For the love of the Graces, tell me, said Daphnaeus, is it not a thing
altogether as much savoring of divinity, that a man who contemns all
other things, not only his friends and familiar acquaintance, but also
the laws, the magistrates, even kings and princes themselves, who
fears nothing, is astonished at nothing, cares for nothing, but thinks
himself able to defy the “barbed lightning,”[103] yet, so soon as he
beholds the object of his burning love,
As dunghill cravens, by a sudden blow,
Hang their loose wings with little list to crow,
should presently lose all his prowess, and that all his bravery should
fail him, as if his heart were quite sunk to the bottom of his body?
And it were not impertinent to make mention of Sappho here among
the Muses. For the Romans report in their stories that Cacus, the
son of Vulcan, vomited fire and flames out of his mouth. And indeed
Sappho speaks as if her words were mixed with fire, and in her verses
plainly discovers the violent heat of her heart, according to that of
Philoxenus,
Seeking for cure of love-inflicted wounds,
From pleasing numbers and melodious sounds.
And here, Daphnaeus, if the love of Lysandra have not buried in
oblivion your former sportive dalliances, I would desire you to call
to mind and oblige us with the repetition of those elegant raptures of
Sappho, wherein she tells us how that, when the person beloved by her
appeared, her speech forsook her, her body was all over in a sweat; how
she grew pale and wan, and was surprised with a sudden trembling and
dizziness. To this Daphnaeus consented; and so soon as he had recited
the verses, said my father: So Jupiter help me, is not this an apparent
seizure of something more than human upon the soul? Can this be other
than some celestial rapture of the mind? What do we find equal to it in
the Pythian prophetess, when she sits upon the tripod? Where do we find
the flutes which are used in the Bacchanalian orgies, or the tabors
played upon in the ceremonies of the Mother of the Gods, rouse up such
noble transports among that fanatic sort of enthusiasts? Many there
are that behold the same body and the same beauty, but the lover only
admires and is ravished with it. And what is the reason, do ye think?
For we do not perceive or understand it from Menander, when he says:
’Tis the occasion that infects the heart,
For only he that’s wounded feels the smart.
But it is the God of Love that gives the occasion, seizing upon some,
and letting others go free. What therefore had been more seasonable
for me to have spoken before, since it is now chopped into my mouth
(as Aeschylus says), I think I will not even now let go, as being a
matter of great importance. For it may be, my dear friend, there is
not any thing in the world which was not made perceptible by sense,
but what gained credit and authority at the first either from fables,
or from the law, or else from rational discourse. And therefore poets,
lawgivers, and in the third place philosophers, were all along the
first that instructed and confirmed us in our opinion of the Gods.
For all agree that there are Gods; but concerning their number, their
order, their essence and power, they vastly differ one among another.
For the philosophers’ Deities are subject neither to age nor diseases,
neither do they undergo any labor or pain,
Exempted from the noise and hurry
Of busy Acherontic ferry.
And therefore they will not admit poetical Deities, like Strife and
Prayers;[104] nor will they acknowledge Fear and Terror to be Gods or
the sons of Mars. They also differ from the lawgivers in many things.
Thus Xenophanes told the Egyptians not to worship Osiris as a God if
they thought him to be mortal, and if they thought him to be a God
not to bewail him. Then again, the poets and lawgivers vary from the
philosophers, and will not so much as hear them, while they deify
certain ideas, numbers, unities, and spirits; such is the wild variety
and vast difference of opinions among this sort of people. Therefore,
as there were at Athens the three factions of the Parali, Epacrii, and
Pedieis, that could never agree but were always at variance one with
another, yet when they were assembled, gave their suffrages unanimously
for Solon, and chose him with one consent for their peacemaker,
governor, and lawgiver, as to whom the highest reward of virtue was,
without all doubt or question, due; so the three different sects or
factions in reference to the Gods, in giving their opinions some for
one and some for another, as being by no means willing to subscribe
one to another, are all positive in their consent as to the God of
Love. Him the most famous of the poets, and the numerous acclamations
of the philosophers and lawgivers, have enrolled in the catalogue of
the Gods “with loud praises and harmonious acclaim,” as Alcaeus says
of the Mitylenaeans when they chose Pittacus for their prince. So
Hesiod, Plato, and Solon bring forth Cupid out of Helicon, and conduct
him in pomp and state into the Academy, to be our king, governor, and
director, drawn in by friendship and intercourse with all their pairs
of horses,—not the friendship which, as Euripides says, is