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

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mirror of the time; it is further to be remarked, that such attacks upon marriage and the female sex are by no means to be found only in the comic poets, but run through the whole of literature like a red thread. Unfortunately, considerations of space compels us to limit our selection to a definite class of literature ; but, as early as the times when an artistic comedy was not yet thought of, there is an echo of voices which refuse to allow women to possess a single good quality. As early as the first quarter of the seventh century B.c., Simonides of Amorgos (PLG., ii, 446) had given vent to his feelings in a long satirical poem which is still preserved, and expressed and confirmed his conviction of the physiological as well as the moral weakmindedness of women with startling clearness and frankness. The poet affirms that of ten women nine are worthless, a phenomenon which he endeavours to explain by their origin. The uncleanly woman comes from the sow, the exceedingly clever from the fox, the curious from the dog, the intellectually dull, who knows nothing about anything except eating, from the insensible earth ; the changeable and capricious is like the ever-shifting sea, that can never be reckoned with; the idle must put up with the ass as her ancestor, and the spiteful with the cat; she who has a passion for dress and finery, who is ever on the look-out for fashionable novelties is derived from the horse, and lastly, the ugly from monkeys.

“The ninth descends from the ape; this is decidedly the worst evil that Zeus hath given to men. In appearance most ugly; when such a woman shows herself in the street, people laugh at her. She is short in the neck, hardly moves, has no buttocks, is withered of limb; unhappy a man who embraces such a pest. And she knows all intrigues and tricks like an ape, nor does she ever care to laugh. Nor will she ever do a good turn to anyone, but it is her aim which she plans

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