Beyond Phigalia

She was a woman obsessed by an old book;
Even its footnotes were occasions of song.
One day she sent to the Oracle, saying: “Look
Into my case: tell me if I do wrong.

“Should I divorce Pausanias, because
He is enchanted ground; because I fear
I may never return to be the woman I was,
Holding an old stone by a spring more dear?”

The Oracle answered: “It is already too late.
Go on, go forward: it is all you can do.
She will greet you at nightfall, by a ruined gate,
The woman who waited all these years to be you.”