Herodotus, Histories 1.9.2 · 1.9.2
The chair by the door
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Candaules — ἐγὼ γάρ σε ἐς τὸ οἴκημα ἐν τῷ κοιμώμεθα ὄπισθε τῆς ἀνοιγομένης θύρης στήσω. μετὰ δʼ ἐμὲ ἐσελθόντα παρέσται καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἡ ἐμὴ ἐς κοῖτον. κεῖται δὲ ἀγχοῦ τῆς ἐσόδου θρόνος· ἐπὶ τοῦτον τῶν ἱματίων κατὰ ἓν ἕκαστον ἐκδύνουσα θήσει, καὶ κατʼ ἡσυχίην πολλὴν παρέξει τοι θεήσασθαι.
"For I will post you in the room where we sleep, behind the door as it opens. After I come in, my wife will come to bed too. Near the entrance there stands a chair; on it she will lay her clothes one by one as she takes them off, and she will give you all the leisure to gaze."
Word by word
The setting
Candaules lays out the plan like a stage direction: where Gyges will stand, where the queen will undress, where her clothes will go.
A note on this passage
The king speaks like a stage manager. He fixes the positions (behind the opening door, the chair by the entrance), the order of events (he enters, she follows), and the pace: <em>kata hen hekaston</em>, "one by one," the garments coming off in sequence. Painters took the scene straight from these lines. Gérôme's canvas, a few passages on, has the chair, the heaped clothes, the doorway, and the watcher in it.
The last promise is <em>hēsychiē pollē</em>, "much quiet, much leisure." Candaules offers Gyges time and stillness in which to look. The same word comes back at the start of chapter 11, and this time it belongs to the queen: having seen everything, she "kept her <em>hēsychiē</em>," she held still and said nothing. The quiet the king arranged for the watcher becomes the quiet in which the watched woman plans.
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