Romantic Love and Personal Beauty. Henry T. Finck

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      To this form of Platonic or mono-sexual love there existed a female counterpart, as shown in some of the lyric effusions of Greek poets. Some of these poets, it is true, especially Anakreon, knew naught of the imaginative side of Love—of its protracted tortures and intermittent joys. Like a butterfly that kisses every flower on its way, he “cared only for the enjoyment of the passing moment.” But Sappho apparently wrote of Love in terms worthy of Heine or Byron, as shown even in this crude translation of one of her poems:—

      “While gazing on thy charms I hung,

      My voice died faltering on my tongue,

      With subtle flames my bosom glows,

      Quick through each vein the poison flows;

      Dark dimming mists my eyes surround,

      My ears with hollow murmurs sound.

      My limbs with dewy chillness freeze,

      On my whole frame pale tremblings seize,

      And losing colour, sense, and breath,

      I seem quite languishing in death.”

      Longinus calls this the most perfect expression in all ancient literature of the effects of Love. It happens, however, to have nothing to do with Love. For, as Plato’s “love” is merely ecstatic friendship between man and youth, so Sappho’s love is friendship between two women. This is the opinion of Bode and Müller, and it is entirely borne out by the language of the original text.

      It has been suggested that Sappho, being a woman, and a Greek woman, could not have addressed such glowing words to a man without violating the current notions of decorum; and hence wrote as if she were a man addressing a woman. But Sappho was one of the Æolian women who had greater liberty than the Athenians; and she was, moreover, a blue-stocking who would not have stuck at such a trifle as shocking Greek notions regarding woman’s privileges. And in some of her poems she does mention a youth “to whom she gave her whole heart, while he requited her passion with cold indifference” (Müller).

      One of the Platonists, Maximus Tyrius (dis. 24, p. 297), takes the same view regarding Sappho. “The love of the Lesbian poet,” he says, “what can it be, if we may compare remote with more recent things than the Sokratic art of love? For both appear to promote the same Friendship, she among women, he among men. They both confess they love many, and are captivated by all beauties. For what Alkibiades and Charmides are to Sokrates, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anaktoria are to Sappho.” “Even Sokrates confesses that it was from Sappho that he partly derived his noble views of the enthusiastic love of mental beauty” (Phædon, c. 225).

      To one of the girls just referred to, Sappho addresses these words: “Again does the strength-dissolving Eros, that bittersweet, resistless monster, agitate me; but to thee, O Atthis, the thought of me is importunate; thou fliest to Andromeda.” “It is obvious,” says Müller, “that this attachment bears less the character of maternal interest than of passionate love; as amongst Dorians in Sparta and Crete analogous connections between men and youths, in which the latter were trained to noble and manly deeds, were carried on in a language of high-wrought and passionate feeling, which had all the character of an attachment between persons of different sexes. This mixture of feelings, which among nations of a calmer temperament have always been perfectly distinct, is an essential feature of the Greek character.”

      Greek Love, i.e. Friendship, being thus tinged and strengthened, as we see in the cases of Sokrates and Alkibiades, Sappho and Atthis, by jealousy, ecstatic adoration, exclusiveness, admiration of personal beauty, and other qualities which modern civilisation has transferred to Romantic Love, we are enabled to understand why Friendship was so much more potent and prevalent in antiquity than it is now, when, having lost these traits through the differentiation of emotions, it seems “insipid to those who have tasted Love.”

      The lesson to be learned from this whole discussion on Greek Friendship is of extreme importance to the psychology of Love. It is this: The Greeks were too intellectual and refined not to have at least a vague presentiment of the higher possibilities and charms of imaginative Love. But Greek women—with the rare exceptions referred to—were too stupid to enable the men to realise their vague ideal. Hence they sought it in ardent attachments to youths, who were quick-minded and able to sympathise with their intellectual aspirations. And thus Greek Love became identical with male friendship—the female friendship referred to being a sort of compensating echo.

      Greek Love is symbolised in the mythic youth Narcissus, who scorns all the beautiful nymphs that are eager for his caresses, and falls in love with his own image reflected in the water.

GREEK BEAUTY

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      It even seems as if, apart from Love, the Greeks admired youthful masculine beauty more than feminine charms; and many of them would probably have agreed with Schopenhauer that men are more beautiful than women. Certain it is that, as the most eminent critic of Greek art, Winckelmann, points out “the supreme beauty of Greek art is male rather than female.”

      The following citation from Grote’s famous work on Plato suggests some reasons for this fact, besides reflecting further light on points discussed in the preceding pages:—

      “In the Hellenic point of view, upon which Plato builds, the attachment of man to woman was regarded as a natural impulse and as a domestic, social sentiment; yet as belonging to a commonplace rather than to an exalted mind, and seldom or never rising to that pitch of enthusiasm which overpowers all other emotions, absorbs the whole man, and aims either at the joint performance of great exploits, or the joint prosecution of intellectual improvement by continued colloquy. We must remember that the wives and daughters of citizens were seldom seen abroad; that she had learned nothing except spinning and weaving; that the fact of her having seen so little and heard as little as possible, was considered as rendering her more acceptable to her husband; that her sphere of duty and exertion was confined to the interior of the family. The beauty of women yielded satisfaction to the senses, but little beyond. It was the masculine beauty of youth that fired the Hellenic imagination with glowing and impassioned sentiment. The finest youths, and those, too, of the best families and education, were seen habitually uncovered in the Palæstra and at the public festival-matches; engaged in active contention and graceful exercise, under the direction of professional trainers. The sight of the living form in such perfection, movement, and variety, awakened a powerful emotional sympathy, blended with æsthetic sentiment, which in the more susceptible natures was exalted into intense and passionate devotion. The terms in which this feeling is described, both by Plato and Xenophon, are among the strongest which the language affords—and are predicated even of Sokrates himself. Far from being ashamed of this feeling, they consider it admirable and beneficial, though very liable to abuse, which they emphatically denounce and forbid. In their view it was an idealising passion, which tended to raise a man above the vulgar and selfish pursuits of life, and even above the fear of death. The devoted attachments which it inspired were dreaded by the despots, who forbade the assemblage of youths for exercise in the Palæstra.”

      Another reason for the Greek preference of masculine beauty is suggested by Mr. Lecky, who attributes it to the fact that the principal art of the Greeks, sculpture, is “especially suited to represent male beauty, or the beauty of strength”; whereas “female beauty, or the beauty of softness,” became the principal object of the painters, after Christianity had won attention for the feminine virtues of gentleness and delicacy. (For further remarks on Greek Beauty, see the chapters on “Four Sources of Beauty,” and “The Nose.”)

CUPID’S ARROWS