Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/287

Rh rest of her life to the service of that goddess. Cerimon did not gainsay her wish, and she was soon enrolled among those who officiated at the votive altars, and became renowned as the most beautiful and chaste of all the priestesses of Diana.

Marina, left in the care of Cleon and Dionyza, grew daily in grace and loveliness. Her father had left as her attendant, the old servant Lychorida, who had nursed the queen in her illness upon the ocean, and in this faithful woman Marina found a second mother. The young princess was instructed in all feminine arts. She learned to embroider in a manner which was considered wonderful even then, when embroidery was one of the fine arts. She sang and played on the harp with great skill, and she was an apt scholar in the languages. The only daughter of Dionyza, who was called Philoten, was the sharer of all the princess’s studies, and her close companion, but while Marina was graceful and lovely, Philoten was deformed and ugly; where Marina excelled in accomplishments, she was left far behind.

Dionyza, for her daughter’s sake, beheld the beauty and sweetness of Marina with envious eyes. That her only child, nurtured with so much maternal love and fondness, should be outstripped by a stranger, was hateful beyond