‘Dear Lady,’ said the Hero, ‘this is not a boon you ask of me, but the wish of my own heart, and I will obey you in this and in all things. But if I am destined to carry away the wife of another man, and to take her for my own, I must know whether she is determined in our course, and whether the crimes of her husband are equal to the sin of abandoning him.’

Said the Lady, ‘You would not ask me this, if you knew what he is. The Prince himself is the author of this cruel custom we have inflicted on your country, and it is he, and not my poor brother, who feeds his perverse lusts with the flesh of your Athens youth. He is not a husband to me, but a jailer; he has not honored the majesty of my blood, but rather used it for his own gratification. He has deceived and corrupted my father and defamed my beloved brother, and his time is spent chiefly in drink and in carnal heat, wherein his only pleasure flows from the agony of others.’ She unfastened her tunic and bared her limbs to the Hero’s gaze, and said, ‘These are the scars I have earned on our nuptial couch . . .’

THE BOOK OF TIME, A. M. HAYWOOD (1921)