Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates
THE CLASSICAL PERIOD
for its theme Nanno, a beautiful flute-player. The first really great lyricist of the Greeks is Archilochus of Paros (about 650 B.c.), a passionate, restless personality, for whom poetry means a confession of the overflow of his feelings. He was in love with Neobule, the daughter of the wealthy Lycambes: “A hot flame of love streams from his poems. Passion clasps his heart, tears from his breast the tender soul; it grows dark before his eyes, and he feels the torments of love to the depths of his heart. Yet Neobule listened to his stormy wooing. A lucky fate has preserved for us a picture of the fiercely loved girl: She wore a sprig of myrtle and smiled, fresh bloom of the rose mingled with her hair which fell in waves over her shoulders and down her back; hair and bosom sent forth perfume, so that even an old man could fall in love with her. But when her father, Lycambes, forbids the betrothal, the poet loses all moderation : he abuses not only the father for breaking his word, but dishonours his own love, by questioning the honour and chastity of his former betrothed. Later centuries have spoken with a shudder of the revenge of the poet Archilochus. He certainly knew himself best, when he compares himself to a hedgehog, which rolls itself together and turns its prickles against the enemy” (K. Heinemann, Die Klassische Dichtung der Griechen (1912); see also Bergk, Poete Lyrict Grect, yprezetia)s Chronologically, Simonides of Amorgos (about 625 B.C.) should be the next to be mentioned, and his clever satirical poem on women already spoken of. Also Hipponax of Ephesus (about 540 B.C.) must be mentioned here, if only for the sake of the two very spiteful verses, preserved to us by Stobzus (Florilegium, 68, 8; cf. Apostol., ly, 38¢; Haupt in Hermes, iv, 159: “‘ There are only two days on which a woman can refresh thee ; on the day of marriage and when she is buried.” From Cercidas (Ath., xii, 554d) of Megalopolis,
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