Primitive Love and Love-Stories

by Henry T. Finck

"really sentimental effusions of love are strikingly rare in Plautus and Terence.[320] One might think the authors of the Latin versions had omitted the sentimental passages, were it not that in the remnants of the Newer Comedy of the Attic writers themselves there are, apart from general references to Eros, no traces whatever of sentimental allusions."[321]

THEOCRITUS AND CALLIMACHUS

Let us now return from Athens and Rome to Alexandria, to see whether we can find a purer and more genuinely romantic atmosphere in the works of her leading poets. Of these the first in time and fame is Theocritus. He, like Sappho, has been lauded as a poet of love; and he does resemble Sappho in two respects. Like her, he often glorifies unnatural passion in a way which, as in the twelfth and twenty-third Idyls, for example, tempts every normal person who can read the original to throw the whole book away in disgust. Like Sappho and the Hindoos (and some modern Critics) he also seems to imagine that the chief symptoms of love are emaciation, perspiration, and paralysis, as we see in the absurdly overrated second Idyl, of which I have already spoken (116). Lines 87-88 of Idyl I., lines 139-142 of Idyl II., and the whole of Idyl XXVII., practically sum up the conception of love prevailing in the bucolic school of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, except that Theocritus has an idea of the value of coyness and jealousy as stimulants of passion, as Idyl VI. shows. Crude coyness and rude jealousy no doubt were known also to the rustic folk he sings about; but when he makes that ugly, clumsy, one-eyed monster, the Cyclops Polyphemus, fall in love with the sea-nymph Galatea (Idyl XI.) and lament that he was not born with fins that he might dive and kiss her hand if his lips she refused, he applies Alexandrian pseudo-gallantry to pastoral conditions where they are ludicrously out of place. The kind of "gallantry" really to be expected under these conditions is realistically indicated in Idyl XIV., where Aeschines, after declaring that he shall go mad some day because the beautiful Cyniska flouted him, tells his friend how, in a fit of jealousy, he had struck the girl on the cheek twice with clenched fist, while she was sitting at his own table. Thereupon she left him, and now he laments: "If I could only find a cure for my love!"

Another quaintly realistic touch occurs in the line (Idyl II.) in which Battis declares that Amaryllis, when she died, was as dear to him as his goats. In this line, no doubt, we have the supreme ideal of Sicilian pastoral love; nor is there a line which indicates that Theocritus himself knew any higher phases of love than those which he embodies in his shepherds. In a writer who has so many poetic charms[322] this may seem strange, but it simply bears out my theory that romantic love is one of the latest products of civilization—as late as the love of romantic scenery, which we do not find in Theocritus, though he writes charmingly of other kinds of scenery—of cool fountains, shady groves, pastures with cattle, apple trees, and other things that please the senses of man—as women do while they are young and pretty.

Callimachus, the younger contemporary of Theocritus, is another Alexandrian whose importance in the history of love has been exaggerated. His fame rests chiefly on the story of Acontius and Cydippe which occurred in the collection of legends and tales he had brought together in his [Greek: Aitia]. His own version is now lost, like most of his other works; and such fragments of the story as remain would not suffice for the purpose of reconstruction were we not aided by the two epistles which the lovers exchange with each other in the Heroides of Ovid, and more still by the prose version of Aristaenetus, which appears to be quite literal, judging by the correspondence of the text with some of the extant fragments of the original.[323] The story can be related in a few lines. Acontius and Cydippe are both very beautiful and have both been coy to others of the opposite sex. As a punishment they are made to fall in love with each other at first sight in the Temple of Diana. It is a law of this temple that any vow made in it must be kept. To secure the girl, Acontius therefore takes an apple, writes on it a vow that she will be his bride and throws it at her feet. She picks it up, reads the vow aloud and thus pledges herself. Her parents, some time after, want to marry her to another man; three times the wedding arrangements are made, but each time she falls ill. Finally the oracle at Delphi is consulted, which declares that the girl's illness is due to her not keeping her vow; whereupon explanations follow and the lovers are united.

In the literary history of love this story may be allowed a conspicuous place for the reason that, as Mahaffy remarks (G.L. & T., 230), it is the first literary original of that sort of tale which makes falling in love and happy marriage the beginning and the end, while the obstacles to this union form the details of the plot. Moreover, as Couat points out (145), the later Greek romances are mere imitations of this Alexandrian elegy—Hero and Leander, Leucippe and Clitophon, and other stories all recall it. But from my point of view—the evolutionary and psychological—I cannot see that the story told by Callimachus marks any advance. The lovers see each other only a moment in the temple; they do not meet afterward, there is no real courtship, they have no chance to get acquainted with each other's mind and character, and there is no indication whatever of supersensual, altruistic affection. Nor was Callimachus the man from whom one would have expected a new gospel of love. He was a dry old librarian, without originality, a compiler of catalogues and legends, etc.—eight hundred works all told—in which even the stories were marred by details of pedantic erudition. Moreover, there is ample evidence in the extant epigrams that he did not differ from his contemporaries and predecessors in the theory and practice of love. Instead of having the modern feeling of abhorrence toward any suggestion of [Greek: paiderastia], he glorified it in the usual Greek style. The fame he enjoyed as an erotic poet among the coarse and unprincipled Roman bards does not redound to his credit, and he himself tells us unmistakably what he means by love when he calls it a [Greek: philopaida noson] and declares that fasting is a sure remedy for it (Epigr., 47).

MEDEA AND JASON

Another writer of this period who has been unduly extolled for his insight into the mysteries of love, is Apollonius Rhodius, concerning whom Professor Murray goes so far as to say (382), that "for romantic love on the higher side he is without a peer even in the age of Theocritus."(!) He owes this fame to the story of Medea and Jason, introduced in the third book of his version of the Argonautic expedition (275 seq.). It begins in the old-fashioned way with Cupid shooting his arrow at Medea's heart, in which forthwith the destructive passion glows. Blushes and pallor alternate in her face, and her breast heaves fast and deep as she incessantly stares at Jason with flaming eyes. She remembers afterwards every detail about his looks and dress, and how he sat and walked. Unlike all other men he seemed to her. Tears run down her cheeks at the thought that he might succumb in his combat with the two terrible bulls he will have to tame before he can recover the Golden Fleece. Even in her dreams she suffers tortures, if she is able to sleep at all. She is distracted by conflicting desires. Should she give him the magic salve which would protect his body from harm, or let him die, and die with him? Should she give up her home, her family, her honor, for his sake and become the topic of scandalous gossip? or should she end it all by committing suicide? She is on the point of doing so when the thought of all the joys of life makes her hesitate and change her mind. She resolves to see Jason alone and give him the ointment. A secret meeting is arranged in the temple of Hecate. She gets there first, and while waiting every sound of footsteps makes her bosom heave. At last he comes and at sight of him her cheek flames red, her eyes grow dim, consciousness seems to leave her, and she is fixed to the ground unable to move forward or backward. After Jason has spoken to her, assuring her that the gods themselves would reward her for saving the lives of so many brave men, she takes the salve from her bosom, and she would have plucked her heart from it to give him had he asked for it. The eyes of both are modestly turned to the ground, but when they meet longing speaks from them. Then, after explaining to him the use of the salve, she seizes his hand and begs him after he shall have reached his home again, to remember her, as she will bear him in mind, even against her parents' wishes. Should he forget her, she hopes messengers will bring news of him, or that she herself may be able to cross the seas and appear an unexpected guest to remind him how she had saved him.

Such was the love of Medea, which historians have proclaimed such a new thing in literature—"romantic love on the higher side." For my part I cannot see in this description—in which no essential trait is omitted—anything different from what we have found in Homer, in Sappho, and in Euripides. The unwomanly lack of coyness which Medea displays when she practically proposes to Jason, expecting him to marry her out of gratitude, is copied after the Nausicäa of the Odyssey. The flaming cheeks, dim eyes, loss of consciousness, and paralysis are copied from Sappho; while the Hippolytus of Euripides furnished the model for the dwelling on the subjective symptoms of the "pernicious passion of love." The stale trick too, of making this love originate in a wound inflicted by Cupid's arrows is everlastingly Greek; and so is the device of representing the woman alone as being consumed by the flames of love. For Jason is about as unlike a modern lover as a caricaturist could make him. His one idea is to save his life and get the Fleece. "Necessity compels me to clasp your knees and ask your aid," he exclaims when he meets her; and when she gives him that broad hint "do not forget me; I shall never forget you," his reply is a long story about his home. Not till after she has threatened to visit him does he declare "But should you come to my home, you would be honored by all … in that case I hope you may grace my bridal couch." And again in the fourth book he relates that he is taking Medea home to be his wife "in accordance with her wishes!" Without persiflage, his attitude may be summed up in these words: "I come to you because I am in danger of my precious life. Help me to get back the Golden Fleece and I promise you that, on condition that I get home safe and sound, I will condescend to marry you." Is this, perhaps, the "romantic love on the higher side" which Professor Murray found in this story? But there is more to come.

Of the symptoms of love in Medea's heart described in the foregoing paragraph not one rises above that egotistic gloating over the pangs and joys of sensual infatuation which constitute one phase of sentimentality; while the further progress of the story shows that Medea had no idea whatever of sacrificing herself for Jason, but that the one motive of her actions was the eager desire to possess him. When the fugitives are being pursued closely, and the chivalrous Argonauts, afraid to battle with a superior number, propose to retain the Golden Fleece, but to give up Medea and let some other king decide whether she is to be returned to her parents, it never occurs to her that she might save her beloved by going back home. She wants to have him at any cost, or to perish with him; so she reproaches him bitterly for his ingratitude, and meditates the plan of setting fire to the ships and burning him up with all the crew, as well as herself. He tries to pacify her by protesting that he had not quite liked the plan proposed himself, but had indorsed it only to gain time; whereupon she suggests a way out of the dilemma pleasanter to herself, by advising the Argonauts to inveigle her brother, who leads the pursuers, into their power and assassinate him; which they promptly proceed to do, while she stands by with averted eyes. It is with unconscious sarcasm that Apollonius exclaims on the same page where all these details of "romantic love on the higher side" are being unfolded: "Accursed Eros, the world's most direful plague."