THE Dialogues of the Courtesans form one of the four sets of usually short comic dialogues by Lucian (the others being The Gods, The Sea-Gods, and The Dead), and the whole group are his most obvious exercise in literary adaptation and pastiche. In particular, the names, the situations, and the themes of the Courtesans take us into the world of Greek New Comedy and the mime, the same sort of imaginative reproducing in literature of a lively level of society which we find in the authors of the Greek fictional letters, especially Alciphron and Aristaenetus. Lucian’s courtesans are much like those portrayed in other writers, cunning, blunt, and money-grubbing, but also loyal, loving, and quick to defend the honour of their trade. The satirist is at his humorous best in some of these usually unmalicious portrayals of a familiar aspect of Greek society. The following selection is about half the whole set.
Readers will notice the large number of female names in -ion: these are neuter diminutives in Greek which were conventional as names for courtesans.
G. Thais, you know the Acarnanian soldier, who long ago used to keep Abrotonon and then fell for me, the well-dressed fellow in the military cloak—or have you forgotten him?
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T. No, Glycerion, I do know him: he had a drink with us at the harvest festival last year. Why do you ask? You seemed to have something to say about him.
G. That wretch Gorgona, my seeming friend, has got hold of him and is dragging him away from me.
T. So he’s made Gorgona his mistress and he won’t be coming to see you any more?
G. That’s right, Thais, and I find the whole thing very galling.
T. It was a dirty trick, Glycerion, but not surprising—normal behaviour among us courtesans. So you mustn’t be too upset or take it out on Gorgona: after all, Abrotonon didn’t take it out on you over him, even though you were friends. But I do marvel at what this soldier fellow sees in her, unless he’s totally blind and hadn’t seen that her hair is going thin and receding a good way from her forehead; her lips are livid; she has a scraggy neck with the veins sticking out on it; and that long nose! Her one redeeming feature is that she’s tall and carries herself well, and she has a very winning smile.
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G. Why, Thais, you don’t imagine that the Acarnanian has been smitten by her beauty? Don’t you know that her mother Chrysarion is a witch who is skilled in Thessalian spells and can summon down the moon?* And they say she even flies around at night. It’s she who’s driven the fellow mad by giving him one of her potions to drink, and now they’re reaping a good harvest from him.
T. Well, you’ll find another man to harvest, Glycerion: let this one go.
M. So, Pamphilus, you’re getting married to the daughter of Philo, the shipowner—they even say you’re already married. So much for all your oaths and your tears—vanished in a moment; and have you forgotten your Myrtion, especially now, Pamphilus, when I’m eight months pregnant? And all I’ve gained from your love is that you’ve given me a huge belly, which means a child to be looked after shortly, and that’s not good news for a courtesan. For I won’t be exposing the child, especially if it’s a boy. I’ll call him Pamphilus, and keep him as a consolation for my love, and some day he’ll reproach you for deserting his poor mother. And it’s no beauty you’re marrying. I saw her recently at the Thesmophoria* with her mother, though I didn’t realize at the time that because of her I wouldn’t be seeing Pamphilus again. You’d better examine her too, while there’s time, especially her face and her eyes. You mustn’t be too put out by her rather greenish eyes or the fact that they squint inwards. But actually, you’ve seen your bride’s father, Philo, and you know his face, so there’s no need to look at his daughter.
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P. Myrtion, do I have to go on listening to this rubbish you’re talking about girls and shipowner marriages? Do I know any bride, snub-nosed or good-looking? Or that Philo of Alopece—I suppose you mean him—even had a marriageable daughter? He’s not even a friend of my father: I remember my father suing him for debt the other day. He owed him a talent, I believe, and refused to pay up; so my father took him to the Admiralty Court* and with difficulty got him to pay it, and not even the whole sum, as my father claimed. But even if I had decided to marry, would I have passed over the daughter of Demeas, who was made general last year—and she is a cousin on my mother’s side—to marry Philo’s daughter? Where on earth did you hear all this? What empty rivalry have you jealously invented for yourself, Myrtion?
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M. So you’re not getting married, Pamphilus?
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P. Are you mad, Myrtion, or just hung-over? Though we didn’t get too drunk yesterday.
M. It was Doris here who got me so worked up. I sent her to buy some wool for the baby, and to pray for me to Artemis, who watches over childbirth; and she said she’d met Lesbia—but you’d better tell him yourself what you heard, Doris, unless you made it all up.
D. May I come to a bad end, madam, if I lied. When I got near to the town-hall I met Lesbia, who grinned cheerfully and said, ‘Your lover Pamphilus is marrying Philo’s daughter.’ If I didn’t believe her, I was to peep into your street and observe all the garlands and pipe-players and the bustle and the wedding hymn being sung.
P. Well, did you have a peep, Doris?
D. Indeed I did, and I saw it all, as she said.
P. I see what led to the misunderstanding. They weren’t all lies that Lesbia told you, Doris, and what you told Myrtion was true. But there was no reason at all for your panic, as the wedding wasn’t happening in our house. Still, I do now remember my mother saying when I got back from seeing you yesterday, ‘Pamphilus, your young friend Charmides, son of our neighbour Aristaenetus, is doing the sensible thing and getting married at last: how long are you going to keep a mistress?’ Not paying much attention to her I fell asleep; then it was very early when I left the house, so I didn’t notice any of the things that Doris saw later on. If you don’t believe me, Doris, go back and look carefully, not just at the street, but to see which door has the garlands. You’ll find it’s our neighbours’ house.
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M. You’ve saved my life, Pamphilus. I would have hanged myself if that’s what had happened.
P. It couldn’t have happened: I’d never be so mad as to forget Myrtion, especially now she’s carrying my child.
M. Bacchis, you know all those Thessalian women,* who are said to utter incantations and can make a woman loved, even if she is deeply hated before: a blessing on you if you could get hold of one of them and bring her to me. I’d willingly give up all these dresses and gold, if only I could see Charinus coming back to me and hating Simiche as he now hates me.
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B. What do you mean? Aren’t you two still living together, Melitta, or has Charinus deserted you and gone off to Simiche—you for whom he endured all that anger from his parents, by refusing to marry that rich girl who they said was bringing a dowry of five talents? You yourself told me that.
M. It’s all over, Bacchis, and for five days I haven’t even laid eyes on him, while he and Simiche have been carousing with his mate Pammenes.
B. That’s awful for you, Melitta. But what caused you to split up? It must have been serious.
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M. I can’t tell you all the details. But the other day, when he came back from the Piraeus* (I think his father had sent him down there to collect a debt), he didn’t look at me as he came in, or give me a hug when I ran up to him as usual, but he pushed me away as I tried to embrace him, saying, ‘Off you go to Hermotimus the shipowner, or read what’s written on the walls in the Ceramicus,* where your names are inscribed together on a stone.’ ‘What Hermotimus?’ I said; ‘who’s he? And what stone are you talking about?’ He didn’t reply or have anything to eat, and went to sleep, turning his back to me in bed. You can imagine all the ploys I devised to deal with this, hugging him, pulling him over to me, and kissing him while he kept his face averted. He didn’t relent one little bit, and only said, ‘If you don’t stop bothering me, I’m off, even though it’s midnight.’
B. But did you know Hermotimus?
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M. May you see me even more wretched than I am now, Bacchis, if I know any shipowner called Hermotimus. However, next morning he was up and gone at cock-crow, and I recalled what he’d said about the name being written on some wall in the Ceramicus. So I sent Acis to have a look, and all she could find was this, written near the Dipylon Gate,* on the right as you enter it: ‘Melitta loves Hermotimus’, and again a bit lower down, ‘The shipowner Hermotimus loves Melitta.’
B. Oh, those interfering youths! I see it now: somebody knowing how jealous Charinus is and wanting to vex him, wrote it there, and he believed it immediately. If I see him I’ll talk to him: he’s still just a child and inexperienced.
M. Where could you see him, when he is spending his time shut up with Simiche? His parents keep looking for him at my house. But, as I said, Bacchis, if we could just find an old woman: if she were here she would be my salvation.
B. Well, my love, there’s a terribly useful sorceress, Syrian by race, still hale and hearty, who once brought Phanias back to me, when for four whole months he had been angry with me for no reason at all, just like Charinus. I’d given up hope, but through her incantations he was reconciled to me.
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M. Can you remember what the old woman charged?
B. She doesn’t want a large fee, Melitta—a drachma and a loaf of bread; but in addition you have to leave out seven obols, sulphur, and a torch, along with salt. These she takes up, and she also has to have a bowl of wine mixed, to drink herself. She also needs to have something belonging to the man himself, like clothing or boots or a few hairs, or something of that sort.
M. I have his boots.
B. She hangs them on a peg and fumigates them with sulphur, sprinkling salt on the fire and pronouncing both your names. Then she produces a magic wheel* from under her clothes and spins it round, while she glibly reels off an incantation full of fearful and outlandish names. That was her procedure on that occasion, and not long afterwards Phanias, despite the rebukes of his friends and the ceaseless pleading of his mistress Phoebis, came back to me, being mainly induced by the spell. And what’s more, the Syrian taught me this spell to make him hate Phoebis: to watch for any footprints she left, and to wipe them out by putting my right foot on her left footprint and my left on her right, saying, ‘I have stepped on you and I have got the better of you.’ And I did as I was told.
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M. Quick, quick, Bacchis! Bring the Syrian woman here at once. And you, Acis, prepare the loaf and the sulphur and everything else we need for the spell.
CROB. So, Corinna, you now know it’s by no means as awful as you thought for a girl to become a woman. You’ve been with a good-looking lad and you’ve earned your first mina, which I’ll use shortly to buy you a necklace.
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COR. Yes, please, Mummy; and it must have bright red beads like Philaenis’ one.
CROB. Of course. But I must tell you what else you have to do and how to conduct yourself with men. For we have no other means of livelihood, daughter, and you well know what a wretched life we’ve had during these two years since your blessed father died. When he was alive we were amply provided for; for he was a smith with a great reputation in the Piraeus, and you can hear everyone swearing that there’ll never be another smith to match Philinus. When he died, first I sold his tongs and anvil and hammer for two minas, which kept us going for seven months. Since then I’ve scarcely provided us with enough food, either by weaving or by spinning thread for the weft or the warp. But I have fed you, daughter, and waited in hope.
COR. Do you mean the mina?
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CROB. No, but I calculated that when you’d attained your present age, you could easily support me and keep yourself in clothes, and you’d be rich and have purple dresses and maids.
COR. But how? What do you mean, mother?
CROB. By consorting with young men, and drinking and sleeping with them for money.
COR. Like Daphnis’ daughter, Lyra?
CROB. Exactly.
COR. But she’s a courtesan.
CROB. What’s wrong with that? You’ll also be rich like her, and have lots of lovers. Why are you crying, Corinna? Don’t you see what a lot of courtesans there are, how sought after they are, and how much money they make? Dear lady Adrasteia,* I know indeed that Daphnis’ girl wore rags until she grew up; but you can see what a figure she makes in public now, with her gold, her bright dresses, and her four maids.
COR. But how did Lyra get all that?
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CROB. First of all, she’s neat and attractive in her dress, she has a cheerful look for all the men, she’s not so ready to laugh loudly as you are, but she has a sweet and winning smile. Then, she manages things skilfully when they are together, and doesn’t cheat anyone, whether client or escort; and she doesn’t throw herself at men. If she goes out to dinner for a fee, she doesn’t get drunk: that looks ridiculous, and men hate women like that; nor does she stuff herself vulgarly, but picks up her food with her finger-tips, taking quiet mouthfuls and not filling both cheeks; and she drinks with restraint, and pausing frequently, not gulping it down.
COR. Even if she’s feeling thirsty, mother?
CROB. Especially then, Corinna. And she doesn’t talk too much or make fun of any of the guests, and she only has eyes for her client. This is why the men all like her. Then, when it’s bed-time, she wouldn’t do anything wanton or unseemly: she seeks only to attract the man to make him her lover. That’s what they all praise in her. If you can really learn all this, we too shall be well off. For in everything else you’re way ahead of her – but no more of that, dear Adrasteia: I only pray for long life for you.
COR. Tell me, mother, are all the clients like Eucritus, whom I slept with last night?
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CROB. Not all: some are better; some are mature men; others not in the least good-looking.
COR. Have I got to sleep with those too?
CROB. Most certainly, my daughter: they pay more, while the good-looking ones want to pay just by being good-looking. You’ve always got to think of the higher fee, if you want all the women to be soon pointing to you and saying, ‘Do you see how tremendously rich Crobyle’s daughter Corinna is, and how very fortunate she has made her mother?’ What do you say? Will you do it? I know you will, and you’ll easily surpass all the other girls. Now go and have a bath, in case your lad Eucritus comes again today: he promised he would.
MOTHER. If we find such another lover as Chaereas, Musarion, we’ll have to sacrifice a white goat to the earthly Aphrodite, and a heifer to the heavenly Aphrodite of the Gardens,* and offer a garland to Demeter, the Giver of Riches, and we shall be altogether blessed and very fortunate! You can see how much we are getting from the lad at the moment: he’s never yet given you even an obol, or a dress, or a pair of shoes, or any perfume; only never-ending excuses and promises and distant hopes. He’s always saying, ‘If only my father …* and I were in possession of my inheritance, it would all be yours.’ And you say he has sworn to make you his lawful wedded wife.
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MUS. Yes, mother, he swore it by the two goddesses* and by Athena.
MOTHER. And of course you believe him. That’s why, when he couldn’t pay his contribution to the party recently, you gave him your ring without my knowledge—which he then sold, and drank the proceeds—and your two Ionian necklaces, weighing two darics each, which Praxias, the Chian shipowner, had made in Ephesus and brought back for you. Of course Chaereas had to pay his stint to his dinner companions. I say nothing of your fine linen and your dresses: he really has been a godsend and a blessing fallen among us!
MUS. But he is handsome and beardless, and he says tearfully that he loves me, and he’s the son of Dinomache and Laches, the Areopagite,* and he says he’ll marry me, and we have great hopes of him if only the old man drops off.
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MOTHER. Well then, Musarion, if we need some shoes and the shoemaker wants his two drachmas, we’ll tell him, ‘We don’t have any money, but take a few of our hopes.’ And we’ll tell the barley-merchant the same thing; and if we are asked for the rent we’ll say, ‘You’ll have to wait until Laches of Colyttus dies: I’ll pay you after the wedding.’ Aren’t you ashamed to be the only courtesan without an earring or a nice wrap?
MUS. So what, mother? Are they happier or prettier than me?
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MOTHER. No, but they have more sense and they know how to play the courtesan; and they don’t trust pretty speeches and young men whose promises are only on their lips. But you are loyal and constant to your man, and won’t let anyone approach you but Chaereas. Indeed, the other day when the Acharnian farmer came offering two minas—and he too was beardless, and he’d got the money for the wine he had sold for his father—you sent him packing, and slept with your Adonis, Chaereas.
MUS. So what? Was I supposed to desert Chaereas and take that rustic, who smelt of goat? As the saying goes, I find Chaereas smooth and soft, but the Acharnian a bit of a pig.*
MOTHER. All right, then: he’s boorish and smells awful. But you wouldn’t have Antiphon, Menecrates’ son, either, though he was offering a mina. Wasn’t he a good-looking city type, and the same age as Chaereas?
MUS. But Chaereas threatened to cut both our throats if he ever caught me with him.
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MOTHER. Don’t lots of others make the same threat? Will you on that account do without lovers and live chastely, as if you weren’t a courtesan but a priestess of Demeter? Well, enough of that. Today it’s the Harvest Festival: what has he given you for the occasion?
MUS. He hasn’t anything to give, mummy.
MOTHER. Has he alone not found a way to trick his father, or put up a slave to deceive him, or appealed to his mother, and threatened to sail away to the wars if he’s not given something? No, he just sits around, sponging on us, offering nothing himself and not allowing you to accept offers from others. Do you think you’ll always be 18, Musarion, or that Chaereas will feel the same for you when he’s rich himself and his mother finds a rich match for him? Do you suppose he’ll still remember his tears and his kisses and his oaths when he’s looking at a dowry of maybe five talents?
MUS. He will remember, and the proof is that he’s not yet married, and he’s refused to do so, in spite of all the bullying and coercion.
MOTHER. I only hope he’s not lying, but I’ll remind you of all this when he does marry.
C. Is young Clinias no longer coming to you, Drosis? I haven’t seen him at your place for a long while.
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D. No longer, Chelidonion: his tutor has prevented him visiting me any more.
C. Who is he? You don’t mean Diotimus, the trainer? He’s a friend of mine.
D. No, it’s that villainous scoundrel of a philosopher, Aristaenetus.
C. You mean the sullen fellow, with shaggy hair and a thick beard, who’s generally walking with his lads in the Painted Hall?*
D. That’s the charlatan I mean. I hope I see him dying horribly, with the public executioner dragging him along by his beard.
C. What made him persuade Clinias to do that?
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D. I’ve no idea, Chelidonion. But though he’d never slept away from me from when he started going with women—and I was his first woman—for the past three days he hasn’t been near our street. This upset me, as somehow I felt a bit involved with him, so I sent Nebris to look out for him while he was in the market square or the Painted Hall. She said she saw him walking around with Aristaenetus, and nodded to him from a distance; but he blushed, fixed his gaze on the ground, and didn’t look towards her again. Then they walked together to the Academy.* She followed him as far as the Dipylon Gate, but he never even turned round, and so she returned with nothing definite to report. You can imagine what a state I’ve been in since then, as I can’t even guess what’s come over the lad. ‘Surely I haven’t upset him in any way,’ I kept saying. ‘Or does he hate me because he has fallen for another woman? Has his father forbidden him to come?’ Many such ideas I turned over in my wretchedness; but late in the afternoon Dromo came to me with this letter from him. Take it and read it, Chelidonion: no doubt you can read.
C. Let’s have a look. The writing isn’t very clear: it’s such a scrawl that the writer must have been in great haste. He says, ‘The gods are my witnesses how much I loved you, Drosis.’
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D. Woe is me! He didn’t even start with a greeting.
C. ‘And now I am leaving you not because I hate you but because I’m forced to. My father has entrusted me to Aristaenetus to study philosophy with him; and he, having learnt all about us, rebuked me very seriously, saying that it was shameful for the son of Architeles and Erasiclia to be consorting with a courtesan, as it was much better to prefer virtue to pleasure.’
D. Curses on the old humbug for teaching the lad such a lesson!
C. ‘So I have to obey him, as he follows me closely and keeps a strict eye on me. Indeed, I’m not even allowed to look at anyone but him. If I live a life of moderation, and do everything he tells me, he promises me I’ll be completely happy and I’ll become virtuous through training in hardships. It’s been difficult stealing away to write to you. I hope you’ll be happy, and do not forget Clinias.’
D. What do you think of the letter, Chelidonion?
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C. The rest of it could have been written by a Scythian,* but the bit about not forgetting Clinias offers some hope.
D. That’s my view too; and anyway I’m dying from love. But Dromo said that Aristaenetus is the type who likes boys, and only makes an excuse of teaching them in order to make the best looking youths his lovers; and that privately he makes propositions to Clinias, promising to make him like a god. What’s more, he reads with him amorous treatises of the old philosophers written to their pupils, and is completely taken up with the lad. Dromo threatened to denounce him to Clinias’ father as well.
C. Dromo deserved a jolly good meal for that, Drosis.
D. I gave him one, but even without that he’s on my side: he too is consumed with love—for Nebris.
C. Cheer up: all will be well. I think I’ll write up on the wall in the Ceramicus, where Architeles usually goes for a walk, ‘Aristaenetus is seducing Clinias,’ so we can help Dromo to run him down.*
D. How can you manage that without being seen?
C. When it’s dark, Drosis: I’ll find a piece of charcoal.
D. Splendid! Oh Chelidonion, if only we can join forces against that charlatan Aristaenetus!
D. Now you shut the door against me, Myrtale, now I’m impoverished because of you, though when I was bringing you all those presents I was your beloved, your man, your master, your everything. But now I’m drained completely dry, and you’ve found that Bithynian merchant to be your lover, I’m shut out and stand weeping before the door;* while he enjoys your love at night and spends the whole night alone with you, and you say he’s made you pregnant.
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M. That really makes me choke, Dorio, when you talk about all the things you’ve given me and how you’re impoverished because of me. Now, just begin at the beginning and count up all the things you’ve brought me.
D. Good idea, Myrtale: let’s work it out. First of all, shoes from Sicyon worth two drachmas. Put down two drachmas.
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M. But you slept two nights with me.
D. And when I came back from Syria, a jar of Phoenician perfume, and, by Poseidon, that was also two drachmas.
M. But when you were setting sail I gave you that little thigh-length coat to wear while you were rowing. Epiurus, the prow-officer, left it here by mistake when he spent a night with me.
D. Epiurus recognized it the other day in Samos and took it back, though, by the gods, we fought hard over it. Then I brought you onions from Cyprus, and five tunny and four perches when we came back from the Bosporus. What else? A basket full of eight dry ship’s loaves, and a jar of figs from Caria; and on another occasion some gilded sandals from Patara, you ungrateful thing! And once I remember bringing you a large cheese from Gythium.
M. Altogether that’s about five drachmas, Dorio.
D. Oh Myrtale, it was all that a serving seaman could afford. Even now when I’m in charge of the starboard side you despise me; but didn’t I recently at the feast of Aphrodite place a silver drachma at the feet of the goddess on your behalf? Then I also gave your mother two drachmas for some shoes, and often I’ve slipped Lyde here a couple of obols, sometimes four. Add all this up and it comes to the whole of a sailor’s wealth.
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M. You mean the onions and the tunny fish, Dorio?
D. Yes: that was all I had to give. I wouldn’t be rowing in a boat if I were rich. I’ve never yet brought my own mother even a head of garlic. I’d love to know what presents the Bithynian has given you.
M. Have a look first at this dress. He bought it, and the bigger of my necklaces.
D. He did? I knew you’d had it a long time.
M. No: the one you’re thinking of was much thinner and didn’t have emeralds. Then there are these earrings and this rug, and the other day he gave me two minas, and paid our rent for us—a bit better than sandals from Patara and cheese from Gythium and the other trash.
D. But do tell me what sort of a lover he is. He’s surely over 50, his hair is receding, and his complexion is like a crayfish. And have you looked at his teeth? And, by Castor and Pollux, what accomplishments he has, especially when he sings, and wants to appear refined, like the proverbial donkey playing the lyre to himself.* Well, good luck to you: you’re a well-matched pair, and I hope your child takes after his father. As for me, I’ll find some Delphis or Cymbalion who will suit me, or the girl next door to you who plays the pipe, or somebody anyway. We don’t all have rugs and necklaces and two-mina fees to give you.
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M. Won’t she be lucky, whoever has you for a lover, Dorio! You’ll be bringing her onions from Cyprus, and cheese whenever you come back from Gythium!