One of the pleasant little things about this time in our marriage – Diane and I will celebrate our 45th anniversary in June – is teasing each other. I regularly tease her about misplacing her keys, her wallet, her phone, her whatever. Yesterday she got me back. Within minutes I said I couldn’t find my notebook or my hat. With only a few words, Diane zinged me back.
Read this conversation between two women (with names strange to our ears). It was written by the poet Theokritos in the third century B.C.
Gorgo: Is Praxinoa in?
Praxinoa: Gorgo, my love, what a long time it’s been since I saw you—yes, I’m in. I’m surprised you made it, though. (To her slave) Eunoa, go and get a chair and cushion for the lady.
Gorgo: Oh, don’t bother, I’m quite all right.
Praxinoa: Sit down.
Gorgo: What a silly thing I am! I was nearly crushed alive getting here. There are chariots, boots, and men in uniforms everywhere. And the road is endless. You are always moving farther and farther away.
Praxinoa: It’s that stupid husband of mine. He buys this house out in the wilds—it’s not even a house—it’s just a hovel—purely to stop us from seeing each other. He’s spiteful, just like all men.
Gorgo: You shouldn’t talk about your husband like that when the baby’s here. You see how he’s looking at you. (To the baby) Don’t worry, Sopyrion, sweetie, she isn’t talking about Daddy.
Praxinoa: Heavens above! The child does understand.
Gorgo: Nice Daddy.
Praxinoa: The other day I told that Daddy of hers to pop out and get some soap and red dye and the idiot came back with a cube of salt! (In Robert Garland, “Ancient Greece”)
Whether it’s in the store or around the house, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). Why watch reality TV when we live reality?
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