The second book of Theognis consists almost entirely of love-poems addressed to boys, and might therefore be expected to furnish particularly valuable evidence in the present connection, especially as many of these poems are of a far more personal and purely erotic character than those in the first book. The date of this book is, however, disputed, and I personally am inclined to believe that it is very much later than the time of Theognis—too recent, in fact, to belong to the period we are discussing at all. This being so, I have naturally not chosen to lay stress on its contents. For the sake of completeness, however, I have added here a brief examination of its character, for the benefit of anyone who may believe in it.
The general tone of these poems, though noticeably more passionate than that of the earlier collection, is still chivalrous and dignified, and occasionally rises to a very high level indeed. That spirit of self-negation, which we have already observed to be peculiar among the early Greeks to this form of love, is in places very marked. Few passages in all classical poetry can equal the pathetic dignity of these words of resignation:
οὐκ ἐθέλω σε κακῶς ἕρδειν, οὐδ’ εἴ μοι ἄμεινον
πρὸς θεῶν ἀθανάτων ἔσσεται, ὦ καλὲ παῖ·
οὐ γὰρ ἁμαρτωλῇσιν ἐπὶ σμικρῇσι κάθημαι,
τῶν δὲ καλῶν παίδων οὔτις ἔτ’ οὐκ ἀδικῶν.[358] (l. 1279)
or of this farewell:
καλὸς ἐὼν κακότητι φρενῶν δειλοῖσιν ὁμιλεῖς
ἀνδράσι, καὶ διὰ τοῦτ’ αἰσχρὸν ὄνειδος ἔχεις,
ὦ παῖ· ἐγὼ δ’ ἀέκων τῆς σῆς φιλότητος ἁμαρτών,