Aphrodite: Book Two: Chapter Six. The Rose of Chrysis

IT was a procession white and blue, yellow and rose and green.

Thirty courtesans advanced carrying baskets of flowers, snow-white doves with red feet, veils of the most fragile azure, and precious ornaments.

An old white-bearded priest, enveloped even around the head in a stiff unbleached material, walked before the young cortege and guided the file of bowed devotees toward the stone altar.

They sang, and their song was slow as the sea, sighing like the wind of mid-day, fitful as the breath of an amorous mouth. The first two bore harps which, sustained in the hollow of their left hands, curved forward like sickles of slender wood.

One of them advanced and said: "Tryphera, O beloved Kypris, offers thee this blue veil, woven by herself, that thou mayest continue thy favor toward her."

Another: "Mousarion lays at thy feet, O Goddess of the Fair Crown, these wreaths of gilliflower and this bouquet of bowing narcissi. She has worn them and has invoked thy name in the intoxication of their perfume. O Victorious receive these spoils of love."

Still another: "As an offering to thee, Golden Cytheræa, Timo

A very young courtesan followed. "Aphrodite, Peribasia, receive me with this, my tunic. I am Pannychis of Pharos; since last night I have dedicated myself to thee."

Another: "Dorothæa conjures thee, O charitable Epistrophia, to take from her spirit the desire cast there by Eros or at length to inflame for her the eyes of him who refuseth himself. She offers thee this branch of myrtle because it is the tree which thou prefer-rest."

Another: "Upon thine altar, O Paphia, Callistion lays sixty drachmæ of silver, the remainder of four minæ which she received from Cleomenes. Give her a lover more generous still, if the offering seem good to thee."

There remained before the idol only a blushing child who had placed herself last. She held in her hand only a little wreath of crocus and the priest scorned her for an offering so slight.

She said: "I am not rich enough to give thee silver pieces, O Brilliant Olympian. Moreover, what could I give thee which thou dost not already possess? Here are yellow and green flowers, woven in a wreath for thy feet. And now . . ."

The procession seemed finished and the other courtesans were about to withdraw when a last woman, late coming, appeared on the threshold.

This one had nothing in her hand and it seemed that she also had come to offer only her beauty. Her hair seemed like two floods of gold, two deep, shadow-laden waves which swallowed up the ears and wound seven-fold upon the nape of her neck. The nose was delicate, with thin nostrils which sometimes pulsed above the full and tinted mouth with rounded mobile corners. The pliant line of the body undulated with each step, animated by the swaying of the hips, and the rounded waist curved.

Her eyes were extraordinary, blue, but deep and brilliant at the same time, changing as moonstones, half closed under the drowsy lids. They looked, those eyes, as the sirens sing . . .

The priest turned toward her, awaiting her speech.

She said, "Chrysis, O Chryseia, supplicates thee. Receive the slight gifts she lays at thy feet. Listen, hear, love and relieve her who lives after thine example and for the glory of thy name."

She stretched forth hands golden with rings and bowed, her legs together.

The vague song recommenced. The murmur of the harps

"To thee," she said, "Anadyomene, who wert born of the bleeding dawn and the foamy smile of the waters: to thee, Bare Beauty streaming with pearls, who didst knot thy dampened hair with ribbons of green seaweed, Chrysis consecrates her comb. It has dressed the hair which thou hast disheveled, O thou who controllest and moldest the beloved body."

She gave her comb to the old man and bent her head to the right to remove her necklace of emeralds.

"To thee," she said, "O beloved who cooled the blush of the shamefaced maidens, who counsellest laughter: to thee, in whose name we offer our love, Chrysis consecrates her necklace. It was given in fee by a man whose name she knows not, and each emerald is a kiss where thou hast lived an instant."

She bowed a last time, profoundly, put the necklace into the hands of the priest, and took a step to go.

The priest detained her. "What dost thou ask of the goddess for these precious offerings?"

Demetrios remained alone, hidden in the bronze pedestal. He had not lost a gesture or a word of all this scene and when all was finished he remained a long time motionless, tormented afresh by irresolved passion.

He had believed himself well cured of his recent folly and had thought that nothing, henceforth, could throw him a second time into the ardent shadow of this unknown woman.

But he had reckoned without her.

Women! O women! If you wish to be loved, show yourselves, return, be at hand! The emotion he had felt upon the entrance of the courtesan was so complete and so violent that it could no longer be fought against by an effort of will. Demetrios was bound like a barbarian slave to a triumphal chariot. To escape was an illusion. Without knowing it, and naturally, she had laid her hand upon him.

He had seen her coming at a great distance, for she wore the same yellow robe as on her walk along the jetty. She moved with slow and supple steps, softly undulating her hips. She had come direct to him as though she had divined him behind the stone.

From the first instant he knew that he would fall again at her feet. When she drew the mirror of polished bronze from her