Achilleus Tatios, The Loves of Clitopho and Leucippe, bk. I., found in: The Greek Romances (Scriptores Erotici Græci), tr. Rowland Smith, (London, 1901), pp. 358-9:
Woman is a 'bitter sweet;' (αὕτη κακῶν ηδονή) in her nature she is akin to the Sirens, for they too, slay their victims with a dulcet voice; the very "pomp and circumstance" of marriage shews the magnitude of the evil; there is the din of pipes, the knocking at the doors, the bearing about of torches. With all this noise and tumult, who will not exclaim, 'Unhappy is the man who has to wed!'—to me, he seems like a man ordered off to war. Were you unacquainted with classic lore, you might plead ignorance of women's doings, whereas you are so well read, as to be capable of teaching others. How many subjects for the stage have been furnished by womankind! Call to mind the necklace of Eriphyle, the banquet of Philomela, the calumny of Sthenobœa, the incest of Aerope, the murderous deed of Procne. Does Agamemnon sigh for the beauty of Chryseis?—he brings pestilence upon the Grecian host; does Achilles covet the charms of Briseis?—he prepares misery for himself; if Candaules has a fair wife, that wife becomes the murderess of her husband! The nuptial torches of Helen kindled the fire which consumed Troy! How many suitors were done to death through the chastity of Penelope? Phædra, through love, became the destroyer of Hippolytus; Clytemnestra, through hate, the murderess of Agamemnon! Ο! all-audacious race of women! they deal death whether they love or hate! The noble Agamemnon must needs die, he whose beauty is described to have been cast in a heavenly mould,
'Jove o'er his eyes celestial glories spread,
And dawning conquest play'd around his head. (Homer. Il. ii. 478.)
and yet this very head was cut off by—a woman!
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