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Updated: August 29, 2024
They were the same statues, rich in form, in attraction, and poesy, with eyes of fascination, smiles of love, and bright and flowing hair. They were Phryne, Cleopatra, Messalina, those three celebrated courtesans.
Whence else learned they to daub these mud-walls with apothecaries' mortar; and those high washes, which are so cunningly licked on that the wet napkin of Phryne should he deceived? Whence the frizzled and powdered bushes of their borrowed hair? As if they were ashamed of the head of God's making, and proud of the tire-woman's.
I saw her heart must be beating fast, for her face and lips had grown quite white. "Trevor, I wish you would let me be your model for the Phryne." Almost immediately she had spoken the colour rushed in a burning stream across her face, forcing the tears to her eyes. I saw them brim up, sparkling to the lids, in the firelight. I sat up in my chair, leaning forwards towards her.
"From the gem-cutter's fair daughter," replied Macrinus, with a contemptuous shrug. "From her?" cried the physician, indignantly. From that light Phryne, who kissed and embraced my rich host's son down there in his sick-room?
It is a common trend of the mind in these modern days to make nobility out of the women whose personality needs no virtue to lift it to a pedestal of fame. But really, it is they who make the nobility for themselves. Phryne of Athens, Helen of Troy, Catherine of Russia, Mary of Scotland these are women who have ennobled themselves without aid of eulogy.
"From the gem-cutter's fair daughter," replied Macrinus, with a contemptuous shrug. "From her?" cried the physician, indignantly. From that light Phryne, who kissed and embraced my rich host's son down there in his sick-room?
The worst of scandals becomes romantic and even respectable in two thousand years; witness that of Cleopatra with Cæsar, Mark Antony and other gentlemen. The most virtuous read of Cleopatra with sympathy, even in boarding-schools, and it is felt that were she by some miracle to be blotted out of the book of history, the loss would be enormous. The same applied to Helen, Phryne, and other bad lots.
They can paint to you the blush of Rhodope or Phryne, till you see the delicious color blend and mingle on the ivory of their tablets; but until, like Agassiz, we can all of us deduce the fish from the scale, and from that blush alone deduce the human race, we are no nearer the Divine intentions in the creation of man, for all such lore as that.
"Where is the Queen of Herod's kiss, And Phryne in her beauty bare; By what strange sea does Tomyris With Dido and Cassandra share Divine Proserpina's despair; The Wind has blown them all away For what poor ghost does Helen care? Where are the Girls of Yesterday? "Alas for lovers!
Phryne cannot refuse, however late the hour may be, but she has her revenge by charging a very high price for her songs, which her "ustads" or musicians take care to pocket beforehand. The older and more settled members of the community amuse themselves till mid-night by congregating in the tea and coffee shops of the city and there discussing the general trend of trade.
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