to the
sleeping-chamber, I went to bed with my "brother" and, burning with
passion as I was, after such a magnificent dinner, I surrendered myself
wholly to sexual gratification.)

Oh Goddesses and Gods, that purple night
How soft the couch! And we, embracing tight;
With every wandering kiss our souls would meet!
Farewell all mortal woes, to die were sweet

But my self-congratulation was premature, for I was overcome with wine,
and when my unsteady hands relaxed their hold, Ascyltos, that
never-failing well-spring of iniquity, stole the boy away from me in the
night and carried him to his own bed, where he wallowed around without
restraint with a "brother" not his own, while the latter, not noticing
the fraud, or pretending not to notice it, went to sleep in a stranger's
arms, in defiance of all human rights. Awaking at last, I felt the bed
over and found that it had been despoiled of its treasure: then, by all
that lovers hold dear, I swear I was on the verge of transfixing them
both with my sword and uniting their sleep with death. At last,
however, I adopted a more rational plan; I spanked Giton into
wakefulness, and, glaring at Ascyltos, "Since you have broken faith by
this outrage," I gritted out, with a savage frown, "and severed our
friendship, you had better get your things together at once, and pick up
some other bottom for your abominations!" He raised no objection to
this, but after we had divided everything with scrupulous exactitude,
"Come on now," he demanded, "and we'll divide the boy!"

CHAPTER THE EIGHTIETH.

I thought this was a parting joke till he whipped out his sword, with a
murderous hand. "You'll not have this prize you're brooding over, all to
yourself! Since I've been rejected, I'll have to cut off my share with
this sword." I followed suit, on my side, and, wrapping a mantle around
my left arm, I put myself on guard for the duel. The unhappy boy,
rendered desperate by our unreasoning fury, hugged each of us tightly by
the knee, and in tears he humbly begged that this wretched lodging-house
should not witness a Theban duel, and that we would not pollute--with
mutual bloodshed the sacred rites of a friendship that was, as yet,
unstained. "If a crime must be committed," he wailed, "here is my naked
throat, turn your swords this way and press home the points. I ought to
be the one to die, I broke the sacred pledge of f