Page:Symonds - A Problem in Greek Ethics.djvu/61

Rh This position is developed in the eighth book (p. 836), where Plato directs his criticism, not only against what would now be termed the criminal intercourse between persons of the same sex, but also against incontinence in general. While framing a law of almost monastic rigour for the regulation of the sexual appetite, he remains an ancient Greek. He does not reach the point of view from which women are regarded as the proper objects of both passion and friendship, as the fit companions of men in all relations of life; far less does he revert to his earlier speculations upon the enthusiasm generated by a noble passion. The modern ideal of marriage and the chivalrous conception of womanhood as worthy to be worshipped are like unknown to him. Abstinence from the delights of love, continence except for the sole end of procreation, is the rule which he proposes to the world.

There are three distinct things, Plato argues, which, owing to the inadequacy of language to represent states of thought, have been confounded. These are friendship, desire, and a third mixed species. Friendship is further described as the virtuous affection of equals in taste, age and station. Desire is always founded on a sense of contrast. While friendship is "gentle and mutual through life," desire is "fierce and wild." The true friend seeks to live chastely with the chaste object of his attachment, whose soul he loves. The lustful lover longs to enjoy the flower of his youth and cares only for the body. The third sort is mixed of these; and a lover of this composite kind is torn asunder by two impulses, "the one commanding him to enjoy the youth's person, the other forbidding him to do so." The description of the lover of the third species so exactly suits the paiderast of nobler 4