Pyrrhus—Nicostratus

Pyrrhus—Nicostratus is a master–servant relationship whose central irony is that Nicostratus’s confidence in his most trusted attendant gives Pyrrhus access to his household and helps conceal his betrayal. In the tale, Pyrrhus first appears as a favored servant, valued for his competence and good conduct; he then becomes Lydia’s lover and, with her, engineers a deception that makes Nicostratus doubt what he sees. The episode converts trust from a bond of service into the very condition that leaves the husband vulnerable.

Identity and Household Roles

Nicostratus is a wealthy nobleman, already approaching old age when fortune gives him Lydia, a woman of high family who is both beautiful and spirited. His household includes numerous servants, hounds, and hawks, and he takes particular pleasure in hunting. Pyrrhus is one of those servants: young, lively, well-bred, handsome, and capable in whatever task he undertakes. Nicostratus loves and trusts him above all his other attendants, entrusting his affairs to him. The story thus establishes Pyrrhus not as a distant stranger but as a favored member of the household, close to the man whose confidence he will exploit.

That standing creates a sharp contrast between the two men’s understanding of their relationship. Nicostratus treats Pyrrhus with exceptional confidence; Pyrrhus, once drawn into Lydia’s scheme, weighs that confidence against his own opportunity and the prospect of an affair. The episode makes the betrayal especially consequential because the trusted servant is not merely present in the household: he has a place in its daily life and is accustomed to acting on his master’s behalf.

Lydia’s Desire and Pyrrhus’s Test

Lydia becomes passionately enamored of Pyrrhus, to the point that she cannot put him from her thoughts by day or night. Pyrrhus, however, initially appears not to notice her attachment—or not to welcome it. Unable to bear the uncertainty, Lydia confides in Lusca, her trusted chamberwoman, and asks her to communicate the depth of her love and persuade Pyrrhus to come to her.

Lusca argues that Pyrrhus should accept Lydia’s offer, invoking the advantages of her favor and arguing that a servant need not show a master the same loyalty expected between friends or kin. Pyrrhus does not immediately agree. Because Nicostratus trusts him with his affairs, he worries that Lydia may be acting with her husband’s knowledge to test him. His hesitation makes the relationship’s conflict explicit: loyalty is still important enough for him to invoke, but he treats it as a reason to demand proof rather than as a bar to the affair.

Pyrrhus names three proofs: Lydia must kill Nicostratus’s prized hawk in his presence, send Pyrrhus a lock of her husband’s beard, and provide one of his best teeth. The requests make the cost of her declaration concrete. Lusca and Lydia recognize their difficulty, but Lydia agrees to perform them, promising in addition to make love to Pyrrhus in Nicostratus’s presence while persuading her husband that nothing improper has happened. The test therefore becomes the lovers’ first shared project: each required proof is also an opportunity to manipulate the meaning Nicostratus assigns to what he witnesses.

The Household’s Trust Turned Against Its Master

At a dinner for gentlemen, Lydia appears richly dressed and kills the hawk Nicostratus holds dear, striking it against a wall after taking it by its jesses. When Nicostratus cries out, she offers the guests an explanation: his daily rides with the hawk leave her alone while he enjoys the open country, so she has taken revenge on the bird that keeps him from her. Nicostratus is angry, but he laughs at her account, and the assembled gentlemen join in turning his annoyance into amusement. Pyrrhus sees the performance succeed and takes it as the promised beginning of his love affair. The public scene also shows how Lydia can make an act of defiance look like a playful domestic grievance rather than evidence of her private purpose.

Lydia later stages a tooth extraction to satisfy another of Pyrrhus’s demands. Pretending to be ill, she asks Nicostratus and Pyrrhus to help her into the garden. Once she is alone with them and Lusca, she has Nicostratus lie down and has one of his teeth pulled by force. She keeps the extracted tooth for Pyrrhus but shows her husband a decayed tooth she had prepared, claiming it was the one removed. Nicostratus, pained by the extraction but believing her explanation, leaves the chamber supposing the bad tooth has been taken from his mouth. Lydia sends the real tooth to Pyrrhus, who is now assured of her love and declares himself ready to do her bidding. Her deception depends on the husband’s access to the scene: he is present and suffers its physical reality, yet is misled about what the evidence means.

The Pear Tree Deception and the Reversal of Trust

For a further demonstration, Lydia arranges a meeting in the garden beneath a pear tree, where Nicostratus and Pyrrhus help her, under the pretense that she is unwell. She asks Pyrrhus to climb the tree and throw down pears. From above, he calls out as if shocked to see Lydia and Nicostratus behaving amorously together, though they are sitting apart below. He describes the scene as plainly visible to him, while Nicostratus insists that it is not happening. Pyrrhus’s performance prepares the explanation on which the trick depends: what appears true from the tree can be dismissed as a false vision caused by the tree.

Nicostratus climbs up to test the claim. At the top, he sees Lydia and Pyrrhus together; as he comes down, they resume their former places and deny that anything happened. Pyrrhus then turns Nicostratus’s own experience against him, arguing that if the husband’s sight was deceived, Pyrrhus’s earlier sight must have been deceived too. He reinforces the argument by appealing to Nicostratus’s trust in Lydia and in himself: neither, he insists, would have dared such an act before Nicostratus’s eyes. Lydia supports the performance with indignation, suggesting that if she had wished to betray her husband, she would have chosen a private room rather than the garden. Nicostratus accepts their account and directs his astonishment toward the supposed marvel of the tree.

The relationship’s decisive change is therefore not simply that Pyrrhus becomes Lydia’s lover, but that he uses the authority of a trusted servant to help discredit his master’s own perception. Nicostratus’s confidence in Pyrrhus survives even the sight that should expose the affair; the deception succeeds by making the evidence appear less trustworthy than the relationship on which Nicostratus relies. In the episode as presented, Nicostratus accepts the explanation, while Pyrrhus and Lydia remain aligned in the scheme that has transformed household intimacy into concealment.