Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

INTRODUCTION

culture as Burckhardt (J. Burckhardt, Griechische Kulturgeschichte, ii, 368) to express the doubt: “that it therefore remains uncertain whether the poet is here speaking of love properly so called, or only in general terms of wishes which are to be fulfilled.” Burckhardt, like so many learned men who have written bulky volumes on Greek culture, was not aware that the Greek knew two kinds of love, that between man and woman and that between those of the same sex (homosexual). For this reason Theognis expresses himself with seeming vagueness, but intelligibly enough for one who understands Greek culture, when he wishes every one of his readers that which is pleasant to him and what he himself longs for. That in these words the ideal of youth was always before the soul of Theognis himself, since all his life long his heart drew him towards the boy, will be clear from the chapter dealing with the homosexual literature of the Greeks.

The correctness of the explanation of the passage of ‘Theognis here given is also shown by a comparison with a poem by the famous Sappho, frag. 5 (Diehl) :

To Anactoria 1

Some think a gallant navy on the sea, And some a host of foot or horse, to be Earth’s fairest thing; but I declare

the one we love more fair.

Right easy is the proof, that all may know How true my saying is, for Helen, though Much mortal beauty she might scan, judged him the fairest man

Who in the dust Troy’s majesty defiled, Nor rather of her parents dear and child Had thought, but, Cypris-led, astray

cherished an ill love’s way ;

For nowise hard is woman’s will to sway If from home thoughts she lightly turn away. So now fair Anactoria be in memory nigh to thee

Whose sweet foot-fall I would more gladly hear, And the bright glory of her face see near, Than Lydian chariots in the field and foot with spear and shield !

1 Translation by C. R. Haines, M.A., in his Sappho, the Poems and Fragments, Broadway Translations, Geo. Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1926.

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