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Updated: June 1, 2025
With sublime indifference he caressed his playmate in Actæon's presence. "One day," continued the boy, "I saw clearly, and I understood the truth. Rhanto stood before me. Blinded by ambition I had seen in her only the model, but that day I beheld the woman. Why seek glory when I had love before me! Even though I should mould a great statue, what should I gain?
Behind the mantelets of the besiegers the defenders noticed fresh activity, as if a new attack against the city were being attempted, but in spite of it the Greek came down from the wall in his eagerness to see the girl. "Rhanto, shepherdess, do you know me?" He addressed her tenderly, taking one of her hands, but she tried to spring away from him, as if she had been startled from a sleep.
Bells tinkled among the foliage and the goats thrust forward their glossy muzzles, their moist eyes, and curving horns. "Is it you, Athenian?" said Erotion, arising with a gesture of ill humor. "You have frightened Rhanto by your unexpected presence." Then he added maliciously, "Rhanto is your slave. I am well aware of that. And I also know that you are the master of the pottery where I work.
Actæon left the tavern hastily on seeing that Rhanto, after handing her pitchers to a slave who loaded them into a cart, was starting on her walk toward Sónnica's villa. "I will go with you, little one. You shall be my guide to your mistress' house." The sun had begun to set. The afternoon light gilded the foliage of the domain, giving a transparency of amber to the leaves and vines.
When we are hungry we milk Rhanto's goats and we rob a beehive; we climb trees in search of fruit; this is the glorious season of the year; the whole champaign is full of cherries." He suddenly ceased speaking, fearing lest he had said too much. Perhaps Rhanto reproved him with a nudge. Then he added, in a supplicating tone: "You are good, Athenian.
With the taste of a Greek of refinement he rejoiced in the freshness of her form, comparing it mentally with Sónnica's opulent but somewhat over-ripe charms. Rhanto, as she saw the Greek's head appear between the leaves, uttered a piercing scream and scurried behind a fig tree in search of her clothes.
Afterward, he added earnestly: "This girl you see here, my sweet Rhanto, is all that sustains me. If she did not exist I should long ago have sought the gubernator of a ship, should have sold myself to him as a slave, if necessary, to travel over the world, to see Greece, and to become an artist like those to whom you render there the same honors as to the gods."
Rhanto had been talking to him for full half an hour without receiving a reply. "Look, stranger! All those fields which your eye can see belong to Sónnica. See, Greek, how many chickens! Nearly all the eggs used in the city come from here."
"He has seen his father," said Rhanto quietly. "There is Mopsus coming down from the Acropolis." Actæon advanced to meet the archer. "My word has been sufficient to have you received by the Senate. The city will soon need good soldiers like yourself. The elders seemed somewhat alarmed this morning.
I will not return to the pottery, although the old archer may kill me with blows. I began my statuette hoping that it might figure in the Panathenaic procession. Rhanto would carry it on her head, and the multitude would crowd around to see it. I only hope for a moment of inspiration, a fortunate moment.
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