Page:Symonds - A Problem in Greek Ethics.djvu/71

Rh of judging how the Greeks of the decadence felt about this form of love. Malakia is the real condemnation of this poetry, rather than brutality or coarseness. A favourite topic is the superiority of boys over girls. This sometimes takes a gross form; but once or twice the treatment of the subject touches a real psychological distinction, as in the following epigram: —

These four lines give the key to much of the Greek preference for paiderastia. The love of the male, when it has been apprehended and entertained, is more exciting, they thought, more absorbent of the whole nature, than the love of the female. It is, to use another kind of phraseology, more of a mania and more of a disease.

With the Anthology we might compare the curious Epistolai Erotikai of Philostratus. They were in all probability rhetorical compositions, not intended for particular persons; yet they indicate the kind of wooing to which youths were subjected in later Hellas. The discrepancy between the triviality of their subject-matter and the exquisiteness of their diction is striking. The second of these qualities has made them a mine for poets. Ben Jonson, for example, borrowed the loveliest of his lyrics from the following concetto:—"I sent thee a crown of roses, not so much honouring thee, though this, too, was my meaning, but wishing to do some kindness to the roses that they might not wither." Take, again, the phrase: "Well, and love himself is naked, and the graces and the stars;" or this, "O rose, that has a voice to speak with!"—or this metaphor for the footsteps of the beloved, "O rhythms of most beloved feet, O kisses pressed upon the ground!"

While the paiderastia of the Greeks was sinking into grossness, effeminacy, and æsthetic prettiness, the moral instincts of humanity began to assert themselves in earnest. It became part of the higher doctrine of the Roman Stoics to suppress this form of passion. The Christians, from St. Paul onwards,