From a Canadian Indian to a Greek philosopher it seems a far cry; yet
the transition is easy and natural. To the Indian, as Parkman points
out, "pity was a cowardly weakness," to be sternly repressed as
unworthy of a man. Plato, for his part, wanted to banish poetry from
his ideal republic because it overwhelms our feelings and makes us
give way to sympathies which in real life our pride causes us to
repress and which are "deemed the part of a woman" (_Repub._, X.,
665). As for the special form of sympathy which enters into the nobler
phases of the love between men and women--fusing their hearts and
blending their souls--Plato's inability to appreciate such a thing may
be inferred from the fact that in this same ideal republic he wanted
to abolish the marriage even of individual bodies. Of the marriage of
souls he, like the other Greeks, knew nothing. To him, as to his
countrymen in general, love between man and woman was mere animal
passion, far inferior in nobility and importance to love for boys, or
friendship, or to filial, parental, or brotherly love.
From the point of view of sympathy, the difference between ancient
passion and modern love is admirably revealed in Wagner's
_Tannhäuser_. As I have summed it up elsewhere[23]:
"Venus shares only the joys of Tannhäuser, while
Elizabeth is ready to suffer with him. Venus is carnal
and selfish, Elizabeth affectionate and
self-sacrificing. Venus degrades, Elizabeth ennobles;
the depth of her love atones for the shallow, sinful
infatuation of Tannhäuser. The abandoned Venus
threatens revenge, the forsaken Elizabeth dies of
grief."
There are stories of wifely devotion in Greek literature, but, like
Oriental stories of the same kind (especially in India) they have a
suspicious appearance of having been invented as object-lessons for
wives, to render them more subservient to the selfish wishes of the
husbands. Plutarch counsels a wife to share her husband's joys and
sorrows, laugh when he laughs, weep when he weeps; but he fails to
suggest the virtue of reciprocal sympathy on the husband's part; yet
Plutarch had much higher notions regarding conjugal life than most of
the Greeks. An approximation to the modern ideal is found only when we
consider the curious Greek adoration of boys. Callicratides, in
Lucian's [Greek: Erotes], after expressing his contempt for women and
their ways, contrasts with them the manners of a well-bred youth who
spends his time associating with poets and philosophers, or taking
gymnastic and military exercises. "Who would not like," he continues,
"to sit opposite such a boy, hear him talk, share his
labors, walk with him, nurse him in illness, go to sea with
him, share darkness and chains with him if necessary? Those
who hated him should be my enemies, those who loved him my
friends. When he dies, I too should wish to die, and one
grave should cover us."
Yet even here there is no real sympathy, because there is no altruism.
Callicratides does not say he will die _for_ the other, or that the
other's pleasures are to him more important than his own.[24]