[269] Of the Casina, which would appear at first sight to belong to this class, we shall speak in another place. [The Excursus, dealing with this subject, seems not to have been written; comp. [Excursus K].]
[270] It is hard for us, in our generation, to realise what the first dawn of pure love for women must have meant to the men who saw it. It needs a conscious effort of will to clean away from one’s eyes and one’s heart the dust of the centuries, and to look back clearly; but if once the effort be successfully made, it is no longer hard to understand why, at the end of the fourth century, the pure girl was a more inspiring ideal than “the woman with a past,” and why the παρθένος; could stir depths of passion that the ἑταίρα had left untouched.
[271] These last lines are very suggestive of Theocr. viii. 53. It is worth noticing that in this play (v. 2, 72) the girl is specially asked whether she is willing to marry.
“patrue mi, ita me di amabunt ut, ego si sim Iuppiter,
iam hercle ego illanc uxorem ducam, et Iunonem extrudam foras!” etc.
[273] Probably by Menander. At any rate, Cistell. i. 1, 90 seqq. is a translation of Menand. Incert. 32.
“Glycerium vitiat Pamphilus,