wn wives
so superior to that of the Persian women? Are not the women of Ionia and
Attica forced to pass their lives in their own apartments, thankful
if they are allowed to cross the street accompanied by suspicious and
distrustful slaves? As to the custom which prevails in Persia of taking
many wives, I have no fear either for Bartja or Sappho. He will be more
faithful to his wife than are many Greeks, for he will find in her what
you are obliged to seek, on the one hand in marriage, on the other in
the houses of the cultivated Hetaere:--in the former, housewives and
mothers, in the latter, animated and enlivening intellectual society.
Take her, my son. I give her to you as an old warrior gives his sword,
his best possession, to his stalwart son:--he gives it gladly and with
confidence. Whithersoever she may go she will always remain a Greek, and
it comforts me to think that in her new home she will bring honor to
the Greek name and friends to our nation, Child, I thank thee for those
tears. I can command my own, but fate has made me pay an immeasurable
price for the power of doing so. The gods have heard your oath, my noble
Bartja. Never forget it, but take her as your own, your friend, your
wife. Take her away as soon as your friends return; it is not the
will of the gods that the Hymenaeus should be sung at Sappho's nuptial
rites."

As she said these words she laid Sappho's hand in Bartja's, embraced her
with passionate tenderness, and breathed a light kiss on the forehead of
the young Persian. Then turning to her Greek friends, who stood by, much
affected:

"That was a quiet nuptial ceremony," she said; "no songs, no
torch-light! May their union be so much the happier. Melitta, bring the
bride's marriage-ornaments, the bracelets and necklaces which lie in the
bronze casket on my dressing-table, that our darling may give her hand
to her lord attired as beseems a future princess."

"Yes, and do not linger on the way," cried Kallias, whose old
cheerfulness had now returned. "Neither can we allow the niece of the
greatest of Hymen's poets to be married without the sound of song and
music. The young husband's house is, to be sure, too far off for our
purpose, so we will suppose that the andronitis is his dwelling.

[The Hymenaeus was the wedding-song, so called because of its
refrain "Hymen O! Hymenae' O!" The god of marriage, Hymen, took
his origin and name from the hymn, was afterwards decked out richly