Story summary
Samenvatting van Antieke zeden
- 8 min. leestijd
- 10 parts
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
Chrysis, a courtesan of Alexandria, asks the sculptor Demetrios for three gifts, and each one costs a crime.
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Antieke zeden in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 3 h 50 min3 h 5 min fast, 4 h 35 min slow
- Lengte
- 55.200 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Makkelijk short sentences, plain words
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1896by Pierre Louÿs
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
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Antieke zeden in short
Ancient Manners follows a courtesan who asks a sculptor for three stolen treasures, and a sculptor who tries to keep both his freedom and his ideal. Chrysis wants to rise above her life. Demetrios wants to be free of being loved.
What Antieke zeden is about
What would you give a woman who asks for a mirror, a comb and a necklace? In Alexandria, the price is three crimes. Chrysis, a courtesan from Galilee, meets the sculptor Demetrios on the quay one moonlit night and names her gifts: the silver mirror of the courtesan Bacchis, the ivory comb of the high priest's wife, and the pearl necklace on the statue of Aphrodite. He swears by the goddess he carved, and he cannot take back his word.
Ancient Manners is a novel by Pierre Louÿs, set in Alexandria under the young Queen Berenice. Louÿs holds that the Greeks thought physical love pure, and his proud heroine is never rescued, punished by a saint or converted. You get a whole city, and at its heart a duel between two wills.
Voor wie is het?. Readers who love ancient Alexandria, daring women and proud artists will enjoy this novel. It also suits admirers of classic French fiction who like richly coloured banquets, gardens and crowds.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
Chrysis wants a destiny larger than her bed
Chrysis opens the story half asleep, pricking small holes in a green linen pillow with a golden pin. She is nearly twenty and has lived in Alexandria for seven years. Her red gold hair gives her the name, since Chrysis comes from the Greek word for gold.
She was born Sarah in Galilee, the daughter of a woman who met travellers on the road. At twelve she followed ivory sellers to Egypt, where an Indian slave, Djala, spent seven years teaching her the craft of a courtesan. Louÿs treats that craft as an art, and Chrysis counts more than two thousand five hundred lovers at night. Yet she is restless.
She longs for a god to come down to earth, or for a man who could bring tragedy into her life. What drives her is ambition more than appetite. She wants no gold, no husband and no rescue, only the highest place a woman of her trade can reach.
Chrysis is hungry not for more lovers but for greatness.
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Demetrios is adored by everyone and tired of it
The sculptor Demetrios is the lover of Queen Berenice and the most desired man in Alexandria.
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Three gifts are the price of one night
Demetrios follows the woman to the rocks of Pharos and greets her when she returns.
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The sacred gardens hold a city of women
The temple of Aphrodite-Astarte stands outside the town in a park watered from the Nile.
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Demetrios kills for a comb and robs a goddess
Demetrios cannot forget the fortune teller's words, but he does not turn back.
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A banquet hides the theft and a slave pays
Bacchis is nearly forty, rich and careful.
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The city panics and Demetrios says farewell
After the theft Demetrios dreams that Chrysis in black leads him through four rooms on an island.
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Love is a contest of power between two proud people
Louÿs sets one question over and over: who rules whom?
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The ideal and the living body keep colliding
A second theme runs beneath the plot.
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The tale is told through a preface, songs and scenes
Louÿs begins with an argument.
Read all 10 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Chrysis A Galilean courtesan in Alexandria with golden hair and great ambition, who wants to rise to the highest place and sets a daring price on her love.
- Demetrios A famous sculptor and lover of the queen, tired of being adored, who loves his own ideal of beauty more than any living woman.
- Queen Berenice The young ruler of Egypt, who commands a kingdom but cannot win the full attention of Demetrios, the lover she chose.
- Djala Chrysis's Indian slave, who taught her the art of a courtesan and dresses and sings with her.
- Rhodis and Myrtocleia Two young musicians from Ephesos who love each other and wish to be married, and who are loyal to Chrysis.
- Bacchis A rich, nearly forty courtesan who prizes her silver mirror and is about to free her favourite slave at a banquet.
- Timon A witty young man of the banking class who lives for pleasure and shows an unexpected kindness.
- Touni The high priest's wife, who loves Demetrios and wears an ancient ivory comb in her hair.
How it ends (spoiler)
Chrysis, wearing the stolen mirror, comb and pearls, climbs the tower of Pharos before the roaring crowd, who hail her as Aphrodite. She is then imprisoned and condemned. Demetrios visits her cell, stays cold, and watches her drink the hemlock. Afterward he shapes a statue from her body. Rhodis and Myrtocleia steal the corpse and, with Timon's help, bury it in the garden of Hermanubis, cutting off their hair upon the grave.
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Vragen over Antieke zeden
What is Ancient Manners about?
It follows Chrysis, a courtesan in Alexandria, who asks the sculptor Demetrios for three stolen treasures as proof of love. The theft stirs the city, tests the sculptor's pride and sets two strong wills against each other.
Is Ancient Manners the same book as Aphrodite by Pierre Louÿs?
Yes. Ancient Manners is an English title for the French novel Aphrodite, mœurs antiques, published in 1896. Both names refer to the same story of the courtesan Chrysis and the sculptor Demetrios in ancient Alexandria.
Who is Chrysis, and what does her name mean?
Chrysis is a courtesan born in Galilee, first named Sarah. The other courtesans call her Chrysis, from the Greek word for gold, because of her red-gold hair. She seeks a place of greatness in Alexandrian society.
Is Ancient Manners a true story?
No, it is an invented story set in a real place and time, Alexandria under the last Ptolemies. Real figures such as Queen Berenice and a young Cleopatra appear, but Chrysis, Demetrios and the crimes are the author's creation.
What is the main message of Ancient Manners?
The preface claims that the Greeks saw physical love as pure and beautiful, and the story follows that claim. It also shows that love can turn into a contest of power, and that preferring an ideal to a person has a cost.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Louÿs, Pierre. Ancient Manners. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/ancient-manners.
Louÿs, P. (2026). Ancient manners. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/ancient-manners (Original work published 1896)
Louÿs, Pierre. Ancient Manners. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/ancient-manners.
@book{louys2026ancient,
author = {Louÿs, Pierre},
title = {Ancient Manners},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/ancient-manners},
note = {First published 1896}
}
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