is your name,
Companion-in-arms? I should like to know you when you come."
"Virgil," the boy answered shyly, colouring and drawing back as he
saw Catullus. A farm servant brought up the visitors' horses.
"Goodbye, little Virgil," Valerius called out, as he mounted. "A fair
harvest to your crops and your dreams."

The brothers rode on for some time without speaking, Valerius rather
sombrely, it seemed, absorbed in his own thoughts. When he broke the
silence it was to say abruptly: "I wonder if, when he goes to Rome,
he will keep the light in those eyes and the music in that young
throat." Then he brought his horse close up to his brother's and spoke
rapidly as if he must rid himself of the weight of words. "My Lantern
Bearer, you are not going to lose your light and your music, are you?
The last time I saw Cicero he talked to me about your poetry and your
gifts, which you know I cannot judge as he can. He told me that for
all your 'Greek learning' and your 'Alexandrian technique' no one
could doubt the good red Italian blood in your verses, or even the
homely strain of our own little town. I confess I was thankful to
hear a literary man and a friend praise you for not being cosmopolitan.
I am not afraid now of your going over to the Greeks. But are you
in danger of losing Verona in Rome?"

The gathering dusk, the day's pure happiness, the sense of impending
separation opened Catullus's heart. "Do you mean Clodia?" he asked
straightforwardly. "Did Cicero talk of her too?" "Not only Cicero,"
Valerius had answered gently, "and not only your other friends. Will
you tell me of her yourself?" "What have you heard?" Catullus asked.
Valerius paused and then gave a direct and harsh reply: "That she
was a Medea to her husband, has been a Juno to her brother's Jupiter
and is an easy mistress to many lovers."

After that, Catullus was thankful now to remember, he himself had
talked passionately as the road slipped away under their horses' feet.
He had told Valerius how cruel the world had been to Clodia. Metellus
had been sick all winter and had died as other men die. He had
belittled her by every indignity that a man of rank can put upon his
wife, but she had borne with him patiently enough. Because she was
no Alcestis need she be called a Medea or a Clytemnestra? And because
the unspeakable Clodius had played Jupiter to his youngest sister's
Juno need Clodia be considered less than a Diana to his Apollo? As
for her lovers--his