XCVIII THE EGYPTIAN COURTESANS
Mitchell S. (Mitchell Starrett) Buck translation
I HAVE been, with Plango, among the Egyptian courtesans, at the highest part of the old city. They have amphoras of earth, plates of copper and yellow matting where they squat without strain.
Their chambers are silent, without angles and without corners, so much their successive couches of blue limestone have blunted the pillars and rounded the base of the walls.
They sit immobile, their hands resting upon their knees. When they offer pudding they murmur: “Happiness.” And when one thanks them, they say: “Grace to thee.”
They understand Hellene and feign to speak it badly so as to laugh at us in their own tongue; but we, a tooth for a tooth, we speak Lydian and they are suddenly uneasy.