like a mother's for her child) that they would have risked
their lives to _benefit them_ when there was _nothing to gain for
themselves_--they would have laughed in my face. Whence we see how
foolish it is to infer from such instances of "gallantry" and
"self-sacrifice" that the ancients knew romantic love in our sense of
the word. It is useless to point to passages like this (again from
Burton):

"Polienus, when his mistress Circe did but frown upon
him, in Petronius, drew his sword, and bade her kill,
stab, or whip him to death, he would strip himself
naked and not resist."

Such fine talk occurs in Tibullus and other poets of the time; but
where are the _actions_ corresponding to it? Where do we read of these
Romans and Greeks ever braving the crocodile for the sake of
preserving the purity of the lotos herself? Or of sparing a lotos
belonging to another, but at their mercy? Perseus himself, much
vaunted for his chivalry, did not undertake to save the rock-chained
Andromeda from the sea monster until he had extorted a promise that
she should be his prize. Fine sort of chivalry, that!

SUICIDE IS SELFISH

One more species of pseudo-self-sacrifice remains to be considered.
When Hero finds Leander's dead body on the rocks she commits suicide.
Is not this self-sacrifice for love's sake? It is always so
considered, and Eckstein, in his eagerness to prove that the ancient
Greeks knew romantic love,[37] gives a list of six legendary suicides
from hopeless or foiled love. The question of suicide is an
interesting one and will be considered in detail in the chapter on the
American Indians, who, like other savages, were addicted to it, in
many cases for the most trivial reasons. In this place I will content
myself with noting that if Eckstein had taken the pains to peruse the
four volumes of Ramdohr's _Venus Urania_ (a formidable task, I admit),
he would have found an author who more than a hundred years ago knew
that suicide is no test of true love. There are indeed, he says (III.,
46), plenty of old stories of self-sacrifice, but they are all of the
kind where a man risks comfort and life to secure possession of a
coveted body for his own enjoyment, or else where he takes his own
life because he feels lonely after having failed to secure the desired
union. These actions are no index of love, for they "may coexist with
the cruelest treatment" of the coveted woman. Very ambitious persons
or misers m