me, and I gave my grief to my eyes.

4.4. For just as, in blows to the body, the welt does not rise up at once, but the blow has no flower of color immediately, yet after a little it springs up; and one struck by a boar's tusk seeks the wound at once and cannot find it, for it is still sunk and hidden, the cut of the blow being slowly worked through, and afterward suddenly a white line rises up, the forerunner of the blood, and taking a little time it comes and flows all at once—

4.5. so too the soul, struck by the arrow of grief, the word having shot it, is already wounded and has the cut, but the swiftness of the blow has not yet opened the wound, and has driven the tears far from the eyes. For a tear is the blood of a wound of the soul; when the tooth of grief gnaws the heart little by little, the wound of the soul is broken open, and the door of tears is opened to the eyes, and a little after the opening they leap forth.

4.6. So too in my case: the first things of the hearing, falling upon my soul like arrows, silenced me and dammed up the spring of tears; but afterward they flowed, when my soul had leisure for its troubles.

5.1. So I said, "What spirit deceived me with a little joy? Who showed me Leucippe, only for a new ground of calamities? But I did not even sate my eyes, with which alone I was fortunate, nor was I filled even with looking at her.

5.2. The pleasure of my dreams has come true for me. Alas, Leucippe, how many times have you died for me! Have I ever ceased lamenting? Do I forever mourn you, the deaths pursuing one another? Yet all those Fortune used to play against me, but this is no longer Fortune's sport;

5.3. for now, Leucippe, you have wholly died for me. In those false deaths I had a little consolation: the first time, your whole body; the second, though I thought I did not have your head for the burial. But now you have died a double death, of soul and of body. You escaped two dens of robbers, but the den of Melite's making has murdered you.

5.4. And I, unholy and impious, kissed your murderess many times and joined in defiled embraces, and gave her the grace of Aphrodite before you."

6.1. As I was lamenting, Cleinias came in, and I told him the whole, and that I was resolved at all costs to die; but he tried to comfort me. "For who knows whether she lives again?

6.2. Has she not died many times? Has she not many times come back to life? Why do you die rashly, when it is also possible to die at leisure, once you have learned clearly of her death?" "You talk nonsense; for how could you learn anything more certain than this?

6.3. But I think I have found the fairest road of death, by which not even Melite, hateful to the gods, will get off altogether unpunished. Hear the manner of it. I had prepared, as you know, for the defense of the adultery, if the court should be empaneled; but now I have resolved on quite the opposite—both to confess the adultery, and that, loving one another, Melite and I together did away with Leucippe.

6.4. For thus she too will pay the penalty, and I shall leave this accursed life." "Hush," said Cleinias; "and will you dare so to die on the basest of charges, reckoned a murderer—and that, of Leucippe?" "Nothing is base," I said, "that grieves an enemy."

6.5. And while we were thus engaged, a little later they freed that man, the informer of the false murder, from his bonds, saying that the magistrate had ordered him to be brought to give an account of the charges he had incurred.

6.6. And Cleinias and Satyrus tried to console me, and to persuade me, if they could, to say nothing of what I had planned at the trial; but they accomplished nothing. That day, then, they hired a lodging and moved into it, that they might no longer be at the house of Melite's foster-brother.

7.1. The next day I was led off to the court. Great was Thersander's preparation against me, and a throng of orators no fewer than ten; and Melite too had earnestly prepared for the defense.

7.2. When they had finished speaking, I too asked for leave to speak, and said, "But all these men talk nonsense, both those who spoke for Thersander and those for Melite; I will tell you the whole truth.

7.3. I had a beloved long ago, Byzantine by race, Leucippe by name. Thinking her dead—for she had been carried off by robbers in Egypt—I fell in with Melite, and from there, living together, we came here in company, and we found Leucippe a slave to Sosthenes, a steward of one of Thersander's estates.

7.4. How Sosthenes held a free woman as a slave, or what the robbers' dealings with him were, I leave to you to consider. So when Melite learned that I had found my former wife, fearing lest I should incline my mind toward her, she resolved to do away with the woman.

7.5. And I agreed—for why should I not tell the truth?—since she promised to make me master of her own goods. I hired one man for the murder, and the wage of the murder was a hundred gold pieces. And he, having done the deed, is gone and has since become invisible; but love at once took its vengeance on me.

7.6. For when I learned she had been killed, I repented and wept and loved—and still love. For this reason I have informed against myself, that you may send me to my beloved; for I cannot bear to live now, both having become a murderer and loving her whom I killed."

8.1. When I had said this, astonishment held everyone at the strangeness of the affair, but most of all Melite. And Thersander's orators raised a cry of victory with pleasure, but Melite's people kept asking what these things I had said could mean.

8.2. And she was partly thrown into confusion, partly denied, and partly recounted, very earnestly and clearly, saying that she knew Leucippe and all that I had said, but not the murder; so that they too, because most of my account agreed with her, had a suspicion against Melite and were at a loss what argument to use for the defense.

9.1. At this point, while there was great uproar in the court, Cleinias came up and said, "Grant me too a word; for the contest is over a man's life."

9.2. When he was given leave, filled with tears, he said, "Men of Ephesus, do not rashly condemn to death a man who desires to die, which is by nature the remedy of the unfortunate. For he has falsely charged himself with the guilt of wrongdoers, that he may suffer the punishment of the wretched.

9.3. What his misfortunes were I will tell briefly. He had a beloved, as he said—for in this he did not lie; and that robbers carried her off, and the matters concerning Sosthenes, and all that he related before the murder, happened in this way.

9.4. She became suddenly invisible, I know not how—neither whether someone killed her, nor whether she lives, stolen away. This one thing only I know: that Sosthenes loved her and tortured her with many torments for what he did not obtain, and that he has robbers for friends. So this man, supposing the woman to have been killed, no longer wishes to live, and for this reason has falsely accused himself of murder.

9.5. For that he desires death, he himself confessed, and that it is from grief over a woman. Consider, then, whether one who has truly killed someone wishes to die after them and cannot bear to live for grief.

9.6. Who is so loving a murderer? Or what hatred is so beloved? No, by the gods, do not believe him, nor put to death a man who needs pity rather than punishment. But if he himself plotted the murder, as he says, let him say who is the hireling, let him show the murdered woman.

9.7. If there is neither the killer nor the murdered woman, who ever heard of such a murder? 'I loved Melite,' he says; 'for this I killed Leucippe.' How then does he accuse of murder Melite, whom he loved, and now wishes to die for the sake of Leucippe, whom he killed?

9.8. For thus would one hate the loved and love the hated? Would he not far rather, even when convicted, have denied the murder, so as both to save his beloved and not to die in vain for the murdered woman?

9.9. Why then has he accused Melite, if no such thing has been done by her? I will tell you this too, and, by the gods, do not think I make my speech wishing to slander the woman, but rather as the whole thing happened.

9.10. Melite had felt toward this man something amorous and had spoken of marriage, before this man, dead at sea, came back to life. But he was not so disposed; rather, he very firmly rejected the marriage, and at this point, having found his beloved, as he said, living with Sosthenes, whom he thought dead, he became far more estranged from Melite.

9.11. And she, before she learned that the woman with Sosthenes was his beloved, pitied her and loosed her from the bonds with which she had been bound by Sosthenes, and received her into the house and showed her every honor, as to a free woman who had met misfortune; but when she learned the truth, she sent her into the country to serve her; and after this, they say, she became invisible.

9.12. And that I do not lie in this, Melite will agree, and two maidservants, with whom she sent her to the country. This one thing, then, led this man to the suspicion that she might have murdered Leucippe out of jealousy; and another thing that befell him in the prison, toward confirming the suspicion, enraged him both against himself and against Melite.

9.13. One of the prisoners, bewailing his own misfortune, said that he had unwittingly shared a road with a man who was a murderer, and that the man had done a woman's murder for a wage. And he named the names: Melite was the one who hired him,

9.14. and Leucippe the one who had been killed. Whether these things happened so, I do not know, but it will be in your power to learn. You have the prisoner; there are the maidservants; there is Sosthenes. The one will say from where he got Leucippe as a slave, the maids how she became invisible, and the prisoner will report about the hireling. Until you learn each of these, it is neither holy nor pious to put to death a wretched young man, trusting the words of madness; for he is mad with grief."

10.1. When Cleinias had said this, to most it seemed a persuasive speech; but Thersander's orators and as many of his friends as were present cried out to put to death the murderer who had, by a god's providence, accused himself.

10.2. Melite offered her maidservants and demanded that Thersander give up Sosthenes; for perhaps he was the one who had killed Leucippe. And those who pleaded for her especially put forward this challenge.

10.3. But Thersander, in fear, secretly sent one of his attendants to the country to Sosthenes, ordering him to vanish as quickly as possible, before those sent for him should arrive. He mounted a horse and went very hastily to him, and told him of the danger, and that, if he were taken, he would be led off to torture.

10.4. Sosthenes happened to be in Leucippe's chamber, casting his spells over her; called out by the messenger, with much shouting and confusion he came forth, and hearing how things stood, became full of fear, and now supposing the executioners to be upon him, he mounted a horse and very hastily rode off toward Smyrna; while the messenger returned to Thersander. And the saying is true, it seems, that fear is wont to drive out memory.

10.5. At any rate Sosthenes, in fear for himself, forgot, in his consternation, every single thing under his feet, so that he did not even shut the doors of Leucippe's chamber. For the race of slaves is especially cowardly in whatever they greatly fear.

11.1. At this point Thersander, before the challenge from Melite had thus been issued, came forward and said, "This man, whoever he is, has talked nonsense enough, spinning tales; but I have marveled at your insensibility, if, having caught a murderer in the act—and greater than the catching is that he has informed against himself—you do not order it over to the executioner, but sit listening to a charlatan, who plays his part plausibly and weeps plausibly, whom I believe to have himself shared in the murder and to fear for himself; so that I do not know what need there is of further tortures concerning a matter so clearly proven.

11.2. And they seem to have worked another murder too. For this Sosthenes, whom they demand of me, has now been invisible for three days, and it is not far from a certain suspicion that this has become the work of their plotting; for he was the very one who informed me of the adultery. So it is likely that they have killed him; and knowing this—that I could not produce the man—they have very villainously made a challenge concerning him.

11.3. May it be, then, that he appears and has not died; but what, even if he were present, would one need to learn from him? Whether he bought some girl? Granted, then, that he bought her. And whether Melite had her? He says this too through me. So Sosthenes is done with, this being said; from here on my speech is to Melite and Clitophon.

11.4. What have you done with my slave that you took? For she was my slave, Sosthenes having bought her; and if she were alive and had not been murdered by them,

11.5. she would certainly be a slave to me." This argument Thersander inserted very maliciously, so that, even if Leucippe should later be found alive, he might lead her into slavery. Then he added, "Clitophon, then, has confessed to the murder and has his sentence; but Melite denies it. Against her are the tortures of the maidservants.

11.6. For if they appear to have taken the girl from her and then not to have brought her back, what has become of her? And why was she sent out at all, and to whom? Is the matter not plain—that they had contrived for certain men to kill her?

11.7. And the maidservants, as is likely, did not know these men, that the deed, done before more witnesses, might not carry greater danger; but they left her where the robbers' ambush lay hidden, so that it is possible that not even those women saw what was done. He talked nonsense too about some prisoner, as having spoken about the murder.

11.8. And who is this prisoner, who said nothing to the magistrate, but to this man alone discoursed the secrets of the murder—unless he recognized him as a partner? Will you not cease tolerating empty babblings and treating so great a matter as a game? Do you think that, apart from a god, this man would have informed against himself?"

12.1. As Thersander said this and swore concerning Sosthenes that he did not know what had become of him, it seemed good to the president of the judges—he was of the royal line, and judged cases of murder, and by law had counselors from among the elders, whom he took as assessors of the verdict—it seemed good to him, then, after consulting with his assessors, to condemn me to death according to the law, which ordered that one who had informed against his own murder should die; but that concerning Melite there should be a second trial under the tortures of the maidservants; and that Thersander should swear in writing concerning Sosthenes that he truly did not know what had become of him; and that I, as already condemned, should be tortured concerning Melite's complicity in the murder.

12.2. I had just been bound and stripped of the clothing from my body, and was hanging aloft from the cords, and some were bringing whips, others fire and the wheel, and Cleinias was wailing and calling upon the gods, when the priest of Artemis, crowned with laurel, was seen approaching.

12.3. This is a sign that a sacred embassy has come to the goddess; and when this happens, there must be a truce of all punishment for as many days as the envoys did not yet complete the sacrifice. So in this way I was then loosed from my bonds. And the one leading the embassy was Sostratus, the father of Leucippe.

12.4. For the Byzantines, when Artemis appeared in the war against the Thracians, having conquered, reckoned that they must send her a sacrifice as a thank-offering for the alliance; and besides, the goddess had privately stood over Sostratus by night. And the dream signified that he would find his daughter in Ephesus, and his brother's son.

13.1. About the same time Leucippe too, seeing the doors of the chamber open and Sosthenes not present, looked about lest he should be before the doors. When he was nowhere, courage and her habitual hope came over her; for the memory of having often, against expectation, been saved gave her, for the present perils, the resolve to make full use of Fortune.

13.2. And—for the temple of Artemis was near the estate—she ran out to it and took hold of the temple. In old times this temple was untrodden by free women,

13.3. but was open to men and maidens. If any woman went inside, death was the penalty, unless she was a slave making a charge against her master. To such a one it was permitted to supplicate the goddess, and the magistrates judged between her and her master; and if the master happened to have done no wrong, he took the maidservant back again, having sworn not to bear malice for her flight; but if it seemed that the maidservant spoke justly, she remained there as a slave to the goddess.

13.4. Just as Sostratus had taken the priest and gone to the courts, so as to stay the trials, Leucippe came to the temple, so that she fell short by a very little of meeting her father.

14.1. When I had been released from the tortures, the court was dissolved, but a crowd and a tumult were about me, some pitying me, some glorifying the gods, some inquiring. There too Sostratus, coming up, saw and recognized me.

14.2. For, as I said at the beginning of my account, he had once been in Tyre about the festival of Heracles and had stayed there a long time, long before our flight; so that he quickly put together my appearance, and through the dream he naturally expected to find us.

14.3. Coming up to me, then, he said, "This is Clitophon, but where is Leucippe?" I, recognizing him, looked down at the ground, and those present recounted to him all that I had said against myself; and he, wailing and beating his head, sprang at my eyes and nearly tore them out; for I did not try to prevent him, but offered my face to the outrage.

14.4. But Cleinias came up and restrained him, comforting him at the same time and saying, "What are you doing, man? Why are you maddened in vain against a man who loves Leucippe more than you do? He has undertaken to suffer death because he thought she was dead." And he said many other things to console him.

14.5. But he lamented, calling on Artemis: "To this you have led me here, mistress? Are these the prophecies of your dreams? And I believed your dreams and expected to find my daughter with you; a fine gift you have given me—I have found her murderer

14.6. with you." And Cleinias, hearing of the dream of Artemis, became overjoyed and said, "Take heart, father; Artemis does not lie. Leucippe lives for you; believe my prophecies. Do you not see how she has snatched even this man, now hanging, from the tortures?"

15.1. At this point one of the temple attendants came running very hastily to the priest and said, in the hearing of all, "A foreign girl has taken refuge with Artemis." When I heard this, I was lifted on wings, and raised my eyes, and began to come back to life; and Cleinias said to Sostratus, "My prophecies are true, father," and at the same time said to the messenger,

15.2. "Is she not beautiful?" "I have not seen another such," he said, "after Artemis." At this I leaped up and shouted, "You mean Leucippe!" "Indeed," he said; "for she said she was so called, and that her country was Byzantium

15.3. and her father Sostratus." Then Cleinias clapped his hands and sang a paean, and Sostratus fell down for joy, while I leaped up, bonds and all, into the air, and flew toward the temple as if shot from a catapult; and the guards pursued, thinking I was running away, and shouted to those they met to seize me.

15.4. But my feet had wings then. So, with difficulty, some men laid hold of me, mad as I was in my running, and the guards arrived at the same time and tried to strike me; but I, now taking courage, defended myself, while they dragged me toward the prison.

16.1. And at this point Cleinias and Sostratus were there. And Cleinias shouted, "Where are you taking the man? He is not a murderer, as he was condemned." And Sostratus in turn said these things, and that he was himself the father of the woman supposed to have been murdered; and those present, learning the whole, both glorified Artemis and stood around me and would not allow them to lead me to the prison.

16.2. But the guards said they were not authorized to release a man condemned to death, until the priest, at Sostratus's request, gave surety that he would keep me and produce me before the people whenever necessary. So in this way I was released from my bonds, and hastened very quickly to the temple, and Sostratus at my heels, rejoicing, I think, no less than I.

16.3. There is no man so swift of foot that the wing of Report does not outstrip him; and then too it ran ahead of us to Leucippe, announcing everything, both Sostratus's affairs and mine. Seeing us, she leaped out of the temple and embraced her father, but kept her eyes on me.

16.4. And I stood and looked entirely at her face, restraining myself, out of reverence for Sostratus, from springing toward her. So we greeted one another with our eyes.