To this form of Platonic or mono-sexual love there existed a female
counterpart, as shown in some of the lyric effusions of Greek poets.
Some of these poets, it is true, especially Anakreon, knew naught of the
imaginative side of Love—of its protracted tortures and intermittent
joys. Like a butterfly that kisses every flower on its way, he “cared
only for the enjoyment of the passing moment.” But Sappho apparently
wrote of Love in terms worthy of Heine or Byron, as shown even in this
crude translation of one of her poems:—
“While gazing on thy charms I hung,
My voice died faltering on my tongue,
With subtle flames my bosom glows,
Quick through each vein the poison flows;
Dark dimming mists my eyes surround,
My ears with hollow murmurs sound.
My limbs with dewy chillness freeze,
On my whole frame pale tremblings seize,
And losing colour, sense, and breath,
I seem quite languishing in death.”
Longinus calls this the most perfect expression in all ancient
literature of the effects of Love. It happens, however, to have nothing
to do with Love. For, as Plato’s “love” is merely ecstatic friendship
between man and youth, so Sappho’s love is friendship between two women.
This is the opinion of Bode and Müller, and it is entirely borne out by
the language of the original text.
It has been suggested that Sappho, being a woman, and a Greek woman,
could not have addressed such glowing words to a man without violating
the current notions of decorum; and hence wrote as if she were a man
addressing a woman. But Sappho was one of the Æolian women who had
greater liberty than the Athenians; and she was, moreover, a
blue-stocking who would not have stuck at such a trifle as shocking
Greek notions regarding woman’s privileges. And in some of her poems she
_does_ mention a youth “to whom she gave her whole heart, while he
requited her passion with cold indifference” (Müller).
One of the Platonists, Maximus Tyrius (_dis._ 24, p. 297), takes the
same view regarding Sappho. “The love of the Lesbian poet,” he says,
“what can it be, if we may compare remote with more recent things than
the Sokratic art of love? For both appear to promote the same
_Friendship_, she among women, he among men. They both confess they love
many, and are captivated by all beauties. For what Alkibiades and
Charmides are to Sokrates, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anaktoria are to
Sappho.” “Even Sokrates confesses that it was from Sappho that he partly
derived his noble views of the enthusiastic _love of mental beauty_”
(_Phædon_, c. 225).
To one of the girls just referred to, Sappho addresses these words:
“Again does the strength-dissolving Eros, that bittersweet, resistless
monster, agitate me; but to thee, O Atthis, the thought of me is
importunate; thou fliest to Andromeda.” “It is obvious,” says Müller,
“that this attachment bears less the character of maternal interest than
of passionate love; as amongst Dorians in Sparta and Crete analogous
connections between men and youths, in which the latter were trained to
noble and manly deeds, were carried on in a language of high-wrought and
passionate feeling, which had all the character of an attachment between
persons of different sexes. This mixture of feelings, which among
nations of a calmer temperament have always been perfectly distinct, is
an essential feature of the Greek character.”
Greek Love, _i.e._ Friendship, being thus tinged and strengthened, as we
see in the cases of Sokrates and Alkibiades, Sappho and Atthis, by
jealousy, ecstatic adoration, exclusiveness, admiration of personal
beauty, and other qualities which modern civilisation has transferred to
Romantic Love, we are enabled to understand why Friendship was so much
more potent and prevalent in antiquity than it is now, when, having lost
these traits _through the differentiation of emotions_, it seems
“insipid to those who have tasted Love.”
The lesson to be learned from this whole discussion on Greek Friendship
is of extreme importance to the psychology of Love. It is this: The
Greeks were too intellectual and refined not to have at least a vague
presentiment of the higher possibilities and charms of imaginative Love.
But Greek women—with the rare exceptions referred to—were too stupid to
enable the men to realise their vague ideal. Hence they sought it in
ardent attachments to youths, who _were_ quick-minded and able to
_sympathise_ with their intellectual aspirations. And thus Greek Love
became identical with male friendship—the female friendship referred to
being a sort of compensating echo.
Greek Love is symbolised in the mythic youth Narcissus, who scorns all
the beautiful nymphs that are eager for his caresses, and falls in love
with his own image reflected in the water.