and does not
The joyous Bacchus send increase of fruit,
The chaste autumnal light, to every tree?—
as Pindar sings), and who yet will not allow that the nourishment and
growth of children and young people, who in the flower of their age are
to be formed and shaped into several varieties of beauty, is under the
care and tuition of any Deity; or that there is any Divinity to take
care that man, being once born, may be guided and conducted in the true
paths of virtue, and to prevent the tender plant from being bowed and
bent the wrong way for want of a good instructor, or by the depraved
conversation of those with whom he lives. For my part, I look upon it
as a heinous piece of indignity and ingratitude thus to say, while we
are all the time enjoying the bounty and benignity of God, which he is
ready to disperse and diffuse over all, and which never abandons the
distresses and needs of mortals. And yet in many of these needs the
duty to be performed is rather necessary than pleasant. Thus our being
delivered from the mother’s womb is no such delightful thing, as being
attended with pain and issues of blood; and yet there is a celestial
midwife and overseer that takes particular care of that necessity,
which is Lucina. And indeed a man had better never be born, than to be
made bad and wicked for want of a good tutor and guardian. Nay, we find
that the divine power does not desert us in our sickness, nor after we
are dead; there being still some Deity or other who claims some certain
peculiar employment or function, even upon those occasions. Among the
rest, there is one that helps to convey the souls of such as have ended
this life into the other world, and lays them asleep, according to this
of the poet:
For shady night ne’er brought me forth to play
With artful touch upon the tuneful lyre,
Nor to be mistress of prophetic fire,
Nor pains of rude distempers to allay;
But to convey the souls of the deceased
Each one to their appointed place of rest.[93]
Nevertheless these ministerial functions have many difficulties and
troubles which attend them; whereas we cannot imagine any employment
more holy, any exercise more sacred, or any contention for prize and
glory more becoming a Deity, than to direct and assist the lawful
endeavors and pursuits of lovers in their prime of years and beauty.
There is nothing dishonorable, nothing of forced necessity in this; but
gentle persuasion and alluring grace, rendering labor delightful, leads
to virtue and friendship, which never attains the true accomplishment
of the end it aims at without some divine assistance, nor can have any
other conductor and master than Cupid himself, who is the friend and
companion of the Muses, the Graces, and Venus his own mother. For,
according to Melannippides,
Great Love it is, that in the heart of man
Sows the sweet harvest of unstained desire;
and he always mingles those things that are sweetest with those that
are fairest. What do you say, Zeuxippus? Can we believe it to be
otherwise?
16. In truth, I judge it so, replied Zeuxippus; and I think it would be
absurd to affirm the contrary. And would it not be absurd indeed, said
my father, since there are four sorts of friendships, according to the
determination of the ancients,—the first, say they, is natural, the
next is that of kindred and relations, the third is that of friends and
acquaintance, and last is that of lovers,—if three of these have their
several tutelar Deities, under the names of the patron of friendship,
the patron of hospitality, and he who knits affection between those of
the same race and family; while only amorous affection, as if it were
unhallowed and under interdiction, is left without any guardian or
protector, which indeed requires the greatest care and government above
all the rest? All that you say, replied Zeuxippus, is undeniable.
By the way, replied my father, we may here take notice of what Plato
says upon this subject, as pertinent to our discourse. For he says,
that there is a certain madness transmitted from the body to the soul,
proceeding from a malignant mixture of ill-humors, or a noxious
vapor or rather pernicious spirit that possesses the heart; which
madness is a rugged and terrible disease. The other is a kind of fury,
partaking something of divine inspiration; neither is it engendered
within, but is an insufflation from without, and a disturbance of the
rational and considerative faculty, deriving its beginning and motion
from some stronger power; the common affection of which is called the
enthusiastic passion. For as ἔμπνοος signifies _filled with breath_,
and ἔμφρων denotes _replete with prudence_; so this commotion of the
soul is called enthusiasm (from ἔνθεος) by reason it participates of
a more divine power. Now the prophetic part of enthusiasm derives
itself from the inspiration of Apollo possessing the intellect of the
soothsayer; but Bacchanal fury proceeds from Father Bacchus.
And with the Corybantes ye shall dance,
says Sophocles. For as for the extravagancies of the priests of Cybele,
the mother of the Gods, and those which are called panic terrors and
ejaculations, they are all of the same nature with the Bacchanal
orgies. There is also a third sort of enthusiasm, proper to the Muses,
which, possessing an even tempered and placid soul, excites and rouses
up the gifts of poetry and music. But as for that same warlike fury
which is called Arimanian, it is well known to descend from the God of
War; a sort of fury, wherein there is no grace nor musical sweetness,
calling forth tearful Mars, and rousing up the people to discord and
tumult.[94]
There remains yet one sort more of alienation of the understanding
in man, the same neither obscure, nor yet altogether calm and quiet;
concerning which I would fain ask Pemptides,
Which of the Gods it is who shakes the spear
That beareth fruit so lovely and so fair.
But without expecting a resolution of this question, I mean that erotic
fury that possesses lovely youths and chaste women, yet a hot and
vehement transport. For do we not see how the warrior lays down his
arms, and submits to this more prevalent rage?
His grooms, o’erjoyed he had the war forsook,
His ponderous arms from off his shoulders took;[95]
and thus having renounced the hazards of battle, he sits down a quiet
spectator of other men’s dangers. As for these Bacchanalian motions and
frisking of the Corybantes, there is a way to allay those extravagant
transports, by changing the measure from the Trochaic and the tone
from the Phrygian. And the Pythian prophetess, descending from her
tripos and quitting the prophetic exhalation, becomes sedate and calm
again. Whereas the fury of love, wherever it seizes either man or
woman, sets them in a flame; no music, no appeasing incantations, no
changes of place are able to quench or put a stop to it; but being in
presence, they love; being absent, they desire; by day they prosecute
their importunate visits; by night they serenade at the windows;
sober, they are continually calling upon their loves; and when they
are fuddled, are always teasing the company with their love songs and
madrigals. Neither, as one was pleased to say, are poetical fancies,
by reason of their lively expressions, rightly called waking dreams;
but the dialogues of persons enamored, discoursing with their absent
loves, and dallying, embracing, and expostulating with them as if they
were present, much rather deserve this name. For the sight seems to
delineate other fancies in the water, that quickly glide away and slip
out of the mind; whereas the imaginations of lovers, being as it were
enamelled by fire, leave the images of things imprinted in the memory,
moving, living, speaking, and remaining for a long time. So that Cato
the Roman was wont to say, that the soul of a lover dwelt in the soul
of the person beloved, for that there is settled and fixed in the one
the form, shape, manners, conversation and actions of the other; by
which being led, the lover quickly dispatches a long journey,—as the
Cynics say they have found a compendious and direct road to virtue,—and
he is carried from love to friendship, as it were with wind and tide,
the God of Love assisting his passion. In short then I say, that the
enthusiasm of lovers is neither void of divine inspiration, neither
is it under the guardianship and conduct of any other Deity but him
whose festivals we solemnize, and to whom we offer our oblations.
Nevertheless, in regard we measure the excellency of a Deity by his
puissance and by the benefit which we receive at his hands, and esteem
power and virtue to be the two chiefest and most divine of all human
blessings, it may not be unseasonable to consider whether Love be
inferior in power to any other of the Gods. For, according to Sophocles,
Great is the puissance of the Cyprian Queen,
And great the honor which her triumphs win.[96]
Great is also the dominion of Mars; and indeed we see the power of all
the rest of the Gods divided in some measure between these two,—the one
being most naturally allied to the beautiful, the other most mighty in
the resistance of evil, and both being originally bred in the soul, as
Plato says of his ideas.
Now then let us consider, the venereal delight is a thing that may
be purchased for a drachm, and there is no man that ever underwent
any pain or danger for the sake of venereal enjoyments, unless he
were inflamed with the fires of love. Insomuch, that not to mention
such courtesans as either Phryne or Lais, we find that the harlot
Gnathaenion,
By lanthorn-light, at evening late,
Waiting and calling for some mate,
is often passed by and neglected;
But if some spirit blow the fire,
Kindled by love’s extreme desire,
this makes the pleasure equally esteemed and valued with the treasures
of Tantalus and all his vast dominions. So faint and so soon cloyed is
venereal desire, unless rendered grateful by the charms and inspiration
of love. Which is more evidently confirmed by this; for that many men
admit others to partake of their venereal pleasures, prostituting not
only their mistresses and concubines, but also their own wives, to the
embraces of their friends; as it is reported of the Roman Gabba, who
inviting Maecenas to his house, and perceiving him winking and nodding
upon his wife, turned away his head upon his pillow, as if he had been
asleep, while they dallied together; yet at the same time, when one of
the servants came creeping out of the next room, to steal a bottle of
wine from the cupboard, presently turning about with his eyes open,
Varlet, said he, ’tis only to pleasure Maecenas that I sleep. But this
perhaps is not so strange, considering that Gabba was a low buffoon.
At Argos there was a great animosity between Nicostratus and Phayllus,
so that they always opposed each other and quarrelled at the
council-board. Now when King Philip made a visit to that city, Phayllus
bethought himself, that he could not miss the highest preferment the
government could afford, if he could but oblige the king with the
company of his wife, who was both beautiful and young. Nicostratus,
smelling this design, walked to and fro before Phayllus’s house with
some of his servants, to observe who went in and out. They had not
stayed long, but out came Phayllus’s wife, whom he had dressed up in
high shoes, with a mantle and cap after the Macedonian fashion, like
one of the king’s pages, in which disguise she secretly passed in
to the king’s lodgings. Since then there ever were and still are so
many lovers, did you ever know of any one that ever prostituted his
particular male friend, though it were to gain the honors ascribed to
Jupiter himself? Truly, I believe there never was any such. For why?
There never was any one that would pretend to oppose and contend with
a tyrant; but there are many rivals and competitors, that will quarrel
and fight for boys that are beautiful and in the prime of their years.
It is reported of Aristogiton the Athenian, Antileon of Metapontum,
and Melanippus of Agrigentum, that they never contested with tyrants,
though they wasted and ruined the commonwealth and indulged the
impetuosity of their lust, until they found them attempting their own
male concubines: then they withstood them with the utmost peril of
their lives, as if they had been to defend their temples and their most
sacred sanctuaries. Alexander also is said to have sent to Theodorus,
the brother of Proteas, in these words: Send me that musical girl
that plays and sings so well, and take ten talents for her, unless
thou lovest her thyself. Another time, when one of his minions,
Antipatridas, came to be jovial with him, and brought a minstrel in
his company to complete the mirth, being greatly affected with the
girl’s playing and singing, he asked Antipatridas whether he had any
extraordinary kindness for her? He answered, that he loved her as
his eyes. Then all the plagues of mankind light upon thee, quoth the
prince. However, he would not so much as touch the girl.
17. Consider also what vast power love has over martial men and
warriors, not slothful, as Euripides[97] will have it to be, nor
unwarlike, nor