But I am tied to very thee
By every thought I have;
Thy face I only care to see
Thy heart I only crave.
—Sedley.
I see her in the dewy flowers,
Sae lovely sweet and fair:
I hear her voice in ilka bird,
Wi' music charm the air:
There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green;
There's not a bonny bird that sings,
But minds me o' my Jean.
—Burns.
For nothing this wide universe I call
Save thou, my rose: in it thou art my all.
—Shakspere.
Like Alexander I will reign,
And I will reign alone,
My thoughts shall evermore disdain
A rival on my throne.
—James Graham.
Love, well thou know'st no partnerships allows.
Cupid averse, rejects divided vows.
—Prior.
O that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race
And, hating no one, love but only her.
—Byron.
BUTTERFLY LOVE
The imperative desire for an absolute monopoly of one chosen girl, body and soul—and one only—is an essential, invariable ingredient of romantic love. Sensual love, on the contrary, aims rather at a monopoly of all attractive women—or at least as many as possible. Sensual love is not an exclusive passion for one; it is a fickle feeling which, like a giddy butterfly, flits from flower to flower, forgetting the fragrance of the lily it left a moment ago in the sweet honey of the clover it enjoys at this moment. The Persian poet Sadi, says (Bustan, 12), "Choose a fresh wife every spring or New Year's Day; for the almanack of last year is good for nothing." Anacreon interprets Greek love for us when he sings:
"Can'st count the leaves in a forest, the waves in the sea?
Then tell me how oft I have loved. Twenty girls in Athens,
and fifteen more besides; add to these whole bevies in
Corinth, and from Lesbos to Ionia, from Caria and from
Rhodos, two thousand sweethearts more…. Two thousand did I
say? That includes not those from Syros, from Kanobus, from
Creta's cities, where Eros rules alone, nor those from
Gadeira, from Bactria, from India—girls for whom I burn."
Lucian vies with Anacreon when he makes Theomestus (Dial. Amor.) exclaim: "Sooner can'st thou number the waves of the sea and the snowflakes falling from the sky than my loves. One succeeds another, and the new one comes on before the old is off." We call such a thing libertinism, not love. The Greeks had not the name of Don Juan, yet Don Juan was their ideal both for men and for the gods they made in the image of man. Homer makes the king of gods tell his own spouse (who listens without offence) of his diverse love-affairs (Iliad, xiv., 317-327). Thirteen centuries after Homer the Greek poet Nonnus gives ([Greek: Dionusiaka], vii.) a catalogue of twelve of Zeus's amours; and we know from other sources (e.g., Hygin, fab., 155) that these accounts are far from exhaustive. A complete list would match that yard-long document made for Don Juan by Leporello in Mozart's opera. A French writer has aptly called Jupiter the "Olympian Don Juan;" yet Apollo and most of the other gods might lay claim to the same title, for they are represented as equally amorous, sensual, and fickle; seeing no more wrong in deserting a woman they have made love to, than a bee sees in leaving a flower whose honey it has stolen.