1. FLAVIANUS. Was it not in Helicon, dear Autobulus, that those
discourses were held concerning Love, which—whether thou hast already
set them down in writing, or still carriest them in thy memory, as
having often desired them from thy father—we are now in expectation
that thou wilt recite to us, at our importunate request?
AUTOBULUS. I was in Helicon, dear Flavianus, among the Muses, at what
time the Thespians performed the Erotic solemnities. For they celebrate
every four years certain games and festivals very magnificent and
splendid in honor of Cupid, as well as of the Muses.
FLAV. Know’st thou then what it is we all desire at thy hands, as many
as are gathered here together to be thy auditors?
AUTOB. No; but I shall know, when I am once by you informed.
FLAV. Curtail, we beseech ye, your discourse at present, forbearing the
descriptions of meadows and shades, together with the crawling ivy,
and whatever else poets are so studious to add to their descriptions,
imitating with more curiosity than grace Plato’s Ilissus,[82] with the
chaste tree and the gentle rising hillock covered with green grass.
AUTOB. What needed my relation, dearest Flavianus, such a proem as
this? The occasion that gave birth to these discourses of itself (as
it were) asks for a chorus, and it requires a theatre; otherwise there
is nothing wanting of a complete drama. Therefore let us only beseech
Memory, the mother of the Muses, to be propitious and assist us in the
discovery of the fable.
2. For a long time before we were born, when our father had newly
espoused our mother, an unlucky variance that fell out between their
parents caused him to take a journey to Thespiae, with an intention
to sacrifice to the God of Love; and he carried my mother also to
the feast (for that it properly belonged to her as well to make the
feast as to perform the sacrifice), besides several of his familiar
acquaintance that accompanied him from his house. Now being arrived
at Thespiae, he met with Daphnaeus, the son of Archidamus, who was
in love with Lysandra, the daughter of Simon, and who was, above all
her suitors, chiefly the most welcome and acceptable to her. There he
also found Soclarus, the son of Aristion, who was come from Tithorea;
together with Protogenes of Tarsus and Zeuxippus the Lacedaemonian, by
whom he had been several times kindly entertained; and he said that
most of the chief men among the Boeotians were there also. Thus they
stayed for two or three days in the city, entertaining each other with
learned discourses, one while in the common wrestling-places, sometimes
in the theatres, still keeping company together. After that, avoiding
the troublesome contest of the harpers and musicians,—it being found
out that all had been settled beforehand by favor and intrigue,—the
greatest part brake company, as if they had been discamping out of an
enemy’s country, retired to Helicon, and took up their lodgings among
the Muses. Thither the next morning came to them Anthemion and Pisias,
persons of eminent nobility, and both allied to Baccho, surnamed the
Fair, and in some way at difference one with another, by reason of the
affection which they severally bore to him. For there was at Thespiae,
Ismenodora, of an illustrious family, and wealthy withal; and indeed in
all other respects discreet and modest; and moreover she had continued
a widow no little time, without spot or stain to her reputation, though
both young and beautiful.
Now it happened that while this brisk widow was endeavoring to make
up a match between Baccho, who was the son of her intimate friend,
and a certain just blooming virgin nearly allied to herself, by often
talking with the young gentleman and much frequenting his company,
she began to feel some sparks of kindness kindled for him in her own
breast. Afterwards hearing him highly commended by others, and speaking
many things in his praise herself, and finding him beloved by a great
number of persons of the best rank, by degrees she fell desperately
in love with the youth; nevertheless with a resolution to do nothing
unbeseeming her birth and quality, but after public wedlock to
acknowledge him as her husband. But as the match seemed impracticable
by reason of the distance of their years, so the mother of the young
man suspected the nobility and grandeur of her house not to be
correspondent to her son’s condition, which rendered him incapable of
such a preferment. Moreover, his companions that were wont to go a
hunting with him, weighing the difference between his and the age of
Ismenodora, filled his head with several scruples, and scaring him with
continual frumps and scoffs, more effectually hindered the match than
they who labored industriously and seriously to prevent it. And the
young man himself felt ashamed at his age to be married to a widow. At
last, however, shaking off all others, he applies himself to Pisias
and Anthemion for their advice in a matter of so great concernment.
The elder of these two, Anthemion, was his cousin, and Pisias the most
earnest of his lovers. The latter therefore withstood the match with
all his might, and upbraided Anthemion, as one that went about to
betray the young man to Ismenodora. On the other side, Anthemion told
Pisias, that he did not well to do as he did, having the reputation
of a worthy honest man, to imitate those lewd lovers, and endeavor
to deprive his friend of a noble house, a rich wife, and other great
conveniences, that he might have the pleasure to see him frequently
naked in the wrestling-places, fresh and smooth, and a stranger to
female sports.
3. However, to prevent the growing of any quarrel between them, through
long and passionate disputes, they chose for umpires of the controversy
my father and those friends that were with him. And beside them, as if
they had been chosen on purpose, Daphnaeus pleaded for Pisias, and for
Anthemion, Protogenes; who bitterly inveighing against Ismenodora, O
Hercules, cried Daphnaeus, what may we not expect, when Protogenes bids
defiance to love? he that all along has spent as well the serious as
sportive hours of his life both in love and for love, without regard
either to learning or his country; nor like to Laius, who was but five
days’ journey distant from home,—for his was a slow sort of love upon
the dry land,—whereas your Cupid, Protogenes,
With nimble wings displayed,
crossed the seas from Cilicia to Athens, merely to visit and straggle
up and down with lovely boys. And indeed, such at first was the true
cause of Protogenes’s peregrination.
4. At which the company falling into a loud laughter; How! said
Protogenes, can you believe that I at this time wage war against love,
and that I do not rather fight for love against intemperate desire and
lascivious wantonness, which, under the shelter of the most honest and
fairest names that are, let themselves loose into the most shameful
acts of inordinate lust and concupiscence? Then Daphnaeus: Do ye number
wedlock and the conjunction of man and wife (than which there is no
tie more sacred in this life) among the vile and dishonest actions of
the world? Why truly, replied Protogenes, this same bond of wedlock, as
being necessary for generation, is not undeservedly perhaps extolled
by our grave politicians and lawgivers, and by them recommended to the
multitude. But I must tell ye, if you mean true love, there is not a
farthing’s worth of it to be found among women. Nor do I believe that
either you yourselves, or any other that dote so much as you pretend
to do upon women and virgins, love them any otherwise than as flies
love milk, or bees love honey-combs; or as cooks and butchers fat up
calves and poultry in the dark, not out of any extraordinary affection
which they bear to these creatures, but for the gain which they make of
them. But as Nature prompts all men to the use of bread and meat with
moderation and so far as may suffice the appetite, the excess of which
becomes a vice, under the name of gluttony or gormandizing; thus it is
natural for men and women to desire the pleasures of mutual enjoyment,
but as for that impetuous concupiscence that hurries the greatest part
of mankind with so much strength and violence, it is not properly
called love. For love that is bred in a young and truly generous heart,
by means of friendship, terminates in virtue; whereas all our desires
towards women, let them be taken in the best sense he can, serve us
only to reap the fruit of pleasure, and to assist us in the fruition of
youth and beauty. As Aristippus testified to one that would have put
him out of conceit with Lais, for that, as he said, she did not truly
love him; no more, said he, am I beloved by pure wine or good fish, and
yet I willingly make use of both. For the end of desire is pleasure and
enjoyment. But love, having once lost the hopes of friendship, will
neither tarry, nor cherish for beauty’s sake that which is irksome,
though never so gaudy in the flower of youth, if it bring not forth
the fruit of a disposition propense to friendship and virtue. And
therefore it is that you hear a certain husband in a tragedy thus
talking to his wife:
Thou hat’st me? True;—and I thy proud disdain
Will brook with patience, careless of the pain,
So long as my dishonor gives me gain.
Now I take him to be not at all a more amorous man than this, that can
endure, for the sake of his carnal pleasure, and not for gain, the
plague of a curst ill-natured shrew, that is always scolding. The first
of which love-martyrs Philippides the comedian thus derided in the
person of Stratocles the rhetorician:
She lowers and growls and turns her tail
With fury so unkind,
The wittol blest would think himself,
To kiss her coif behind.
Now if this be the passion you talk of which is to be called Love,
it is a spurious and effeminate love that sends us to the women’s
chambers, as it were to the Cynosarges at Athens. Or rather, as they
say there is a sort of generous and true bred mountain eagle, which
Homer calls the black eagle and eagle of prey, and then again there
is another sort of bastard eagle, that takes fish and birds that are
lazy and slow of flight, and wanting food makes a shrill and mournful
noise for hunger; thus the true genuine love is that of boys, not
flaming with concupiscence, as according to Anacreon the love of
maids and virgins does, neither besmeared with odoriferous ointments,
nor alluring with smiles and rolling glances; but you shall find him
plain and simple and undebauched with pleasures in the schools of the
philosophers, or in the wrestling-lists and places of public exercise,
smart and generous in the chase of youth, and exhorting to virtue all
that he finds to be fit objects of his diligence; whereas that other
love, nice and effeminate, and always nestling in the bosoms and beds
of women, pursuing soft pleasures, and wasted with unmanly delights,
that have no gust of friendship or heavenly ravishment of mind, is to
be despised and rejected of all mankind. This indeed Solon did, when
he forbade slaves and servants the use of male familiarity and of dry
ointment, but granted them the liberty to accompany with women; as
looking upon friendship to be laudable and civil, but pleasure to be a
vulgar thing and unbecoming a man born free. Whence it appears that to
make love to a slave boy is ignoble and unworthy of a freeman; for this
is mere mischievous love of copulation, like the affection toward women.
5. Now while Protogenes was desirous to say more, Daphnaeus
interrupting him said: Truly you have done well to put us in mind of
Solon, and we may make use of him as the judge of a person addicted to
love. Hear what he says:
Then dote upon the flowery youth of boys,
Their fragrant breath admiring and soft thighs.
Add to this of Solon that other of Aeschylus:
Ungrateful, for the kisses of my lips,
Not to revere the glory of my hips.
These are proper judges of love; but others there are who deride all
those that would have lovers inspect thighs and haunches, like so many
sacrificers and diviners. And for my part I draw from hence a very
strong argument on the behalf of the women. For if male converse, which
is altogether against nature, neither extinguishes nor is any ways
noxious to amorous affection, much more probable is it that the love of
women, which is according to nature, should reach to the consummation
of friendship, by virtue of that obsequious beauty which attends it.
For I must tell you, Protogenes, the submission of the female to the
male was by the ancients expressed by the word χάρις (_grace_ or
_favor_). For which reason Pindar observes that Vulcan was by Juno
brought forth without the graces; and Sappho tells a young virgin, not
yet ripe for matrimony,
A little child thou seem’st, and without grace.
And a certain person puts the question to Hercules,
By force or by persuasion did the maid
Her favors yield?
But the submission of males to males, whether it be by compulsion
and strength, like a violent and forcible rape, or whether it be
voluntary,—men suffering themselves weakly and effeminately to be
covered by each other, like four-footed beasts, and counterfeiting the
act of generation in defiance of nature (as Plato says),—is void of all
grace, brutish, and contrary to the end of venereal pleasure. Wherefore
I am apt to believe that Solon wrote those lines when he was young,
brisk, and full of seed (as Plato phrases it), but when he was grown
into years, he sang another note:
The sports of Venus, now, are my delight,
Or else with Bacchus to carouse;
At other times the Muses’ charms invite;
These are the chiefest pleasures mankind knows;—
as if he had altered his course of life, and retired from the storms
and tempests of pederastic fury into the calms of wedlock and
philosophy. Now then, Protogenes, let us but consider the truth of the
matter, we shall find the passion of lovers to be the same, whether it
be for boys or for women; or if, out of a contentious humor, you will
distinguish them, you shall find that this affection for boys does not
keep itself within bounds, but like a late-born issue, clandestinely
brought forth in the dark and out of season, it strives to expel the
truly genuine and legitimate love, which is much the more ancient. For
give me leave to tell ye, my dear friend, it is but (as it were) of
yesterday’s standing or of the day before—since young boys began to
strip and show themselves naked in the public places of exercise—that
this frenzy, getting in by degrees and crowding in there, afterwards
by little and little became came better fledged and gathered strength
of wings in the wrestling-rings, so that now the insolence of it can
no longer be so restrained but that still it will be affronting and
adulterating conjugal love, which is the coadjutrix of Nature and helps
to immortalize mortal mankind, raising up and immediately restoring
again by generation our human nature when it has been extinguished
by death. But this same Protogenes denies there is any pleasure in
male concupiscence, for he is ashamed and afraid to acknowledge it.
Therefore there must be some decent pretence for the feeling and
handling these adult and lovely youths. And truly he has found out a
very clever excuse, alleging it to be for the sake of friendship and
virtue. Therefore he rolls himself in the dust, washes with cold water,
erects his brows, and outwardly pretends to philosophy and chastity,
for fear of the law; but when darkness covers the earth, and all people
have betaken themselves to their rest,
Sweet the ripe fruit he finds, its keeper gone.
Now if it be as Protogenes says, that no carnal conjunction attends
these masculine familiarities, how can it be love, when Venus is
absent; seeing that of all the Goddesses, she it is that Cupid is bound
to obey and attend, and that he has no honor or power but what she
confers upon him? But if there be a sort of love without Venus, as a
man may be drunk without wine by drinking the decoctions of figs or
barley, the disturbance of such a love must prove fruitless and to no
end, and consequently loathsome and offensive.
6. These things thus said, it was apparent that Pisias found himself
touched to the quick, and much concerned for what Daphnaeus had spoken.
But after he had been silent awhile, O Hercules, said he, what a
strange impudence and levity is this in men, to acknowledge themselves
tied to women by their generating parts, like dogs to bitches; by
this means expelling and banishing love from the places of exercise,
from the public porticos, and from conversing under the open sky and
sunshine, to the stews, poniards, philters, and sorceries of lascivious
women; for it is not convenient for the chaste either to love or to be
beloved. At which words, as my father told me, he took Protogenes by
the hand, and repeated to him these verses:
Words such as these the Argive courage warm;
And the affronted youth provoke to arm.
For surely (he added) the exorbitant language of Pisias gives us good
reason to take Daphnaeus’s part, while he introduces over the head of
wedlock a society void of love, and utterly a stranger to that same
friendship which descends and is inspired from above; which, if real
affection and submission be wanting, can hardly be restrained by all
the curbs and yokes of shame and fear. Then Pisias: For my part, said
he, I give little heed to this argument; for as for Daphnaeus, I find
him in the same condition with brass. For as brass is not so easily
melted by the fire as by the force of the same melted and liquid metal
being poured upon it, which mollifies both alike, and causes them to
run and mix together; so it is not the beauty of Lysandra that inflames
him, but the conversing along with one that is already inflamed and
full of fire, that sets him all in a flame himself; and it is apparent
that, unless he makes haste to us, he will suddenly be melted with
his own heat. But I perceive, said he, the same thing will befall me
which Anthemion has most reason to desire, that I too shall offend the
judges; and therefore I shall say no more. Then Anthemion: ’Tis very
true indeed, your fear is just; for you ought at the first to have
spoken to the purpose, and what was proper to the argument in hand.
7. To this Pisias replied: I am willing enough that every woman should
have her lover; but withal, it very much concerns Baccho to have a care
how he entangles himself in Ismenodora’s wealth; lest, while we match
him with so much grandeur and magnificence, we consume him to nothing,
like tin among brass. For I must tell you, it would be a hard matter
for so young a stripling as he is, though he should marry a plain and
ordinary woman, to keep the upper hand, like wine mixed with water. But
we see her already design superiority and command; else why should she
refuse so many suitors of great wealth and noble extraction that court
her daily, to woo herself a mere boy, that has but newly assumed the
robes of manhood and is more fit to go to school than to marry. And
therefore those husbands that are wise, without any admonition, out
of their own foresight, clip their wives’ wings themselves; that is,
they prune away their riches, that prompt them to luxury and vanity,
and render them inconstant and foolish. For many times, by the help of
these wings, they soar out of their husbands’ reach and fly quite away;
or if they stay at home, better it were for a man to be chained with
fetters of gold, as they chain their prisoners in Ethiopia, than to be
tied to the riches of a wife.
8. However, said Protogenes, he has not hinted to us in the least the
hazard we run of inverting absurdly and ridiculously the counsel of
Hesiod, whose words are these:
Take to thy home a woman for thy bride
When in the ripeness of thy manhood’s pride:
Thrice ten thy sum of years, the nuptial prime;
Nor far fall short, nor far exceed the time.
Four years the ripening virgin should consume,
And wed the fifth of her expanded bloom.[83]
Quite contrary to this precept, we are going about to couple a young
lad, scarce ripe for marriage, to a lady much older than himself; like
those that graft the tender scions of dates and fig-trees upon old
stocks, to make them bear fruit before their season. But you will say,
The woman is in love up to the ears, and burns with desire. Who is he
that will hinder her from masquerading before his doors, from singing
her amorous lamentations at his windows, from adorning his statues with
chaplets and garlands of flowers, from duelling her rivals, and winning
him from them all by feats of arms? For these are acts that demonstrate
the height of a passionate affection. Let her knit her brows, refrain
all manner of pomp of luxury; let her put on a garb and countenance
suitable to such a violent passion. But if bashful and modest, let her
sit at home, expecting her suitors and gallants to come and court her
there. But who would not fly and abominate a woman that professes love,
and loathe the idea of taking one to wife who makes such an impudent
incontinence the first step to future nuptials?
9. When Protogenes had thus concluded; Do you not see, Anthemion, saith
my father, how they again make common cause against us, enforcing us
still to continue our discourse of nuptial love, who deny not ourselves
to be the upholders of it, nor ever avoided the being one of that
celebrated chorus? Most certainly I do, replied Anthemion; therefore
proceed in the defence of conjugal affection; and let us have also your
assistance in maintaining the argument about riches, with which Pisias
chiefly seems to scare us. ’Tis the least we can do, said my father;
for what in the world will not be made a reproach to womankind, should
we reject Ismenodora because she is in love and wealthy to boot? Grant
that she is imperious as well as rich. What then if she is beautiful
and young? What if she is somewhat stately and haughty, by reason
of her illustrious birth? There is nothing of crabbedness, nothing
scornful, nothing sour, nothing troublesome, in women truly chaste and
modest. And yet their very chastity gains them the name of shrews and
furies. But you will say, since it may be a man’s misfortune to be
so hampered, would it not be better to marry some Thracian Abrotonon
or some Milesian Bacchis, whom he can get in the market for money
and a handful of nuts? And yet we have known some men that have been
miserably henpecked by this sort of underlings. The Samian minstrels
and morris-dancers, such as were Aristonica, Oenanthe with her tabor
and pipe, and Agathoclia, insulted over the diadems of sovereigns.
The Syrian Semiramis was a poor wench, kept by one of Ninus’s slaves,
partly as his servant, partly as his harlot, till Ninus, meeting her
and taking a fancy to her, at length doted upon her to that degree,
that she not only governed him as she pleased herself, but contemned
him; so that, finding she had got the absolute mastery over him, she
became so bold as to desire him to do her the favor to see her sit
but one day upon his throne, with the royal diadem upon her head,
dispatching the public business. To which the king consenting, and
giving order to all his officers to yield her the same obedience as to
himself, at first she was very moderate in her commands, only to make
trial of the guards about her; but when she saw that they obeyed her
without the least hesitation or murmuring, she commanded them first to
lay hold of Ninus himself, then to bind him, at length to kill him.
Which being done, she took the government upon herself, and reigned
victoriously over all Asia with great splendor and renown.
And was not Belestiche a barbarian courtesan bought in the market,
in whose honor the Alexandrians erected temples and altars, with
inscriptions to Venus Belestiche as marks of the king’s affection to
her? And as for her who is in this very city enshrined in the same
temple and honored with the same solemnities as Cupid, and whose
gilded statue stands among kings and queens at Delphi,—I would fain
know what dowry of hers it was that brought so many lovers into such
subjection to her.[84] But as those great men, through their softness
and effeminacy, became a prey to those women; so on the other side, men
of low and mean condition, having married women both wealthy and of
splendid extraction, neither lowered sail nor abated any thing of their
courage and greatness of mind, but lived together with their wives,
always honoring them, and keeping that superiority over them which was
their right and due. But he that contracts and reduces his wife within
a narrow compass, and makes her less, like a ring that is too big for
the finger, to prevent her from dropping off, is like to those that
dock off their mares’ tails and clip their manes, and then lead them
to a river or pond; for it is reported, that when those mares perceive
themselves so ill favoredly shorn and disfigured, they lose their
natural courage, and will afterwards suffer themselves to be covered by
asses.
Now, as it is a base thing to prefer the riches of a woman above
her virtue or nobility, so is it as great folly to reject wealth,
when accompanied with virtue and illustrious parentage. Antigonus
writing to a captain of his, whom he had ordered to fortify the hill
Munychia, bade him not only make the collar strong but keep the dog
lean; intimating thereby that he should take care to impoverish
the Athenians. But there is no necessity for the husband of a rich
and beautiful wife to make her poor or to disfigure her; but by
self-control and prudence, and by seeming not to admire any thing
extravagantly in her, to carry himself so that she may perceive that,
as he designs not to be a tyrant, so she must not expect him to be her
subject; giving his own character that weight in the balance, that the
scale may be turned without offence and for the good of both. Now,
as for Ismenodora, her years are fit for marriage, and she is a woman
most likely to bear children; nay, I am informed that she is now in
her prime. For, continued he, smiling upon Pisias, she is not elder
than any of her rivals; neither has she any gray hairs, as some that
keep company with Baccho. Now if those people think their converse with
the young gentleman no way misbecoming their gravity, what hinders
but that she may affect and cherish him better than any young virgin
whatever? For I must needs say, it is a difficult matter many times
rightly to mix and blend the tempers of young people; in regard it will
require some time to make them sensible of several extravagancies which
they may commit, until they have laid aside the pride and wantonness
which is incident to youth. For many a blustering tempest will happen
between the new-married couple before they can be brought to endure
the yoke, and draw quietly together, more especially if the God of
Love appear among them; and youthful wantonness—like the wind in the
absence of the pilot—will disturb and confuse the happiness of the
match, while the one has not skill to govern and the other refuses to
be governed. Now then, if it be so that nurses are sought for to look
after sucking infants, and schoolmasters to teach children; if masters
of exercise direct young striplings, and the lover his youth; if the
law and the captain-general govern those that are of age, so that no
man can be said to be at his own liberty to do what he list; where is
the absurdity for a wife, that has wit and discretion and the advantage
of years, to govern and direct the life and conversation of a youthful
husband, profitable to him as exceeding him in wisdom, and augmenting
the pleasure of her society by the sweetness of her disposition and
reality of affection? To conclude, said he, we that are Boeotians
ourselves ought to reverence Hercules, and not to be offended with
those that marry women elder than themselves; knowing, as we do, that
even Hercules himself gave his own wife Megara, being then three and
thirty years old, to Iolaus his son, being no more than sixteen years
of age.
10. While they were in the midst of these discourses, one of Pisias’s
companions and friends, as my father reported, came galloping towards
them out of the city, whip and spur, to bring the news of a strange
and wonderful accident. For Ismenodora, believing that Baccho no
way disliked being married to her, but only was deterred by the
importunities of his friends that dissuaded him from the match,
resolved not to let the young man escape her. To this purpose she sent
for certain sparks of her acquaintance, whom she knew to be stout
and resolute young gentlemen, and some women that were well-wishers
to her amours, and observing the hour that Baccho was wont to pass
by her house to the wrestling-place, well attended and decently
garbed, one day when he came near the outermost door, anointed as he
was for the exercise, with two or three more in the same posture,
she met him in the street, and gently twitched his upper coat. This
signal being given, her friends rushed forth, and fairly and softly
catching him up in his mandilion and doublet, in a huddle together
they carried him into the house, and locked the door fast after
them. Then came the women also, and pulling off his mandilion, threw
about him a costly nuptial garment. The servants likewise, running
up and down from one place to another, adorned the posts not only of
Ismenodora’s but of Baccho’s house with olive and laurel boughs; and
a minstrel likewise was ordered to pipe along the street. The story
thus related, the Thespians and strangers some of them laughed, some
others were heinously offended, and did what they could to exasperate
the presidents of the public exercises. For they have a great command
over the young gentlemen, and keep a severe and vigilant eye upon
all their actions. And now there was not a word said of the sports
that were intended; but all the people, forsaking the theatre, flocked
to Ismenodora’s house, discoursing and debating the matter one among
another.
11. But when Pisias’s friend, with his horse all foaming and in a
sweat, as if he had brought intelligence from the army in time of war,
had delivered his news, being hardly able to speak for want of breath,
and concluding his story with saying that Ismenodora had ravished
Baccho; my father told me, that Zeuxippus fell a laughing, and as he
was a great admirer of that poet, repeated the verses of Euripides:
Wanton with wealth, fair lady, thou hast done
No more than nature teaches every one.
But Pisias, starting up out of his seat, made a great exclamation,
crying out: O ye Gods! when will ye put an end to this licentiousness,
that will in the end subvert our city? For now all things are running
into disorder through violation of the laws; but perhaps it is now
looked upon as a slight matter to transgress the law and violate
justice, for even the law of nature is transgressed and broken by the
insolent anarchy of the female sex. Was ever there any such thing
committed in the island of Lemnos? Let us go, said he, let us go and
deliver up the wrestling-place and the council house to the women, if
the city be so effeminate as to put up with these indignities. Thus
Pisias brake from the company in a fury; nor would Protogenes leave
him, partly offended at what had happened, and partly to assuage and
mollify his friend. But Anthemion: ’Twas a juvenile bold attempt, said
he, and a truly Lemnian one—I venture to say so since we are now by
ourselves—of a lady warmly in love. To whom Soclarus smiling: Do you
then believe, said he, that this was a real ravishment and force, and
not rather a stratagem of the young man’s own contrivance (for he has
wit at will), to the end he might escape out of the hands of his ruder
male lovers into the embraces of a fair and rich widow? Never say so,
said Anthemion, nor have such a suspicion of Baccho. For were he not
naturally, as he is, of a plain and open temper, he would still never
have concealed this thing from me, to whom he has always imparted
his secrets, and whom he knew to be always a favorer of Ismenodora’s
design. But, according to the saying of Heraclitus, it is a hard matter
to withstand love, not anger; for whatever love has a desire to, it
will purchase with the hazard of life, fortune, and reputation. Now
where is there a more modest and orderly woman in all our city than
Ismenodora? When did you ever hear an ill word spoken of her? Or when
did ever any thing done in her house give the least suspicion of an ill
act? Rather we may say that she seems to be inspired beyond other women
with something above human reason.
12. Then Pemptides smiling: Truly, said he, there is a certain disease
of the body, which they call sacred; so that it is no wonder if some
men give the appellation of sacred and divine to the most raging and
vehement passion of the mind. But as in Egypt once I saw two neighbors
hotly contending about a serpent which crept before them in the road,
while both concluded it to be good luck, and each assumed the happy
omen to himself; so seeing some of you at this time haling love into
the chambers of men, others into the cabinets of the women, as a
divinely transcendent good, I do not wonder, since it is a passion
so powerful and greatly esteemed, that it is magnified and held in
greatest veneration by those that have most reason to clip its wings
and expel and drive it from them. Hitherto therefore I have been
silent, perceiving the debate to be rather about a particular concern,
than any thing for the public good. But now that Pisias is gone, I
would willingly understand from one of you, upon what account it was
that they who first discoursed of love were so fond to deify it.
13. So soon as Pemptides had done, and my father was about to say
something in answer to his question, another messenger came from the
city in Ismenodora’s name, requesting Anthemion to come to her; for
that the tumult increased, and the presidents of the games could not
agree, while one was of opinion that Baccho was to be demanded and
delivered into their hands, and the other thought it an impertinence to
meddle with that which nothing concerned them.
Thus Anthemion being gone, my father addressed himself to Pemptides by
name, and so entered into the following discourse: You seem to me, sir,
to have hit upon a very strange and nice point, or rather, as I may so
say, to have endeavored to stir things which are not to be moved, in
reference to the opinion which we have of the Gods, while you demand
a reason and demonstration of every thing in particular. For it is
sufficient to believe according to the faith of our forefathers and
the instructions of the country where we have been bred and born, than
which we cannot utter or invent a more certain argument;
For surely all the wit of human brain
This part of knowledge never could attain.[85]
For this is a foundation and basis common to all piety and religion;
of which if the steady rule and decreed maxims be once disordered and
shaken, all the rest must totter and become suspected. And no question
but you have heard what a clamor was raised against Euripides when he
made this beginning of his Melanippe:
Jupiter, if his name be so;
’Tis only by hearsay that I know.[86]
But when he exhibited the tragedy a second time, he seems to have had
such a confidence in the lofty style and elaborate eloquence of his
work, that he thus altered the verse:
Jove, for we own he has received that name
From truth alone, and not from common fame.[87]
What difference then is there between calling in question the name of
Jupiter and Minerva, and doubting of the name of Cupid or Love? For it
is not of late that Love has challenged altars and sacrifices, neither
is he a foreigner started up out of any barbarian superstition, as
were the Attae and the Adonii, introduced by I know not what sort of
hermaphrodites and idle women. Nor has he clandestinely crept into
honors no way becoming him, to avoid the accusation of bastardy and
being unduly enrolled in the catalogue of the Gods. But when you hear
Empedocles thus saying,
And friendship too (observe my song)
Is like to these, both broad and long;
But this thou must not think to find
With eyes of body, but of mind,
you ought to believe all this to be said of Love. For Love is no more
visible than any of the rest of the ancient Deities, but apprehended
only by opinion and belief; for every one of which if you require a
reason and demonstrative argument, by enquiring after every temple and
making a sophistical doubt upon every altar, you shall find nothing
free from inquisition and malicious slander. For, that I may go no
farther, observe but these:
I do not Venus see with mortal eyes,
The Goddess unto whom we sacrifice;
Yet this is she that mighty Cupid bare,
Whose offspring all terrestrial beings are.[88]
Therefore Empedocles gives her the epithet of the Giver of Life, and
Sophocles calls her Fruitful; both very aptly and pertinently. For
indeed the great and wonderful work of generation is properly the work
of Venus, where Love is only an assistant when present with Venus; but
his absence renders the act itself altogether irksome, dishonorable,
harsh, and ungrateful. For the conjunction of man and woman without
true affection, like hunger and thirst, terminates in satiety, and
produces nothing truly noble or commendable; but when the Goddess by
means of Love puts away all loathsome glut of pleasure, she perpetuates
delight by a continual supply of friendship and harmony of temper.
Therefore Parmenides asserts Love to be the most ancient of all the
works of Venus, writing thus in his Cosmogony:
Of all the Gods that rule above,
She first brought forth the mighty Love.
But Hesiod, in my opinion, seems more philosophically to make Love the
eldest of all the Gods, as from whom all the other Deities derive their
beginning. Therefore, should we deprive Love of the honors which are
decreed him, the ceremonies we ascribe to Venus will be no longer in
request. For it is not sufficient to say, that some men reproach Love
and load him with contumelies, but abstain from giving her an ill word;
for upon the same theatre we hear these scandals fixed upon both:
Love, idle of himself, takes up his rest
And harbors only in the slothful breast.[89]
And in another place thus upon Venus:
She does not the name of Cypris only own,
But by a hundred other names is known:
She’s hell on earth, continued violence,
And rage subduing all the force of sense.[90]
As indeed we may say of the rest of the Gods, that there is not one
that has escaped the scandalous jibes of illiterate scurrility. Look
upon Mars, as in a brazen sculpture, possessing the place just opposite
to Love, how highly has he been honored, how lowly degraded by men?
Swine-snouted Mars, and as a beetle blind,—
’Tis he, fair dames, disorders all mankind.[91]
Homer also gives him the epithets of murderous and Jack-a-both-sides.
Moreover, Chrysippus, explaining the name of this Deity, fixes a
villanous accusation upon him. For, says he, Ares is derived from
ἀναιρεῖν, which signifies _to destroy_; thereby affording an occasion
for some to give the name of Ares or Mars to that same proneness and
perverse inclination of men to wrath and passion, and to quarrel and
fight one with another. Others affirm Venus to be nothing but our
concupiscence; that Mercury is no more than the faculty of speech;
that the Muses are only the names for the arts and sciences; and that
Minerva is only a fine word for prudence. And thus you see into what an
abyss of atheism we are like to plunge ourselves, while we go about to
range and distribute the Gods among the various passions, faculties,
and virtues of men.
14. I plainly perceive it, replied Pemptides; for I neither believe
it lawful to make the Gods to be passions, nor on the other side, to
make the passions to be Deities. To whom my father: Well then, said he,
do you believe Mars to be a God, or a passion of ours? To which when
Pemptides replied, that he thought Mars to be the Deity that rectified
the angry and courageous part of man; my father presently retorted upon
him: Why then? said he, shall our passionate part, and those wrathful
inclinations within us that provoke us to mischief and bloodshed, have
a Deity to overrule and govern them; and will you not allow the same
guardianship over our better propensities to love, friendship, society,
and peace? Is there a Deity called Enyalius and Stratius that presides
and has the superintendence over those that kill and are slain, a Deity
that bears rule in matters of arms, all warlike preparations, assaults
of cities, and depredations of countries, and distributes rewards as
he sees occasion; and shall there be no Deity to be a witness and
overseer, a supreme governor and director, of conjugal affection, which
terminates in concord and happy society? Nay, do we find that they
who make it their sport to hunt wild goats, hares, and deer, are not
without their forest Deity to encourage them; and they that make it
their business to trepan wolves and bears into snares and pitfalls,
pray for good luck to Aristaeus,
Who first of all for the wild beasts of prey
With gins and snares in secret ambush lay;
and that Hercules, having bent his bow, before he let fly at the
bird which he intended to hit, invoked another Deity, as we find in
Aeschylus,
Hunter Apollo, and to hunters kind,
Direct this arrow to the mark designed;[92]
but for men that hunt the most noble game of love and friendship,
is there no God nor so much as one Daemon to assist and prosper so
laudable an enterprise? Truly, Daphnaeus, for my part, I cannot believe
a man to be a more inconsiderable plant than an oak or mulberry tree,
or the vine which Homer reverently calls by the name of Hemeris,
considering that man in his due season also is endued with a powerful
faculty to bud and pleasantly put forth the beauties both of his body
and mind.
15. To whom Daphnaeus: In the name of all the Gods, who ever thought
otherwise? All those must certainly, replied my father, who believe the
care of ploughing, sowing, and planting is an employment becoming the
Gods (and have they not for this purpose certain Nymphs attending them,
called Dryads,