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But these pleasing traits are not sufficient to atone for the improbability of the incidents, relieved neither by the brilliant fancy of the East, nor the lofty deeds of the romances of chivalry: and the reader, wearied by the repetition of similar scenes and characters, thinly disguised by change of name and place, finds little reason to regret that "the children of the marriage of Theagenes and Chariclea," as these romances are termed by a writer quoted by d'Israeli in the "Curiosities of Literature" have not continued to increase and multiply up to our own times.
ALCIBIADES. Yes, and the greatest of philosophers, if he can answer it. SPEUSIPPUS. Pythagoras is of opinion HIPPOMACHUS. Pythagoras stole that and all his other opinions from Asia and Egypt. The transmigration of the soul and the vegetable diet are derived from India. I met a Brachman in Sogdiana CALLICLES. All nonsense! CHARICLEA. What think you, Alcibiades? Do you remember Anacreon's lines?
Come with music floating o'er thee; Come with violets springing round: Let the Graces dance before thee, All their golden zones unbound; Now in sport their faces hiding, Now, with slender fingers fair, From their laughing eyes dividing The long curls of rose-crowned hair. ALCIBIADES. Sweetly sung; but mournfully, Chariclea; for which I would chide you, but that I am sad myself. More wine there.
"No," the indefatigable auditor is made to reply; "and who is he, unless he have a heart of adamant or iron, that would not listen content to hear the loves of Theagenes and Chariclea, though the story should last a year? Therefore, continue it, I beseech you." "Continue, I beseech you:" dear flattering words!
I will tell you what the Satrap of Caria said to me about that when I supped with him. ALCIBIADES. Nay, sweet Hippomachus; not a word to-night about satraps, or the great king, or the walls of Babylon, or the Pyramids, or the mummies. Chariclea, why do you look so sad? CHARICLEA. Can I be cheerful when you are going to leave me, Alcibiades?
SPEUSIPPUS. Whose lines are those, Alcibiades? ALCIBIADES. My own. Think you, because I do not shut myself up to meditate, and drink water, and eat herbs, that I cannot write verses? By Apollo, if I did not spend my days in politics, and my nights in revelry, I should have made Sophocles tremble. But now I never go beyond a little song like this, and never invoke any Muse but Chariclea.
SPEUSIPPUS. In the name of Bacchus ALCIBIADES. I am absolute. Sing. SPEUSIPPUS. Well, then, I will sing you a chorus, which, I think, is a tolerable imitation of Euripides. CHARICLEA. Of Euripides? Not a word. ALCIBIADES. Why so, sweet Chariclea? CHARICLEA. Would you have me betray my sex? Would you have me forget his Phaedras and Sthenoboeas?
I wish to all the gods that I had fairly sailed from Athens. CHARICLEA. And from me, Alcibiades? ALCIBIADES. Yes, from you, dear lady. The days which immediately precede separation are the most melancholy of our lives. CHARICLEA. Except those which immediately follow it.
How was he to resist this pretty woman, with her captivating manners, her well-timed tears, her parenthetic sighs? Lingering farewells, joyful welcomes, judicious airs and graces, song and lyre, all were brought to bear upon him. Dinias was soon a lost man, over head and ears in love; and Chariclea prepared to give the finishing stroke.
But Clitophon and Leucippe, clinging to the forecastle, are comfortably wafted by the winds and waves to the coast of Egypt, and landed near Pelusium, where they hire a vessel to carry them to Alexandria; but their voyage through the tortuous branches of the Nile is intercepted by marauders of the same class, Bucoli or buccaniers, as those who figure so conspicuously in the adventures of Chariclea and Theagenes.
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