“Publius Scipio is here; it is high time that I should dress for the banquet.  Will that naughty child not listen to me at all?  Take him away, Praxinoa, and understand distinctly that I am much dissatisfied with you.  You estrange my own child from me to curry favor with the future king.  That is base, or else it proves that you have no tact, and are incompetent for the office entrusted to you.  The office of wet-nurse you duly fulfilled, but I shall now look out for another attendant for the boy.  Do not answer me! no tears!  I have had enough of that with the child’s screaming.”  With these words, spoken loudly and passionately, she turned her back on Praxinoa—­the wife of a distinguished Macedonian noble, who stood as if petrified—­and retired into her tent, where branched lamps had just been placed on little tables of elegant workmanship.  Like all the other furniture in the queen’s dressing-tent these were made of gleaming ivory, standing out in fine relief from the tent-cloth which was sky-blue woven with silver lilies and ears of corn, and from the tiger-skins which covered all the cushions, while white woollen carpets, bordered with a waving scroll in blue, were spread on the ground.

The queen threw herself on a seat in front of her dressing-table, and sat staring at herself in a mirror, as if she now saw her face and her abundant, reddish-fair hair for the first time; then she said, half turning to Zoe and half to her favorite Athenian waiting-maid, who stood behind her with her other women: 

“It was folly to dye my dark hair light; but now it may remain so, for Publius Scipio, who has no suspicion of our arts, thought this color pretty and uncommon, and never will know its origin.  That Egyptian headdress with the vulture’s head which the king likes best to see me in, the young Greek Lysias and the Roman too, call barbaric, and so every one must call it who is not interested in the Egyptians.  But to-night we are only ourselves, so I will wear the chaplet of golden corn with sapphire grapes.  Do you think, Zoe, that with that I could wear the dress of transparent bombyx silk that came yesterday from Cos?  But no, I will not wear that, for it is too slight a tissue, it hides nothing and I am now too thin for it to become me.  All the lines in my throat show, and my elbows are quite sharp—­altogether I am much thinner.  That comes of incessant worry, annoyance, and anxiety.  How angry I was yesterday at the council, because my husband will always give way and agree and try to be pleasant; whenever a refusal is necessary I have to interfere, unwilling as I am to do it, and odious as it is to me always to have to stir up discontent, disappointment, and disaffection, to take things on myself and to be regarded as hard and heartless in order that my husband may preserve undiminished the doubtful glory of being the gentlest and kindest of men and princes.  My son’s having a will of his own leads to agitating scenes, but even that is better than that Philopator should rush into everybody’s arms.  The first thing in bringing up a boy should be to teach him to say ‘no.’  I often say ‘yes’ myself when I should not, but I am a woman, and yielding becomes us better than refusal—­and what is there of greater importance to a woman than to do what becomes her best, and to seem beautiful?