Chapter IX: Simylus. Polystratus

_Si_. So here you are at last, Polystratus; you must be something very like a centenarian.

_Pol_. Ninety-eight.

_Si_. And what sort of a life have you had of it, these thirty years? you were about seventy when I died.

_Pol_. Delightful, though you may find it hard to believe.

_Si_. It is surprising that you could have any joy of your life—old, weak, and childless, moreover.

_Pol_. In the first place, I could do just what I liked; there were still plenty of handsome boys and dainty women; perfumes were sweet, wine kept its bouquet, Sicilian feasts were nothing to mine.

_Si_. This _is_ a change, to be sure; you were very economical in my day.

_Pol_. Ah, but, my simple friend, these good things were presents—came in streams. From dawn my doors were thronged with visitors, and in the day it was a procession of the fairest gifts of earth.

_Si_. Why, you must have seized the crown after my death.

_Pol_. Oh no, it was only that I inspired a number of tender passions.

_Si_. Tender passions, indeed! what, you, an old man with hardly a tooth left in your head!

_Pol_. Certainly; the first of our townsmen were in love with me. Such as you see me, old, bald, blear-eyed, rheumy, they delighted to do me honour; happy was the man on whom my glance rested a moment.

_Si_. Well, then, you had some adventure like Phaon's, when he rowed Aphrodite across from Chios; your God granted your prayer and made you young and fair and lovely again.

_Pol_. No, no; I was as you see me, and I was the object of all desire.

_Si_. Oh, I give it up.

_Pol_. Why, I should have thought you knew the violent passion for old men who have plenty of money and no children.

_Si_. Ah, now I comprehend your beauty, old fellow; it was the _Golden_ Aphrodite bestowed it.

_Pol_. I assure you, Simylus, I had a good deal of satisfaction out of my lovers; they idolized me, almost. Often I would be coy and shut some of them out. Such rivalries! such jealous emulations!

_Si_. And how did you dispose of your fortune in the end?

_Pol_. I gave each an express promise to make him my heir; he believed, and treated me to more attentions than ever; meanwhile I had another genuine will, which was the one I left, with a message to them all to go hang.

_Si_. Who was the heir by this one? one of your relations, I suppose.

_Pol_. Not likely; it was a handsome young Phrygian I had lately bought.

_Si_. Age?

_Pol_. About twenty.

_Si_. Ah, I can guess his office.

_Pol_. Well, you know, he deserved the inheritance much better than they did; he was a barbarian and a rascal; but by this time he has the best of society at his beck. So he inherited; and now he is one of the aristocracy; his smooth chin and his foreign accent are no bars to his being called nobler than Codrus, handsomer than Nireus, wiser than Odysseus.

_Si_. Well, _I_ don't mind; let him be Emperor of Greece, if he likes, so long as he keeps the property away from that other crew.

H.