And yet, notwithstanding all, he was so superior to my solicitations,
so contemptuous and derisive and disdainful of my beauty--which really, as
I fancied, had some attractions--hear, O judges; for judges you shall be of
the haughty virtue of Socrates--nothing more happened, but in the morning
when I awoke (let all the gods and goddesses be my witnesses) I arose as
from the couch of a father or an elder brother.
What do you suppose must have been my feelings, after this rejection, at
the thought of my own dishonour? And yet I could not help wondering at his
natural temperance and self-restraint and manliness. I never imagined that
I could have met with a man such as he is in wisdom and endurance. And
therefore I could not be angry with him or renounce his company, any more
than I could hope to win him. For I well knew that if Ajax could not be
wounded by steel, much less he by money; and my only chance of captivating
him by my personal attractions had failed. So I was at my wit's end; no
one was ever more hopelessly enslaved by another.
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