Medea: Creon drives me forth in exile from Corinth.
Aegeus: Doth Jason allow it? This too I blame him for.
Medea: Not in words, but he will not stand out against it. O, I implore thee by this beard and by thy knees, in suppliant posture, pity, O pity my sorrows; do not see me cast forth forlorn, but receive me in thy country, to a seat within thy halls. So may thy wish by heaven’s grace be crowned with a full harvest of offspring, and may thy life close in happiness! Thou knowest not the rare good luck thou findest here, for I will make thy childlessness to cease and cause thee to beget fair issue; so potent are the spells I know.
Hedylus was a Greek epigrammatist of the third century B.C. In one of his pieces a girl makes her confession that she was overcome and succumbed to wine and words of love. The wine, in fact, was the operative potion.
Another Greek epigrammatist, chanting of love and women, warns that man’s origin is lust itself.
The lyric poet Anacreon, who was born c. 570 B.C., suggests the attendant circumstances favorable to amatory exercise:
Sculptor, wouldst thou glad my soul,
Grave for me an ample bowl,
Worthy to shine in hall or bower,