Page:Romances of Chivalry on Greek Soil.djvu/17

12 charming in their way, but they lack the subtlety which would please the 'ladies who have intelligence in love' of France and Italy. I may take as a specimen the first letter that Rhodamne wrote to her lover:—


 * 'I shrieked it to heaven, I told it to the clouds, I made earth my witness and the air, that never would I bow my neck beneath the bond of love. And now—my unbending purpose has been bent, my pride subdued, the plan of my behaviour changed. The freedom of my will I have made thy bondslave. I forswear from this hour the oath I made to heaven, the sacred oath I sware to the clouds. I avow it, and I write thee this my letter,—no small thing I deem it.'

The correspondence is somewhat too long, but the author has introduced an element wanting in Belthandros, where the interest turns entirely on the adventures.

The fatality of Love is a central idea as in Belthandros, and his destiny is revealed to Lybistros by the same kind of machinery. There can indeed be hardly a doubt that the poet knew Belthandros and borrowed the device. But he has avoided the error of allowing it a disproportionate place in his story, and he has so sophisticated it that it has a different poetical value. Lybistros, too, visits the fortress and gardens of Love; but there is no magic; he visits them in dreams; and the mansion, which is called Erotokratia, is pervaded by an atmosphere of allegory. Love himself assumes three forms—of a child, a man in his prime, and an old man; and he is surrounded by allegorical figures, Agape ('Affection'), Pothos ('Longing'), Kremasmos ('Suspense'). Thus, instead of the illusion of reality, successfully achieved in Belthandros, we have here allegory and dream. Moreover, while in Belthandros love is accepted simply as an irresistible power, here its claims are defended on philosophical grounds. Its cult is vindicated. The ideal hero must be trained in the school of love,