Before reviewing the authors who deal with this subject in detail, or
discussing the customs of the several Greek states, it will be well to
illustrate in general the nature of this love, and to collect the
principal legends and historic tales which set it forth.
Greek love was, in its origin and essence, military. Fire and valour,
rather than tenderness or tears, were the external outcome of this
passion; nor had _Malachia_, effeminacy, a place in its vocabulary. At
the same time it was exceedingly absorbing. "Half my life," says the
lover, "lives in thine image, and the rest is lost. When thou art kind,
I spend the day like a god; when thy face is turned aside, it is very
dark with me."[12] Plato, in his celebrated description of a lover's
soul, writes:[13]--
"Wherever she thinks that she will behold the beautiful one,
thither in her desire she runs. And when she has seen him, and
bathed herself with the waters of desire, her constraint is
loosened and she is refreshed, and has no more pangs and pains; and
this is the sweetest of all pleasures at the time, and is the
reason why the soul of the lover will never forsake his beautiful
one, whom he esteems above all; he has forgotten mother and
brethren and companions, and he thinks nothing of the neglect and
loss of his property. The rules and proprieties of life, on which
he formerly prided himself, he now despises, and is ready to sleep
like a servant, wherever he is allowed, as near as he can to his
beautiful one, who is not only the object of his worship, but the
only physician who can heal him in his extreme agony."
These passages show how real and vital was the passion of Greek love. It
would be difficult to find more intense expressions of affection in
modern literature. The effect produced upon the lover by the presence of
his beloved was similar to that inspiration which the knight of romance
received from his lady.
"I know not," says Phædrus, in the _Symposium_ of Plato,[14] "any
greater blessing to a young man beginning life than a virtuous
lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth. For the principle
which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live--that
principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any
other motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am I
speaking? Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which
neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work. And
I say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonourable act,
or submitting, through cowardice, when any dishonour is done to him
by another, will be more pained at being detected by his beloved
than at being seen by his father, or by his companions, or by any
one else. The beloved, too, when he is seen in any disgraceful
situation, has the same feeling about his lover. And if there were
only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made
up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors
of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour; and emulating one
another in honour; and when fighting at one another's side,
although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what
lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his
beloved, either when abandoning his post, or throwing away his
arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure
this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of
danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to
the bravest, at such a time; love would inspire him. That courage
which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the soul of heroes,
love of his own nature inspires into the lover."
With the whole of this quotation we might compare what Plutarch in the
Life of Pelopidas relates about the composition of a Sacred Band;[15]
while the following anecdote from the _Anabasis_ of Xenophon may serve
to illustrate the theory that regiments should consist of lovers.[16]
Episthenes of Olynthus, one of Xenophon's hoplites, saved a beautiful
boy from the slaughter commanded by Seuthes in a Thracian village. The
king could not understand why his orders had not been obeyed, till
Xenophon excused his hoplite by explaining that Episthenes was a
passionate boy-lover, and that he had once formed a corps of none but
beautiful men. Then Seuthes asked Episthenes if he was willing to die
instead of the boy, and he answered, stretching out his neck, "Strike,"
he says, "if the boy says 'Yes,'[17] and will be pleased with it." At
the end of the affair, which is told by Xenophon with a quiet humour
that brings a little scene of Greek military life vividly before us,
Seuthes gave the boy his liberty, and the soldier walked away with him.
In order further to illustrate the hardy nature of Greek love, I may
allude to the speech of Pausanias in the _Symposium_ of Plato.[18] The
fruits of love, he says, are courage in the face of danger, intolerance
of despotism, the virtues of the generous and haughty soul.
"In Ionia," he adds, "and other places, and generally in countries
which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be
dishonourable; loves of youth share the evil repute of philosophy
and gymnastics because they are inimical to tyranny, for the
interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in
spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or
society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely
to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience."