Studies in the psychology of sex. Vol. 1, Sexual inversion / by Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds / by Havelock Ellis.
- Havelock Ellis
- Date:
- 1897
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Studies in the psychology of sex. Vol. 1, Sexual inversion / by Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds / by Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
195/324 page 175
![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, with- out which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work. And I say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonourable 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 any one 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 man- kind 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 inspires into the lover. With the whole of this quotation we might compare what Plutarch in the Life of Pelopidas relates about the com- position of the Sacred Band ;1 while the following anecdote from the Anabasis of Xenophon may serve to illustrate the theory that regiments should consist of lovers.3 Episthenes of Olynthus, one of Xenophon's hoplites, saved a beautiful boy from the slaughter commanded by Seuthes in a Thracian village. The king could not understand why his orders had not been obeyed, till Xenophon excused his hoplite by ex- plaining that Episthenes was a passionate boy-lover, and that he had once formed a corps of none but beautiful men : KCU OTt Ao^OV 7TOT6 (TVVeXtijaTO (TK07TU)V OV$€V ClXXo T/ 61 TLVtS €UV KaXoL, koI fiera tovtwv t]v avrjp aya$6<>'3 Then Seuthes asked Episthenes if he was willing to die instead of the boy, and ^he answered, stretching out his neck, Strike, he says, if the boy says ' Yes,3 and will be pleased with it : 6 8k 2eu^>ys 1 Clough, vol. ii, p. 218. 2 Book vii, 4, 7. 3 We may compare a passage from the Symposium ascribed to Xenophon : YLavcravias ye 6 'AyaOwvos rov iroi-qrov €paon)s a7ro\.oyovfxevo<5 vrrtp twv aKpaaLa (TvyKvXivhovjxevoiV eiprjKev cos ko.1 aTpdrevfxa aXKLfMorarov yivoiTO Ik 7raiSiKa>i/ re kol ipaarQiv, viii, 32.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2041996x_0197.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
