But Mr. Lecky, ignoring, like most writers, the enormous difference
between conjugal and romantic love, forgets to notice the absolute
silence of Greek literature on the subject of pre-matrimonial
infatuation. Not one of the Greek tragedies is a “love-drama”; romantic
love does not appear even in the writings of Euripides, who has so much
to say about women, and who named most of his plays after his heroines.
Had Love been known to Sophokles and Euripides, as it was known to
Shakspere and Goethe, we should no doubt have a Greek _Romeo and Juliet_
and a Greek _Faust_. For although there were certain limitations as to
the scope and the _dramatis personæ_ of a Greek play, there was nothing
whatever to exclude a love-story. And when we consider how the sentiment
of Love colours all modern literature; how almost impossible it is for a
play or a novel to succeed unless it embodies a love-story: the absolute
ignoring of this passion in Greek literature forces on us the inevitable
conclusion that Romantic Love was unknown to them, or only so faintly
developed as to excite no interest whatever.
And this conclusion harmonises with the dictum of the best Greek
scholars. It is true that Becker, in his _Charikles_, referring to the
frequency with which the comedians introduce a youth desperately
enamoured of a girl, faintly objects to the statement that “There is no
instance of an Athenian falling in love with a free-born woman, and
marrying her from violent passion,”—made by Müller in his famous work on
the Dorians. But he makes the fatal admission that “Sensuality was the
soil from which such passion sprang, and none other than a sensual love
was acknowledged between man and wife.” No one, of course, would deny
that sensual passion prevailed in Athens; but sensuality is the very
antipode of Romantic Love.