Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.9.3 · 1.9.3
Tears sweeter than nectar
Read the full text in our reader
Ὢ φωτὸς ἡδίων ἐμοὶ κόρη καὶ τῶν πώποτε λαλουμένων εὐτυχεστέρα· τὸν ἐραστὴν ἔχεις ἄνδρα, μεθʼ οὗ ζῆν καὶ ἀποθανεῖν ὑπάρξει γυναικὶ σώφρονι. Εἰπὼν κατεφίλει τε καὶ ὑπεδέχετο τὰ δάκρυα, καὶ αὐτῷ ἐδόκει παντὸς μὲν εἶναι νέκταρος ποτιμώτερα τὰ δάκρυα, παντὸς δὲ τοῦ πρὸς ὀδύνην φαρμάκου δυνατώτερα.
"O girl, sweeter to me than the light, and more fortunate than any woman ever talked of: you have your lover for your husband, and with him a faithful wife may live and die." With these words he kissed and caught her tears, and to him the tears seemed sweeter to drink than any nectar, and stronger than any drug against pain.
Word by word
The setting
Book 1, chapter 9. Habrocomes goes on speaking to his bride.
A note on this passage
Habrocomes puts in one sentence what the Greek romances prize: the lover and the husband are the same man, and a σώφρων wife, faithful and of sound mind, will live and die with him. φαρμάκου carries on a thread from 1.2.1, where Eros armed himself with love drugs; the sickness that no seer or sacrifice could cure (1.5.6–9) gives way to tears that seem stronger than any drug against pain. Theocritus opens his poem on the lovesick Cyclops by saying that love has no other φάρμακον except the Muses (Idyll 11.1–3).
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.9.3 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.9.3 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/ephesiantale/1.9.3/