“I fear you are done for, my son. Hermocrates will surely never give you his daughter when he has so many rich and royal suitors for her. You must not even make the attempt, in case we suffer a public humiliation.”
Father and mother are very concerned about the state to which their son Chaereas has sunk. Normally of great spirit and robust health, ever since falling in love at first sight with the beautiful Callirhoe, he has began to waste away and spiral into the darkness of despair. There is a reason for this reaction to falling to love and the father lays it out quite succinctly with this quote. The harshness of the father’s truth reveals not just the tragic implications to come, but the unpleasantness of amour before people actually starting marrying for love.
But Callirhoe was sitting on her couch longing for Chaereas and in her unhappiness had not even lighted a lamp. At the sound of footsteps she was the first to recognize her husband by his breathing; joyfully she ran to greet him. He could find no voice with which to reproach her; but overcome by anger, he kicked at her as she ran forward. His foot struck the girl squarely in the diaphragm and stopped her breath. She collapsed, and her maidservants, picking her up, laid her on the bed.
Those suitors who stand in the way of Chaereas and Callirhoe getting together do not take kindly to losing. And since is a simple thing like marriage really an obstacle to anyone who really wants—and believes—they should have right of refusal before the lucky son-of-a-gun whom the girl actually loves. A plot is set afoot to whip the young groomsman into a frenzy of jealousy so that events might take their unnatural course and reset the equally unnatural course of political alliances as the fundamental quality making a perfect match.
“Am I to risk my life in fighting the sea and murdering the living for paltry gains when I can become rich from one dead girl? Let the die be cast! I will not miss this chance of profit. But whom shall I recruit for the operation? Think carefully, Theron. Who of those you know is fit for the job? Zenophanes of Thurii? He is intelligent, but cowardly. Menon of Messene? He is brave, but untrustworthy.”
Theron is described thusly: a cunning rogue who commits crimes upon the sea. You know: a pirate. At this point, the entire kingdom believes Chaereas has accidentally killed his princess bride who lies entombed upon riches all just waiting there with nothing to protect them from theft but a dead girl. Except, as it turns out, Callirhoe is not actually dead, but merely in a deep coma which is quite convincing of possessing the attributes of death. And so the dream team of like-minded criminal rogues which Theron gathers to carry out this theft is interrupted by the unlikely resurrection of the dead girl. And the story’s not even half-over by this point! Unfortunately, at no point does the story ever include any rodents of unusual size.
