Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.9.2 · 1.9.2
The night he had longed for
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Ὀψὲ δὲ ὁ Ἁβροκόμης ἀνενεγκὼν περιέλαβε τὴν Ἄνθειαν· ἡ δὲ ἐδάκρυε τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτῆς σύμβολα προπεμπούσης τῆς ἐπιθυμίας τὰ δάκρυα. Καὶ ὁ Ἁβροκόμης ὢ τῆς ἐμοὶ φησὶ ποθεινοτάτης νυκτός, ἣν μόλις ἀπείληφα, πολλὰς πρότερον νύκτας δυστυχήσας.
At last Habrocomes recovered himself and embraced Anthia. She wept, her soul sending out her tears as tokens of her longing. And Habrocomes said, "Oh, this night, the one I have longed for most, which I have barely won after many wretched nights before!"
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The setting
Book 1, chapter 9. Habrocomes is the first to break the silence.
A note on this passage
Her tears are σύμβολα, "tokens." A σύμβολον was first a tally: a knucklebone or other small object broken in two, each party keeping one half, so that the halves could later be fitted together as proof. In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes says that each of us is always looking for his own σύμβολον, the other half of himself (Symposium 191d). Habrocomes sets this night against all the wretched nights of their lovesickness, when each lay awake lamenting (1.5.1).
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