Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/177

 city of Lagos, Canopus itself cried shame upon the monstrous morals of our town. Forgetful of home, of husband and of sister, without thought of her country, she shamelessly abandoned her weeping children; and—more marvellous still—deserted Paris and the games. Though born in wealth, though as a babe she had slept in a bedizened cradle on the paternal down, she made light of the sea, just as she had long made light of her good name—a loss but little accounted of among our soft litter-riding dames. And so with stout heart she endured the tossing and the roaring of the Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas, and all the many seas she had to cross. For when danger comes in a right and honourable way, a woman's heart grows chill with fear; she cannot stand upon her trembling feet; but if she be doing a bold, bad thing, her courage fails not. For a husband to order his wife on board ship is cruelty; the bilge-water then sickens her, the heavens go round and round. But if she is running away with a lover, she feels no qualms; then she vomits over her husband; now she messes with the sailors, she roams about the deck, and delights in hauling at the hard ropes.

And what were the youthful charms which captivated Eppia? What did she see in him to allow herself to be called "a she-Gladiator"? Her dear Sergius had already begun to shave; a wounded arm gave promise of a discharge, and there were sundry deformities in his face; a scar caused by the helmet, a huge wen upon his nose, a nasty humour always trickling from his eye. But then he was a gladiator! It is this that transforms these fellows into Hyacinths! it was this that she preferred to children and to country, to sister and to husband. What these 91