Chapter II: Preface: To First Edition (2)

In the _Symposium_ or _Banquet_ of Plato (B.C. 428—B.C. 347), a supper party is supposed, at which a discussion on love and friendship takes place. The friends present speak in turn—the enthusiastic Phædrus, the clear-headed Pausanias, the grave doctor Eryximachus, the comic and acute Aristophanes, the young poet Agathon; Socrates, tantalising, suggestive, and quoting the profound sayings of the prophetess Diotima; and Alcibiades, drunk, and quite ready to drink more;—each in his turn, out of the fulness of his heart, speaks; and thus in this most dramatic dialogue we have love discussed from every point of view, and with insight, acumen, romance and humour unrivalled.

[Sidenote: _From the Speech of Phædrus in the Symposium_]

Phædrus and Pausanias, in the two following quotations, take the line which perhaps most thoroughly represents the public opinion of the day—as to the value of friendship in nurturing a spirit of honour and freedom, especially in matters military and political:—

“Thus numerous are the witnesses who acknowledge love to be the
eldest of the gods. And not only is he the eldest, he is also
the source of the greatest benefits to us. For I know not any
greater blessing to a young man beginning life than a virtuous
lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth. For the principle
which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live—that
principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor
any other motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am
I speaking? of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which
neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work.
And I say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonorable
act, or submitting through cowardice when any dishonour is done
to him by another, will be more pained at being detected by his
beloved than at being seen by his father, or by his companions,
or by anyone else. The beloved too, when he is seen in any
disgraceful situation, has the same feeling about his lover. And
if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an
army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be
the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all
dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting
at one another’s side, although a mere handful, they would
overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be
seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning
his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a
thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his
beloved, or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward
would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a
time; love would inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says,
the god breathes into the soul of heroes, love of his own nature
infuses into the lover.” _Symposium of Plato_, _trans. B. Jowett_.

[Sidenote: _Speech of Pausanias_]

“In Ionia and other places, and generally in countries which
are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be
dishonorable; loves of youths share the evil repute of philosophy
and gymnastics, because they are inimical to tyranny; for the
interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in
spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or
society among them, which love above all other motives is likely
to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience.”
_Ibid._

[Sidenote: _Speech of Aristophanes_]

Aristophanes goes more deeply into the nature of this love of which they are speaking. He says it is a profound reality—a deep and intimate union, abiding after death, and making of the lovers “one departed soul instead of two.” But in order to explain his allusion to “the other half” it must be premised that in the earlier part of his speech he has in a serio-comic vein pretended that human beings were originally constructed double, with four legs, four arms, etc.; but that as a punishment for their sins Zeus divided them perpendicularly, “as folk cut eggs before they salt them,” the males into two parts, the females into two, and the hermaphrodites likewise into two—since when, these divided people have ever pursued their lost halves, and “thrown their arms around and embraced each other, seeking to grow together again.” And so, speaking of those who were originally males, he says:

“And these when they grow up are our statesmen, and these only,
which is a great proof of the truth of what I am saying. And
when they reach manhood they are lovers of youth, and are not
naturally inclined to marry or beget children, which they do,
if at all, only in obedience to the law, but they are satisfied
if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded; and
such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always
embracing that which is akin to him. And when one of them finds
his other half, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of
another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and
friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s
sight, as I may say, even for a moment: they will pass their
whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they
desire of one another. For the intense yearning that each of
them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of
lovers’ intercourse, but of something else which the soul of
either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she only
has a dark and doubtful presentiment. Suppose Hephæstus, with
his instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side by side
and say to them, ‘What do you people want of one another?’ they
would be unable to explain. And suppose further that when he
saw their perplexity he said: ‘Do you desire to be wholly one;
always day and night to be in one another’s company? for if this
is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you
grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while
you live, live a common life as if you were a single man, and
after your death in the world below still be one departed soul
instead of two—I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire,
and whether you are satisfied to attain this?’—there is not a man
of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not
acknowledge that this meeting and melting in one another’s arms,
this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his
ancient need.” _Ibid._

[Sidenote: _Speech of Socrates_]

Socrates, in his speech, and especially in the later portion of it where he quotes his supposed tutoress Diotima, carries the argument up to its highest issue. After contending for the essentially creative, generative nature of love, not only in the Body but in the Soul, he proceeds to say that it is not so much the seeking of a lost half which causes the creative impulse in lovers, as the fact that in our mortal friends we are contemplating (though unconsciously) an image of the Essential and Divine Beauty; it is this that affects us with that wonderful “mania,” and lifts us into the region where we become creators. And he follows on to the conclusion that it is by wisely and truly loving our visible friends that at last, after long long experience, there dawns upon us the vision of that Absolute Beauty which by mortal eyes must ever remain unseen:—

“He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and
who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession,
when he comes towards the end will suddenly perceive a nature
of wondrous beauty ... beauty absolute, separate, simple and
everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or
any change, is imparted to the evergrowing and perishing beauties
of all other things. He who, from these ascending under the
influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not
far from the end.” _Ibid._

This is indeed the culmination, for Plato, of all existence—the ascent into the presence of that endless Beauty of which all fair mortal things are but the mirrors. But to condense this great speech of Socrates is impossible; only to persistent and careful reading (if even then) will it yield up all its treasures.

[Sidenote: _Socrates in the Phædrus_]

In the dialogue named _Phædrus_ the same idea is worked out, only to some extent in reverse order. As in the _Symposium_ the lover by rightly loving at last rises to the vision of the Supreme Beauty; so in the _Phædrus_ it is explained that in reality every soul _has_ at some time seen that Vision (at the time, namely, of its true initiation, when it was indeed winged)—but has forgotten it; and that it is the dim _reminiscence_ of that Vision, constantly working within us, which guides us to our earthly loves and renders their effect upon us so transporting. Long ago, in some other condition of being, we saw Beauty herself:—

“But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there shining
in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we
find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest
aperture of sense. For sight is the keenest of our bodily senses;
though not by that is wisdom seen; her loveliness would have
been transporting if there had been a visible image of her, and
the same is true of the loveliness of the other ideas as well.
But this is the privilege of beauty, that she is the loveliest
and also the most palpable to sight. Now he who is not newly
initiated, or who has become corrupted, does not easily rise
out of this world to the sight of true beauty in the other; he
looks only at her earthly namesake, and instead of being awed
at the sight of her, like a brutish beast he rushes on to enjoy
and beget; he consorts with wantonness, and is not afraid or
ashamed of pursuing pleasure in violation of nature. But he
whose initiation is recent, and who has been the spectator of
many glories in the other world, is amazed when he sees anyone
having a god-like face or form, which is the expression of Divine
Beauty; and at first a shudder runs through him, and again the
old awe steals over him; then looking upon the face of his
beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid
of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to
his beloved as to the image of a god.” _The Phædrus of Plato_,
_trans. B. Jowett_.

And again:—

“And so the beloved who, like a god, has received every true and
loyal service from his lover, not in pretence but in reality,
being also himself of a nature friendly to his admirer, if in
former days he has blushed to own his passion and turned away his
lover, because his youthful companions or others slanderously
told him that he would be disgraced, now as years advance, at the
appointed age and time, is led to receive him into communion. For
fate which has ordained that there shall be no friendship among
the evil has also ordained that there shall ever be friendship
among the good. And when he has received him into communion and
intimacy, then the beloved is amazed at the goodwill of the
lover; he recognises that the inspired friend is worth all other
friendships or kinships, which have nothing of friendship in them
in comparison. And when this feeling continues and he is nearer
to him and embraces him, in gymnastic exercises and at other
times of meeting, then does the fountain of that stream, which
Zeus when he was in love with Ganymede named desire, overflow
upon the lover, and some enters into his soul, and some when he
is filled flows out again; and as a breeze or an echo rebounds
from the smooth rocks and returns whence it came, so does the
stream of beauty, passing the eyes which are the natural doors
and windows of the soul, return again to the beautiful one; there
arriving and quickening the passages of the wings, watering them
and inclining them to grow, and filling the soul of the beloved
also with love.” _Ibid._

For Plato the real power which ever moves the soul is this reminiscence of the Beauty which exists before all worlds. In the actual world the soul lives but in anguish, an exile from her true home; but in the presence of her friend, who reveals the Divine, she is loosed from her suffering and comes to her haven of rest.

“And wherever she [the soul] thinks that she will behold the
beautiful one, thither in her desire she runs. And when she has
seen him, and bathed herself with the waters of desire, her
constraint is loosened, and she is refreshed, and has no more
pangs and pains; and this is the sweetest of all pleasures at
the time, and is the reason why the soul of the lover will never
forsake his beautiful one, whom he esteems above all; he has
forgotten mother and brethren and companions, and he thinks
nothing of the neglect and loss of his property; the rules and
proprieties of life, on which he formerly prided himself, he now
despises, and is ready to sleep like a servant, wherever he is
allowed, as near as he can to his beautiful one, who is not only
the object of his worship, but the only physician who can heal
him in his extreme agony.” _Ibid._

[Sidenote: _The Banquet of Xenophon_]

At another time, in the Banquet of Xenophon, Socrates is again made to speak at length on the subject of Love—though not in so inspired a strain as in Plato:—

“Truly, to speak for one, I never remember the time when I
was not in love; I know too that Charmides has had a great
many lovers, and being much beloved has loved again. As for
Critobulus, he is still of an age to love, and to be beloved;
and Nicerates too, who loves so passionately his wife, at least
as report goes, is equally beloved by her.... And as for you,
Callias, you love, as well as the rest of us; for who is it that
is ignorant of your love for Autolycus? It is the town-talk;
and foreigners, as well as our citizens, are acquainted with
it. The reason for your loving him, I believe to be that you
are both born of illustrious families; and at the same time are
both possessed of personal qualities that render you yet more
illustrious. For me, I always admired the sweetness and evenness
of your temper; but much more when I consider that your passion
for Autolycus is placed on a person who has nothing luxurious or
affected in him; but in all things shows a vigour and temperance
worthy of a virtuous soul; which is a proof at the same time that
if he is infinitely beloved, he deserves to be so. I confess
indeed I am not firmly persuaded whether there be but one Venus
or two, the celestial and the vulgar; and it may be with this
goddess, as with Jupiter, who has many different names though
there is still but one Jupiter. But I know very well that both
the Venuses have quite different altars, temples and sacrifices.
The vulgar Venus is worshipped after a common negligent manner;
whereas the celestial one is adored in purity and sanctity of
life. The vulgar inspires mankind with the love of the body only,
but the celestial fires the mind with the love of the soul, with
friendship, and a generous thirst after noble actions.... Nor is
it hard to prove, Callias, that gods and heroes have always had
more passion and esteem for the charms of the soul, than those
of the body: at least this seems to have been the opinion of our
ancient authors. For we may observe in the fables of antiquity
that Jupiter, who loved several mortals on account of their
personal beauty only, never conferred upon them immortality.
Whereas it was otherwise with Hercules, Castor, Pollux, and
several others; for having admired and applauded the greatness
of their courage and the beauty of their minds, he enrolled them
in the number of the gods.... You are then infinitely obliged to
the gods, Callias, who have inspired you with love and friendship
for Autolycus, as they have inspired Critobulus with the same
for Amandra; for real and pure friendship knows no difference in
sexes.” _Banquet of Xenophon_ § viii. (_Bohn_).

[Sidenote: _Plutarch Philosophises_]

Plutarch, who wrote in the first century A.D. (nearly 500 years after Plato), carried on the tradition of his master, though with an admixture of later influences; and philosophised about friendship, on the basis of true love being a reminiscence.

“The rainbow is I suppose a reflection caused by the sun’s
rays falling on a moist cloud, making us think the appearance
is in the cloud. Similarly erotic fancy in the case of noble
souls causes a reflection of the memory from things which here
appear and are called beautiful to what is really divine and
lovely and felicitous and wonderful. But most lovers pursuing
and groping after the semblance of beauty in youths and women,
as in mirrors,[4] can derive nothing more certain than pleasure
mixed with pain. And this seems the love-delirium of Ixion, who
instead of the joy he desired embraced only a cloud, as children
who desire to take the rainbow into their hands, clutching at
whatever they see. But different is the behaviour of the noble
and chaste lover: for he reflects on the divine beauty that can
only be felt, while he uses the beauty of the visible body only
as an organ of the memory, though he embraces it and loves it,
and associating with it is still more inflamed in mind. And so
neither in the body do they sit ever gazing at and desiring
_this_ light, nor after death do they return to this world
again, and skulk and loiter about the doors and bedchambers of
newly-married people, disagreeable ghosts of pleasure-loving and
sensual men and women, who do not rightly deserve the name of
lovers. For the true lover, when he has got into the other world
and associated with beauties as much as is lawful, has wings and
is initiated and passes his time above in the presence of his
Deity, dancing and waiting upon him, until he goes back to the
meadows of the Moon and Aphrodite, and sleeping there commences
a new existence. But this is a subject too high for the present
occasion.” _Plutarch’s Eroticus_ § xx. _trans. Bohn’s Classics_.

III.

_Poetry of Friendship among Greeks & Romans_

_Poetry of Friendship among Greeks & Romans_

The fact, already mentioned, that the _romance_ of love among the Greeks was chiefly felt towards male friends, naturally led to their poetry being largely inspired by friendship; and Greek literature contains such a great number of poems of this sort, that I have thought it worth while to dedicate the main portion of the following section to quotations from them. No translations of course can do justice to the beauty of the originals, but the few specimens given may help to illustrate the depth and tenderness as well as the temperance and sobriety which on the whole characterised Greek feeling on this subject, at any rate during the best period of Hellenic culture. The remainder of the section is devoted to Roman poetry of the time of the Cæsars.

[Sidenote: _Motive of Homer’s Iliad_]

It is not always realised that the Iliad of Homer turns upon the motive of friendship, but the extracts immediately following will perhaps make this clear. E. F. M. Benecke in his _Position of Women in Greek Poetry_ (p. 76) says of the Iliad:—

“It is a story of which the main motive is the love of Achilles
for Patroclus. This solution is astoundingly simple, and yet
it took me so long to bring myself to accept it that I am
quite ready to forgive anyone who feels a similar hesitation.
But those who do accept it cannot fail to observe, on further
consideration, how thoroughly suitable a motive of this kind
would be in a national Greek epic. For this is the motive running
through the whole of Greek life, till that life was transmuted
by the influence of Macedonia. The lover-warriors Achilles and
Patroclus are the direct spiritual ancestors of the sacred Band
of Thebans, who died to a man on the field of Chæronæa.”

[Sidenote: _J. A. Symonds on the same_]

The following two quotations are from _The Greek Poets_ by J. A. Symonds, ch. iii. p. 80 _et seq._:—

“The _Iliad_ therefore has for its whole subject the passion of
Achilles—that ardent energy or μῆνις of the hero which displayed
itself first as anger against Agamemnon, and afterwards as love
for the lost Patroclus. The truth of this was perceived by one of
the greatest poets and profoundest, critics of the modern world,
Dante. When Dante, in the _Inferno_, wished to describe Achilles,
he wrote, with characteristic brevity:—

“Achille
Che per amore al fine combatteo.”

(“Achilles
Who at the last was brought to fight by love.”)

“In this pregnant sentence Dante sounded the whole depth of the
_Iliad_. The wrath of Achilles for Agamemnon, which prevented him
at first from fighting; the love of Achilles, passing the love of
women, for Patroclus, which induced him to forego his anger and
to fight at last; these are the two poles on which the _Iliad_
turns.”

[Sidenote: _Achilles and Patroclus_]

After his quarrel with Agamemnon, not even all the losses of the Greeks and the entreaties of Agamemnon himself will induce Achilles to fight—not till Patroclus is slain by Hector—Patroclus, his dear friend “whom above all my comrades I honoured, even as myself.” Then he rises up, dons his armour, and driving the Trojans before him revenges himself on the body of Hector. But Patroclus lies yet unburied; and when the fighting is over, to Achilles comes the ghost of his dead friend:—

“The son of Peleus, by the shore of the roaring sea lay, heavily
groaning, surrounded by his Myrmidons; on a fair space of sand
he lay, where the waves lapped the beach. Then slumber took him,
loosing the cares of his heart, and mantling softly around him,
for sorely wearied were his radiant limbs with driving Hector on
by windy Troy. There to him came the soul of poor Patroclus, in
all things like himself, in stature, and in the beauty of his
eyes and voice, and on the form was raiment like his own. He
stood above the hero’s head, and spake to him:—

“‘Sleepest thou, and me hast thou forgotten, Achilles? Not in my
life wert thou neglectful of me, but in death. Bury me soon, that
I may pass the gates of Hades. Far off the souls, the shadows of
the dead, repel me, nor suffer me to join them on the river bank;
but, as it is, thus I roam around the wide-doored house of Hades.
But stretch to me thy hand I entreat; for never again shall I
return from Hades when once ye shall have given me the meed of
funeral fire. Nay, never shall we sit in life apart from our dear
comrades and take counsel together. But me hath hateful fate
enveloped—fate that was mine at the moment of my birth. And for
thyself, divine Achilles, it is doomed to die beneath the noble
Trojan’s wall. Another thing I say to thee, and bid thee do it if
thou wilt obey me:—lay not my bones apart from thine, Achilles,
but lay them together; for we were brought up together in your
house, when Menœtius brought me, a child, from Opus to your
house, because of woeful bloodshed on the day in which I slew the
son of Amphidamas, myself a child, not willing it but in anger at
our games. Then did the horseman, Peleus, take me, and rear me
in his house, and cause me to be called thy squire. So then let
one grave also hide the bones of both of us, the golden urn thy
goddess-mother gave to thee.’

“Him answered swift-footed Achilles:—

‘Why, dearest and most honoured, hast thou hither come, to lay
on me this thy behest? All things most certainly will I perform,
and bow to what thou biddest. But stand thou near: even for one
moment let us throw our arms upon each other’s neck, and take our
fill of sorrowful wailing.’

“So spake he, and with his outstretched hands he clasped, but
could not seize. The spirit, earthward, like smoke, vanished with
a shriek. Then all astonished arose Achilles, and beat his palms
together, and spake a piteous word:—

‘Heavens! is there then, among the dead, soul and the shade of
life, but thought is theirs no more at all? For through the
night the soul of poor Patroclus stood above my head, wailing
and sorrowing loud, and bade me do his will; it was the very
semblance of himself.’

“So spake he, and in the hearts of all of them he raised desire
of lamentation; and while they were yet mourning, to them
appeared rose-fingered dawn about the piteous corpse.” _Iliad_,
xxiii. 59 _et seq._

[Sidenote: _Plato on the above_]

Plato in the _Symposium_ dwells tenderly on this relation between Achilles and Patroclus:—

[And great] “was the reward of the true love of Achilles towards
his lover Patroclus—his lover and not his love (the notion that
Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which
Æschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the
two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs
us, he was still beardless, and younger far). And greatly as the
gods honour the virtue of love, still the return of love on the
part of the beloved to the lover is more admired and valued and
rewarded by them, for the lover has a nature more divine and
worthy of worship. Now Achilles was quite aware, for he had been
told by his mother, that he might avoid death and return home,
and live to a good old age, if he abstained from slaying Hector.
Nevertheless he gave his life to revenge his friend, and dared
to die, not only on his behalf, but after his death. Wherefore
the gods honoured him even above Alcestis, and sent him to the
Islands of the Blest.” _Symposium, speech of Phædrus_, _trans. by
B. Jowett_.

[Sidenote: _Criticism of Plato’s View_]

And on this passage Symonds has the following note:—

“Plato, discussing the _Myrmidones_ of Æschylus, remarks in the
_Symposium_ that the tragic poet was wrong to make Achilles
the lover of Patroclus, seeing that Patroclus was the elder of
the two, and that Achilles was the youngest and most beautiful
of all the Greeks. The fact however is that Homer raises no
question in our minds about the relation of lover and beloved.
Achilles and Patroclus are comrades. Their friendship is equal.
It was only the reflective activity of the Greek mind, working
upon the Homeric legend by the light of subsequent custom, which
introduced these distinctions.” _The Greek Poets_, ch. iii. p.
103.

[Sidenote: _Athenæus_]

From the time of Homer onwards, Greek literature was full of songs celebrating friendship:—

“And in fact there was such emulation about composing poems of
this sort, and so far was any one from thinking lightly of the
amatory poets, that Æschylus, who was a very great poet, and
Sophocles too introduced the subject of the loves of men on the
stage in their tragedies: the one describing the love of Achilles
for Patroclus, and the other, in his Niobe, the mutual love of
her sons (on which account some have given an ill name to that
tragedy); and all such passages as those are very agreeable to
the spectators.” _Athenæus_, bk. xiii. ch. 75.

[Sidenote: _From Theognis_]

One of the earlier Greek poets was Theognis (B.C. 550) whose Gnomæ or Maxims were a series of verses mostly addressed to his young friend Kurnus, whom by this means he sought to guide and instruct out of the stores of his own riper experience. The verses are reserved and didactic for the most part, but now and then, as in the following passage, show deep underlying feeling:—

“Lo, I have given thee wings wherewith to fly
Over the boundless ocean and the earth;
Yea, on the lips of many shalt thou lie
The comrade of their banquet and their mirth.
Youths in their loveliness shall make thee sound
Upon the silver flute’s melodious breath;
And when thou goest darkling underground
Down to the lamentable house of death,
Oh yet not then from honour shalt thou cease,
But wander, an imperishable name,
Kurnus, about the seas and shores of Greece,
Crossing from isle to isle the barren main.
Horses thou shalt not need, but lightly ride
Sped by the Muses of the violet crown,
And men to come, while earth and sun abide,
Who cherish song shall cherish thy renown.
Yea, I have given thee wings! and in return
Thou givest me the scorn with which I burn.”

_Theognis Gnomai_, lines 237-254,
_trans. by G. Lowes Dickinson_.

[Sidenote: _Sappho_]

As Theognis had his well-loved disciples, so had the poetess Sappho (600 B.C.) Her devotion to her girl-friends and companions is indeed proverbial.

“What Alcibiades and Charmides and Phædrus were to Socrates,
Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria were to the Lesbian.” _Max
Tyrius_, _quoted in H. T. Wharton’s Sappho_, p. 23.

[Sidenote: _To Lesbia_]

Perhaps the few lines of Sappho, translated or paraphrased by Catullus under the title _To Lesbia_, form the most celebrated fragment of her extant work. They may be roughly rendered thus:—

“Peer of all the gods unto me appeareth
He of men who sitting beside thee heareth
Close at hand thy syllabled words sweet spoken,
Or loving laughter—

That sweet laugh which flutters my heart and bosom.
For, at sight of thee, in an instant fail me
Voice and speech, and under my skin there courses
Swiftly a thin flame;

Darkness is on my eyes, in my ears a drumming,
Drenched in sweat my frame, my body trembling;
Paler ev’n than grass—’tis, I doubt, but little
From death divides me.”

[Sidenote: _Anacreon to Bathyllus_]

Several of the odes of Anacreon (B.C. 520) are addressed to his young friend Bathyllus. The following short one has been preserved to us by Athenæus (bk. xiii. § 17):—

“O boy, with virgin-glancing eye,
I call thee, but thou dost not hear;
Thou know’st not how my soul doth cry
For thee, its charioteer.”

[Sidenote: _Epigram on Lovers_]

Anacreon had not the passion and depth of Sappho, but there is a mark of genuine feeling in some of his poems, as in this simple little epigram:—

“On their hindquarters horses
Are branded oft with fire,
And anyone knows a Parthian
Because he wears a tiar;
And I at sight of lovers
Their nature can declare,
For in their hearts they too
Some subtle flame-mark bear.”

[Sidenote: _Pindar to Theoxenos_]

The following fragment is from Pindar’s Ode to his young friend Theoxenos—in whose arms Pindar is said to have died (B.C. 442):—

“O soul, ’tis thine in season meet,
To pluck of love the blossom sweet,
When hearts are young:
But he who sees the blazing beams,
The light that from _that_ forehead streams,
And is not stung;—
Who is not storm-tossed with desire,—
Lo! he, I ween, with frozen fire,
Of adamant or stubborn steel
Is forged in his cold heart that cannot feel.”

_Trans. by J. Addington Symonds_,
_The Greek Poets_, vol. 1, p. 286.

[Sidenote: _Epigrams of Plato_]

Plato’s epigrams on Aster and Agathon are well known. The two first-quoted make a play of course on the name Aster (star).

_To Aster_:

“Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled;
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.”

(_Shelley._)

_To the same_:

“Thou at the stars dost gaze, who art _my_ star—O would that I were
Heaven, to gaze on thee, ever with thousands of eyes.”

_To Agathon_:

“Thee as I kist, behold! on my lips my own soul was trembling;
For, bold one, she had come, meaning to find her way through.”

[Sidenote: _Meleager_]

There are many other epigrams and songs on the same subject from the Greek writers. The following is by Meleager (a native of Gadara in Palestine) about 60 B.C., and one of the sweetest and most human of the lyric poets:—

“O mortals crossed in love! the Southwind, see!
That blows so fair for sailor folk, hath ta’en
Half of my soul, Andragathos, from me.
Thrice happy ships, thrice blesséd billowy main,
And four times favored wind that bears the youth,
O would I were a Dolphin! so, in truth,
High on my shoulders ferried he should come
To Rhodes, sweet haunt of boys, his island-home.”

_From the Greek Anthology_, ii. 402.

[Sidenote: _Epigram_]

Also from the Greek Anthology:—

“O say, and again repeat, fair, fair—and still I will say it—
How fair, my friend, and good to see, thou art;
On pine or oak or wall thy name I do not blazon—
Love has too deeply graved it in my heart.”

[Sidenote: _Epitaph Anonymous_]

“Perhaps the most beautiful [says J. A. Symonds] of the
sepulchral epigrams is one by an unknown writer, of which I here
give a free paraphrase. _Anth. Pal._, vii. 346:—

‘Of our great love, Parthenophil,
This little stone abideth still
Sole sign and token:
I seek thee yet, and yet shall seek,
Tho’ faint mine eyes, my spirit weak
With prayers unspoken.

Meanwhile best friend of friends, do thou,
If this the cruel fates allow,
By death’s dark river,
Among those shadowy people, drink
No drop for me on Lethe’s brink:
Forget me never!’”

_The Greek Poets_, vol. 2, p. 298.

Theocritus, though coming late in the Greek age (about 300 B.C.) when Athens had yielded place to Alexandria, still carried on the Greek tradition in a remarkable way. A native of Syracuse, he caught and echoed in a finer form the life and songs of the country folk of that region—themselves descendants of Dorian settlers. Songs and ballads full of similar notes linger among the Greek peasants, shepherds and fisher-folk, even down to the present day.

[Sidenote: _Theocritus Idyl XII._]

The following poem (trans. by M. J. Chapman, 1836) is one of the best known and most beautiful of his Idyls:—

IDYL XII.

“Art come, dear youth? two days and nights away!
(Who burn with love, grow aged in a day.)
As much as apples sweet the damson crude
Excel; the blooming spring the winter rude;
In fleece the sheep her lamb; the maid in sweetness
The thrice-wed dame; the fawn the calf in fleetness;
The nightingale in song all feathered kind—
So much thy longed-for presence cheers my mind.
To thee I hasten, as to shady beech,
The traveller, when from the heaven’s reach
The sun fierce blazes. May our love be strong,
To all hereafter times the theme of song!
‘Two men each other loved to that degree,
That either friend did in the other see
A dearer than himself. They lived of old
Both golden natures in an age of gold.’

O father Zeus! ageless immortals all!
Two hundred ages hence may one recall,
Down-coming to the irremeable river,
This to my mind, and this good news deliver:
‘E’en now from east to west, from north to south,
Your mutual friendship lives in every mouth.’
This, as they please, th’ Olympians will decide:
Of thee, by blooming virtue beautified,
My glowing song shall only truth disclose;
With falsehood’s pustules I’ll not shame my nose.
If thou dost sometime grieve me, sweet the pleasure
Of reconcilement, joy in double measure
To find thou never didst intend the pain,
And feel myself from all doubt free again.

And ye Megarians, at Nisæa dwelling,
Expert at rowing, mariners excelling,
Be happy ever! for with honours due
Th’ Athenian Diocles, to friendship true
Ye celebrate. With the first blush of spring
The youth surround his tomb: there who shall bring
The sweetest kiss, whose lip is purest found,
Back to his mother goes with garlands crowned.
Nice touch the arbiter must have indeed,
And must, methinks, the blue-eyed Ganymede
Invoke with many prayers—a mouth to own
True to the touch of lips, as Lydian stone
To proof of gold—which test will instant show
The pure or base, as money changers know.”

[Sidenote: _Idyl XXIX._]

The following Idyl, of which I append a rendering, is attributed to Theocritus:—

IDYL XXIX.

“They say, dear boy, that wine and truth agree;
And, being in wine, I’ll tell the truth to thee—
Yes, all that works in secret in my soul.
’Tis this: thou dost not love me with thy whole
Untampered heart. I know; for half my time
Is spent in gazing on thy beauty’s prime;
The other half is nought. When thou art good,
My days are like the gods’; but when the mood
Tormenting takes thee, ’tis my night of woe.
How were it right to vex a lover so?
Take my advice, my lad, thine elder friend,
’Twill make thee glad and grateful in the end:
In one tree build one nest, so no grim snake
May creep upon thee. For to-day thou’lt make
Thy home on one branch, and to-morrow changing
Wilt seek another, to what’s new still ranging;
And should a stranger praise your handsome face,
Him more than three-year-proven friend you’ll grace,
While him who loved you first you’ll treat as cold
As some acquaintanceship of three days old.
Thou fliest high, methinks, in love and pride;
But I would say: keep ever at thy side
A mate that is thine equal; doing so,
The townsfolk shall speak well of thee alway,
And love shall never visit thee with woe—
Love that so easily men’s hearts can flay,
And mine has conquered that was erst of steel.
Nay, by thy gracious lips I make appeal:
Remember thou wert younger a year agone
And we grow grey and wrinkled, all, or e’er
We can escape our doom; of mortals none
His youth retakes again, for azure wings
Are on her shoulders, and we sons of care
Are all too slow to catch such flying things.

Mindful of this, be gentle, is my prayer,
And love me, guileless, ev’n as I love thee;
So when thou hast a beard, such friends as were
Achilles and Patroclus we may be.”

[Sidenote: _Bion_]

Bion was a poet of about the same period as Theocritus, but of whom little is known. The following is a fragment translated by A. Lang:—

“Happy are they that love, when with equal love they are
rewarded. Happy was Theseus, when Pirithöus was by his side, yea
tho’ he went down to the house of implacable Hades. Happy among
hard men and inhospitable was Orestes, for that Pylades chose to
share his wanderings. And _he_ was happy, Achilles Æacides, while
his darling lived,—happy was he in his death, because he avenged
the dread fate of Patroclus.” _Theocritus_, _Bion and Moschus_,
_Golden Treasury series_, p. 182.

[Sidenote: _Lament for Bion by Moschus_]

The beautiful _Lament for Bion_ by Moschus is interesting in this connection, and should be compared with Shelley’s lament for Keats in _Adonais_—for which latter poem indeed it supplied some suggestions:—

“Ye mountain valleys, pitifully groan!
Rivers and Dorian springs for Bion weep!
Ye plants drop tears! ye groves lamenting moan!
Exhale your life, wan flowers; your blushes deep
In grief, anemonies and roses, steep!
In softest murmurs, Hyacinth! prolong
The sad, sad woe thy lettered petals keep;
Our minstrel sings no more his friends among
Sicilian muses! now begin the doleful song.”

_M. J. Chapman trans. in the
Greek Pastoral Poets, 1836._

[Sidenote: _Story of Hyacinthus_]

The allusion to Hyacinth is thus explained by Chapman:—

“Hyacinthus, a Spartan youth, the son of Clio, was in great
favour with Apollo. Zephyrus, being enraged that he preferred
Apollo to him, blew the discus when flung by Apollo, on a day
that Hyacinthus was playing at discus-throwing with that god,
against the head of the youth, and so killed him. Apollo, being
unable to save his life, changed him into the flower which was
named after him, and on whose petals the Greeks fancied they
could trace the notes of a grief, ἂι, ἂι.[5] A festival called
the Hyacinthia was celebrated for three days in each year at
Sparta, in honour of the god and his unhappy favorite.” _Note to
Moschus_, Idyl iii.

[Sidenote: _Told by Ovid_]

The story of Apollo and Hyacinth is gracefully told by Ovid, in the tenth book of his Metamorphoses:—

“Midway betwixt the past and coming night
Stood Titan[6] when the pair, their limbs unrobed,
And glist’ning with the olive’s unctuous juice,
In friendly contest with the discus vied.”

[The younger one is struck by the discus; and like a fading flower]

“To its own weight unequal drooped the head
Of Hyacinth; and o’er him wailed the god:—
Liest thou so, Œbalia’s child, of youth
Untimely robbed, and wounded by my fault—
At once my grief and guilt?—This hand hath dealt
Thy death! ’Tis I who send thee to the grave!
And yet scarce guilty, unless guilt it were
To sport, or guilt to love thee! Would this life
Might thine redeem, or be with thine resigned!
But thou—since Fate denies a god to die—
Be present with me ever! Let thy name
Dwell ever in my heart and on my lips,
Theme of my lyre and burden of my song;
And ever bear the echo of my wail
Writ on thy new-born flower! The time shall come
When, with thyself associate, to its name
The mightiest of the Greeks shall link his own.
Prophetic as Apollo mourned, the blood
That with its dripping crimson dyed the turf
Was blood no more: and sudden sprang to life
A flower.”

_Ovid’s Metamorphoses_ _trans.
H. King_, _London_, 1871.

[Sidenote: _Virgil Eclogue II._]

In Roman literature, generally, as might be expected, with its more materialistic spirit, the romance of a friendship is little dwelt upon; though the grosser side of the passion, in such writers as Catullus and Martial, is much in evidence. Still we find in Virgil a notable instance. His 2nd Eclogue bears the marks of genuine feeling; and, according to some critics, he there under the guise of Shepherd Corydon’s love for Alexis celebrates his own attachment to the youthful Alexander:—

“Corydon, keeper of cattle, once loved the fair lad Alexis;
But he, the delight of his master, permitted no hope to the shepherd.
Corydon, lovesick swain, went into the forest of beeches,
And there to the mountains and woods—the one relief of his passion—
With useless effort outpoured the following artless complainings:—
Alexis, barbarous youth, say, do not my mournful lays move thee?
Showing me no compassion, thou’lt surely compel me to perish.
Even the cattle now seek after places both cool and shady;
Even the lizards green conceal themselves in the thorn-bush.
Thestylis, taking sweet herbs, such as garlic and thyme, for the reapers
Faint with the scorching noon, doth mash them and bray in a mortar.
Alone in the heat of the day am I left with the screaming cicalas,
While patient in tracking thy path, I ever pursue thee, Belovéd.”

_Trans. by J. W. Baylis._

[Sidenote: _Corydon and Alexis_]

There is a translation of this same 2nd Eclogue, by Abraham Fraunce (1591) which is interesting not only on account of its felicity of phrase, but because, as in the case of some other Elizabethan hexameters, the metre is ruled by _quantity_, _i.e._, length of syllables, instead of by _accent_. The following are the first five lines of Fraunce’s translation:—

“Silly shepherd Corydon lov’d hartyly fayre lad Alexis,
His master’s dearling, but saw noe matter of hoping;
Only amydst darck groves thickset with broade-shadoe beech-trees
Dayly resort did he make, thus alone to the woods, to the mountayns,
With broken speeches fond thoughts there vainly revealing.”

[Sidenote: _Catullus to Quintius_]

Catullus also (b. B.C. 87) has some verses of real feeling:—

“Quintius, if ’tis thy wish and will
That I should owe my eyes to thee,
Or anything that’s dearer still,
If aught that’s dearer there can be;

Then rob me not of that I prize,
Of the dear form that is to me,
Oh! far far dearer than my eyes,
Or aught, if dearer aught there be.”

_Catullus_, _trans. Hon.
J. Lamb_, 1821.

[Sidenote: _To Juventius_]

“If all complying, thou would’st grant
Thy lovely eyes to kiss, my fair,
Long as I pleased; oh! I would plant
Three hundred thousand kisses there.

Nor could I even then refrain,
Nor satiate leave that fount of blisses,
Tho’ thicker than autumnal grain
Should be our growing crop of kisses.”

(_Ibid._)

[Sidenote: _To Licinius_]

“Long at our leisure yesterday
Idling, Licinius, we wrote
Upon my tablets verses gay,
Or took our turns, as fancy smote,
At rhymes and dice and wine.

But when I left, Licinius mine,
Your grace and your facetious mood
Had fired me so, that neither food
Would stay my misery, nor sleep
My roving eyes in quiet keep.
But still consumed, without respite,
I tossed about my couch in vain
And longed for day—if speak I might,
Or be with you again.

But when my limbs with all the strain
Worn out, half dead lay on my bed,
Sweet friend to thee this verse I penned,
That so thou mayest condescend
To understand my pain.

So now, Licinius, beware!
And be not rash, but to my prayer
A gracious hearing tender;
Lest on thy head pounce Nemesis:
A goddess sudden and swift she is—
Beware lest thou offend her!”

[Sidenote: _Martial to Diadumenos_]

The following little poem is taken from Martial:

“As a vineyard breathes, whose boughs with grapes are bending,
Or garden where are hived Sicanian bees;
As upturned clods when summer rain’s descending
Or orchards rich with blossom-laden trees;
So, cruel youth, thy kisses breathe—so sweet—
Would’st thou but grant me all their grace, complete!”

IV.

_Friendship in Early Christian & Mediæval Times_

_Friendship in Early Christian & Mediæval Times_

The quotations we have given from Plato and others show the very high ideal of friendship which obtained in the old world, and the respect accorded to it. With the incoming of the Christian centuries, and the growth of Alexandrian and Germanic influences, a change began to take place. Woman rose to greater freedom and dignity and influence than before. The romance of love began to centre round her.[7] The days of chivalry brought a new devotion into the world, and the Church exalted the Virgin Mother to the highest place in heaven. Friendship between men ceased to be regarded in the old light—_i.e._, as a thing of deep feeling, and an important social institution. It was even, here and there, looked on with disfavour—and lapses from the purity or chastity of its standard were readily suspected and violently reprobated. Certainly it survived in the monastic life for a long period; but though inspiring this to a great extent, its influence was not generally acknowledged. The Family, in the modern and more limited sense of the word (as opposed to the clan), became the recognised unit of social life, and the ideal centre of all good influences (as illustrated in the worship of the Holy Family). At the same time, by this very shrinkage of the Family, as well as by other influences, the solidarity of society became to some extent weakened, and gradually the more communistic forms of the early world gave place to the individualism of the commercial period.

The special sentiment of comrade-love or attachment (being a thing inherent in human nature) remained of course through the Christian centuries, as before, and unaltered—except that being no longer recognised it became a private and personal affair, running often powerfully enough beneath the surface of society, but openly unacknowledged, and so far deprived of some of its dignity and influence. Owing to this fact there is nothing, for this period, to be quoted in the way of general ideal or public opinion on the subject of friendship, and the following sections therefore become limited to the expression of individual sentiments and experiences, in prose and poetry. These we find, during the mediæval period, largely colored by religion; while at the Renaissance and afterwards they are evidently affected by Greek associations.

[Sidenote: _Saint Augustine_]

Following are some passages from S. Augustine:—

“In those years when I first began to teach in my native town,
I had made a friend, one who through having the same interests
was very dear to me, one of my own age, and like me in the first
flower of youth. We had grown up together, and went together to
school, and used to play together. But he was not yet so great
a friend as afterwards, nor even then was our friendship true;
for friendship is not true unless Thou cementest it between
those who are united to Thee by that ‘love which is shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.’ Yet
our friendship was but too sweet, and fermented by the pursuit
of kindred studies. For I had turned him aside from the true
faith (of which as a youth he had but an imperfect grasp) to
pernicious and superstitious fables, for which my mother grieved
over me. And now in mind he erred with me, and my soul could not
endure to be separated from him. But lo, Thou didst follow close
behind Thy fugitives, Thou—both God of vengeance and fountain of
mercies—didst convert us by wonderful ways; behold, Thou didst
take him out of this life, when scarcely a year had our close
intimacy lasted—sweet to me beyond the sweetness of my whole
life....

“No ray of light pierced the gloom with which my heart was
enveloped by this grief, and wherever I looked I beheld death.
My native place was a torment to me, and my father’s house
strangely joyless; and whatever I had shared with him, without
him was now turned into a huge torture. My longing eyes sought
him everywhere, and found him not; and I hated the very places,
because he was not in them, neither could they say to me ‘he is
coming,’ as they used to do when he was alive and was absent.
And I became a great puzzle to myself, and I asked my soul why
it was so sad, and why so disquieted within me; and it knew not
what to answer. And if I said ‘Trust thou in God,’ it rightly
did not obey; for that dearest one whom it had lost was both
truer and better than that phantasm in which it was bidden to
trust. Weeping was the only thing which was sweet to me, and
it succeeded my friend in the dearest place in my heart.” _S.
Augustine, Confessions_, bk. 4, ch. iv. _Trans. by Rev. W. H.
Hutchings, M.A._

“I was miserable, and miserable is every soul which is fettered
by the love of perishable things; he is torn to pieces when
he loses them, and then he perceives how miserable he was in
reality while he possessed them. And so was I then, and I wept
most bitterly, and in that bitterness I found rest. Thus was I
miserable, and that miserable life I held dearer than my friend.
For though I would fain have changed it, yet to it I clung even
more than to him; and I cannot say whether I would have parted
with it for his sake, as it is related, if true, that Orestes
and Pylades were willing to do, for they would gladly have
died for each other, or together, for they preferred death to
separation from each other. But in me a feeling which I cannot
explain, and one of a contradictory nature had arisen; for I
had at once an unbearable weariness of living, and a fear of
dying. For I believe the more I loved him, the more I hated and
dreaded death which had taken him from me, and regarded it as
a most cruel enemy; and I felt as if it would soon devour all
men, now that its power had reached him.... For I marvelled that
other mortals lived, because he whom I had loved, without thought
of his ever dying, was dead; and that I still lived—I who was
another self—when he was gone, was a greater marvel still. Well
said a certain one of his friend, ‘Thou half of my soul;’ for I
felt that his soul and mine were ‘one soul in two bodies’: and
therefore life was to me horrible, because I hated to live as
half of a life; and therefore perhaps I feared to die, lest he
should wholly die whom I had loved so greatly.” _Ibid_, ch. vi.

[Sidenote: _Montalembert on the Monks_]