The Last of the Wine

by Mary Renault

So I heard my name proclaimed by the herald, and in the Temple of the Maiden I was crowned with the olive crown; and seemed, as one does at such moments, to belong no more to myself but to the City and her gods,

“So, then, it now appears, does it not, that the price of an honourable lover is to be honourable ourselves, and that we shall neither get him nor keep him, if we offer anything less?”—“

I heard Lysis’ voice; and being breathless already, from running and from suddenly seeing him, now I felt as if my heart would burst my breast, and saw black in the sky. But it passed and I was able to speak when he greeted me.

all the world, not being the beloved of Lysis, seemed pitiable to me.

As for Lysis and me, anyone who has gone campaigning with a lover will know what I mean, when I say we had never been together so much, and never so little.

Even the olive of Olympia I will not refuse you, if you ask it with all your will. But do not ask; for with the crown comes the arrow, swiftly, out of the open sky.’”

every day the army of the poor was growing, and when people had been poor for long enough, they died.

Avert evil from me, though it be the thing I prayed for; and give me the good which from ignorance I do not ask.’”