No More Learning

OLD WOMAN. You are mocking me! Nay! I am being devoured with a consuming
fire.

CHREMYLUS. Then tell me what is consuming you so fiercely.

OLD WOMAN. Listen! I loved a young man, who was poor, but so handsome, so
well-built, so honest! He readily gave way to all I desired and acquitted
himself so well! I, for my part, refused him nothing.

CHREMYLUS. And what did he generally ask of you.

OLD WOMAN. Very little; he bore himself towards me with astonishing
discretion!
perchance twenty drachmae for a cloak or eight for footwear;
sometimes he begged me to buy tunics for his sisters or a little mantle
for his mother; at times he needed four bushels of corn.

CHREMYLUS. 'Twas very little, in truth; I admire his modesty.

OLD WOMAN. And 'twas not as a reward for his complacency that he ever
asked me for anything, but as a matter of pure friendship; a cloak I had
given would remind him from whom he had got it.

CHREMYLUS. 'Twas a fellow who loved you madly.

OLD WOMAN. But 'tis no longer so, for the faithless wretch has sadly
altered! I had sent him this cake with the sweetmeats you see here on
this dish and let him know that I would visit him in the evening. . . .

CHREMYLUS. Well?

OLD WOMAN.