So far our search for that coyness which is an ingredient of modern
love has been in vain. At the same time it is obvious that since
coyness is widely prevalent at the present day it must have been in
the past of use to women, else it would not have survived and
increased. The question is: how far down in the scale of civilization
do we find traces of it? The literature of the ancient Greeks
indicates that, in a certain phase and among certain classes, it was
known to them. True, the respectable women, being always locked up and
having no choice in the selecting of their partners, had no occasion
for the exercise of any sort of coyness. But the hetairai appear to
have understood the advantages of assumed disdain or indifference in
making a coveted man more eager in his wooing. In the fifteenth of
Lucian's [Greek: Etairikoi dialogoi] we read about a wanton who locked
her door to her lover because he had refused to pay her two talents
for the privilege of exclusive possession. In other cases, the poets
still feel called upon to teach these women how to make men submissive
by withholding caresses from them. Thus in Lucian, Pythias exclaims:
"To tell the truth, dear Joessa, you yourself spoiled
him with your excessive love, which you even allowed
him to notice. You should not have made so much of him:
men, when they discover that, easily become
overweening. Do not weep, poor girl! Follow my advice
and keep your door locked once or twice when he tries
to see you again. You will find that that will make him
flame up again and become frantic with love and
jealousy."
In the third book of his treatise on the Art of Love, Ovid advises
women (of the same class) how to win men. He says, in substance:
"Do not answer his letters too soon; all delay inflames
the lover, provided it does not last too long.... What
is too readily granted does not long retain love. Mix
with the pleasure you give mortifying refusals, make
him wait in your doorway; let him bewail the 'cruel
door;' let him beg humbly, or else get angry and
threaten. Sweet things cloy, tonics are bitter."