THE SCENE: A Greek noblewoman, Spes, stays one step ahead of her husband when he tries to discover the origin of the strangely male singing that came from her bedroom.
THE TEXT: Spes and Thorstein went on as before and paid no heed to malicious gossip, because she trusted in her shrewdness and popularity. They would often sit talking together and enjoying themselves.
One evening when they wer esitting in one of the upstairs rooms where her valuables were kept, she asked Thorstein to sing something, thinking that her husband was sitting drinking as usual. She locked the door. After he had been singing for a while, someone knocked at the door and called out to her to open it; her husband was there with many servants. Spes had opened a large chest to show Theorstein her valuables, and when she realized who was there she refused to open the door.
“I have a quick plan,” she said to Thorstein, “Jump into the chest and keep quiet.”
He did so and she bolted the chest and sat down on top of it. Just at that moment her husband entered the room, after he had his men had broken down the door.
“Why are you making such a commotion?” said Spes. “Are some troublemakers chasing you?”
Her husband replied, “It’s about time that you reveal the sort of woman that you really are. Where is the man whose voice was booming just now? I expect you think he sounds better than I do.”
She said, “No one is a total fool if he knows when to hold his tongue. And the same goes for you. You imagine you are so cunning and expect your lies to stick to me, but they will be put to the test now. If you’re telling the truth, then take the man, because he won’t get out through the walls or the rafters.”
He searched the house and found nothing.
“Why don’t you take him then,” she said, “if you’re so sure that he’s here?”
Then he fell silent and was unable to work out what trick was being played on him. He asked his men whether they hadn’t heard it too. But when they saw that Spes disapproved, they would not corroborate anything, saying that sounds could be easily mistaken. Her husband left then, convinced that he was right even though he could not find the man. After that he stopped spying on his wife and her doings for a long while.
– The Saga of Grettir the Strong, 14th Century AD
