libra Contral 143 AUG 17 1948 GRAHAM PERICLES AND ASPASIA. I. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. CLEONE! I write from Athens. I hasten to meet your reproaches, and to stifle them in my embrace. It was wrong to have left Miletus at all: it was wrong to have parted from you without intrusting you with my secret. No, no, neither was wrong. I have withstood many tears, my sweet Cleone, but never yours; you could always do what you would with me; and I should have been wind-bound by you on the Mæander, as surely and inexorably as the fleet at Aulis by Diana. Ionia is far more beautiful than Attica, Miletus than Athens; for about Athens there is no verdure, no spacious and full and flowing river, few gardens, many olivetrees, so many, indeed, that we seem to be in an eternal cloud of dust. However, when the sea-breezes blow, this tree itself looks beautiful; it looks, in its pliable and undulating branches, irresolute as Ariadne when she was urged to fly, and pale as Orithyia when she was borne away. II. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. Come out, Aspasia, from among those olives. You would never have said a word about any such things, at such a time, unless you had met with an adventure. When you want to hide somewhat, you always run into the thickets of poetry. Pray leave Ariadne with Bacchus, she cannot be safer; and Orithyia with Boreas, if you have any reverence for the mysteries of the gods. Now I have almost a mind to say, tell me nothing at all (5) |