CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOURTH.

"What witches" (she cried,) "have devoured your manhood? What filth did
you tread upon at some crossroads, in the dark? Not even by the boy
could you do your duty but, weak and effeminate, you are worn out like a
cart-horse at a hill, you have lost both labor and sweat! Not content
with getting yourself into trouble, you have stirred up the wrath of the
gods against me {and I will make you smart for it."} She then led me,
unresisting, back into the priestess's room, pushed me down upon the bed,
snatched a cane that hung upon the door, and gave me another thrashing:
I remained silent and, had the cane not splintered at the first stroke,
thereby diminishing the force of the blow, she might easily have broken
my arms or my head. I groaned dismally, and especially when she
manipulated my member and, shedding a flood of tears, I covered my head
with my right arm and huddled down upon the pillow. Nor did she weep
less bitterly:

The sailor, naked from his foundered barque,
Some shipwrecked mariner seeks out to hear his woe;
When hail beats down a farmer's crop, his cark
Seeks consolation from another, too.
Death levels caste and sufferers unites,
And weeping parents are as one in grief;
We also will beseech the starry heights,
United prayers climb best, is the belief.