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

Mate HOMOSEXUALITY

puts an end to his life of dreams, sets him cursing the rude creature in a manner which because of its bathos has a comic effect.

On another occasion the poet has undertaken a sea-voyage. Already all the dangers of the sea are happily overcome, joyfully he leaves the rocking ship and sets foot on the mainland; then again Fate meets him in the form of a slender boy: new love—new life.

Another time he says: “ Sweet it is to mingle the sweet honey of the bees with unmixed wine, but it is also sweet to be beautiful, if one desires boys. As Alexis loves the curly-headed Cleobulus such love is sweet, Cyprian honey-drink.”’

On Myiscus (little mouse) 1: ‘Sweet is the boy, and even the name of Myiscus is sweet to me and full of charm. What excuse have I for not loving ? For he is beautiful, by Cypris, entirely beautiful ; and if he gives me pain, why it is the way of love to mix bitterness with honey ” ; and again, ‘‘ One thing only appears to me beautiful, only one thing my eyes yearningly desire—to look upon Myiscus, for everything else I am blind.”

It is especially the eyes of Myiscus, whose beauty the poet rapturously praises: (a) “ Delicate children, so help me Love, doth Tyre nurture, but Myiscus is the sun that, when his light bursts forth, quenches the stars.” (6) “ My life’s cable, Myiscus, is made fast to thee, in thee is all the breath that is left to my soul. For by thine eyes, dear boy, that speak even to the deaf, and by thy bright brow I swear it, if ever thou lookest at me with a clouded eye I see the winter, but if thy glance be blithe, the sweet spring bursts into bloom.” (c) “ It lightened sweet beauty: see how he flasheth flame from his eyes.” (d) “ Shining grace beams; like lightning thine eyes hurl sparks; has then Eros given thee lightning, O boy, asa weapon? Hail, Myiscus, thou

1 Myiscus was also the name of one of the pages of Antiochus ; see Polybius, v, 82, 13.

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