Snippet #1989663

An enchanting voice would reach Dion even in the stables, it was the fluttering sweet soprano of Philomela. She had been paid to sing in the Inn that night, and while strumming her lyre tunefully, she had begun almost as soon as he’d left, it didn’t matter that it was so late at night, this was when her performance shift started, the innkeeper thought that she had better sing when the couples starting coming in, to “ get a romantic mood going and all ‘at”, he’d said and so Philomela had sung a love song. Doing her slow and rich finger work on her Lyre to accompany the beautiful voice she had lifted to sing. Philomela’s music flowed from her lips steadily and sweetly, it might have been heard all across the village, the melody carried so well.

“Come again sweet love thy doth now invite, thy graces that refrain, to do me due delight..” The tempo quickened and the emotion of the lyrics more impassioned
“To see, To touch, To hear, To kiss, To die…With thee again, in sweetest sympathy…” The young singers voice was a graceful, bright, classical soprano with a lyrical style. Plucking each string on her lyre to accompany her melodious voice, it looked as if her fingers were dancing across the instrument.
“Come again, so I might cease to mourn, through thy unkind disdain, for now left and forlorn” Philomela seemed to be putting her soul into the words, it might have seemed as if her heavenly sound was spinning and pirouetting about the room and she hit the highest notes with ease and utter perfection. “I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die…” And she held the note on the last word for quite some time before finishing “In deadly pain, and endless misery…” She went on like this for quite some time, each refrain of the song being slightly different in emotion than the first before finally finishing and letting the very last notes ring out clear as bells and sweeter than a chorus of nightingales, an an applause she began another song.

Philomela, the singer, had noticed Dion when coming in, as she had entered almost as soon as he’d left, but hadn’t said a thing in greeting. The other kids in Anthiro didn’t like her, she could tell, they always thought she was a snob for going up every day to her Maestro Ampelius’s elegant villa to see him and his wife for Voice and Lyre lessons, they had made their fortune by being court musicians in their day and that’s what Philomela wished she could do, but she knew that was impossible, she wasn’t even of slightly noble birth, as far as she knew. Philomela was a bastard after all, so she couldn’t be sure, although, being a bastard child of a nobleman was quite a bit worse than being the legitimate daughter of a peasant. It was as if she was untouchable, especially when it came to marriage, she might have already been married off , but anyone who wed her would only go lower in the social order.

Her going up to the glittering and vast estate of Gaius Lucilius a nobleman who lived nearby, to sing for the crowds whenever he threw a party or had company only made things worse, especially since he’d given her nicer clothing, a pure white Chiton gown with gold fabric to secure it in its position draped about her willowy frame, the girls in her village had laughed and called her the pet of wealthy men and that she was like one of the animals in his menagerie, a living decoration.

Most of the women in Anthiro thought she was his new mistress, this was, surprisingly, not the case, as he had a habit of choosing ladies who were very young in comparison to himself. Philomela didn’t know why he hadn't make an advance towards her in that way, although, it did not change the fact that she appreciated that very much, and never wanted to be anyone’s concubine. Philomela had seen how well that had gone with her own mother.


Sleeping on straw beds alone, when she used to lie under silk covers in the beds of kings, this was not the life she wanted. Philomela had to make her own way, and not as someone’s property or rather someone's property for only a night. However, She supposed it had to be better than being a wife, after thinking on it a moment. At least ladies of the evening had some choice in the matter, they could refuse men if they wanted, and got paid a great deal for only one night of feigning love. Philomela did not want to sell herself, but perhaps she could someday if it meant getting to Omperus. What was so bad about lying in sin with a senator for the night, if you were to breakfast with utensils of gold the morning after?


Stepping from the Tavern after performing about six songs, each greeted with a roaring applause, Philomela leaned against it's outer walls and pondered her life in the village for a moment. Despite most of the patrons being drunken they actually seemed to break from their bawdy chatter and become silent when the young Hellenian sang. Philomela could not help but beam when this happened and In spite of anything the locals may have thought about her, they'd always recognized that she had a truly celestial voice. For this Philomela would not have changed a thing, better to have a talent, she thought, than friends or suitors.

((So I’m not plagiarizing his lyrics, The song was "Come again sweet love doth invite" by The 16th century composer John Dowland))