Page:Homo-sexual Life by William John Fielding (1925).pdf/32

 A striking example of the combining of the male and female attributes is seen in the Apollo in the temple at Delphi—one of the foremost seats of prophesy and divination in the old world. Apollo, who presided at this shrine, was a queer blend of masculine and feminine characters. He was frequently represented as being very feminine in form, particularly in the more archaic statues.

Apollo was the patron of song and music. He was, too, a representative divinity of the Uranian love, being the special god of the Dorian Greeks, who seem to have been responsible for establishing the custom of invert love in that country. It was said of Apollo that to expiate his pollution by the blood of the Python, whom he slew, he became the slave and devoted favorite of Admetus.

Muller described a Dorian religious festival, in which a boy, taking the part of Apollo, "probably imitated the manner in which the god, as herdsman and slave of Alcestis, submitted to the most degrading service."

The opinion is expressed by Dr. Iwan Bloch in his great work, "Die Prostitution" that homosexuality, on account of its strange and inexplicable character, was accounted by primitive people as something divine and miraculous. To the homosexual man or woman were therefore attributed supernatural powers. In this respect, the homosexual had characteristics in common with the primitive gods, which probably accounts for the ancients venerating their inverts.

Bloch says on this score: "This riddle, which despite all our efforts, present-day science has