Phryne

“ It is impossible for us to realize the intensity of the Greek feeling for beauty; and to them the human body was the noblest form of earthly loveliness. To illustrate, we may recall the incident of Phryne's trial before the judges. Hyperides, her advocate, failing in his other arguments, drew aside her tunic and revealed to them a bosom perfectly marvellous in its beauty. Phryne was at once acquitted, not from any prurient motives, but because "the judges beheld in such an exquisite form not an ordinary mortal, but a priestess and prophetess of the divine Aphrodite. ”

“ And as this sovereign Beauty is queen of herself, so she is subject to none other, owns to no constraining custom, fears no reproach of man. What she wills, that has the force of a law. Being Beauty, her deeds are lovely and worshipful. Therefore Phryne, whom men, groping in darkness and the dull ways of earth, dubbed courtesan, shone in a Court of Law before the assembled nobles of Athens, naked and undismayed in the blaze of her fairness. ”

“ A woman is never quite penniless; she has always one commodity—"
Mithradates held Phryne's head, watching the blood and the helpless anger rise in her. Finally he released the girl. "The Flavius misunderstood me," he said. "We shall let you speak your case, Phryne." He nodded toward Eodan. "However, that the Cimbrian may know your mission, Roman, state it first." ”

“ Women of her class have at all times played conspicuous parts in the world's history; being even favoured of princes and other noble personages, while one even was made the consort of an emperor and sat upon an Eastern throne. But a greater surprise was still in store for people, for one morning they rose up to find that the modern Phryne had disappeared in a most mysterious manner and many believed that she had been made away with by her son, Demos. ”

“ Even this can hardly account for the permission granted to a hetaera like Phryne to dedicate her statue by Praxiteles at Delphi, or her venturing to bathe in the sea, completely naked, like an Aphrodite Anadyomene,{173} in the presence of numerous admiring spectators. We can only explain this by remembering the intense Hellenic love of beauty, apart from the considerations of morality, which looked on a beautiful human body as a divine work demanding adoration, which made it possible to forget the moral weaknesses inherent in it. ”

“ She, too, was tried for impiety before the dicastery. Hiperides, the Attic orator, defended her. To create a favorable impression upon the court, he bade her reveal her bosom to the judges. She did so, and243 was acquitted. So great was the veneration in which Phryne was held that it was considered no profanation to place her image in the sacred temple at Delphi. And so overwhelming was her beauty, that her statues were identified with the Aphrodite of Apelles and the Cnidian goddess of Praxiteles. ”

“ She is said to have made an attempt on the virtue of the philosopher Xenocrates. A statue of Phryne, the work of Praxiteles, was placed in a temple at Thespiae by the side of a statue of Aphrodite by the same artist. ”

“ Phrynette is seventeen, extremely clever and naive, and attractive in every way. The death of her French father in Paris leaves her an orphan, and she goes to London to live with an aunt of Scotch descent. ”

“ Were the fame of his dear charmer dependent upon his puny efforts for its preservation, as the knights of the chivalric ages were wont to achieve their exploits in celebration of the beauty and merits of their mistresses, it would, alas! enjoy but a brief immortality; but since every man that beheld Miss Freyne must carry her image imprinted on his heart till death, her memory needs no assistance to maintain itself, although it may serve to glorify the feeble achievements of the man who unhappily survives her. ”

“ Creusa herself, though drawn with extraordinary sympathy and beauty, is at heart a savage.
Creusa, when she bore her child, laid him, [Pg 122] in her terror, in the same cavern where Apollo had ravished her: surely the god would save his own son. She came again and the child was gone. As a matter of fact the god had carried him in his cradle to Delphi, where he was discovered by the priestess and reared as a foundling in the temple courts. Creusa was then married to Xuthus, who knew nothing of her adventure. ”

“ In this manner it chanced that the maiden was tended of the Abbess. The lady considered the maid as her niece, and since she was taken from the ash, gave her the name of Frêne. By this name she was known of all, within the Abbey precincts, where she was nourished.
When Frêne came to that age in which a girl turns to woman, there was no fairer maiden in Brittany, nor so sweet a damsel. Frank, she was, and open, but discreet in semblance and in speech. To see her was to love her, and to prize her smile above the beauty of the world. Now at Dol there lived a lord of whom much good was spoken. ”

“ What man ever born of a woman who would not have been dazed and dumfounded at this sudden confronting—this extraordinary reminiscence of the long-forgotten? It overwhelmed for the moment even me—me, Phra the Phœnician, to whom the red harvest-fields of war are pleasant places, who have dallied with the infinite, and have been a melancholy coadjutor of Time itself. Even me, who never sought to live, yet live endlessly by my very negligence—who have received from the gods that gift of existence that others ask for unanswered. ”

“ Phorenice knows by her arts—she has stolen nearly all the ancient knowledge now—that still you live, and she keeps Nais unharmed beneath the granite throne in the hopes that some time she may use her as a weapon against you. Little she knows the sternness of our Priests’ creed, my brother. Why, even I, that am the girl’s father, would sacrifice her blithely, if her death or ruin might do a tittle of good to Atlantis. ”

“ He looked about him like one dazed.
“Your servant, sir,” says my papa, standing before him with his sword out. “When you’re ready, I’ll trouble you to draw.”
“At your service, sir,” said the villain, fumbling for his sword, which one of the servants, at a glance from Mr Freyne, picked up and gave to him, whispering something at the same time to my papa.
“What, the Cotwal [07] coming round with his peons?” cried Mr Freyne. “Why don’t he come when he might be some use? ”

“ Rising at my usual hour this morning, I dressed myself very carefully, putting on the carnation-coloured ribbons that are always my papa’s favourites, and a gown of printed muslin that he had brought me himself from Dacca. So fearful was I of meeting Mr Freyne, or at least of displeasing him by anything in my carriage or appearance, that I loitered before the mirror, altering a bow here and a knot there, until the bearer (who is as we should say Mr Freyne’s gentleman, but black, of course) came to tell Marianna that his master was waiting. ”

“ He always had been a slovenly fellow. “The temple door is shut,” he said, “and I only have the secret of its opening. My lord comes here, therefore, by the secret way, and as one of the Seven. I am my lord’s servant.”
“Then I ask this small service of you. Tell me, what stirs the city?”
“That impious Phorenice has declared herself Goddess, and declares that she will light the sacrifice with her own divine fire. She will do it, too. She does everything. But I wish the flames may burn her when she calls them down. This new Empress is the bane of our Clan, Deucalion, these latter days. ”

“ Many and many a time, in those merry months, did this Phœnician laugh to his mirror to see how fitly he could wear upon his Eastern-British-Roman body the Danish-Saxon-English tunic! It was all of fine linen the franklin’s own fair fingers had spun, and pointed and tasseled and parti-color, and his legs were cross-gartered to his knees, and his little luncheon-dagger hung by his jeweled belt, and a fillet of pure English gold bound down the long black locks that fell upon his shoulders. ”

“ I charge thee, Phaon, by this deed of woe
To meet me in the Elysian shades below,
No rival beauty shall pretend a share,
Sappho alone shall walk with Phaon there.
She spoke, and downward from the mountain's height
Plung'd in the plashy wave to everlasting night.
[33] Text from the edition of 1786. For the edition of 1795 Freneau cut out the song of Ismenius, beginning "Thou swain that lov'st the morning air," and extending to the speech of Sappho, "Ah, faithless Phaon." ”

“ It appears that the name Phrygians, like that of Thracians, was a generic designation, and comprehended tribes or separate communities who had also specific names of their own. We trace Phrygians at wide distances: on the western bank of the river Halys,—at Kelænæ, in the interior of Asia Minor, towards the rise of the river Mæander,—and on the coast of the Propontis near Kios;—in both of these latter localities there is a salt lake called Askanius, which is the name both of the leader of the Phrygian allies of Troy, and of the country from whence they are said to come, in the Iliad. ”

“ Lempriere leant his head on his hand with a discomfited and despondent gesture. Prynne addressed him kindly:—
"Have a little patience, H. de Maufant," said he. "The sun shines in heaven though earth's clouds hide his face."
"Lukewarm Reuben!" cried the other, impatiently. "What comfort can I have from such as thou? While we talk my country is indeed undone: my wife perhaps a wanderer, and my lands and house given over to the enemy."
"Nay, but it need not be so," said Prynne. "The Rump that ruleth here, even were it a complete Parliament, cannot be an idol to you and yours. ”

“ But,” seeing that I was much abashed, “don’t let my sour humour put Miss Freyne out of countenance. Be assured, madam, that when I leave you ’twill be to set my wits at work to devise a means of escape from this situation that shall satisfy both Mr Freyne’s punctilio and yours, and if I find a chance to throw in a good word for your Fraser, it shan’t be lost.”
“Oh, sir, dear sir, if there was anything I could do!”
“There’s nothing, madam. Miss Freyne’s kind heart must not concern itself with the old man’s misfortunes. ”

“ The prince felt a wound in his heart, and felt as if through that wound some feeling had gone from him. It was not passion, for passion remained; but it was esteem for Kama, and faith in her.
"Wonderful are these Phoenicians," thought the heir; "one may go wild for them, but 'tis not possible to trust them."
He felt wearied, and took farewell of the priestess. He looked around the chamber as though it were difficult to leave the place; and while going, he said to himself,
"And still Thou wilt be mine, and Phoenician gods will not kill thee, if they regard their own priests and temples." ”

“ By the Gods! but she could play a fine sword, this dainty Empress. She touched life with every thrust.
Yes, it was plain to see, now an example was given, that the throne of Atlantis had been won, not by a lovely face and a subtle tongue alone; and (as a fighter myself) I did not like Phorenice the less for the knowledge. I could but see her out of the corner of my eye, and that only now and again, for the fishers, despite their ill-knowledge of fence, and the clumsiness of their weapons, had heavy numbers, and most savage ferocity ”

“ I order you, as your mother, to make her fall in love with the very meanest of mankind—one so degraded that he cannot find his equal in wretchedness throughout the whole wide world.”
Psyche’s elder sisters were both married to kings; but she herself was so marvelously beautiful that no mere mortal dared to ask for her in marriage. This distressed the king, her father, greatly: for it was thought dishonorable for a princess not to marry. So he consulted the oracle of Apollo—an “oracle” being a place where a god’s voice answered questions. ”

“ But one day Psyche’s sisters, having heard of her fate, and having come all the way from their husbands’ kingdoms to learn all about it, climbed together to the top of the mountain-peak to see if they could find any traces of her. Finding none, they wept and beat their breasts till the rocks resounded with their cries. Nay, their lamentations reached the palace itself; and Psyche, who loved her sisters, ran, forgetful of her promise, to the foot of the mountain, whence she saw them above mourning for her in an agony of woe. ”

“ To the Throne of the Avenger,
To the Judge of Quick and Dead.
THE HARD STRAIT OF THE FEINNE Now of the hard strait of the Feinne this legend's verse shall tell:
When Fionn's men had fought and won, and all with them was well,
And victory on Erin's shores had given spoil which they
Alone could win whose swords of old were mightiest in the fray:
For in those days the bravest hand, and not the craftiest brain,
Got gold, and skill in gallant fight was found the surest gain. ”

“ Evil times are approaching Phœnicia.”
“Has the sea flooded Tyre and Sidon?” asked Dagon, smiling.
Hiram spat, and inquired,—
“Why art thou so ill-tempered to-day?”
“I am always ill-tempered when men do not call me worthiness.”
“But why dost thou not say grace to me? I am a prince.”
“Perhaps in Phœnicia. But in Assyria thou wouldst wait three days in the forecourt of any satrap for an audience, and when he deigned to receive thee thou wouldst be lying on thy belly, like any Phœnician merchant.”
“But what couldst thou do in presence of a wild man who would perhaps impale thee on a stake?” ”