Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/187

 ANTONY. - 179 the river on either bank, part running out of the city to 860 the sight. The niarket-plaoe was quite emptied, and Antony at last was left alone sitting upon the tribunal ; while the word went through all the mul- titude, that Venus was come to feast with Bacchus, for the common good of Asia. On her arrival, Antony sent to invite her to supper. She thought it fitter he should come to her ; so, willing to show his good-humor and courtesy, he complied, and went. He found the prepara- tions to receive him magnificent beyond expression, but nothing so admirable as the great number of lights ; for on a sudden there was let down altogether so great a number of branches with lights in them so ingeniously disposed, some in squares, and some in circles, that the whole thing was a spectacle that has seldom been equalled for beauty. The next day, Antony invited her to supper, and was very desirous to outdo her as well in magnificence as contrivance ; but he found he was altogether beaten in both, and was so well convinced of it, that he was himself the first to jest and mock at his poverty of wit, and his rustic awkwardness. She, perceiving that his raillery was broad and gross, and savored more of the soldier than the courtier, rejoined in the same taste, and fell into it at once, without any sort of reluctance or reserve. For her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her, or that no one could see her without being struck by it, but the contact of her presence, if you lived Avith her, was irresistible ; the attraction of her person, joining with the charm of her conversation, and the character that attended all she said or did, was something bewitching. It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with Avhich, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one