ELEGIACS AT MYTILENE

John Addington Symonds in his “Problem in Greek Ethics” (London. 1901. pp 71-72) remarks: “Lesbian passion, as the Greeks called it, never obtained the same social sanction as boy-love. It is significant that Greek Mythology offers no legends of the goddesses parallel to those which consecrated paederastia among the male deities. Again, we have no recorded example, so far as I can remember, of noble friendships between women rising into political and historical prominence.... The Greeks, while tolerating, regarded it rather as an eccentricity of nature, or a vice, than as an honourable and socially useful emotion.... There is an important passage in the ‘Amores’ of Lucian which proves that the Greeks felt an abhorrence of sexual inversion among women similar to that which moderns feel for its manifestation among men.... And ... while the love of males for males in Greece obtained moralisation, and reached the high position of a recognized social function, the love of female for female remained undeveloped and unhonoured, on the same level as both forms of homosexual passion in the modern European world are.”

The exposition, perhaps beyond decorum, of Lesbian love in this section of the Songs of Bilitis has no parallel in all Greek literature where references to the subject are very few.

LXXI “My throat becomes dry.”

See Sappho, Frag. 2. (Wharton): “ ... For when I see thee but a little, I have no utterance left, my tongue is broken down, and straightway a subtle fire has run under my skin. With my eyes I have no sight, my ears ring, sweat pours down, and a trembling seizes all my body; I am paler than grass, and seem in my madness little better than one dead....”

LXXV “The object.”

See the sixth mime of Herondas (too long to reproduce here) translated in Symonds’ “Studies of the Greek Poets” (Third edition. 1893. II-237). This mime describes a visit between two women in reference to the same sort of object sought by Bilitis’ friend. One of Herondas’ ladies remarks, about her leather worker, “He works at his own house and sells on the sly ... but the things he makes, they’re like Athene’s handiwork ... a cobbler more kindly disposed toward the female sex you would not find....” The price was “fourpence.”

LXXXI “Thy hair is moist.”

See Meleager (Anth. Pal. V-175): “Truly, thou betrayest thyself; thy locks, still moist with perfumes, denounce thy dissolute life; thine eyes, heavy with fatigue, show well how thy night has been passed; this coronal upon thy forehead reveals the festival; this disordered hair shows the path of amorous hands; and all thy body staggers under the vapors of the wine....”

LXXXIII “For whom, now, shall I paint my lips?”

See Paulus Silentiarius (Anth. Pal. V-228): “For whom shall I curl my hair? for whom trim my nails? for whom perfume my hands? To what end this purple-banded cloak, since I go not to beautiful Rhodopis?...”

EPIGRAMS IN THE ISLAND OF CYPROS

XCIV “Thyrses.”

These were long rods, often surmounted by a pine cone, carried by votaries of Dionysos. Too long to be used as drum-sticks.

CI “Conversation.”

See Philodemos (Anth. Pal. V-46): “I salute thee.—I salute thee also.—What is thy name?—And thine? Thou mayest know mine later.—Thou art in a hurry?—And thou art not?—Hast thou someone?—I have always my lover.—Wilt thou eat dinner with me to-day?—If thou wishest.—Good. What shall I give thee?—Give me nothing in advance.—That is strange.—But when the night is over, give what thou wishest.—Thou art a just girl. Where is thy dwelling? I will send for thee.—I will show thee.—And when wilt thou come?—At once, if thou wishest—At once, then.—Lead the way.”

CIII “A girdle of silver plates.”

See Asclepiades (Anth. Pal. V-158): “Upon a day, I played with facile Hermione. Like the Goddess, she wore a girdle broidered with flowers; and on it I read, in letters of gold: Love me, but grieve not if I give myself to another.”

CIX “Athena.”

Artemis was more likely to be seen bathing, with disastrous results to the spectator, as noted in the legend of Actæon.

CXXIX “The little Rose Merchant.”

See Dionysius (Anth. Pal. V-81): “Little vendor of roses, thou art fair as thine own flowers. But what sellest thou? thyself? or thy roses? or both together?”

CXXXII “She has a good bed.”

See Antipater (Anth. Pal. V-109): “For a drachma one may have Europa the Athenian, without fear of rivals or refusals. She has a soft bed and, if the night is cold, a fire. Surely, O Zeus, there was no need for thee to make thyself a bull!”

CXL “My autumn.”

See Paulus Silentiarius (Anth. Pal. V-258): “Philinna, thy wrinkles are preferable to the fresh tints of young girls. I love less in my hands their straight, hard breasts than thine which incline like full-blown roses. Thine autumn is fairer than their springtime; their summer is colder than thy time of snows.”

CXLIII “The True Death.”

Compare Rufinus (Anth. Pal. V-76): “Once I had soft skin, firm breasts and pretty feet; my body was supple, mine eyebrows arched, my hair undulating. Time has changed all. Not one treasure of my youth remains....”

For the theme developed, see François Villon’s “Les regrets de la belle Heaulmière.”