Greek poets from Stesichorus to the Alexandrians are fond of
representing coy men. The story told by Athenaeus (XIV., ch. 11) of
Harpalyke, who committed suicide because the youth Iphiclus coyly
spurned her, is typical of a large class. No less significant is the
circumstance that when the coy backwardness happens to be on the side
of a female, she is usually a woman of masculine habits, devoted to
Diana and the chase. Several centuries after Christ we still find in
the romances an echo of this thoroughly Greek sentiment in the coy
attitude, at the beginning, of their youthful heroes.[20]
The well-known legend of Sappho--who flourished about a thousand years
before the romances just referred to were written--is quite in the
Greek spirit. It is thus related by Strabo:
"There is a white rock which stretches out from Leucas
to the sea and toward Cephalonia, that takes its name
from its whiteness. The rock of Leucas has upon it a
temple of Apollo, and the leap from it was supposed to
stop love. From this it is said that Sappho first, as
Menander says somewhere, in pursuit of the haughty
Phaon, urged on by maddening desire, threw herself from
its far-seen rocks, imploring thee [Apollo], lord and
king."
Four centuries after Sappho we find Theocritus harping on the same
theme. His _Enchantress_ is a monologue in which a woman relates how
she made advances to a youth and won him. She saw him walking along
the road and was so smitten that she was prostrated and confined to
her bed for ten days. Then she sent her slave to waylay the youth,
with these instructions: "If you see him alone, say to him: 'Simaitha
desires you,' and bring him here." In this case the youth is not coy
in the least; but the sequel of the story is too bucolic to be told
here.