Page:Lovers Legends - The Gay Greek Myths.pdf/16

LOVERS' LEGENDS Leading a child astray before the time is ripe Is a great error for his lover. Yet, after you are grown, to still submit, To what is done with youths is twice as shameful But comes a time, Morius, when it's no longer shameful and not yet, And now is come that time for you and me. $1$

Myth itself point to what "that time" might have been: Iolaus is said to have been sixteen when he accompanies Heercules on his labors. This was also Narcissus' age at the peak of his beauty, according to Ovid. Plato,too held in highet esteem those lovers who "... fall in love with boys old enough to think for themselves — in other words with boys who are nearly grown up."$2$

Some think that in prehistoric Greece male love was in integral part of initiation rites. $4$ By Classical times, however adult lover were pursuing

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