Thelyphron

• When I was a young man, I set out from Miletus for the Olympic Games and, having travelled through the whole of Thessaly, since I also wanted to visit this area of the famous province, I reached Larissa.
•  And while I wandered through the city seeking remedies for my poverty, as my travelling allowance was diminished, I caught sight of an old man in the middle of the forum.
•  He was standing on a stone and proclaimed in a I loud voice that if anyone was willing to guard a dead man, he would receive a great reward.
•  And I said to someone passing by, What's this I hear? Do dead men make a habit of running away here?'
• 'Be quiet,' he replied. 'For you are a boy and quite a stranger, and naturally you don't realise that you are in Thessaly, where witches are always biting pieces

  out of the faces of the dead, which are supplements for their magic art.
• In reply, I said, 'What sort of guarding is necessary?'

  He replied, 'Now first of all, you must keep exceptionally awake the whole night with your eyes open and sleepless always directed at the corpse nor should you turn your gaze away anywhere,
•  since those very evil witches creep up secretly, having changed their shape into any type of animal. For they adopt the form of birds, dogs and mice, indeed, even flies.'
• When I learned these things, I strengthened my resolve and, immediately approaching the old man, I said, 'Now stop shouting. A guard is at hand, prepared.
•  Scarcely had I finished, and he immediately led me to a certain house, where he pointed out a weeping woman wrapped in dark garments. She rose and led me into a bedroom. 
• There with her hand she uncovered a body covered with shining white sheets. When she had anxiously shown the features one by one, she went out.
• Left alone thus to console the corpse, I rubbed my eyes and prepared them for my sleepless watch. While I calmed my mind down with songs, I stayed awake until midnight.
• Then, however, my fear became more intensified when suddenly a weasel creeping in stopped opposite me and fixed its eyes upon me. Such great confidence in so small an animal disturbed my mind.
•  Finally, I spoke to it as follows, 'Go away, wicked beast, before you quickly experience my force! Go away!' 
• The weasel retreated and went from the bedroom immediately.

  Without delay, such a deep sleep suddenly overwhelmed me, that not even the Delphic god himself could easily have distinguished out of the two of us lying (there) who was the more dead.
• At last awakened at dawn and terrified by great fear, I ran up to the corpse and having moved a lamp near it and uncovered its face, I examined everything carefully: nothing was missing.
• Behold, the wretched wife, weeping, burst in. Having examined the corpse, she gave me the reward without delay.
• 'By your good faith, citizens,' he said, 'by your public sense of duty, help a murdered citizen and avenge with severity the vilest crime of that impious and wicked woman. 
• For this woman, and no other, by means of poison destroyed a poor young man, my sister's son, to win the favour of her adulterous lover and for the sake of inherited profit.'
•  That woman, pouring forth tears and swearing by all the gods as solemnly as she could, denied so great a crime.

  Therefore, that old man said, 'Let us put the judgement of the truth into the hands of divine providence.
•  Zatchlas is here, a very well-known Egyptian prophet, who, in return for a great reward, has promised me that he will bring back the spirit of that poor corpse from the dead for a short time and bring his body back to life.'
• I pushed myself into the crowd and, standing on a stone behind the bier itself, watched everything with curious eyes. Now the corpse's breast began to raise itself with swelling, now the body was filled with the

  breath of life.
•  The corpse rose up and spoke out: 'I beg you, why do you restore me to the functions of a fleeting life when I was already floating on the Stygian marshes after drinking the waters of Lethe? Stop now, stop, I pray, and let me go to my rest.'
• This utterance was heard from the corpse, but the prophet, considerably more excited, said 'Why don't you relate all the details about your death to the people?'
• He replied from the bier and with a deep groan addressed the people as follows: 'Destroyed by the evil arts of my new bride and sentenced (to death) by the poisoned cup, I gave up the (still) warm bed to the adulterer.
•  I will give you very clear proofs of the truth, and reveal what absolutely no one else has discovered or predicted.'
• Then pointing to me with his finger, he said, 'For when this very shrewd guardian of my body was keeping his extensive watch over me, some witches standing threateningly over my remains appeared in changed form.
•  When they could not deceive his unremitting diligence, they finally cast a cloud of sleep upon him and buried him in deep slumber.
•  Then they began to rouse me by name and did not stop until my sluggish joints and cold limbs slowly struggled to obey their magic art. Now this man, who was alive and only dead in sleep, by chance has the same name as I.
• Therefore, at the sound of his name he unknowingly rose up, and, walking mechanically like a lifeless ghost, he approached the door.
• 'Although the folding doors of the bedroom had been carefully locked, (the witches), through some hole or other, first cut off his nose, and shortly afterwards his ears, and he suffered butchery instead of me. 
• Then the witches attached to him wax shaped like the ears which had been cut off, and fitted on a nose similar to the one cut off.
• And now the poor man stands here, having obtained not the reward of his diligence, but the reward of butchery.'
• Frightened by these words, I began to examine my appearance.

  I grasped my nose with my hand: it came off; I felt my ears: they fell off. 
• And while the crowd pointed me out with their fingers and nods directed (at me), dripping with cold sweat, I escaped between the feet of the bystanders.
•  Nor could I have returned to my native land thereafter, so maimed and so ridiculous, but with my hair let down on both sides, I concealed the wounds to my ears, but I covered the shame of my nose decently with this pathetic linen patch.