“If I did not know you well, master, and if it would not be too great a pity, I would throw that lovely Psyche to the ostrich in Scopas’s court-yard; for, by Herakles! he would swallow your gem more easily than we can swallow such cruel taunts.  We do indeed bless the Muses that work brings you some surcease of gloomy thoughts.  But for the rest—­I hate to speak the word gold.  We want it no more than you, who, when the coffer is full, bury it or hide it with the rest.  Apollodorus forced a whole talent of the yellow curse upon me for painting his men’s room.  The sailor’s cap, into which I tossed it with the rest, will burst when Seleukus pays me for the portrait of his daughter; and if a thief robs you, and me too, we need not fret over it.  My brush and your stylus will earn us more in no time.  And what are our needs?  We do not bet on quail-fights; we do not run races; I always had a loathing for purchased love; we do not want to wear a heap of garments bought merely because they take our fancy—­indeed, I am too hot as it is under this scorching sun.  The house is your own.  The rent paid by Glaukias, for the work-room and garden you inherited from your father, pays for half at least of what we and the birds and the slaves eat.  As for Philip, he lives on air and philosophy; and, besides, he is fed out of the great breadbasket of the Museum.”

At this point the starling interrupted the youth’s vehement speech with the appropriate cry, “My strength! my strength!” The brother and sister looked at each other, and Alexander went on with genuine enthusiasm: 

“But it is not in you to believe us capable of such meanness.  Dedicate your next finished work to Isis or Serapis.  Let your masterpiece grace the goddess’s head-gear, or the god’s robe.  We shall be quite content, and perhaps the immortals may restore your joy in life as a reward.”

The bird repeated its lamentable cry, “My strength!” and the youth proceeded with increased vehemence: 

“It would really be better that you should throw your vice and your graver and your burnisher, and all that heap of dainty tools, into the sea, and carve an Atlas such as we have heard you talk about ever since we could first speak Greek.  Come, set to work on a colossus!  You have but to speak the word, and the finest clay shall be ready on your modeling-table by to-morrow, either here or in Glaukias’s work-room, which is indeed your own.  I know where the best is to be found, and can bring it to you in any quantity.  Scopas will lend me his wagon.  I can see it now, and you valiantly struggling with it till your mighty arms ache.  You will not whistle and hum over that, but sing out with all your might, as you used when my mother was alive, when you and your apprentices joined Dionysus’s drunken rout.  Then your brow will grow smooth again; and if the model is a success, and you want to buy marble, or pay the founder, then out with your gold, out of the coffer and its hiding-place!  Then you can make use of all your strength, and your dream of producing an Atlas such as the world has not seen—­your beautiful dream-will become a reality!”