Resuming the results of the last four sections, we find two separate
forms of masculine passion clearly marked in early Hellas--a noble and a
base, a spiritual and a sensual. To the distinction between them the
Greek conscience was acutely sensitive; and this distinction, in theory
at least, subsisted throughout their history. They worshipped Erôs, as
they worshipped Aphrodite, under the twofold titles of Ouranios
(celestial) and Pandemos (vulgar, or _volvivaga_); and, while they
regarded the one love with the highest approval, as the source of
courage and greatness of soul, they never publicly approved the other.
It is true, as will appear in the sequel of this essay, that boy-love in
its grossest form was tolerated in historic Hellas with an indulgence
which it never found in any Christian country, while heroic comradeship
remained an ideal hard to realise, and scarcely possible beyond the
limits of the strictest Dorian sect. Yet the language of philosophers,
historians, poets and orators is unmistakable. All testify alike to the
discrimination between vulgar and heroic love in the Greek mind. I
purpose to devote a separate section of this inquiry to the
investigation of these ethical distinctions. For the present, a
quotation from one of the most eloquent of the later rhetoricians will
sufficiently set forth the contrast, which the Greek race never wholly
forgot:[8]--
"The one love is mad for pleasure; the other loves beauty. The one
is an involuntary sickness; the other is a sought enthusiasm. The
one tends to the good of the beloved; the other to the ruin of
both. The one is virtuous; the other incontinent in all its acts.
The one has its end in friendship; the other in hate. The one is
freely given; the other is bought and sold. The one brings praise;
the other blame. The one is Greek; the other is barbarous. The one
is virile; the other effeminate. The one is firm and constant; the
other light and variable. The man who loves the one love is a
friend of God, a friend of law, fulfilled of modesty, and free of
speech. He dares to court his friend in daylight, and rejoices in
his love. He wrestles with him in the playground and runs with him
in the race, goes afield with him to the hunt, and in battle fights
for glory at his side. In his misfortune he suffers, and at his
death he dies with him. He needs no gloom of night, no desert
place, for this society. The other lover is a foe to heaven, for he
is out of tune and criminal; a foe to law, for he transgresses law.
Cowardly, despairing, shameless, haunting the dusk, lurking in
desert places and secret dens, he would fain be never seen
consorting with his friend, but shuns the light of day, and follows
after night and darkness, which the shepherd hates, but the thief
loves."
And again, in the same dissertation, Maximus Tyrius speaks to like
purpose, clothing his precepts in imagery:--
"You see a fair body in bloom and full of promise of fruit. Spoil
not, defile not, touch not the blossom. Praise it, as some wayfarer
may praise a plant--even so by Phoebus' altar have I seen a young
palm shooting toward the sun. Refrain from Zeus and Phoebus' tree;
wait for the fruit-season and thou shall love more righteously."
With the baser form of paiderastia I shall have little to do in this
essay. Vice of this kind does not vary to any great extent, whether we
observe it in Athens or in Rome, in Florence of the sixteenth or in
Paris of the nineteenth century;[9] nor in Hellas was it more noticeable
than elsewhere, except for its comparative publicity. The nobler type of
masculine love developed by the Greeks is, on the contrary, almost
unique in[10] the history of the human race. It is that which more than
anything else distinguishes the Greeks from the barbarians of their own
time, from the Romans and from modern men in all that appertains to the
emotions. The immediate subject of the ensuing inquiry will, therefore,
be that mixed form of paiderastia upon which the Greeks prided
themselves, which had for its heroic ideal the friendship of Achilles
and Patroclus, but which in historic times exhibited a sensuality
unknown to Homer.[11] In treating of this unique product of their
civilisation I shall use the terms _Greek Love_, understanding thereby a
passionate and enthusiastic attachment subsisting between man and youth,
recognised by society and protected by opinion, which, though it was not
free from sensuality, did not degenerate into mere licentiousness.