Page:Lovers Legends - The Gay Greek Myths.pdf/98

LOVERS’ LEGENDS robe,"$9$ showing not so much the tenderness of a lover as that of a father. When it was decided that one would remain behind to be sacrificed while the other journeyed to Mycenae to deliver the letter, each wanted to spare the other, deeming he would live on in the one to survive. Orestes refused the letter, as if Pylades was worthier of carrying it, and was the beloved and not the lover: "If he were to die I could not bear the torment, for my ship is already overburdened with misery." And later he says: "...Give him the letter. He will go to Argos as you have wished, and as for me, let me die as you see fit."$10$

That's how things stand. When an honest love, nourished from childhood, gathers strength and reaches the manly age of reason, then the one we have long loved is able to return that love. It is hard to tell who is whose lover; just as in a mirror, the tenderness of the lover is reflected by that of the beloved. Why ever do you reproach as a lust alien to our lives that which has been decreed by divine law, and handed down from one generation to another? We have received it with joy and we cherish it as sacred treasure. Truly happy is he, as the wise have justly said, who has

Young boys and strong-hooved horses! Joyfully ages the old man Whom youths do love.$11$

The precepts of Socrates, that admirable judge of virtue, were sanctified by the Delphic tripod. The Sybil spoke truly when she said, "Of all men, Socrates is the wisest." Besides all his other teachings benefitting the human race, he taught us that there is nothing better than the love of boys.

There is no doubt that we must love boys the same way in which Alicibiades was loved by Socrates, who slept the sleep of a father with him under a single cloak. As for me, I will end this speech with a bit of advice useful for all, taken from these verses of Callimachus:

You who upon youths cast your longing eyes, The sage of Erchius$12$ bids you be lovers of boys. Make love then to the young, the city with upstanding men to fill.$13$ 84