_Chrysippus_ of Euripides, a work which is peculiarly interesting
for two reasons—its author and its subject. The _Myrmidones_ and the
_Niobe_, of which we have just spoken, seem, as far as can be judged
by the little of them that remains, to have dealt with what may be
called simple straightforward love-stories. Men are introduced as in
love with other men, and this love is brought to a climax by the most
usual of expedients—the death of the loved object. Euripides, on the
other hand, was, as we have seen, above all things a student of the
emotions in their more complex phases, and a _dénouement_ of so ordinary
a kind could not have failed to appear commonplace to a writer who took
such an interest in the pathology of the senses, even when he for once
abandoned his favourite field of the feminine passions, and undertook the
examination of a form of love, the symptoms of which are notoriously more
easily capable of diagnosis. And, as a matter of fact, the _Chrysippus_
introduces us to a novel and most interesting side of the question. The
story on which the play is founded is, to quote the words of the Argument
to the _Phoenissae_, as follows:
οὗτος (ὁ Λάϊος) ἀφικόμενός ποτε εἰς Ἦλιν καὶ τὸν τοῦ Πέλοπος
υἱὸν Χρύσιππον ἰδών, ὃς ἦν ἐξ ἄλλης αὐτῷ γυναικὸς καὶ οὐκ ἐκ
τῆς θυγατρὸς Οἰνομάου Ἱπποδαμείας, καὶ ἁλοὺς τούτου κατάκρας
τῷ ἔρωτι, ἁρπάσας εἰς Θήβας ἤνεγκεν. καὶ συνῆν αὐτῷ τὰ ἐρωτικὰ
πρῶτος ἐν ἀνθρώποις τὴν ἀρρενοφθορίαν εὑρών, καθὼς δὴ καὶ ὁ
Ζεὺς ἐν θεοῖς τὸν Γανυμήδην ἁρπάσας. ὁ δὲ Πέλοψ μαθὼν τοῦτο
κατηράσατο Λάϊῳ μηδέποτε μὲν παῖδα τεκεῖν, εἰ δ’ ἄρα καὶ
συμβαίη, ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦτον ἀναιρεθήσεσθαι.
Or, according to a slightly different version found in “Peisander”:
ἱστορεῖ Πείσανδρος, ὅτι κατὰ χόλον τῆς Ἥρας ἐπέμφθη ἡ Σφὶγξ
τοῖς Θηβαίοις ἀπὸ τῶν ἐσχάτων μερῶν τῆς Αἰθιοπίας, ὅτι τὸν
Λάϊον ἀσεβήσαντα εἰς τὸν παράνομον ἔρωτα τοῦ Χρυσίππου, ὃν
ἥρπασεν ἀπὸ τῆς Πίσης, οὐκ ἐτιμωρήσαντο ... πρῶτος δὲ ὁ Λάϊος
τὸν ἀθέμιστον ἔρωτα τοῦτον ἔσχεν. ὁ δὲ Χρύσιππος ὑπὸ αἰσχύνης
ἑαυτὸν διεχρήσατο τῷ ξίφει. (Schol. _ad Eur. Phoen._ 1760.)
The moral of both these stories is obvious. The behaviour of Laius
towards Chrysippus was a crime deserving the most exemplary punishment.
Now this fact at once affords us a clue as to the real nature of Laius’
conduct. It seems impossible that the statement that Laius πρῶτος τὸν
ἀθέμιστον ἔρωτα τοῦτον ἔσχεν can be taken to mean that he was the founder
of love as between man and man in the same way as this is related of,
for instance, Orpheus. It seems impossible to believe that any legend
should have described the originator of that form of love with which,
as we know, the highest thoughts and ideals of the early Greeks were
so intimately associated, as a criminal worthy of divine punishment.
Euripides himself might not have shrunk from such a course, but it does
not seem conceivable that he should have found any existing legend on
which to begin to work;[174] and it seems, therefore, unquestionable that
the meaning of the story cannot have been this. As a matter of fact, a
careful examination of such evidence as we have, affords every reason
for believing that its meaning was a very different one.
The true meaning of the legend is this. Laius was the first to violate
the universal law that the love between man and man must be pure; and it
was this transgression that involved himself, his family, and his country
in such universal ruin.
That this meaning is in itself a more likely one than the other, will
probably not be disputed by anyone who has formed a true conception of
early Greek feeling on the subject; more than this one cannot expect. But
while actual proof on the point is impossible, it may not be inapposite
to draw attention to the way in which the sensuality and unreasoning
animalism of Laius are emphasised at every turn, with the view doubtless,
in the first case, of preventing any conceivable misunderstanding of the
true purport of the tradition.
In the play itself, the nature of his passion is shown only too clearly
by the famous distichs (_Fr._ 840, 841):
λέληθεν οὐδὲν τῶνδέ μ’ ὧν σὺ νουθετεῖς,
γνώμην δ’ ἔχοντά μ’ ἡ φύσις βιάζεται.
αἰαῖ, τόδ’ ἤδη δεινὸν ἀνθρώποις κακόν,
ὅταν τις εἰδῇ τἀγαθόν, χρῆται δὲ μή.
Cicero says as much (_Tusc._ iv. 33, 71): Quis ... non intellegit quid
apud Euripidem et loquatur et cupiat Laius? Aelian, too (_N. H._ vi. 15),
draws an unconscious comparison between this play and the pure old-Greek
_Niobe_ of Sophocles when, after describing how the dolphin that loved
a boy ἐπιβιῶναι τοῖς παιδικοῖς οὐκ ἐτόλμησεν, he adds, Λάϊος δὲ ἐπὶ
Χρυσίππῳ, ὦ καλὲ Εὐριπίδη, τοῦτο οὐκ ἔδρασεν.
The sensuality of the passion is clearly shown, too, by various features
of the legend as recorded by various writers, above all by the fact that
Hera is the goddess outraged, and by the peculiar nature of the curse of
Pelops. The actual words, moreover, of the Scholiast of the _Phoenissae_
(τὸν Λάϊον _ἀσεβήσαντα_ ἐς τὸν _παράνομον_ ἔρωτα τοῦ Χρυσίππου) and
of the argument of that play (καὶ _συνῆν αὐτῷ_ τὰ ἐρωτικὰ πρῶτος ἐν
ἀνθρώποις τὴν ἀρρενοφθορίαν εὑρών), seem all to point the same way.[175]
In fact, the sensuality of Laius is made such a feature of the story in
every case in which it is narrated, that it cannot well be doubted that
this sensuality was a feature of the story in its earliest form; and if
this be granted, there can be very little question as to the meaning of
the story itself, as originally current.
We thus have three plays, one by each of the great dramatists, dealing
with this subject, two of them dwelling upon the intense and unselfish
nature of the passion in its true form, the third emphasising the
disastrous consequences of any transgression of that purity which was so
integral a part of it; but are these three the only ones of their kind?
They are the only three, perhaps, that dealt with the purely erotic
side of the matter; but its general influence evidently extended over a
far wider field. This influence makes itself felt in various ways and
in varying degrees, and it would be a lengthy task, and one beside the
present purpose, to endeavour to trace its workings wherever they are
visible in Attic tragedy; but a few noticeable instances of it are well
worthy of attention.
One of these is the _Ajax_ of Sophocles. It is a common complaint against
this play that the second half of it is inferior in interest to the
first. The admirers of Sophocles, however, contend that, to an Athenian
audience, the details of funeral arrangements were matters of such
paramount importance that, in a play intended for the Athenian stage, a
second act dealing entirely with this subject would not by any means be
of the nature of an anti-climax. I am no great admirer of Sophocles, and
still less am I an admirer of the mob that pelted Aeschylus and hooted
Euripides, but yet I should be disposed to give the Athenians credit for
rather higher tastes than this would seem to imply; while, even had the
predilections of his audience been so strongly those of the undertaker,
it might surely have been hoped that a poet of Sophocles’ genius would
have had the courage to ignore them. Indeed, as long as the interest
of the second half of the _Ajax_ is considered as centred on the dead
body of the hero, it is impossible successfully to refute the charge of
bathos; but a more careful consideration of this part of the play will,
perhaps, show that the interest is by no means intended to be attached
in this Mezentius-like manner to a corpse. The interest is meant to
centre on Teucer, the _amasius_ of the dead Ajax,[176] and on his efforts
to prove himself worthy of his heroic lover; for his lover’s sake, in
spite of every obstacle, and in the face of what looks like certain
death, he insists that due respect shall be paid to the dead; in fact,
there are in this situation the germs of the situation which excites
such general interest in the _Antigone_.[177] There the character whose
weakness is made strength through love, is a woman, and so we moderns
admire; here it is a man, and so we misunderstand; but it does not follow
that the Greeks were equally narrow in their sympathies.
Another instance, less obvious at first sight, but equally convincing on
nearer examination, is the _Alcestis_. The _Alcestis_ is a very difficult
play to understand, as far as the motives of its leading figures are
concerned; nor is it enough to say that, because the play has been
described as “something of a satyric drama,” therefore all its characters
are meant to be grotesque. The self-concentration of Admetus and the
complete acquiescence therein of Alcestis, must surely be capable of some
more satisfactory explanation.[178] This explanation is, perhaps, to
be found in the relation existing between Admetus and Apollo. The story
of the love of Apollo for Admetus is sufficiently familiar,[179] and
has been alluded to on various occasions in the preceding pages. Both
at Athens and Sparta the legend seems to have been well known,[180] and
there can be no doubt that an audience, when called upon to listen to a
play dealing with Admetus, would instinctively call to mind this incident
in his life.[181] Granted this, it is not, perhaps, too bold to say that
it is equally unquestionable that this recollection on their part must
have influenced their view of the hero’s character. He was unwilling to
die; for any Greek to be unwilling to die was excusable in a way which
we who live in English fogs can never understand; but for Admetus, the
beloved of the Sun-god! If he, who for nine years had met Apollo face to
face, shrank from the mould and the mud of Hades, what reason to wonder
at it? To a Greek, to live was to see the sun; surely then, to one whom
the Sun-god loved, life must be doubly precious, precious to a degree
that less happy mortals could never comprehend.[182] Then, again, if one
thought of who Admetus was. Surely the man whom the Sun-god loved was a
man whom the world could not spare, a man for whom it was a privilege
to be considered worthy to die. Patriotism, too, no less than personal
affection, would seem to compel a sacrifice on behalf of the man in whose
kingdom a god took such a special interest;[183] nor, again, was the
gift of a divine lover a thing that it was safe lightly to put aside.
All this, and much more of a kindred nature, must have been present in
the minds of those who first saw this strange play, and must have served
in part to mitigate its strangeness. It could not, perhaps, explain the
central mystery; but then, the mystery of self-sacrifice has never been
explained yet.
Another striking instance is the persistent way in which Orestes and
Pylades figure in the Athenian drama. They play a prominent part in no
fewer than five tragedies, in one of which, the _Iphigeneia in Tauris_,
the scene between them became proverbial;[184] and thus we get repeated
again and again the, to modern minds, almost grotesque situation of the
intense affection between Orestes and Pylades, and the intense affection
between Orestes and Electra,[185] and the supreme indifference between
Pylades and Electra, the two lovers who are going to marry one another
as soon as the curtain comes down. And yet, those who have read what has
gone before will know that not only did this situation seem natural to
the Athenian audience, but any other situation under the circumstances
would have seemed to them monstrous or absurd.
It is hardly necessary to follow this subject further, for enough has
been said already to make its main features perfectly clear. Still less
is it necessary, for our present purpose, to study the history of this
emotion during the succeeding centuries. As we have already pointed out,
from the end of the fifth century onwards it begins to lose its hold
on the popular imagination, and ceases to be a national institution;
and when next we find traces of it in literature, we see at once that
its nature has entirely altered. Paederastic poetry there is enough and
to spare among the Alexandrians, but it is poetry which looks strange
indeed by the side of Theognis.[186] What were the causes that led
to this change, a change as great as that which about this time came
over the relation between man and woman—how far it was due to Persian
influence, how far to the employment of professional soldiers instead of
the citizen-armies of an earlier period—all these are questions of the
greatest interest in themselves, but they cannot be discussed here. The
fact remains that that purity and self-devotion which had been the rule
in one generation became the exception in the next, and that the downward
course was never again fully arrested throughout classical times.
And yet, even the most sensual of the later poets, somehow, sometimes,
when speaking of this, rise to strange heights of beauty. Listen to
Rhianus:
ἰξῷ Δεξιόνικος ὑπὸ χλωρῇ πλατανίστῳ
κόσσυφον ἀγρεύσας, εἷλε κατὰ πτερύγων·
χὡ μὲν ἀναστενάχων ἀπεκώκυεν ἱερὸς ὄρνις.
ἀλλ’ ἐγώ, ὦ φίλ’ Ἔρως, καὶ θαλεραὶ χάριτες,
εἴην καὶ κίχλη καὶ κόσσυφος, ὡς ἂν ἐκείνου
ἐν χερὶ καὶ φθογγὴν καὶ γλυκὺ δάκρυ βάλω.
(_Anth. Pal._ xii. 142.)
Listen to Meleager, the last of the Greek poets:
οὐκ ἐθέλω Χαρίδαμον· ὁ γὰρ καλὸς εἰς Δία λεύσσει,
ὡς ἤδη νέκταρ τῷ θεῷ οἰνοχοῶν.
οὐκ ἐθέλω· τί δὲ μοὶ τὸν ἐπουρανίων βασιλῆα
ἄνταθλον νίκης τῆς ἐν ἔρωτι λαβεῖν;
αἱροῦμαι δ’, ἢν μοῦνον ὁ παῖς ἀνιὼν ἐς Ὄλυμπον
ἐκ γῆς νίπτρα ποδῶν δάκρυα τἀμὰ λάβῃ,
μναμόσυνον στοργῆς· γλυκὺ δ’ ὄμμασι νεῦμα δίϋγρον
δοίη, καί τι φίλημ’ ἁρπάσαι ἀκροθιγές.
τἄλλα δὲ πάντ’ ἐχέτω Ζεύς, ὡς θέμις. εἰ δ’ ἐθελήσει,
ἦ τάχα που κἀγὼ γεύσομαι ἀμβροσίας.
(_Anth. Pal._ xii. 68.)
δάκρυα σοὶ καὶ νέρθε διὰ χθονός, Ἡλιοδώρα,
δωροῦμαι.
The foregoing discussion has covered a quantity of ground and dealt with
a large variety of topics, some of which may have appeared but remotely
connected with our immediate subject; but in the end it has succeeded
in establishing certain facts very clearly. We have learnt from an
examination of such parts of the early Greek literature as have survived,
and from a consideration of the probable nature of the rest, that
(1) Love in the modern sense, as existing between men and women, was
unknown in early Greece.
(2) Such love on the part of men for men was not only a fact, but
was generally recognised as a social, and in some cases a national,
institution.
From this it would seem inevitably to follow, that the change which we
find at a later period to have come over the way of regarding women, was
due to a transference to the sexual instinct, and an amalgamation with
it, of that form of emotion which had previously been confined to the
mutual relations of men. In other words, men first began to look upon
women as fit objects of pure and chivalrous devotion, when they began
(to quote the expression of Alcman)[187] to look upon them as “female
boy-friends.”
Now, my reason for calling attention to this point is the following:
If one regards the origin of what, for briefness’ sake, we have called
the romantic feeling, as entirely a new growth of the fourth century,
unconnected with anything that had gone before, it is obvious that such
a growth, if indeed possible at all, can only have been made possible by
a simultaneous movement on the part of a large number of persons; for it
is inconceivable that any one man, however great his influence, could
invent and popularise an entirely new emotion. But if, on the other
hand, we regard the romantic feeling as simply due to the readjustment of
an already existing emotion, it is no longer absurd to suppose that the
original suggestion of this readjustment may have been due to some single
individual. Indeed, the probabilities rather point in that direction,
for it is a commonplace that revolutions of thought are generally due to
the discovery, on the part of some individual, of the apparently obvious
formula for which the rest of mankind have long been seeking in vain.
This being so, it will be justifiable to apply the general principle to
the case before us, and it will no longer seem a fruitless task to look
about among the literary names of the close of the fifth century and the
beginning of the fourth, for the man who gave the first impulse to that
remarkable movement with which we are at present concerned.
The great obstacle which here confronts us at the outset, and, indeed,
makes this whole investigation one of exceptional difficulty, is the
fact that, of all the periods of Greek poetry, that which covers the
first part of the fourth century—in other words, that which forms the
transition from the classical to the so-called Alexandrian era—is just
that of which the fewest monuments of importance have been preserved.
From the death of Aristophanes to the time when Asclepiades began
to write is pretty well 70 years,[188] but all the poetry which has
come down to us from this whole period consists of a few fragments of
comedy,[189] most of which it is impossible even approximately to date,
and a few epigrams, the history of which is often more obscure still.
There is thus a great gap in our knowledge, and it is just during this
interval of darkness that the romantic feeling must first have found
expression, for while in Euripides, confessedly the most “modern” of the
classical poets, no real trace of it is to be found,[190] in Asclepiades
and his immediate contemporaries and followers we find it already so
thoroughly established as a noteworthy factor in their work, that it is
impossible to doubt that its origin must belong to a considerably earlier
period. This being so, it is impossible to speak with any certainty. It
seems, however, most probable that the initiation of the movement was due
to Antimachus of Colophon.
Antimachus was a distinguished man in various ways. The author of an
important critical edition of the text of the Homeric poems, he was
himself an epic poet second only in the general estimation to Homer, and
his _Thebaid_ was still read and admired more than 500 years after his
death.[191] But the work on which his present claim rests is his elegiac
poem, _Lyde_. It may not be amiss briefly to recall the circumstances and
nature of this poem.[192]
Antimachus, falling in love with some Lydian lady, married her, and went
to live with her in her native country. Afterwards, on her death, he
returned to Colophon, where he composed, in her memory, the elegy _Lyde_,
a poem containing, in the form of digressions, accounts of most of the
unhappy lovers of tradition or mythology.[193]
Now, in this there are two features which it is impossible to parallel
in any previous Greek poem. The _Lyde_ of Antimachus was a love-poem
addressed to his wife, and written after her death. In these two facts
we recognise, on the part of the writer, a view both of married life
and of women in general, which is entirely new. Mimnermus had said that
life without love was not worth living, but his was hardly the love
to last after his lady’s death. Simonides had sung the charms of the
ideal housekeeper, but one would not expect to find emotional poetry
addressed even to the most perfect housekeeper, as such. Euripides had
expatiated on the powers and the capabilities of women; but there is
a difference between regarding a woman as a particularly cunning and
dangerous sort of beast, and regarding her as a fit object for a life’s
devotion. In Antimachus, for the first time, we meet with the new spirit
which animates the new literature and forms the foundation of the Greek
romantic conception; for it is respect for women and, above all, for
marriage, that constitutes the fundamental principle of the romantic
feeling throughout the later Greek poetry.[194] It was this spirit which
rendered possible the artistic treatment of the story of Acontius and
Cydippe, and the growth of the novel, with its one inviolable canon that,
whatever trials or temptations might befall them, the two lovers must
throughout remain pure and faithful to one another.[195] It was this that
rendered possible the New Comedy, with its endless variations on the
ever-fresh theme of the unhappy lover, made happy at the last by marriage
with his lady.[196] It was this that rendered possible the Battis of
Philetas and the Leontium of Hermesianax, just as it rendered possible
the Delia and the Lycoris of a later time. Under the old _régime_ none
of these things could have been. When Antimachus first sat down in his
empty house at Colophon to write an elegy to his dead wife, consciously
or unconsciously, he was initiating the greatest artistic revolution that
the world has ever seen.
The circumstances under which the _Lyde_ was produced were thus in
themselves sufficiently unusual to have made a deep impression, and
there is reason to believe further that the way in which Antimachus
there treated his subject was also strikingly original. Not only was the
actual literary form a novel one, and one that subsequently became very
popular, but the general tone evidently differed in a marked manner from
that of any love-poetry which had gone before. It was, above all things,
noticeable for its seriousness, its gravity, and its self-restraint,
characteristics entirely foreign to any previous love-poetry addressed to
women. Thus Poseidippus expressly contrasts the temperate Antimachus with
the licentious Mimnermus.[197] Something similar seems equally implied by
the epithet σεμνοτέρη in the epigram of Asclepiades (_Anth. Pal._ ix. 63,
2). Indirect evidence of the same nature is to be found in the remark of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who refers to Antimachus as an instance τῆς
αὐστηρᾶς ἁρμονίας.[198] Lastly, it is not, perhaps, too far-fetched to
suppose that in Catullus xcv. the contrast between the _Smyrna_ and the
_Lyde_ is not intended to be confined merely to the literary form, but is
meant to further imply the poet’s preference for the story of Myrrha over
the less highly spiced anecdotes in Antimachus. Very interesting too,
from this point of view, are the relations of mutual admiration which are
known to have existed between Antimachus and his younger contemporary
Plato, an admiration illustrated by several striking anecdotes.[199]
That the philosopher’s views on love were directly influenced by the
poet cannot, of course, be absolutely proved. At the same time, the
well-authenticated story of this intimacy, coupled with all that we
know of the _Lyde_, is very suggestive of this, and might well furnish
the subject for more elaborate research on the part of some Platonist.
In spite therefore of the very scanty references to the _Lyde_, and
the still scantier remains of the poem itself, it seems to be clear
beyond doubt that, both in its circumstances of origin and its style, it
was entirely different from any love-poem which had preceded it; and,
further, that both circumstances and style may justly be described as
romantic. In other words, the _Lyde_ was a romantic love-poem.
But this is not in itself enough to show that the origin of the romantic
feeling which appears in Alexandrian literature was due to its influence.
It is further necessary to prove that those writers in whose works this
feeling first appeals—viz. Asclepiades and Philetas—were actually readers
and admirers of Antimachus.
This it is, perhaps, possible to do more conclusively than the general
absence of evidence on the whole subject would have led one to expect.
It is just Asclepiades and his particular followers who speak with the
greatest enthusiasm of Antimachus. Very noteworthy are the words of
Asclepiades himself—
Λύδη καὶ γένος εἰμὶ καὶ οὔνομα· τῶν δ’ ἀπὸ Κόδρου
σεμνοτέρη πασῶν εἰμὶ δι’ Ἀντίμαχον.
τίς γὰρ ἔμ’ οὐκ ἤεισε; τίς οὐκ ἀνελέξατο Λύδην,
τὸ ξυνὸν Μουσῶν γράμμα καὶ Ἀντιμάχου;
_Anth. Pal._ ix. 63.
And the passage in Poseidippus, where Antimachus and Mimnermus, coupled
but contrasted, are spoken of as the first two love-poets, is scarcely
less emphatic.[200]