thus hoard up for
himself alone so rich a treasure, to steal this marvel from the world,
to be the dragon with scales and claws who guarded the living type of
the ideal of lovers, sculptors, and poets. All they had ever dreamed of
in their hope, their melancholy, and their despair, he possessed--he,
Candaules, poor tyrant of Sardes, who had only a few wretched coffers
filled with pearls, a few cisterns filled with gold pieces, and thirty
or forty thousand slaves, purchased or taken in war.

Candaules's felicity was too great for him, and the strength which he
would doubtless have found at his command in time of misfortune was
wanting to him in time of happiness. His joy overflowed from his soul
like water from a vase placed upon the fire, and in the exasperation of
his enthusiasm for Nyssia he had reached the point of desiring that she
were less timid and less modest, for it cost him no little effort to
retain in his own breast the secret of such wondrous beauty.

'Ah,' he would murmur to himself during the deep reveries which absorbed
him at all hours that he did not spend at the queen's side, 'how strange
a lot is mine! I am wretched because of that which would make any other
husband happy. Nyssia will not leave the shadow of the gynaeceum, and
refuses, with barbarian modesty, to lift her veil in the presence of any
other than myself. Yet with what an intoxication of pride would my love
behold her, radiantly sublime, gaze down upon my kneeling people from
the summit of the royal steps, and, like the rising dawn, extinguish
all those pale stars who during the night thought themselves suns! Proud
Lydian women, who believe yourselves beautiful, but for Nyssia's reserve
you would appear, even to your lovers, as ugly as the oblique-eyed and
thick-lipped slaves of Nahasi and Kush. Were she but once to pass along
the streets of Sardes with face unveiled, you might in vain pull your
adorers by the lappet of their tunic, for none of them would turn his
head, or, if he did, it would be to demand your name, so utterly would
he have forgotten you! They would rush to precipitate themselves beneath
the silver wheels of her chariot, that they might have even the pleasure
of being crushed by her, like those devotees of the Indus who pave the
pathway of their idol with their bodies.

'And you, O goddesses, whom Paris-Alexander judged, had Nyssia appeared
among you, not one of you would have borne away the golden apple,
not even Aphr