Dialogues of the Courtesans (2.1-2.2)

MYRTIUM

So, Pamphilus, you’re planning to marry the daughter of Philo, the shipowner. I’ve even heard

you’re already married. Have all your sworn oaths and tears gone in a moment, have you forgotten your Myrtium, and at a time like this, when I’m eight months gone? All the good I’ve had from your love is that you’ve given me such an enormous belly, and I’ll soon have to bring up a child, and that’s a terrible nuisance for a lady of my kind. For I’m not going to expose the child, particularly if it’s a boy, but I’ll call him Pamphilus, and keep him to console me for my unhappy love, and one day he’ll tell you off for your treachery to his poor mother. I don’t think much of your bride’s looks. I saw her the other day with her mother at the Thesmophoria, though I didn’t know at the time that I’d never see Pamphilus again because of her. I think you’d better have a good look at her too, before it’s too late, and examine her face and her eyes; I wouldn’t like you to be vexed at the marked steel-grey colour of her eyes, or disappointed because they squint inwards. Better still you’ve seen your father-in-law, Philo, and know what his face is like. You won’t need to see the daughter after seeing him!

PAMPHILUS

How long shall I have to listen to your nonsense about young ladies and your stories of matches with shipowning families? Do I know any bride whether snub-nosed or pretty? Or that Philo of Alopece—I presume you mean him—so much as had a daughter of marriageable age? Anyway, he’s not even on good terms with my father. I remember he was sued by him only the other day for debt. He owed my father a talent, I believe, but refused to

pay, and my father had him before the Admiralty Court, and had the greatest difficulty in squeezing it out of him, and didn’t get it all, he kept saying. Even if I had decided to marry, do you think I’d have passed over the daughter of Demeas, who was a General last year, particularly as she was a cousin on my mother’s side, and be marrying Philo’s daughter instead? Wherever did you hear this story? What empty jealous ideas have you invented for yourself, Myrtium, that you lash out so blindly?