My Father, being slightly embarrassed by this time, with his daughter glorying in 
attention, spoke up to gently assure everyone that I was his precious joy, and I was let 
to run wild, and please make nothing of it.
  And I said, being bold, and a born troublemaker, "Give my love to the great Ovid! 
Because I too wish he would come home to Rome."
  I then rattled off several steamy lines of the Amores:
  
  She laughed and gave her best, whole hearted kisses, They'd shake the three pronged 
bolt from Jove's hand. Torture to think that fellow got such good ones!
  I wish they hadn't been of the same brand!
  
  All laughed, except my Father, and Marius went wild with delight, clapping his hands. 
That was all the encouragement I needed to rush at him now like a bear, as he had rushed 
at me, and to continue singing out Ovid's hot words:
  
  What's more these kisses were better than I'd taught her,
  She seemed possessed of knowledge that was new.
  They pleased too well - bad sign! Her tongue was in them,
  And my tongue was kissing too.
  
  My Father grabbed me by the small of my upper arm, and said, "That's it, Lydia, wrap it 
up." And the men laughed all the harder, commiserating with him, and embracing him, and 
then laughing again.
  But I had to have one final victory over this team of adults.
  "Pray, Father," I said, "let me finish with some wise and patriotic words which Ovid 
said:
  " 'I congratulate myself on not having arrived into the world until the present time. 
This age suits my taste.' "
  This seemed to astonish Marius more than to amuse him. But my Father gathered me close 
and said very dearly:
  "Lydia, Ovid wouldn't say that now, and now you, for being such a... a scholar and 
philosopher in one, should assure your Father's dearest friends that you know full well 
Ovid was banished from Rome by Augustus for good reason and that he can never return 
home."
  In other words, he was saying "Shut up about Ovid."
  But Marius, undeterred, dropped on his knees before me, lean and handsome with mesmeric 
blue eyes, and he took my hand and kissed it and said, "I will give Ovid your love, 
little Lydia. But your Father is right. We must all agree with the Emperor's censure. 
After all, we are Romans." He then did the very strange thing of speaking to me purely as 
if I were an adult. "Augustus Caesar has given far more to Rome, I think, than anyone 
ever hoped. And he too is a poet. He wrote a poem called 'Ajax' and burnt it up himself 
because he said it wasn't good."
  I was having the time of my life. I would have run off with Marius then and there!
  But all I could do was dance around him as he went out of the vestibule and out the 
gate.
  I waved to him.
  He lingered. "Goodbye, little Lydia," he said. He then spoke under his breath to my 
Father, and I heard my Father say:
  "You are out of your mind!"
  My Father turned his back on Marius, who gave me a sad smile and disappeared.
  "What did he mean? What happened?" I asked my Father. "What's the matter?"
  "Listen, Lydia," said my Father. "Have you in all your readings come across the word 
'betrothed'?"
  "Yes, Father, of course."
  "Well, that sort of wanderer and dreamer likes nothing better than to betroth himself 
to a young girl of ten because it means she is not old enough to marry and he has years 
of freedom, without the censure of the Emperor. They do it all the time."
  "No, no, Father," I said. "I shall never forget him."
  I think I forgot him the next day.
  I didn't see Marius again for five years.
  I remember because I was fifteen, and should have been married and didn't want to be 
married at all. I had wriggled out of it year after year, feigning illness, madness, 
total uncontrollable fits. But time was running out on me. In fact I'd been eligible for 
marriage since I was twelve.
  At this time, we were all standing together at the foot of the Palatine Hill, watching 
a most sacrosanct ceremony - the Lupercalia - just one of so many festivals that were 
integral in Roman life.
  Now the Lupercalia was very important to us, though there's no way to relate its 
significance to a Christian's concept of religion. It was pious to enjoy such a festival, 
to participate as a citizen and as a virtuous Roman.
  And besides it was a great pleasure.
  So I was there, not so far from the cave of the Lupercal, watching with other young 
women, as the two chosen men of that year were smeared with blood from a sacrifice of 
goats and then draped in the bleeding skins of the sacrificed animals. I couldn't see all 
of this very well, but I had seen it many times, and when years before two of my brothers 
had run in this festival, I had pushed to the front to get a good look at it.
  On this occasion, I did have a fairly good view when each of the two young men took his 
own company and began his run around the base of the Palatine Hill. I moved forward 
because I was supposed to do it. The young men were hitting lightly on the arm of every 
young woman with a strip of goatskin, which was supposed to purify us. Render us fertile.
  I stepped forward and received the ceremonial blow, and then stepped back again, 
wishing I was a man and could run around the hill with the other men, not an unusual 
thought for me at any time in my mortal life.
  I had some sarcastic inner thoughts about "being purified," but by this age I behaved 
in public and would not on any account have humiliated my Father or my brothers.
  These strips of goatskin, as you know, David, are called Februa, and February comes 
from that word. So much for language and all the magic it unwittingly carries with it. 
Surely the Lupercalia had something to do with Romulus and Remus; perhaps it even echoed 
some ancient human sacrifice. After all, the young men's heads were smeared with goat 
blood. It gives me shivers, because in Etruscan times, long before I was born, this might 
have been a far more cruel ceremony.
  Perhaps this was the occasion that Marius saw my arms. Because I was exposing them to 
this ceremonial lash, and was already, as you can see, much of a show-off in general, 
laughing with the others as the company of men continued their run.
  In the crowd, I saw Marius. He looked at me, then back to his book. So strange. I saw 
him standing against a tree trunk and writing. No one did this - stand against a tree, 
hold a book in one hand and write with the other. The slave stood beside him with a 
bottle of ink.
  Marius's hair was long and most beautiful. Quite wild.
  I said to my Father, "Look, there's our barbarian friend Marius, the tall one, and he's