ON LOVE.

FLAVIANUS AND AUTOBULUS, THE OPENERS OF THE DIALOGUE,

ARE BROTHERS. THE OTHER SPEAKERS ARE THEIR FATHER,

DAPHNAEUS, PROTOGENES, PISIAS, AND OTHERS.

I. _Flavianus._--You say that it was on Mount Helicon, Autobulus, that

those conversations took place about Love, which you are now about to

narrate to us at our request, as you either wrote them down, or at least

remember them from frequently asking our father about them.

_Autobulus._--It was on Mount Helicon among the Muses, Flavianus, when

the people of Thespiae were celebrating their Festival to the God of

Love, which they celebrate very magnificently and splendidly every five

years to that God, as also to the Muses.

_Flavianus._--Do you know what all of us who have come to this audience

intend to ask of you?

_Autobulus._--No, but I shall know if you tell me.

_Flavianus._--Remove from your discourse for this once the poet's

meadows and shades, and talk about ivy and yews, and all other

commonplaces of that kind that writers love to introduce, with more zeal

than discretion, in imitation of Plato's Ilissus and the famous willow

and the gentle slope of grass.[62]

_Autobulus._--My dear Flavianus, my narrative needs not any such

exordium. The occasion that caused the conversation simply demands a

chorus for the action and a stage, nothing else is wanting to the drama,

let us only pray to the Mother of the Muses to be propitious, and give

me memory for my narrative.

Sec. II. Long ago our father, before we were born, having lately married

our mother, had gone to sacrifice to the God of Love, in consequence of

a dispute and variance that broke out among their parents, and took our

mother to the Festival, for she also had her part in the vow and

sacrifice. Some of their intimate friends journeyed with them from the

town where they lived, and when they got to Thespiae they found there

Daphnaeus the son of Archidamus, a lover of Lysandra the daughter of

Simo, and of all her suitors the one who stood highest in her favour,

and Soclarus the son of Aristio, who had come from Tithorea. And there

were there also Protogenes of Tarsus, and Zeuxippus from Sparta,

strangers, and my father said most of the most notable Boeotians were

there also. For two or three days they went about the town in one

another's company, as it was likely they would do, quietly carrying on

philosophical discussions in the wrestling-schools and theatres: after

that, to avoid a wearisome contest of harpers, decided beforehand by

canvassing and cabal, most broke up their camp as if they had been in a

hostile country, and removed to Mount Helicon, and bivouacked there with

the Muses. In the morning they were visited by Anthemion and Pisias,

both men of good repute, and very great friends of Baccho, who was

surnamed the Handsome, and also rivals of one another somewhat through

their affection for him. Now you must know that there was at Thespiae a

lady called Ismenodora, famous for her wealth and good family, and of

uncommon good repute for her virtuous life: for she had been a widow

some time without a breath of slander lighting upon her, though she was

young and good-looking. As Baccho was the son of a friend and crony of

hers, she had tried to bring about a marriage between him and a maiden

who was her own relation, but by frequently being in his company and

talking to him she had got rather smitten with him herself. And hearing

much in his favour, and often talking about him, and seeing that many

noble young men were in love with him, she fell violently in love with

him, and, being resolved to do nothing unbecoming to her fair fame,

determined to marry and live openly with him. And the matter seeming in

itself rather odd, Baccho's mother looked rather askance at the proposed

matrimonial alliance as being too high and splendid for her son, while

some of his companions who used to go out hunting with him, frightening

him and flouting him with Ismenodora's being rather too old for him,

really did more to break off the match than those who seriously opposed

it. And Baccho, being only a youth, somehow felt a little ashamed at the

idea of marrying a widow, but, neglecting the opinions of everybody

else, he submitted the decision as to the expediency of the marriage to

Pisias and Anthemion, the latter being his cousin, though older than

him, and the former the gravest[63] of his lovers. Pisias objected to

the marriage, and upbraided Anthemion with throwing the youth away on

Ismenodora. Anthemion replied that it was not well in Pisias, being a

good fellow in other respects, to imitate depraved lovers by shutting

out his friend from house and marriage and wealth, merely that he might

enjoy the sight of him as long as possible naked and in all his virgin

bloom at the wrestling-schools.

Sec. III. To avoid getting estranged by provoking one another on the

question, they came and chose our father and his companions as umpires

on the matter. And of the other friends, as if by concerted arrangement,

Daphnaeus espoused the view of Anthemion, and Protogenes the view of

Pisias. And Protogenes inveighing somewhat too freely against

Ismenodora, Daphnaeus took him up and said, "Hercules, what are we not to

expect, if Protogenes is going to be hostile to love? he whose whole

life, whether in work or at play, has been devoted to love, in

forgetfulness of letters, in forgetfulness of his country, not like

Laius, away from his country only five days, his was only a torpid and

land love: whereas your love 'unfolding its swift wings,' flew over the

sea from Cilicia to Athens, merely to gaze at and saunter about with

handsome boys. For that was the original reason, doubtless, of

Protogenes' journey abroad."

Sec. IV. And some laughter ensuing, Protogenes replied, "Do I really seem

to you now to be hostile to love, and not to be fighting for love

against ungovernable lust, which with most disgraceful acts and emotions

assumes the most honourable of titles?" Whereupon Daphnaeus, "Do you call

the marriage and union of man and woman most disgraceful, than which no

holier tie exists nor ever did?" Protogenes replied, "Why, as all this

is necessary for the human race to continue, our legislators do not act

amiss in crying up marriage and eulogizing it to the masses, but of

genuine love there is not a particle in the woman's side of a house;[64]

and I also say that you who are sweet on women and girls only love them

as flies love milk, and bees the honey-comb, and butchers and cooks

calves and birds, fattening them up in darkness.[65] But as nature leads

one to eat and drink moderately and sufficiently, and excess in this is

called gluttony and gormandizing, so the mutual desires between men and

women are natural; but that headlong, violent, and uncontrollable

passion for the sex is not rightly called love. For love, when it seizes

a noble and young soul, ends in virtue through friendship; but these

violent passions for women, at the best, aim only at carnal enjoyment

and reaping the harvest of a beauteous prime, as Aristippus showed in

his answer to one who told him Lais loved him not, 'No more,' he said,

'do meat and wine love me, but I gladly enjoy both.'[66] For the end of

passion is pleasure and fruition: but love, when it has once lost the

promise of friendship, will not remain and continue to cherish merely

for beauty that which gives it pain, where it gives no return of

friendship and virtue. You remember the husband in the play saying to

his wife, 'Do you hate me? I can bear that hatred very easily, since of

my dishonour I make money.' Not a whit more really in love than this

husband is the one, who, not for gain but merely for the sexual

appetite, puts up with a peevish and unsympathetic wife, as Philippides,

the comic poet, ridiculed the orator, Stratocles, 'You scarce can kiss

her if she turns her back on you.' If, however, we ought to give the

name of love to this passion, then is it an effeminate and bastard love,

and like at Cynosarges,[67] taking us to the woman's side of the house:

or rather as they say there is a genuine mountain eagle, which Homer

called 'black, and a bird of prey,' and there are other kinds of

spurious eagles, which catch fish and lazy birds in marshes, and often

in want of food emit an hungry wail: so the genuine love is the love of

boys, a love not 'flashing with desire,' as Anacreon said the love of

maidens was, nor 'redolent of ointment and sprightly,' but you will see

it plain and without airs in the schools of the philosophers, or perhaps

in the gymnasiums and wrestling-schools, keenly and nobly pursuing

youths, and urging on to virtue those who are well worthy of attention:

but that soft and stay-at-home love, spending all its time in women's

bosoms and beds, always pursuing effeminate delights, and enervated by

unmanly, unfriendly, and unimpassioned pleasures, we ought to condemn as

Solon condemned it: for he forbade slaves to love boys or to anoint them

with oil, while he allowed them to associate with women. For friendship

is noble and refined, whereas pleasure is vulgar and illiberal.

Therefore, for a slave to love boys is neither liberal or refined: for

it is merely the love of copulation, as the love of women."

Sec. V. Protogenes was intending to go on at greater length, when Daphnaeus

stopped him and said, "You do well, by Zeus, to mention Solon, and we

too may use him as the test of an amorous man. Does he not define such a

one in the lines, 'As long as you love boys in the glorious flower of

their youth for their kisses and embraces.' And add to Solon the lines

of AEschylus, 'You did not disdain the honour of the thighs, O thankless

one after all my frequent kisses.'[68] For some laugh at them if they

bid lovers, like sacrificing priests and seers, to inspect thighs and

loins; but I think this a mighty argument in behalf of the love of

women. For if the unnatural commerce with males does not take away or

mar the amorous propensity, much more likely is it that the natural love

of women will end in friendship after the favour. For, Protogenes, the

yielding of the female to the male was called by the ancients the

favour. Thus Pindar says Hephaestus was the son of Hera 'without any

favours':[69] and Sappho, addressing a girl not yet ripe for marriage,

says to her, 'You seemed to me a little girl, too young for the favour.'

And someone asks Hercules, 'Did you obtain the girl's favour by force or

by persuasion?' But the love of males for males, whether rape or

voluntary--pathicks effeminately submitting, to use Plato's words, 'to

be treated bestially'--is altogether a foul and unlovely favour. And so

I think Solon wrote the lines quoted above 'in his hot youth,' as Plato

puts it; but when he became older wrote these other lines, 'Now I

delight in Cyprus-born Aphrodite, and in Dionysus, and in the Muses: all

these give joys to men': as if, after the heat and tempest of his boyish

loves, he had got into a quiet haven of marriage and philosophy. But

indeed, Protogenes, if we look at the real facts of the case, the love

for boys and women is really one and the same passion: but if you wish

in a disputatious spirit to make any distinction, you will find that

this boy-love goes beyond all bounds, and, like some late-born and

ill-begotten bastard brat, seeks to expel its legitimate brother the

older love, the love of women. For indeed, friend, it is only yesterday

or the day before, since the strippings and exposures of the youths in

the gymnasiums, that this boy-love crept in, and gently insinuated

itself and got a footing, and at last in a little time got fully-fledged

in the wrestling-schools, and has now got fairly unbearable, and insults

and tramples on conjugal love, that love that gives immortality to our

mortal race, when our nature has been extinguished by death, kindling it

again by new births. And this boy-love denies that pleasure is its aim:

for it is ashamed and afraid to confess the truth: but it needs some

specious excuse for the liberties it takes with handsome boys in their

prime: the pretext is friendship and virtue. So your boy-lover wallows

in the dust, bathes in cold water, raises his eyebrows, gives himself

out for a philosopher, and lives chaste abroad because of the law: but

in the stillness of night

'Sweet is the ripe fruit when the guard's withdrawn.'[70]

But if, as Protogenes says, there is no carnal intercourse in these

boy-familiarities, how is it Love, if Aphrodite is not present, whom it

is the destiny of Love to cherish and pay court to, and to partake of

just as much honour and power as she assigns to him? But if there is any

Love without Aphrodite, as there is drunkenness without wine in drinks

made from figs and barley, the disturbing it will be fruitless and

without effect, and surfeiting and disgusting."

Sec. VI. At the conclusion of this speech, it was clear that Pisias was

vexed and indignant with Daphnaeus; and after a moment's silence he

began: "O Hercules! what levity and audacity for men to state that they

are tied to women as dogs to bitches, and to banish the god of Love from

the gymnasiums and public walks, and light of day and open intercourse,

and to restrict him to brothels[71] and philtres and incantations of

wanton women: for to chaste women, I am sure, it belongs not either to

love or be loved." At this point our father told me he interposed, and

took Protogenes by the hand, and said to him:

"'This word of yours rouses the Argive host,'

and of a verity Pisias makes us to side with Daphnaeus by his extravagant

language, charging marriage with being a loveless intercourse, and one

that has no participation in divine friendship, although we can see that

it is an intercourse, if erotic persuasion and favour fail, that cannot

be restrained by shame and fear as by bit and bridle." Thereupon Pisias

said, "I care little about his arguments; but I see that Daphnaeus is in

the same condition as brass: for, just as it is not worked upon so much

by the agency of fire as by the molten and liquid brass fused with it,

so is he not so much captivated by the beauty of Lysandra as by his

association with one who is the victim of the gentle passion; and it is

plain that, if he doesn't take refuge with us, he will soon melt away

in the flame altogether. But I see, what Anthemion would very much like,

that I am offending the Court, so I stop." "You amuse us," said

Anthemion: "but you ought from the first to have spoken to the point."

Sec. VII. "I say then," continued Pisias, "and give it out boldly, as far

as I am concerned, let every woman have a lover; but we ought to guard

against giving the wealth of Ismenodora to Baccho, lest, if we involve

him in so much grandeur and magnificence, we unwittingly lose him in it,

as tin is lost in brass. For if the lad were to marry quite a plain and

insignificant woman, it would be great odds whether he would keep the

upper hand, as wine mixed with water; and Ismenodora seems already

marked out for sway and command; for otherwise she would not have

rejected such illustrious and wealthy suitors to woo a lad hardly yet

arrived at man's estate, and almost requiring a tutor still. And

therefore men of sense prune the excessive wealth of their wives, as if

it had wings that required clipping; for this same wealth implants in

them luxury, caprice, and vanity, by which they are often elated and fly

away altogether: but if they remain, it would be better to be bound by

golden fetters, as in Ethiopia, than to a woman's wealth."

Sec. VIII. Here Protogenes put in, "You say nothing about the risk we run

of unseasonably and ridiculously reversing the well-known advice of

Hesiod:

'If seasonable marriage you would make,

Let about thirty be the bridegroom's age,

The bride be in the fifth year of her womanhood:'[72]

if we thus marry a lad hardly old enough for marriage to a woman so many

years older, than himself, as dates and figs are forced. You will say

she loves him passionately: who prevents her, then, from serenading at

his doors, singing her amorous ditty, putting garlands on his statues,

and wrestling and boxing with her rivals in his affections? For all

these are what people in love do. And let her lower her eyebrows, and

give up the airs of a coquette, and assume the appearance of those that

are deeply smitten. But if she is modest and chaste, let her decorously

stay at home and await there her lovers and sweethearts; for any

sensible man would be disgusted and flee from a woman who took the

initiative in love, far less would he be likely to marry her after such

a barefaced wooing."

Sec. IX. When Protogenes had done speaking, my father said, "Do you see,

Anthemion, that they force us to intervene again, who have no objection

to dance in the retinue of conjugal Love?" "I do," said Anthemion, "but

pray defend Love at some length, as you are on his side, and moreover

come to the rescue of wealth,[73] with which Pisias seeks to scare us."

Thereupon my father began, "What on earth will not be brought as a

charge against a woman, if we are to reject Ismenodora because she is in

love and has money? Granted she loves sway and is rich? What then, if

she is young and handsome? And what if she plumes herself somewhat on

the lustre of her race? Have not chaste women often something of the

morose and peevish in their character almost past bearing? Do they not

sometimes get called waspish and shrewish by virtue of their very

chastity? Would it be best then to marry off the street some Thracian

Abrotonus, or some Milesian Bacchis, and seal the bargain by the present

of a handful of nuts? But we have known even such turn out intolerable

tyrants, Syrian flute-girls and ballet-dancers, as Aristonica, and

Oenanthe with her tambourine, and Agathoclea, who have lorded it over

kings' diadems.[74] Why Syrian Semiramis was only the servant and

concubine of one of king Ninus's slaves, till Ninus the great king

seeing and falling in love with her, she got such power over him that

she thought so cheap of him, that she asked to be allowed one day to sit

on the royal throne, with the royal diadem on her head, and to transact

state affairs. And Ninus having granted her permission, and having

ordered all his subjects to obey her as himself, she first gave several

very moderate orders to make trial of the guards; but when she saw that

they obeyed her without the slightest hesitation, she ordered them to

seize Ninus and put him in fetters, and at last put him to death; and

all her commands being obeyed, she ruled over Asia for a long time with

great lustre. And was not Belestiche a foreign woman off the streets,

although at Alexandria she has shrines and temples, with an inscription

as Aphrodite Belestiche, which she owes to the king's love? And she who

has in this very town[75] a temple and rites in common with Eros, and at

Delphi stands in gold among kings and queens, by what dowry got she her

lovers? But just as the lovers of Semiramis, Belestiche, and Phryne,

became their prey unconsciously through their weakness and effeminacy,

so on the other hand poor and obscure men, having contracted alliances

with rich women of rank, have not been thereby spoilt nor merged their

personality, but have lived with their wives on a footing of kindness,

yet still kept their position as heads of the house. But he that abases

his wife and makes her small, like one who tightens the ring on a finger

too small for it fearing it will come off,[76] is like those who cut

their mares' tails off and then take them to a river or pond to drink,

when they say that sorrowfully discerning their loss of beauty these

mares lose their self-respect and allow themselves to be covered by

asses.[77] To select a wife for wealth rather than for her excellence or

family is dishonourable and illiberal; but it is silly to reject wealth

when it is accompanied by excellence and family. Antigonus indeed wrote

to his officer who had garrisoned Munychia[78] to make not only the

collar strong but the dog lean, that he might undermine the strength of

the Athenians; but it becomes not the husband of a rich or handsome

woman to make his wife poor or ugly, but by his self-control and good

sense, and by not too extravagantly showing his admiration for her, to

exhibit himself as her equal not her slave, and (to borrow an

illustration from the scales) to add just so much weight to his

character as shall over-balance her, yet only just. Moreover, both

Ismenodora and Baccho are of a suitable age for marriage and procreation

of children; Ismenodora, I hear, is still in her prime, and" (here my

father smiled slily at Pisias) "she is certainly not a bit older than

her rivals, and has no grey hairs, as some of those who consort with

Baccho have. And if their union is seasonable, who knows but that she

may be a better partner for him than any young woman? For young couples

do not blend and mix well together, and it takes a long time and is not

an easy process for them to divest themselves of their pride and spirit,

and at first there's a good deal of dirty weather and they don't pull

well together, and this is oftenest the case when there's love on both

sides, and, just as a storm wrecks the ship if no pilot is on board, so

their marriage is trouble and confusion, neither party knowing how

either to rule or to give way properly. And if the baby is under the

nurse, and the boy under the master, and the lad under the master of the

gymnasium, and the youth under his lover, and the full-grown man under

the law and magistrate, and no one is his own master and exempt from

obedience to someone, what wonder would it be if a sensible woman rather

older than her husband would direct well the life of a young man, being

useful to him by reason of her superior wisdom, and acceptable to him

for her sweetness and gentleness? And to sum up the whole matter," said

he, "we Boeotians ought to revere Hercules, and so find no fault in any

inequality of age in marriages, seeing that he gave his own wife Megara

in marriage to Iolaus, though he was only sixteen and she

three-and-thirty."[79]

Sec. X. As the conversation was going on, our father said that a friend of

Pisias came galloping up from the town to report an act of marvellous

audacity. Ismenodora, it appears, thinking Baccho had no personal

dislike to the match, but only stood in awe of his friends who tried to

dissuade him from it, determined that she would not let the young fellow

slip through her fingers. Accordingly, she sent for the most active and

intimate[80] of her male friends, and for some of her female cronies,

and instructed them as to what part they should play, and waited for the

hour when Baccho was accustomed regularly to pass by her house on his

way to the wrestling-school. And as he passed by on this occasion with

two or three of his companions, anointed for the exercise, Ismenodora

met him at the door and just touched his cloak, and her friends rushed

out all together and prettily seized the pretty fellow as he was in his

cloak and jersey,[81] and hurried him into the house and at once locked

the doors. And the women inside at once divested him of his cloak and

put on him a bridal robe; and the servants ran about the town and put

olive wreaths and laurel garlands at the doors of Baccho's house as well

as Ismenodora's, and a flute-girl went up and down the street playing

and singing the wedding-song. And some of the inhabitants of Thespiae and

the strangers laughed, others were indignant and tried to make the

superintendents of the gymnasium move in the matter, for they have great

power in Thespiae over the youths, and pay great attention to their

actions. And now there was no more talk about the sports, but everyone

left the theatre for the neighbourhood of Ismenodora's house, and there

stood in groups talking and disputing about what had happened.

Sec. XI. Now when Pisias' friend had come up like an _aide-de-camp_ in war,

"bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste," to report this news that

Ismenodora had seized Baccho, my father said that Zeuxippus smiled, and

being a great lover of Euripides repeated the line,

"Lady, though rich, thou hast thy sex's feelings."

But Pisias jumped up and cried out, "Ye gods, what will be the end of

license like this which will overthrow our town? Already we are fast

tending to lawlessness through our independence. And yet it is perhaps

ridiculous to be indignant about law and justice, when nature itself is

trampled upon by being thus subjected to women? Saw even Lemnos ever the

like of this?[82] Let us go," he continued, "let us go and hand over to

the women the gymnasium and council-hall, if the townsmen have lost all

their nerve." Pisias then left the company, and Protogenes went with

him, partly sympathizing with his indignation, but still endeavouring to

cool him. And Anthemion said, "'Twas a bold deed and certainly does

savour somewhat of Lemnos--I own it now we are alone--this Ismenodora

must be most violently in love." Hereupon Soclarus said, with a sly

smile, "You don't think then that this rape and detention was an excuse

and stratagem on the part of a wily young man to escape from the

clutches of his lovers, and fly of his own volition to the arms of a

rich and handsome widow?" "Pray don't say so, Soclarus," said Anthemion,

"pray don't entertain any such suspicions of Baccho, for even if he were

not by nature most simple and naive, he would not have concealed the

matter from me to whom he divulges all his secrets, especially as he

knows that I have always been very anxious he should marry Ismenodora.

But as Heraclitus says truly, It is more difficult to control love than

anger; for whatever love has a fancy to, it will buy even at the cost of

life, money, and reputation. Who lives a more quiet life in our town

than Ismenodora? When did ever any ugly rumour attach itself to her?

When did ever any breath of suspicion sully her house? Some divine

inspiration, beyond human calculation, seems now to have possessed her."

Sec. XII. Then Pemptides laughed and said, "Of course you know that there

is a certain disease of the body called the sacred disease.[83] It is no

wonder, therefore, if some call the greatest and most insane passion of

the soul sacred and divine. However, as in Egypt I once saw two

neighbours disputing when a serpent passed by them on the road, both

calling it a good omen, but each claiming the blessing as his alone; so

seeing lately that some of you drag Love to the men's apartments, while

others confine it to the women's side of the house, while all of you

regard it as a divine and superlative blessing, I do not wonder, since

it is a passion that has such power and honour, that those who ought to

banish it from every quarter and clip its wings do themselves add to its

influence and power. And hitherto I held my peace, for I saw that the

discussion turned rather on private than public interests, but now that

we have got rid of Pisias, I would gladly hear from you to what they had

an eye who first called Love a god."

Sec. XIII. Just as Pemptides had left off, and our father was about to

answer his question, another messenger came from the town, sent by

Ismenodora to summon Anthemion, for the tumult had increased, and there

was a difference of opinion between the superintendents of the

gymnasium, one thinking they ought to demand the liberation of Baccho,

the other thinking they ought not to interfere. Anthemion got up at once

and went off. And our father, addressing Pemptides especially, said,

"You seem to me, my dear Pemptides, to be handling a great and bold

matter, or rather to be discussing things that ought not to be

discussed, in asking for a reason in each case for our opinion about the

gods. Our ancient and hereditary faith is sufficient, a better argument

than which we cannot either utter or find,

'Not e'en if wisdom in our brains resides;'[84]

but if this common foundation and basis of all piety be disturbed, and

its stability and time-honoured ideas be unsettled, it becomes

undermined and is suspected by everybody. You have heard, of course,

what hot water Euripides got into, when he wrote at the beginning of his

'Melanippe,'

'Zeus, whosoe'er he is, I do not know

Except by hearsay,'[85]

but if he changed the opening line, he had confidence, it seems, that

his play would go down with the public uncommonly well,[86] so he

altered it into

'Zeus the divine, as he is truly called.'[87]

And what difference is there between calling in question the received

opinion about Zeus or Athene, and that about Love? For it is not now for

the first time that Love asks for an altar and sacrifices, nor is he a

strange god introduced by foreign superstition, as some Attis or Adonis,

furtively smuggled in by hermaphrodites and women, and secretly

receiving honours not his own, to avoid an indictment among the gods for

coming among them under false pretences. And when, my friend, you hear

the words of Empedocles,

'Friendship is there too, of same length and breadth,

But with the mind's eye only can you see it,

Till with the sight your very soul is thralled,'

you must suppose that they refer to Love. For this god is invisible, but

to be extolled by us as one of the very oldest gods. And if you demand

proofs about every one of the gods, laying a profane hand on every

temple, and bringing a learned doubt to every altar, you will scrutinize

and pry into everything. But we need not go far to find Love's pedigree.

'See you how great a goddess Aphrodite is?

She 'tis that gave us and engendered Love,

Whereof come all that on the earth do live.'[88]

And so Empedocles calls Aphrodite _Life-giving_,[89] and Sophocles calls

her _Fruitful_, both very appropriate epithets. And though the wonderful

act of generation belongs to Aphrodite only, and Love is only present in

it as a subordinate, yet if he be absent the whole affair becomes

undesirable, and low, and tame. For a loveless coition brings only

satiety, as the satisfaction of hunger and thirst, and has nothing noble

resulting from it, whereas by Love Aphrodite removes the cloying element

in pleasure, and produces harmonious friendship. And so Parmenides

declares Love to be the oldest of the creations of Aphrodite, writing in

his Cosmogony,

'Of all the gods first Love she did contrive.'

But Hesiod, more naturally in my opinion, makes Love the most ancient of

all, so that all things derive their existence from him.[90] If we then

deprive Love of his ancient honours, those of Aphrodite will be lost

also. For we cannot argue that, while some revile Love, all spare

Aphrodite, for on the same stage we hear of Love,

'Love is an idle thing and for the idle:'[91]

and again of Aphrodite,

'Cypris, my boys, is not her only name,

For many names has she. She is a hell,

A power remorseless, nay a raging madness.'[92]

Just as in the case of the other gods there is hardly one that has not

been reviled, or escaped the scurrility of ignorance. Look, for example,

at Ares, who may be considered as it were the counterpart of Love, what

honours he has received from men, and again what abuse, as

'Ares is blind, ye women, has no eyes,

And with his pig's snout roots up all good things.'[93]

And Homer calls him 'blood-stained' and 'fickle.'[94] And Chrysippus

brings a grievous charge against him, in defining his name to mean

destroyer,[95] thereby giving a handle to those who think that Ares is

only the fighting, wrangling, and quarrelsome instinct among mankind.

Others again will tell us that Aphrodite is simply desire, and Hermes

eloquence, and the Muses the arts and sciences, and Athene wisdom. You

see what an abyss of impiety opens up before us, if we describe each of

the gods, as only a passion, a power, or a virtue!"

Sec. XIV. "I see it," said Pemptides, "and it is impious either to make the

gods passions, or to do just the contrary, and make the passions gods."

"What then?" said my father, "do you consider Ares a god, or only a

human passion?" And Pemptides, answering that he looked on Ares as god

of the passionate and manly element in mankind, "What," cried my father,

"shall the passionate and warlike and antagonistic instincts in man have

a god, but the affectionate and social and clubable have none? Shall

Ares, under his names of Enyalius and Stratius, preside over arms and

war and sieges and sacks of cities, and shall there be no god to witness

and preside over, to direct and guide, conjugal affection, that

friendship of closest union and communion? Why even those who hunt

gazelles and hares and deer have a silvan deity who harks and halloos

them on, for to Aristaeus[96] they pay their vows when in pitfalls and

snares they trap wolves and bears,

'For Aristaeus first set traps for animals.'

And Hercules invoked another god, when he was about to shoot at the

bird, as the line of AEschylus shows,

'Hunter Apollo, make my bolt go straight!'[97]

And shall no god or good genius assist and prosper the man who hunts in

the best chase of all, the chase of friendship? For I cannot for my

part, my dear Daphnaeus, consider man a less beautiful or important plant

than the oak, or sacred olive, or the vine which Homer glorifies,[98]

seeing that man too has his growth and glorious prime alike of soul and

body."

Sec. XV. Then said Daphnaeus, "In the name of the gods, who thinks

differently?" "All those certainly must," answered my father, "who think

that the gods care only about ploughing and planting and sowing. Have

they not Nymphs attending upon them, called Dryads, 'whose age is coeval

with the trees they live in: and Dionysus the mirth-giving does he not

increase the yield of the trees, the sacred splendour of Autumn,' as

Pindar says?[99] And if they care about all this, is there no god or

genius who is interested in the nurture and growth of boys and youths in

all their glorious flower? is there no one that cares that the growing

man may be upright and virtuous, and that the nobility of his nature may

not be warped and corrupted, either through want of a guardian or by the

depravity of those he associates with? Is it not monstrous and thankless

to say so, seeing that we enjoy the divine bounty, which is dealt out to

us richly, and never abandons us in our straits? And yet some of these

same straits have more necessity than beauty. For example, our birth, in

spite of the unpleasant circumstances attending it, is witnessed by the

divine Ilithyia and Artemis: and it would be better not to be born at

all than to become bad through want of a good guardian and guide.

Moreover in sickness the god who is over that province does not desert

us, nor even in death: for even then there is a conductor and guide for

the departed, to lay them to sleep, and convey their souls to

Hades,[100] as the poet says,

'Night bore me not to be lord of the lyre,

Nor to be seer, or healer of diseases,

But to conduct the souls of the departed.'

And yet these duties involve much unpleasantness, whereas we cannot

mention a holier work, nor any struggle or contest more fitting for a

god to attend and play the umpire in, than the guidance of the young and

beautiful in the prosecution of their love-affairs. For there is here

nothing of an unpleasant nature, no compulsion of any kind, but

persuasion and grace, truly making toil sweet and labour delightful,

lead the way to virtue and friendship, and do not arrive at that desired

goal without the deity, for they have as their leader and lord no other

god than Love, the companion of the Muses and Graces and Aphrodite. For

Love 'sowing in the heart of man the sweet harvest of desire,' to borrow

the language of Melanippides, mixes the sweetest and most beautiful

things together. But perhaps you are of a different opinion, Zeuxippus."

Sec. XVI. "Not I, by Zeus," replied Zeuxippus. "To have a different opinion

would be ridiculous." "Then," continued my father, "is it not also

ridiculous, if there are four kinds of friendship, for so the ancients

distinguished, the natural first, the second that to one's kindred, the

third that to one's companions, the fourth the friendship of love, and

each of the first three have a god as patron, either a god of

friendship, or a god of hospitality, or a god of the family, or a god of

the race,[101] whereas the friendship of love only, as something

altogether unholy, is left without any patron god, and that, too, when

it needs most of all attentive direction?" "It is," said Zeuxippus,

"highly ridiculous." My father continued, "The language of Plato is very

suggestive here, to make a slight digression. One kind of madness (he

says) is conveyed to the soul from the body through certain bad

temperaments or mixtures, or through the prevalence of some noxious

spirit, and is harsh, difficult to cure, and baneful. Another kind of

madness is not uninspired or from within, but an afflatus from without,

a deviation from sober reason, originated and set in motion by some

higher power, the ordinary characteristic of which is called enthusiasm.

For, as one full of breath is called [Greek: empnoos], and as one full

of sense is called [Greek: emphron], so the name enthusiasm is given to

the commotion of the soul caused by some Divine agency.[102] Thus there

is the prophetic enthusiasm which proceeds from Apollo, and the Bacchic

enthusiasm which comes from Dionysus, to which Sophocles alludes where

he says, 'Dance with the Corybantes;' for the rites of Cybele and Pan

have great affinities to the orgies of Bacchus. And the third madness

proceeds from the Muses, and possesses an impressionable and pure soul,

and stirs up the poetry and music in a man. As to the martial and

warlike madness, it is well known from what god it proceeds, namely,

Ares, 'kindling tearful war, that puts an end to the dance and the song,

and exciting civic strife.'[103] There remains, Daphnaeus, one more kind

of madness in man, neither obscure nor tranquil, as to which I should

like to ask Pemptides here,

'What god it is that shakes the fruitful thyrsus?'

I refer to that love-fury for modest boys and chaste women, which is

far the keenest and fiercest passion of all. For have you not observed

how the soldier, when he lays aside his arms, ceases from his warlike

fury, as the poet says,

'Then from him

Right gladly did his squires remove the armour,'[104]

and sits down a peaceful spectator of others?[105] The Bacchic and

Corybantic dances one can also modulate and quell, by changing the metre

from the trochaic and the measure from the Phrygian. Similarly, too, the

Pythian priestess, when she descends from her tripod, possesses her soul

in peace. Whereas the love-fury, when once it has really seized on a man

and inflamed him, can be laid by no Muse, no charm or incantation, no

change of place; but present they burn, absent they desire, by day they

follow their loves about, by night they serenade them, sober call for

them, and drunken sing about them. And he who said that poetic fancies,

owing to their vividness, were dreams of people awake, would have more

truly spoken so of the fancies of lovers, who, as if their loves were

present, converse with them, greet them, chide them. For sight seems to

paint all other fancies on a wet ground, so soon do they fade and recede

from the memory, but the images of lovers, painted by the fancy as it

were on encaustic tiles, leave impressions on the memory, that move, and

live, and speak, and are permanent for all time. The Roman Cato, indeed,

said that the soul of the lover resided in the soul of the loved one,

and I should extend the remark to the appearance, the character, the

life, and the actions, conducted by which he travels a long journey in a

short time, as the Cynics say they have found a short cut and, as it

were, forced march to virtue, for there is also a short cut to

friendship and love when the god is propitious. To sum up, the

enthusiasm of lovers is not a thing uninspired, and the god that guides

and governs it is none other than the god whose festival we are now

keeping, and to whom we are now sacrificing. Nevertheless, as we judge

of a god mainly from his power and usefulness (as among human advantages

we reckon and call these two the most divine, dominion and virtue), it

is high time to consider, before we proceed any further, whether Love

yields to any of the gods in power. Certainly, as Sophocles says,

'Wonderful is the power which the Cyprian Queen exerts so as always to

win the victory:'[106] great also is the might of Ares; and in some sort

we see the power of all the other gods divided among these two; for

Aphrodite has most intimate connection with the beautiful, and Ares is

in our souls from the first to combat against the sordid, to borrow the

idea of Plato. Let us consider, then, to begin with, that the venereal

delight can be purchased for six obols, and that no one ever yet put

himself into any trouble or danger about it, unless he was in love. And

not to mention here such famous courtesans as Phryne or Lais,

Gnathaenium, 'kindling her lamp at evening time,' on the look-out for

lovers and inviting them, is often passed by; 'yet, if some sudden whiff

arise' of mighty love and desire, it makes this very delight seem equal

to the fabled wealth of Tantalus and his domains. So feeble and cloying

is the venereal indulgence, if Love inspires it not. And you will see

this more plainly still from the following consideration. Many have

allowed others to share in their venereal enjoyments, prostituting not

only their mistresses but their wives, like that Roman Galba, who used

to ask Maecenas to dinner, and when he saw from his nods and winks that

he had a mind to do with his wife, turned his head gently aside as if

asleep; but when one of his slaves came up to the table and stole some

wine, his eyes were wide open enough, and he said, 'Villain, don't you

know that I am asleep only for Maecenas?'[107] But this is not perhaps so

strange, considering Galba was a buffoon. But at Argos Nicostratus and

Phayllus were great political rivals: so when King Philip visited that

city, Phayllus thought if he prostituted his wife, who was very

handsome, to the King, he would get from him some important office or

place. And Nicostratus getting wind of this, and walking about the doors

of Phayllus' house with some of his servants on the _qui vive_,

Phayllus made his wife put on men's boots, and a military cloak, and a

Macedonian broad-brimmed hat, and so smuggled her into the King, without

being detected, as one of the King's young men. But, of all the

multitude of lovers, did you ever hear of one that prostituted his

boy-love even for the honours of Zeus? I think not. Why, though no one

will generally either speak or act against tyrants, many will who find

them their rivals and are jealous about their handsome minions. You must

have heard how Aristogiton of Athens, and Antileon of Metapontum, and

Melanippus of Agrigentum, rose not against tyrants, although they saw

how badly they managed affairs, and what drunken tricks they played,

yet, when they attempted the chastity of their boy-loves, they

retaliated on them, jeoparding their lives, as if they were defending

the inviolability of temples and sanctuaries. It is also recorded that

Alexander wrote to Theodoras, the brother of Proteas, 'Send me your

singing-girl, unless you love her yourself, and I will give you ten

talents;' and when Antipatridas, one of his companions, came to revel

with him, bringing with him a female harper, he fancied the girl not a

little, and asked Antipatridas if he cared very much about her. And when

he replied that he did immensely, Alexander said, 'Plague take you,' but

nevertheless abstained from touching the girl.

Sec. XVII. "Consider also how Love excels in warlike feats, and is by no

means idle, as Euripides called him,[108] nor a carpet-knight, nor

'sleeping on a maiden's soft cheeks.'[109] For a man inspired by Love

needs not Ares to help him when he goes out as a warrior against the

enemy, but at the bidding of his own god is 'ready' for his friend 'to

go through fire and water and whirlwinds.' And in Sophocles' play,[110]

when the sons of Niobe are being shot at and dying, one of them calls

out for no helper or assister but his lover. And you know of course how

it was that Cleomachus the Pharsalian fell in battle?" "We certainly

don't," said Pemptides and those near him, "but we should very much like

to." "Well," said my father, "the tale's worth hearing. When the war

between the Eretrians and Chalcidians was at its height, Cleomachus had

come to aid the latter with a Thessalian force; and the Chalcidian

infantry seemed strong enough, but they had great difficulty in

repelling the enemy's cavalry. So they begged that high-souled hero

Cleomachus to charge the Eretrian cavalry first. And he asked his

boy-love, who was by, if he would be a spectator of the fight, and he

saying he would, and affectionately kissing him and putting his helmet

on his head, Cleomachus with a proud joy put himself at the head of the

bravest of the Thessalians, and charged the enemy's cavalry with such

impetuosity that he threw them into disorder and routed them; and the

Eretrian infantry also fleeing in consequence, the Chalcidians won a

splendid victory. However, Cleomachus got killed, and they show his tomb

in the market-place at Chalcis, over which a huge pillar stands to this

day, and whereas before that the people of Chalcis had censured

boy-loves, from that time forward they preferred that kind of love to

the normal love. Aristotle gives a slightly different account, namely,

that this Cleomachus came not from Thessaly, but from Chalcis in Thrace,

to the help of the Chalcidians in Euboea; and that that was the origin

of the song in vogue among the Chalcidians,

'Ye boys, who come of noble sires and beauteous are in face,

Grudge not to give to valiant men the joy of your embrace:

For Love that does the limbs relax combined with bravery

In the Chalcidian cities has fame that ne'er shall die.'

But according to the account of the poet Dionysius, in his

'Causes,'[111] the name of the lover was Anton, and that of the boy-love

was Philistus. And among you Thebans, Pemptides, is it not usual for the

lover to give his boy-love a complete suit of armour when he is enrolled

among the men? And did not the erotic Pammenes change the disposition of

the heavy-armed infantry, censuring Homer as knowing nothing about love,

because he drew up the Achaeans in order of battle in tribes and clans,

and did not put lover and love together, that so

'Spear should be next to spear, helmet to helmet,'[112]

seeing that Love is the only invincible general.[113] For men in battle

will leave in the lurch clansmen and friends, aye, and parents and sons,

but what warrior ever broke through or charged through lover and love,

seeing that even when there is no necessity lovers frequently display

their bravery and contempt of life. As Thero the Thessalian, who put his

left hand on a wall, and drew his sword, and chopped off his thumb, and

challenged his rival to do the same. And another in battle falling on

his face, as his enemy was about to give him the _coup-de-grace_, begged

him to wait a little till he could turn round, that his love should not

see him with a wound in his back. And not only are the most warlike

nations most amorous, as the Boeotians the Lacedaemonians and the

Cretans, but also of the old heroes, who were more amorous than

Meleager, Achilles, Aristomenes, Cimon, and Epaminondas. Why,

Epaminondas had as his boy-loves Asopichus and Cephisodorus, the latter

of whom fell with him at Mantinea, and is buried near him. As to ...,

who was most formidable and a source of terror to the enemy, Eucnamus of

Amphissa, who first stood up against him and smote him, received hero

honours from the Phocians for his exploit. And as to all the loves of

Hercules, it would take up too much time to enumerate them, but those

who think that Iolaus was one of them do up to this day worship and

honour him, and make their loves swear fidelity at his tomb. Hercules is

also said, having understood the art of healing, to have preserved the

life of Alcestis, when she was given up by the doctors, to gratify

Admetus, who passionately loved his wife, and was Hercules' minion. They

say also in legend that Apollo was enamoured of Admetus,

'And was his hired slave for one long year.'

It was a happy thought our remembering Alcestis, for though women have

not much of Ares in them, yet when possessed by Love they are bold even

to the death, beyond what one would expect from their nature. For if we

may credit legendary lore, the stories about Alcestis, and Protesilaus,

and Eurydice the wife of Orpheus, show that the only one of the gods

that Hades pays attention to is Love; although to everybody else, as

Sophocles says, "he knows of no forbearance or favour, or anything but

strict justice;" yet before lovers his genius stands rebuked, and they

alone find him neither implacable nor relentless. Wherefore although, my

friend, it is an excellent thing to be initiated in the Eleusinian

mysteries, yet I see that the votaries and initiated of Love have a

better time of it in Hades than they have, * *[114] though in regard to

legendary lore I stand in the position of one who neither altogether

believes nor altogether disbelieves. For legendary lore speaks well, and

by a certain wonderful good fortune lights upon the truth, in saying

that lovers have a return from Hades to the light of day, but it knows

not by what way or how, having as it were got benighted on the road

which Plato first discovered by philosophy. There are, indeed, some

slender and obscure particles of truth scattered about in the mythology

of the Egyptians, but they require a clever man to hunt them out, a man

capable of getting great results from small data. Wherefore let that

matter pass. And now next to the mighty power of Love let us consider

its good will and favour to mankind, I do not mean as to whether it

bestows many gifts on its votaries--that is palpable to all--but whether

they derive any further advantage from it. For Euripides, though very

amorous, admired a very small matter, when he wrote the line--

'Love teaches letters to a man unlearn'd.'[115]

For it makes one previously sluggish quick and intelligent, and, as has

been said before, it makes the coward brave, as people harden wood in

the fire and make it strong from being weak. And every lover becomes

liberal and genuine and generous, even if he was mean before, his

littleness and miserliness melting away like iron in the fire, so that

they rejoice to give to their loves more than they do to receive

themselves from others. You know of course that Anytus, the son of

Anthemion, was in love with Alcibiades, and was on one occasion

sumptuously entertaining several of his friends, when Alcibiades broke

in and took from the table half the cups and went away again; and when

some of the guests were indignant and said, 'The stripling has used you

most insolently and contemptuously,' Anytus replied, 'Nay, rather, he

has dealt kindly with me, for when he might have taken all he has left

me half.'"

Sec. XVIII. Zeuxippus was pleased with this story, and said, "O Hercules,

you have been within an ace of making me forget my hereditary hatred to

Anytus for his behaviour to Socrates and philosophy,[116] since he was

so mild and noble to his love." "Be it so," said my father, "Love also

makes peevish and gloomy persons kind and agreeable to those they live

with; for as 'when the fire blazes the house looks brighter,'[117] so

man, it seems, becomes more cheerful through the heat of love. But most

people are affected rather curiously; if they see by night a light in a

house, they look on it with admiration and wonder; but if they see a

little, mean, and ignoble soul suddenly filled with noble-mindedness,

freedom, dignity, grace, and liberality, they do not feel constrained to

say with Telemachus, 'Surely, some god is there within.'[118] And is it

not wonderful, Daphnaeus," continued my father,[119] "in the name of the

Graces, that the lover who cares about hardly anything, either his

companions and friends, or even the laws and magistrates and kings, who

fears nothing, admires nothing, courts nothing, but can even endure to

gaze on 'the forked lightning,'[120] yet directly he looks on his love

'he crouches like a cock with drooping feathers,' and his boldness is

broken and his pride is cowed. And among the Muses it would not be

amiss to mention Sappho; for as the Romans say Cacus the son of

Hephaestus vomited out of his mouth fire and flames, so she really speaks

words that burn like fire, and in her songs shows the warmth of her

heart, as Philoxenus puts it, 'by euphonious songs assuaging the pains

of love.' And if you have not in your love for Lysandra forgot all your

old love-songs, do repeat to us, Daphnaeus, the lines in which beautiful

Sappho says that 'when her love appeared her voice failed and her body

burned, and she was seized with paleness and trembling and vertigo.'"

And when Daphnaeus had repeated the lines, my father resumed, "In the

name of Zeus, is not this plainly a divine seizure? Is not this a

wonderful commotion of soul? Why, the Pythian priestess on the tripod is

not moved so much as this! Who of those inspired by Cybele are made

beside themselves to this extent by the flute and the kettledrum?

Moreover, while many see the same body and the same beauty, only the

lover is taken by it. Why is this the case? We get no light on it from

Menander's words, 'Love is opportunity; and he that is smitten is the

only one wounded.' But the god is the cause of it, striking one and

letting another go scot-free. But I will not pass over now, 'since it

has come into my mouth,' as AEschylus says, what perhaps would have been

better spoken before, for it is a very important point. Perhaps, my

friend, of all other things which we do not perceive through the senses,

some got believed through legend, some through the law, some through

reason; whereas we owe our conception of the gods altogether to the

poets and legislators and philosophers: all alike teaching the existence

of gods, but greatly differing as to their number and order, nature and

power. For the gods of the philosophers 'know nothing of disease or old

age or pain, and have not to cross the resounding Acheron;' nor do the

philosophers accept as gods Strifes, or Prayers, which are found in

poetry;[121] nor will they admit Terror and Fear as gods or as the sons

of Ares. And on many points also they are at variance with the

legislators, as Xenophanes bade the Egyptians, if they regarded Osiris

as mortal, not to honour him as a god; but if they thought him a god not

to mourn for him. And, again, the poets and legislators will not listen

to, nor can they understand, the philosophers who make gods of ideas and

numbers and units and spirits. And their views generally are very

different. As there were formerly three parties at Athens, the Parali,

the Epacrii, and the Pediei, all at variance with one another, yet all

agreed to vote for Solon, and chose him with one accord as their

mediator and ruler and lawgiver, as he seemed indisputably to hold the

first place in merit; so the three parties that entertain different

views about the gods are all unanimous on one point, for poets

legislators and philosophers all alike register Love as one of the gods,

'loudly singing his praises with one voice,' as Alcaeus says the people

of Mitylene chose Pittacus as their monarch. But our king and ruler and

governor, Love, is brought down crowned from Helicon to the Academy by

Hesiod and Plato and Solon, and in royal apparel rides in a chariot

drawn by friendship and intimacy (not such as Euripides speaks of in the

line, 'he has been bound in fetters not of brass,'[122] shamefully

throwing round him cold and heavy necessity), and soars aloft to the

most beautiful and divine things, about which others have spoken better

than I can."

Sec. XIX. When my father had spoken thus much, Soclarus began, "Do you see

that a second time you have committed the same fault, not cancelling

your debts as you ought to do--for I must speak my mind--but evading

them on purpose, and not delivering to us your promised ideas on a

sacred subject? For as some little time back you only just touched on

Plato and the Egyptians as if unwilling to enter on the subject more

fully, so now you are doing again. However, as to what has been

'eloquently told'[123] by Plato, or rather by the Muses through Plato's

mouth, do not tell us that, my good friend, even if we ask for it; but

as to your hint that the Egyptian legend about Love corresponded with

Plato's views, you need not discuss it fully and minutely, we shall be

satisfied if we hear a little of such mighty matters." And as the rest

of the company made the same request, my father said, "The Egyptians,

(like the Greeks) recognize two Loves, the Pandemian and the Celestial,

to which they add the Sun, they also highly venerate Aphrodite. We also

see much similarity between Love and the Sun, for neither is a fire, as

some think, but a sweet and productive radiance and warmth, the Sun

bringing to the body nourishment and light and growth, and Love doing

the same to the soul. And as the heat of the Sun is more powerful when

it emerges from clouds and after mist, so Love is sweeter and hotter

after a jealous tiff with the loved one,[124] and moreover, as some

think the Sun is kindled and extinguished, so also do people conceive of

Love as mortal and uncertain. Moreover, just as without training the

body cannot easily bear the heat of the Sun, so neither can the

untrained soul easily bear the yoke of Love, but both are equally out of

tune and suffer, for which they blame the deity and not their own

weakness. But in this respect they seem to differ, in that the Sun

exhibits to the eye things beautiful and ugly alike, whereas Love throws

its light only on beautiful things, and persuades lovers to concentrate

their attention on these, and to neglect all other things. As to those

that call Aphrodite the Moon, they, too, find some points in common

between them; for the Moon is divine and heavenly and a sort of

halfway-house between mortal and immortal, but inactive in itself and

dark without the presence of the Sun, as is the case with Aphrodite in

the absence of Love. So we may say that Aphrodite resembles the Moon,

and Love the Sun, more than any other deities, yet are not Love and the

Sun altogether the same, for just as body and soul are not the same, but

something different, so is it with the Sun and Love, the former can be

seen, the latter only felt. And if it should not seem too harsh a

saying, one might argue that the Sun acts entirely opposite to Love, for

it turns the mind away from the world of fancy to the world of reality,

beguiling us by its grace and splendid appearance, and persuading us to

seek for truth and everything else in and round it and nowhere else. For

as Euripides says,

'Too passionately do we love the Sun,

Because it always shines upon the earth,

From inexperience of another life,'[125]

or rather from forgetfulness of those things which Love brings to our

remembrance. For as when we are woke by a great and bright light,

everything that the soul has seen in dreams is vanished and fled, so the

Sun is wont to banish the remembrance of past changes and chances, and

to bewitch the intelligence, pleasure and admiration causing this

forgetfulness. And though reality is really there, yet the soul cleaves

to dreams and is dazzled by what is most beautiful and divine. 'For

round the soul are poured sweet yet deceiving dreams,' so that the soul

thinks everything here good and valuable, unless it obtain divine and

chaste Love as its physician and preserver. For Love brings the soul

through the body to truth and the region of truth, where pure and

guileless beauty is to be found, kindly befriending its votaries like an

initiator at the mysteries. And it associates with the soul only through

the body. And as geometricians, in the case of boys who cannot yet be

initiated into the perception of incorporeal and impassive substance,

convey their ideas through the medium of spheres, cubes, and

dodecahedrons, so celestial Love has contrived beautiful mirrors of

beautiful things, and exhibits them to us glittering in the shapes

colours and appearances of youths in all their flower, and calmly stirs

the memory which is inflamed first by these. Consequently some, through

the stupidity of their friends and intimates, who have endeavoured by

force and against reason to extinguish the flame, have got no advantage

from it, but filled themselves with smoke and confusion, or have rushed

into secret and lawless pleasures and ingloriously wasted their prime.

But as many as by sober reason and modesty have abated the extravagance

of the passion, and left in the soul only a bright glow--not exciting a

tornado of passion, but a wonderful and productive diffusion, as in a

growing plant, opening the pores of complaisance and friendliness--these

in no long time cease to regard the personal charms of those they love,

and study their inward characters, and gaze at one another with

unveiled eyes, and associate with one another in words and actions, if

they find in their minds any fragment or image of the beautiful; and if

not they bid them farewell and turn to others, like bees that only go to

those flowers from which they can get honey. But wherever they find any

trace or emanation or pleasing resemblance of the divine, in an ecstasy

of pleasure and delight they indulge their memory, and revive to

whatever is truly lovely and felicitous and admired by everybody."

Sec. XX. "The poets indeed seem for the most part to have written and sung

about Love in a playful and merry manner, but have sometimes spoken

seriously about him, whether out of their own mind, or the god helping

them to truth. Among these are the lines about his birth,

'Well-sandalled Iris bare the most powerful of the gods to golden-haired

Zephyr.'[126] But perhaps the learned have persuaded you that these

lines are only a fanciful illustration of the variety and beauty of

love." "Certainly," said Daphnaeus, "what else could they mean?" "Hear

me," said my father, "for the heavenly phenomenon compels us so to

speak. The rainbow[127] is, I suppose, a reflection caused by the sun's

rays falling on a moist cloud, making us think the appearance is in the

cloud. Similarly erotic fancy in the case of noble souls causes a

reflection of the memory, from things which here appear and are called

beautiful, to what is really divine and lovely and felicitous and

wonderful. But most lovers pursuing and groping after the semblance of

beauty in boys and women, as in mirrors,[128] can derive nothing more

certain than pleasure mixed with pain. And this seems the love-delirium

of Ixion, who instead of the joy he desired embraced only a cloud, as

children who desire to take the rainbow into their hands, clutching at

whatever they see. But different is the behaviour of the noble and

chaste lover: for he reflects on the divine beauty that can only be

felt, while he uses the beauty of the visible body only as an organ of

the memory, though he embraces it and loves it, and associating with it

is still more inflamed in mind. And so neither in the body do they sit

ever gazing at and desiring this light, nor after death do they return

to this world again, and skulk and loiter about the doors and

bedchambers of newly-married people, disagreeable ghosts of

pleasure-loving and sensual men and women, who do not rightly deserve

the name of lovers. For the true lover, when he has got into the other

world and associated with beauties as much as is lawful, has wings and

is initiated and passes his time above in the presence of his Deity,

dancing and waiting upon him, until he goes back to the meadows of the

Moon and Aphrodite, and sleeping there commences a new existence. But

this is a subject too high for the present occasion. However, it is with

Love as with the other gods, to borrow the words of Euripides, 'he

rejoices in being honoured by mankind,'[129] and _vice versa_, for he is

most propitious to those that receive him properly, but visits his

displeasure on those that affront him. For neither does Zeus as god of

Hospitality punish and avenge any outrages on strangers or suppliants,

nor as god of the family fulfil the curses of parents, as quickly as

Love hearkens to lovers unfairly treated, being the chastiser of boorish

and haughty persons. Why need I mention the story of Euxynthetus and

Leucomantis, the latter of whom is called The Peeping Girl to this day

in Cyprus? But perhaps you have not heard of the punishment of the

Cretan Gorgo, a somewhat similar case to that of Leucomantis, except

that she was turned into stone as she peeped out of window to see her

lover carried out to burial. For this Gorgo had a lover called Asander,

a proper young man and of a good family, but reduced in fortune, though

he thought himself worthy to mate with anybody. So he wooed Gorgo, being

a relation of hers, and though he had many rivals, as she was much run

after for her wealth belike, yet he had won the esteem of all the

guardians and relations of the young girl.[130] * * * *

Sec. XXI. * * * Now the origins and causes of Love are not peculiar to

either sex, but common to both. For those attractions that make men

amorous may as well proceed from women as from boys.[131] And as to

those beautiful and holy reminiscences and invitations to the divine and

genuine and Olympian beauty, by which the soul soars aloft, what hinders

but that they may come either from boys or lads, maidens or grown women,

whenever a chaste and orderly nature and beauteous prime are associated

together (just as a neat shoe exhibits the shapeliness of the foot, to

borrow the illustration of Aristo), whenever connoisseurs of beauty

descry in beautiful forms and pure bodies clear traces of an upright and

unenervated soul.[132] For if[133] the man of pleasure, who was asked

whether "he was most given to the love of women or boys," and answered,

"I care not which so beauty be but there," is considered to have given

an appropriate answer as to his erotic desires, shall the noble lover of

beauty neglect beauty and nobility of nature, and make love only with an

eye to the sexual parts? Why, the lover of horses will take just as much

pleasure in the good points of Podargus, as in those of AEthe,

Agamemnon's mare,[134] and the sportsman rejoices not only in dogs, but

also rears Cretan and Spartan bitches,[135] and shall the lover of the

beautiful and of humanity be unfair and deal unequally with either sex,

and think that the difference between the loves of boys and women is

only their different dress? And yet they say that beauty is a flower of

virtue; and it is ridiculous to assert that the female sex never

blossoms nor make a goodly show of virtue, for as AEschylus truly says,

'I never can mistake the burning eye

Of the young woman that has once known man.'[136]

Shall the indications then of a forward wanton and corrupt character be

found in the faces of women, and shall there be no gleam of chastity and

modesty in their appearance? Nay, there are many such, and shall they

not move and provoke love? To doubt it would be neither sensible nor in

accordance with the facts, for generally speaking, as has been pointed

out, all these attractions are the same in both sexes.... But, Daphnaeus,

let us combat those views which Zeuxippus lately advanced, making Love

to be only irregular desire carrying the soul away to licentiousness,

not that this was so much his own view as what he had often heard from

morose men who knew nothing of love: some of whom marry unfortunate

women for their dowries, and force on them economy and illiberal saving,

and quarrel with them every day of their lives: while others, more

desirous of children than wives, when they have made those women they

come across mothers, bid farewell to marriage, or regard it not at all,

and neither care to love nor be loved. Now the fact that the word for

conjugal love differs only by one letter from the word for endurance,

the one being [Greek: stergein] the other [Greek: stegein], seems to

emphasize the conjugal kindness mixed by time and intimacy with

necessity. But that marriage which Love has inspired will in the first

place, as in Plato's Republic, know nothing of _Meum_ and _Tuum_, for

the proverb, 'whatever belongs to a friend is common property,'[137] is

especially true of married persons who, though disunited in body, are

perforce one in soul, neither wishing to be two, nor thinking themselves

so. In the second place there will be mutual respect, which is a vital

necessity in marriage. For as to that external respect which has in it

more of compulsion than choice, being forced by the law and shame and

fear,

"Those needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,"[138]

that will always exist in wedlock. But in Love there is such

self-control and decorum and constancy, that if the god but once enter

the soul of a licentious man, he makes him give up all his amours,

abates his pride, and breaks down his haughtiness and dissoluteness,

putting in their place modesty and silence and tranquillity and decorum,

and makes him constant to one. You have heard of course of the famous

courtesan Lais,[139] how she set all Greece on fire with her charms, or

rather was contended for by two seas,[140] and how, when she fell in

love with Hippolochus the Thessalian, 'she left Acro-Corinthus washed by

the green sea,'[141] and deserted all her other lovers, that great army,

and went off to Thessaly and lived faithful to Hippolochus. But the

women there, envious and jealous of her for her surpassing beauty,

dragged her into the temple of Aphrodite, and there stoned her to death,

for which reason probably it is called to this day the temple of

Aphrodite the Murderess.[142] We have also heard of servant girls who

have refused the embraces of their masters, and of private individuals

who have scorned an amour with queens, when Love has had dominion in

their hearts. For as in Rome, when a dictator is proclaimed, all other

magistrates lay down their offices, so those over whom Love is lord are

free henceforward from all other lords and masters, and pass the rest of

their lives dedicate to the god and slaves in his temple. For a noble

woman united by Love to her lawful husband would prefer the embraces of

bears and dragons to those of any other man."

Sec. XXII. "Although there are plenty of examples of this virtue of

constancy, yet to you, that are the festive votaries of the god,[143] it

will not be amiss to relate the story of the Galatian Camma. She was a

woman of most remarkable beauty, and the wife of the tetrarch Sinatus,

whom Sinorix, one of the most influential men in Galatia, and

desperately in love with Camma, murdered, as he could neither get her by

force or persuasion in the lifetime of her husband. And Camma found a

refuge and comfort in her grief in discharging the functions of

hereditary priestess to Artemis, and most of her time she spent in her

temple, and, though many kings and potentates wooed her, she refused

them all. But when Sinorix boldly proposed marriage to her, she declined

not his offer, nor blamed him for what he had done, as though she

thought he had only murdered Sinatus out of excessive love for her, and

not in sheer villany. He came, therefore, with confidence, and asked her

hand, and she met him and greeted him and led him to the altar of the

goddess, and pledged him in a cup of poisoned mead, drinking half of it

herself and giving him the rest. And when she saw that he had drunk it

up, she shouted aloud for joy, and calling upon the name of her dead

husband, said, 'Till this day, dearest husband, I have lived, deprived

of you, a life of sorrow: but now take me to yourself with joy, for I

have avenged you on the worst of men, as glad to share death with him as

life with you.' Then Sinorix was removed out of the temple on a litter,

and soon after gave up the ghost, and Camma lived the rest of that day

and following night, and is said to have died with a good courage and

even with gaiety."[144]

Sec. XXIII. "As many similar examples might be adduced, both among

ourselves and foreigners, who can feel any patience with those that

reproach Aphrodite with hindering friendship when she associates herself

with Love as a partner? Whereas any reflecting person would call the

love of boys wanton and gross lasciviousness, and say with the poet:

'This is an outrage, not an act of love.'

All willing pathics, therefore, we consider the vilest of mankind, and

credit them with neither fidelity, nor modesty, nor friendship, for as

Sophocles says:

'Those who shall lose such friends may well be glad,

And those who have such pray that they may lose them,'[145]

But as for those who, not being by nature vicious, have been seduced or

forced, they are apt all their life to despise and hate their seducers,

and when an opportunity has presented itself to take fierce vengeance.

As Crateus, who murdered Archelaus, and Pytholaus, who murdered

Alexander of Pherae. And Periander, the tyrant of the Ambraciotes,

having asked a most insulting question of his minion, was murdered by

him, so exasperated was he. But with women and wives all this is the

beginning of friendship, and as it were an initiation into the sacred

mysteries. And pleasure plays a very small part in this, but the esteem

and favour and mutual love and constancy that result from it, proves

that the Delphians did not talk nonsense in giving the name of Arma[146]

to Aphrodite, nor Homer in giving the name of friendship[147] to sexual

love, and testifies to the fact that Solon was a most experienced

legislator in conjugal matters, seeing that he ordered husbands not less

than thrice a month to associate with their wives, not for pleasure, but

as states at certain intervals renew their treaties with one another, so

he wished that by such friendliness marriage should, as it were, be

renewed after any intervening tiffs and differences. But you will tell

me there is much folly and even madness in the love of women. Is there

not more extravagance in the love of boys?

'Seeing my many rivals I grow faint.

The lad is beardless, smooth and soft and handsome,

O that I might in his embraces die,

And have the fact recorded on my tomb.'

Such extravagant language as this is madness not love. And it is absurd

to detract from woman's various excellence. Look at their self-restraint

and intelligence, their fidelity and uprightness, and that bravery

courage and magnanimity so conspicuous in many! And to say that they

have a natural aptitude for all other virtues, but are deficient as

regards friendship alone, is monstrous. For they are fond of their

children and husbands, and generally speaking the natural affection in

them is not only, like a fruitful soil, capable of friendship, but is

also accompanied by persuasion and other graces. And as poetry gives to

words a kind of relish by melody and metre and rhythm, making

instruction thereby more interesting, but what is injurious more

insidious, so nature, investing woman with beautiful appearance and

attractive voice and bewitching figure, does much for a licentious woman

in making her wiles more formidable, but makes a modest one more apt

thereby to win the goodwill and friendship of her husband. And as Plato

advised Xenocrates, a great and noble man in all other respects, but too

austere in his temperament, to sacrifice to the Graces, so one might

recommend a good and modest woman to sacrifice to Love, that her husband

might be a mild and agreeable partner, and not run after any other

woman, so as to be compelled to say like the fellow in the comedy, 'What

a wretch I am to ill-treat such a woman!' For to love in marriage is far

better than to be loved, for it prevents many, nay all, of those

offences which spoil and mar marriage.

Sec. XXIV. As to the passionate affection in the early days of

marriage,[148] my dear Zeuxippus, do not fear that it will leave any

sore or irritation, though it is not wonderful that there should be some

friction at the commencement of union with a virtuous woman, just as at

the grafting of trees, as there is also pain at the beginning of

conception, for there can be no complete union without some suffering.

Learning puts boys out somewhat when they first go to school, as

philosophy does young men at a later day, but the ill effects are not

lasting, either in their cases or in the case of lovers. As in the

fusion of two liquors, love does indeed at first cause a simmering and

commotion, but eventually cools down and settles and becomes tranquil.

For the union of lovers is indeed a complete union, whereas the union of

those that live together without love resembles only the friction and

concussion of Epicurus' atoms in collision and recoil, forming no such

union as Love makes, when he presides over the conjugal state. For

nothing else produces so much pleasure, or such lasting advantages, or

such beautiful remarkable and desirable friendship,

'As when husband and wife live in one house,

Two souls beating as one.'[149]

And the law gives its countenance, and nature shows that even the gods

themselves require love for the production of everything. Thus the poets

tell us that 'the earth loves a shower, and heaven loves the earth,' and

the natural philosophers tell us that the sun is in love with the moon,

and that they are husband and wife, and that the earth is the mother of

man and beast and the producer of all plants. Would not the world itself

then of necessity come to an end, if the great god Love and the desires

implanted by the god should leave matter, and matter should cease to

yearn for and pursue its lead? But not to seem to wander too far away

and altogether to trifle, you know that many censure boy-loves for their

instability, and jeeringly say that that intimacy like an egg is

destroyed by a hair,[150] for that boy-lovers like Nomads, spending the

summer in a blooming and flowery country, at once decamp then as from an

enemy's territory. And still more vulgarly Bion the Sophist called the

sprouting beards of beautiful boys Harmodiuses and Aristogitons,[151]

inasmuch as lovers were delivered by them from a pleasant tyranny. But

this charge cannot justly be brought against genuine lovers, and it was

prettily said by Euripides, as he embraced and kissed handsome Agatho

whose beard was just sprouting, that the Autumn of beautiful youths was

lovely as well as the Spring. And I maintain that the love of beautiful

and chaste wives flourishes not only in old age amid grey hairs and

wrinkles, but even in the grave and monument. And while there are few

such long unions in the case of boy-loves, one might enumerate ten

thousand such instances of the love of women, who have kept their

fidelity to the end of their lives. One such case I will relate, which

happened in my time in the reign of the Emperor Vespasian.

Sec. XXV. Julius, who stirred up a revolt in Galatia, among several other

confederates had one Sabinus, a young man of good family, and for wealth

and renown the most conspicuous of all the men in those parts. But

having attempted what was too much for them they were foiled, and

expecting to pay the penalty, some committed suicide, others fled and

were captured. Now Sabinus himself could easily have got out of the way

and made his escape to the barbarians, but he had married a most

excellent wife, whose name in that part of the world was Empone, but in

Greek would be Herois, and he could neither leave her behind nor take

her with him. As he had in the country some underground caves, known

only to two of his freedmen, where he used to stow away things, he

dismissed all the rest of his slaves, as if he intended to poison

himself, and taking with him these two trusty freedmen he descended with

them into those underground caves, and sent one of them, Martialis, to

tell his wife that he had poisoned himself, and that his body was burnt

in the flames of his country-house, for he wanted his wife's genuine

sorrow to lend credit to the report of his death. And so it happened.

For she, throwing herself on to the ground, groaned and wailed for three

days and nights, and took no food. And Sabinus, being informed of this,

and fearing that she would die of grief, told Martialis to inform her

secretly that he was alive and well and in hiding, and to beg her not to

relax her show of grief, but to keep up the farce. And she did so with

the genius of a professional actress, but yearning to see her husband

she visited him by night, and returned without being noticed, and for

six or seven months she lived with him this underground life. And she

disguised him by changing his dress, and cutting off his beard, and

re-arranging his hair, so that he should not be known, and took him to

Rome, having some hopes of obtaining his pardon. But being unsuccessful

in this she returned to her own country, and spent most of her time with

her husband underground, but from time to time visited the town, and

showed herself to some ladies who were her friends and relations. But

what is most astonishing of all is that, though she bathed with them,

she concealed her pregnancy from them. For the dye which women use to

make their hair a golden auburn, has a tendency to produce corpulence

and flesh and a full habit, and she rubbed this abundantly over all

parts of her body, and so concealed her pregnancy. And she bare the

pangs of travail by herself, as a lioness bears her whelps, having hid

herself in the cave with her husband, and there she gave birth to two

boys, one of whom died in Egypt, the other, whose name was Sabinus, was

among us only the other day at Delphi. Vespasian eventually put her to

death, but paid the penalty for it, his whole progeny in a short time

being wiped off the face of the earth.[152] For during the whole of his

reign he did no more savage act, nor could gods or demons have turned

away their eyes from a crueller sight. And yet her courage and bold

language abated the pity of the spectators, though it exasperated

Vespasian, for, despairing of her safety, she bade them go and tell the

Emperor, 'that it was sweeter to live in darkness and underground than

to wear his crown.'"[153]

Sec. XXVI. Here my father said that the conversation about Love which took

place at Thespiae ended. And at this moment Diogenes, one of Pisias'

companions, was noticed coming up at a faster pace than walking. And

while he was yet a little way off, Soclarus hailed him with, "You don't

announce war, Diogenes," and he replied, "Hush! it is a marriage; come

with me quickly, for the sacrifice only waits for you." All were

delighted, and Zeuxippus asked if Pisias was still against the marriage.

"As he was first to oppose it," said Diogenes, "so he was first to yield

the victory to Ismenodora, and he has now put on a crown and robed

himself in white, so as to take his place at the head of the procession

to the god through the market-place." "Come," said my father, "in

Heaven's name, let us go and laugh at him, and worship the god; for it

is clear that the god has taken delight in what has happened, and been

propitious."

[62] The allusion is to Plato's "Phaedrus," p. 230, B.

Much, indeed, of the subject-matter here is, we shall

find, somewhat similar to that of the Phaedrus.

[63] It is difficult to know what the best English word

here is. From the sly thrust in Sec. ix. Pisias was

evidently grey. I have therefore selected the word

_gravest_. But _the most austere_, _the most sensible_,

_the most solid_, _the most sedate_, all might express

the Greek word also. Let the reader take which he likes

best.

[64] In a Greek house the women and men had each their

own separate apartments. This must be borne in mind here

to explain the allusion.

[65] That is, from interested and selfish motives.

[66] On Lais and Aristippus see Cicero, "Ad. Fam.," ix.

26.

[67] Pausanias, i. 19, shows us that there was at Athens

a Temple of Hercules called Cynosarges. But the matter

is obscure. What the exact allusion is I cannot say.

[68] Fragment of AEschylus. See Athenaeus, xiii. p. 602,

E, which explains the otherwise obscure allusion.

[69] That is the son of Hera alone, who was unwilling to

be outdone by Zeus, who had given birth to Pallas Athene

alone. Hesiod has the same view, "Theog." 927.

[70] [Greek: opora] is so used also in AEsch. "Suppl.,"

998, 1015. See also "Athenaeus," 608, F. Daphnaeus implies

these very nice gentlemen, like the same class described

by Juvenal, "Curios simulant et Bacchanalia vivunt."

[71] I omit [Greek: kai kopidas] as a gloss or

explanation of the old reading [Greek: makeleia] instead

of [Greek: matruleia]. Nothing can be made of [Greek:

kai kopidas] in the context.

[72] "Works and Days," 606-608.

[73] I follow here the reading of Wyttenbach. Through

the whole of this essay the reading is very uncertain

frequently. My text in it has been formed from a careful

collation of Wyttenbach, Reiske, and Duebner. I mention

this here once for all, for it is unnecessary in a

translation to minutely specify the various readings on

every occasion. I am not editing the "Moralia."

[74] "De Oenantha et Agathoclea, v. Polyb. excerpt, l.

xv."--_Reiske._

[75] Thespiae. The allusion is to Phryne. See Pausanias,

ix. 27; x. 15.

[76] Reading with Wyttenbach, [Greek: hosper daktylion

ischnou, ho me perirrhue dedios.]

[77] Perhaps _cur_ = coward, was originally _cur-tail_.

[78] One of the three ports at Athens. See Pausanias, i.

1.

[79] Iolaus was the nephew of Hercules, and was

associated with him in many of his Labours. See

Pausanias, i. 19; vii. 2; viii. 14, 45.

[80] I read [Greek: synoarizontas]. The general reading

[Greek: synerontas] will hardly do here. Wyttenbach

suggests [Greek: synearizontas].

[81] What the [Greek: dibolia] was is not quite clear. I

have supposed a jersey.

[82] The women of Lemnos were very masterful. On one

memorable occasion they killed all their husbands in one

night. Thus the line of Ovid has almost a proverbial

force, "Lemniadesque viros nimium quoque vincere

norunt."--_Heroides_, vi. 53. Siebelis in his Preface to

Pausanias, p. xxi, gives from an old Scholia a sort of

excuse for the action of the women of Lemnos.

[83] Probably the epilepsy. See Herodotus, iii. 33.

[84] Euripides, "Bacchae," 203.

[85] Euripides, Fragment of the "Melanippe."

[86] I take Wyttenbach's suggestion as to the reading

here.

[87] This line is taken bodily by Aristophanes in his

"Frogs," 1244.

[88] The first line is the first line of a passage from

Euripides, consisting of thirteen lines, containing

similar sentiments to this. See Athenaeus, xiii. p. 599,

F. The last two lines are from Euripides, "Hippolytus,"

449, 450.

[89] Compare Lucretius, i. 1-5.

[90] Hesiod, "Theogony," 116-120.

[91] Euripides, "Danae," Frag. Compare Ovid, "Cedit amor

rebus: res age, tutus eris."

[92] Sophocles, Fragm. 678, Dindorf. Compare a remark of

Sophocles, recorded by Cicero, "De Senectute," ch. xiv.

[93] Sophocles, Fragm. 720. Reading [Greek: kala] with

Reiske.

[94] Iliad, v. 831.

[95] Connecting [Greek: Ares] with [Greek: anairein].

[96] The _Saint Hubert_ of the Middle Ages.

[97] AEschylus, Frag. 1911. Dindorf.

[98] Odyssey, v. 69.

[99] Fragm. 146, 125.

[100] Hermes is alluded to.

[101] All these four were titles of _Zeus_. They are

very difficult to put into English so as to convey any

distinctive and definite idea to an English reader.

[102] Enthusiasm is the being [Greek: entheos], or

inspired by some god.

[103] From AEschylus, "Supplices," 681, 682.

[104] "Iliad," vii. 121, 122.

[105] Like the character described in Lucretius, ii.

1-6.

[106] Sophocles, "Trachiniae," 497. The Cyprian Queen

is, of course, Aphrodite.

[107] Hence the famous Proverb, "Non omnibus dormio."

See Cic. "Ad. Fam." vii. 24.

[108] Above, in Sec. xiii.

[109] See Sophocles, "Antigone," 783, 784. And compare

Horace, "Odes," Book iv. Ode xiii. 6-8, "Ille virentis

et Doctae psallere Chiae _Pulchris excubat in genis_."

[110] The "Niobe," which exists only in a few fragments.

[111] This was the name of Dionysius' Poem. He was a

Corinthian poet.

[112] "Iliad," xiii. 131.

[113] Reading according to the conjecture of Wyttenbach,

[Greek: hos ton Erota uonon aetteton onta ton

strategon].

[114] Something has probably dropped out here, as Duebner

suspects.

[115] Fragment from the "Stheneboea" of Euripides.

[116] Anytus was one of the accusers of Socrates, and so

one of the causers of his death. So Horace calls

Socrates "Anyti reum," "Sat." ii. 4, 3.

[117] Homeric Epigrammata, xiii. 5. Quoted also in "On

Virtue and Vice," Sec. 1.

[118] Odyssey, xix. 40.

[119] I adopt the suggestion of Wyttenbach, [Greek:

eipen, o Daphnaie].

[120] Pinder, "Pyth." i. 8.

[121] See for example Homer, Iliad, xi. 3, 73; ix. 502.

[122] Euripides, "Pirithous," Fragm. 591. Dindorf.

[123] An allusion to Homer, "Odyssey," xii. 453.

[124] So Terence, "Andria," 555. "Amantium irae amoris

integratiost."

[125] Euripides, "Hippolytus," 194-196.

[126] The lines are from Alcaeus. Thus Love was the child

of the Rainbow and the West Wind. A pretty conceit.

[127] Greek _iris_.

[128] The mirrors of the ancients were of course not

like our mirrors. They were only burnished bronze. Hence

the view in them would be at best somewhat obscure. This

explains 1 Cor. xiii. 12; 2 Cor. iii. 18; James i. 23.

[129] See Euripides, "Hippolytus," 7, 8.

[130] Here the story unfortunately ends, and for all

time we shall know no more of it. Reiske somewhat

forcibly says, "Vel lippus videat Gorgus historiam non

esse finitam, et multa, ut et alias, periisse."

[131] Like Reiske we condense here a little.

[132] Reading with Reiske [Greek: orthes kai

athruptou.]

[133] I read [Greek: ei gar].

[134] See "Iliad," xxiii. 295. Podargus was an entire

horse.

[135] See Ovid, "Metamorph." iii. 206-208.

[136] AEschylus, "Toxotides," Fragm. 224.

[137] A very favourite proverb among the ancients. See

Plat. "Phaedr." fin. Martial, ii. 43.

[138] Soph. Fragm. 712.

[139] On Lais, see Pausanias, ii. 2. Her Thessalian

lover is there called Hippostratus. Her favours were so

costly that the famous proverb is said to owe its origin

to her, "Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum."

[140] The AEgean and Ionian. Cf. Horace, "Odes," i. 7, 2.

[141] On Acro-Corinthus, see Pausanias, ii. 4. The words

in inverted commas are from Euripides, Fragm. 921.

[142] On Lais generally, and her end, see Athenaeus,

xiii. 54, 55.

[143] See Sec. I. The Festival of Love was being kept at

this very time.

[144] This story is also told by Plutarch, "De Mulierum

Virtutibus," Sec. xx.

[145] Sophocles, Fragm. 741. Quoted again in "On

Abundance of Friends," Sec. iii.

[146] A Delphic word for love. Can it be connected with

[Greek: arma]?

[147] Very frequent in Homer, _e.g._, "Iliad," ii. 232;

vi, 165; xiii. 636: xiv. 353, etc.

[148] See Lucretius, iv. 1105-1114. I tone down the

original here a little.

[149] Homer, "Odyssey," vi. 183, 184. Cf. Eurip.

"Medea," 14, 15.

[150] This means when the moustache and beard and

whiskers begin to grow.

[151] The whole story about Harmodius and Aristogiton

and how they killed Hipparchus is told by Thucydides,

vi. 54-59. Bion therefore practically called these

sprouting beards _tyrant-killers_, _tyrannicides_.

[152] "Scriptus igitur hic libellus est post caedem

Domitiani."--_Reiske._

[153] Vespasian certainly was not cruel generally. "Non

temere quis punitus insons reperietur, nisi absente eo

et ignaro aut certe invito atque decepto..... Sola est,

in qua merito culpetur, pecuniae cupiditas."--Suetonius,

"Divus Vespasianus," 15, 16.