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

Mate HOMOSEXUALITY

Ageanax late though he be for Mitylene bound

Heav’n bring him blest wi’ the season’s best to haven safe and sound ; And that day I’ll make merry, and bind about my brow

The anise sweet or snowflake neat or rosebuds all a-row,

And there by the hearth I’ll lay me down beside the cheerful cup, And hot roast beans shall make my bite and elmy wine my sup ; And soft I’ll lie, for elbow-high my bed strown thick and well Shall be of crinkled parsley, mullet, and asphodel ;

And so t’Ageanax I’ll drink, drink wi’ my dear in mind,

Drink wine and wine-cup at a draught and leave no lees behind. My pipers shall be two shepherds, a man of Acharnz he,

And he a man of Lycopé; singer shall Tityrus be,

And sing beside me of Xenea and neatherd Daphnis’ love.

After that Theocritus declares to his friend how much the song has pleased him, and answers with another, in which he contrasts his own happiness in love with the ill-luck of his friend Aratus, a famous physician and poet of Miletus, who had fallen in love with the beautiful but coy Philinus: “ Yet you, winged host of the Loves, with cheeks red as peaches, now hit Philinus with curly hair, awake in him desire for my friend. After all, he is not so young now, already the girls chaff the fool— Ay, ay, Philinus, you see your beauty is already gone! ’ So now take my heartfelt advice. Let the foolish boy run and let some other pretty ones, my dear friend Aratus, feel this deep sorrow.”

To console his friend Aratus, whose art as a physician could not help him against the wounds inflicted on him by Eros, Theocritus wrote a longer epic poem, in which the passionate love of Heracles for Hylas, his rape by the nymphs of the spring, and the despair of the lonely hero are fully described. (Theocritus, 30, 23, 29, 12,7, 13. Further paidophil passages in Theocritus are 15, 124; 20, 41; 6, 42; Bin 8} 3 ae Kadov wedtAnuéve—a form of address so sweet that (according to Gellius, ix, 9) it is impossible to translate it; 2, 77-80, 44, 150, 115 ; epigram 4.)

8. TRIFLES FROM OTHER Lyric POETS

Praxilla, the amiable poetess of healthy merriment and sensual practical wisdom, had told in one of

476