Petronius, Satyricon
Michael Heseltine, Ed.

[131] Next day I got up sound in mind and body, and went down to the same grove of planetrees, though I was rather afraid of the unlucky place, and began to wait among the trees for Chrysis to lead me on my way.

After walking up and down a short while, I sat where I had been the day before, and Chrysis came under the trees, bringing an old woman with her. When she had greeted me, she said, “Well, disdainful lover, have you begun to come to your senses?” Then the old woman took a twist of threads of different colours out of her dress, and tied it round my neck. Then she mixed some dust with spittle, and took it on her middle finger, and made a mark on my forehead despite my protest . . . .

After this she ordered me in a rhyme to spit three times and throw stones into my bosom three times, after she had said a spell over them and wrapped them in purple, and laid her hands on me and began to try the force of her charm. . . . Dicto citius nervi paruerunt imperio manusque aniculae ingenti motu reple[p. 293] verunt. At illa gaudio exsultans “Vides” inquit“Chrysis mea, vides, quod aliis leporem excitavi?” . . .

The stately plane-tree, and Daphne decked with berries, and the quivering cypresses, and the swaying tops of the shorn pines, cast asummer shade. Among them played the straying waters of a foamy river, lashing the pebbles with its chattering flow. The place was proper to love; so the nightingale of the woods bore witness, and Procne from the town, as they hovered about the grasses and the tender violets, and pursued their stolen loves with a song. . . .

She was stretched out there with her marble neck pressed on a golden bed, brushing her placid face with a spray of myrtle in flower. So when she saw me she blushed a little, of course remembering my rudeness the day before; then, when they had all left us, she asked me to sit by her, and I did; she laid the sprig of myrtle over my eyes, and then growing bolder, as if she had put a wall between us, “Well, poor paralytic,” she said, “have you come here to-day a whole man?” “Do not ask me,” I replied, “try me.” I threw myself eagerly into her arms, and enjoyed her kisses unchecked by any magic until I was tired . . . . .