Friends for Dinner

p. 157

FRIENDS FOR DINNER

Myromeris and Maskale, my friends, come with me, I have no lover for tonight, and couched on beds of byssos we'll pleasantly discourse through dinner-time.

A night of rest will do you good: you'll sleep in my bed, unpainted and uncoiffed. Put on a simple woolen tunic and leave your jewels in the jewel-box.

No one here will make you dance to admire your legs or the heavy movements of your loins. No one will ask you for the sacred Figures, to judge if you be rightly amorous.

And I have not asked, for our diversion, two auletrides 157 with lovely mouths, but rather two large pots of well-browned peas, some honeyed cakes and fried croquettes and my last skin of Kios wine.