Her mouth was heavy and this heavy
mouth gave a shadow to her face that, but for it, was all bright
and lovely.
Hypsipyle spoke two languages--one, the language of the mothers
of the women of Lemnos, which was rough and harsh, a speech to be
flung out to slaves, and the other the language of Greece, which
their fathers had spoken, and which Hypsipyle spoke in a way that
made it sound like strange music. She spoke and walked and did
all things in a queenlike way, and Jason could see that, for all
her youth and childlike size, Hypsipyle was one who was a ruler.
>From the moment she took his hand it seemed that she could not
bear to be away from him. Where he walked, she walked too; where
he sat she sat before him, looking at him with her great eyes
while she laughed or sang.
Like the perfume of strange flowers, like the savor of strange
fruit was Hypsipyle to Jason. Hours and hours he would spend
sitting beside her or watching her while she arrayed herself in
white or in brightly colored garments. Not to the chase and not
into the fields did Jason go, nor did he ever go with the others
into the Lemnian land; all day he sat in the palace with her,
watching her, or listening to her singing, or to the long, fierce
speeches that she used to make to her nurse or to the four
maidens who attended her.
In the evening they would gather in the hall of the palace,
the Argonauts and the Lemnian maidens who were their comrades.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73