4–7
Bacchis Oh, she was most reasonable: one drachma, and a loaf of bread. Then you have to provide salt, of course, and sulphur, and a torch, and seven pennies. And besides this, you must mix her a bowl of wine, which she has to drink all by herself; and then there must be something belonging to the man, his coat, or his shoes, or a lock of hair, or something.
Melitta I have got his shoes.
Bacchis She hangs them up on a peg, and fumigates them with the sulphur, throwing a little salt into the fire, and muttering both your names. Then she brings out her magic wheel, and spins it, and rattles off an incantation,—such horrid, outlandish words! Well, she had scarcely finished, when, sure enough, in came Phanias; Phoebis (that was the girl he was with) had begged and implored him not to go, and his friends declared it was a shame; but the spell was too strong for them. Oh yes, and she taught me a splendid charm against Phoebis. I was to mark her footsteps, and rub out the last of them, putting my right foot into her left footprint, and my left into her right; and then I was to say: My foot on thy foot; I trample thee down! I did it exactly as she told me.
Melitta Oh, Bacchis, dear, do be quick and fetch the witch. Acis, you see to the bread and sulphur and things,
