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.
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![desire have placed me under inextinguishable coals of burning. The heat there is mightier; for the more powerful is male than female, the keener is that desire. These four lines give the key to much of the Greek pre- ference for paiderastia. The love of the male, when it has been apprehended and entertained, is more exciting, they thought, more absorbant 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 €7ricrToAai ipwTiKac of Philostratus. 1 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.2 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 :—-rvkivo^a o-ot (TT€(f>avov pdoW, ov ere ri/xwv, kcu tovto fxkv yap, dAA' clvtols tl Xapi£ofA€vos tols poSots, Iva fir] fxapavOfj. 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, kcu pcrjv kcu dirros 6 Epoj? yvfxvos iom kcu at ^dptTe? kcu oi durepes, Well, and love himself is naked, and the graces and the stars ; or this, u> (fiOeyyofievov poSov, O rose, that has a voice to speak with! —or this metaphor for the footsteps of the beloved, w pvO/xoi 7ro8wv (faiXraTCHDV, w (^tAiy/xara ep^pettr/xeva, O rhythms of most beloved feet, O kisses pressed upon the ground ! While the paiderastia of the Greeks was sinking into gross- ness, effeminacy, and aesthetic 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.3 The Christians, from St. 1 Ed. Kayser, pp. 343-366. 2 It is worth comparing the letters of Philostratus with those of Alciphron^ a contemporary of Lucian. In the latter there is no hint of paiderastia. The life of parasites, grisettes, lorettes, and young men about town at Athens is set forth in imitation probably of the later comedy. Athens is shown to have been a Paris a la Murger. 3 See the introduction by Marcus Aurelius to his Meditations.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2041996x_0257.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
