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Appendix: CHYROGLES, or The Girl With Two Husbands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2017

Margaret Alexiou
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Douglas Cairns
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Summary

Once upon a time there lived a man and wife, very much in love, and they had a little daughter they loved better than their own two eyes. The child grew. Time came to send her to school.

Schoolteacher, soon as she went inside their home – they asked her in all the time because of the child – took a fancy to her dad, such a good husband as she saw he was. She made eyes at him, but his own were just for his wife, and she got nowhere.

Teacher decided to get rid of wife so as to get hold of the husband. She fondled and kissed the child, feeding her must-pies and saying ‘If only you were my child, I'd give you everything you wanted, never say no, never tell you off!’ This, that, whatever. She got the child to listen to every word she said.

One day teacher says, ‘Ask your mum to give you walnuts from the marble chest. Soon as she bends over, let the lid clamp down on her, so your dad can marry me, then you'll be my child, just see how well we'll get on!’

Child, just seven years old, goes to her mother, starts on at her, ‘Mum, I want nuts fresh from marble chest!’ Mother replies, ‘Take these off the shelf, they're just as good. Who'll lift the lid, I can't do it on my own!’ Child grabs the chance, ‘Give me nuts from marble chest – I'll hold the lid!’

Mother opens, bends down to get walnuts. Child drops lid, it chops off mother's head, kills her! She goes and tells her teacher, full of glee. Father wept for his wife, now left alone with child. Not long after, teacher told child to ask her dad to marry her, but he wouldn't listen.

Type
Chapter
Information
Greek Laughter and Tears
Antiquity and After
, pp. 413 - 419
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2017

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