toward the sun. Refrain from Zeus and Phoebus' tree;
wait for the fruit-season and thou shall love more righteously."

With the baser form of paiderastia I shall have little to do in this
essay. Vice of this kind does not vary to any great extent, whether we
observe it in Athens or in Rome, in Florence of the sixteenth or in
Paris of the nineteenth century;[9] nor in Hellas was it more noticeable
than elsewhere, except for its comparative publicity. The nobler type of
masculine love developed by the Greeks is, on the contrary, almost
unique in[10] the history of the human race. It is that which more than
anything else distinguishes the Greeks from the barbarians of their own
time, from the Romans and from modern men in all that appertains to the
emotions. The immediate subject of the ensuing inquiry will, therefore,
be that mixed form of paiderastia upon which the Greeks prided
themselves, which had for its heroic ideal the friendship of Achilles
and Patroclus, but which in historic times exhibited a sensuality
unknown to Homer.[11] In treating of this unique product of their
civilisation I shall use the terms _Greek Love_, understanding thereby a
passionate and enthusiastic attachment subsisting between man and youth,
recognised by society and protected by opinion, which, though it was not
free from sensuality, did not degenerate into mere licentiousness.

VII.

Before reviewing the authors who deal with this subject in detail, or
discussing the customs of the several Greek states, it will be well to
illustrate in general the nature of this love, and to collect the
principal legends and historic tales which set it forth.

Greek love was, in its origin and essence, military. Fire and valour,
rather than tenderness or tears, were the external outcome of this
passion; nor had _Malachia_, effeminacy, a place in its vocabulary. At
the same time it was exceedingly absorbing. "Half my life," says the
lover, "lives in thine image, and the rest is lost. When thou art kind,
I spend the day like a god; when thy face is turned aside, it is very
dark with me."[12] Plato, in his celebrated description of a lover's
soul, writes:[13]--

"Wherever she thinks that she will behold the beautiful one,
thither in her desire she runs. And when she has seen him, and
bathed herself with the waters of desire, her constraint is
loosened and she is refreshed, and has no more pangs and pains; and
this is