{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_32512/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_32512","id":"gutenberg_32512","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32512","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Love"],"text":"Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was\nproduced from scanned images of public domain material\nfrom the Google Print project.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  By Mr. Saltus\n\n  MARY MAGDALEN\n  THE POMPS OF SATAN\n  IMPERIAL PURPLE\n  THE ANATOMY OF NEGATION\n  THE PERFUME OF EROS\n  VANITY SQUARE\n\n\n\n\n  HISTORIA AMORIS\n\n  _A History of Love\n  Ancient and Modern_\n\n\n  _By_\n  EDGAR SALTUS\n\n\n  NEW YORK\n  MITCHELL KENNERLEY\n  MCMVI\n\n\n\n  _Copyright 1906\n  By EDGAR SALTUS_\n\n\n\n\nHISTORIA AMORIS\n\n\nPART ONE\n\n     I Super Flumina Babylonis                  1\n\n    II The Curtains of Solomon                 10\n\n   III Aphrodite Urania                        28\n\n    IV Sappho                                  41\n\n     V The Age of Aspasia                      53\n\n    VI The Banquet                             65\n\n   VII Roma-Amor                               75\n\n  VIII Antony and Cleopatra                    87\n\n    IX The Imperial Orgy                       97\n\n     X Finis Amoris                           110\n\n\nPART TWO\n\n     I The Cloister and the Heart             125\n\n    II The Pursuivants of Love                138\n\n   III The Parliaments of Joy                 150\n\n    IV The Doctors of the Gay Science         164\n\n     V The Apotheosis                         177\n\n    VI Bluebeard                              191\n\n   VII The Renaissance                        198\n\n  VIII Love in the Seventeenth Century        213\n\n    IX Love in the Eighteenth Century         237\n\n     X The Law of Attraction                  251\n\n\n\n\nHISTORIA AMORIS\n\n_Part One_\n\n\n\n\nPART I\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nSUPER FLUMINA BABYLONIS\n\n\nThe first created thing was light. Then life came, then death. In between\nwas fear. But not love. Love was absent. In Eden there was none. Adam and\nEve emerged there adult. The phases of the delicate fever which others in\nparadise since have experienced, left them unaffected. Instead of the\nreluctances and attractions, the hesitancies and aspirations, the\npreliminary and common conflagrations which are the beginnings, as they\nare also the sacraments, of love, abruptly they were one. They were\nmarried before they were mated.\n\nThe union, entirely allegoric--a Persian conceit--differed, otherwise,\nonly in the poetry of the accessories from that which elsewhere actually\noccurred.\n\nPrimitive man was necessarily speechless, probably simian, and certainly\nhideous. Women, if possible more hideous still, were joined by him\nmomentarily and immediately forgot. Ultimately, into the desolate poverty\nof the rudimentary brain there crept a novelty. The novelty was an idea.\nWomen were detained, kept in lairs, made to serve there. Further novelties\nensuing, creatures that had learned from birds to talk passed from\nanimality. Subsequent progress originated in a theory that they were very\nclearly entitled to whatever was not taken away from them. From that\ntheory all institutions proceed, primarily that of family.\n\nIn the beginning of things woman was common property. With individual\nownership came the necessity of defence. Man defended woman against even\nherself. He beat her, stoned her, killed her. From the massacre of\nmyriads, constancy resulted. With it came the home: a hut in a forest, a\nfort on a hill, in the desert a tent, yet, wherever situated, surrounded\nby foes. The foes were the elements. In the thunderclap was their anger.\nIn the rustle of leaves their threats. They were placatable, however. They\ncould be appeased, as human beings are, by giving them something. Usually\nthe gift was the sacrifice of whatever the owner cared for most; in later\ndays it was love, pleasure, sense, but in these simpler times, when\nhumanity knew nothing of pleasure, less of love, and had no sense, when\nthe dominant sensation was fright, when every object had its spectre, it\nwas accomplished by the immolation of whatever the individual would have\nliked to have had given to him. As intelligence developed, distinctions\nnecessarily arose between the animate and the inanimate, the imaginary and\nthe real. Instead of attributing a malignant spirit to every element, the\nforces of nature were conglomerated, the earth became an object of\nworship, the sun another, that being insufficient they were united in\nnuptials from which the gods were born--demons from whom descended kings\nthat were sons of heaven and sovereigns of the world.\n\nIn the process, man, who had begun by being a brute, succeeded in becoming\na lunatic only to develop into a child. The latter evolution was, at the\ntime, remote. Only lunatics abounded. But lunatics may dream. These did.\nTheir conceptions produced after-effects curiously profound, widely\ndisseminated, which, first elaborated by Chaldaean seers, Nineveh emptied\ninto Babylon.\n\nBabylon, Queen of the Orient, beckoned by Semiramis out of myth, was made\nby her after her image. That image was passion. The city, equivocal and\nimmense, brilliant as the sun, a lighthouse in the surrounding night, was\na bazaar of beauty. From the upper reaches of the Euphrates, through great\ngates that were never closed, Armenia poured her wines where already\nNineveh had emptied her rites. In the conjunction were festivals that\nmagnetized the stranger from afar. At the very gates Babylon yielded to\nhim her daughters. He might be a herder, a bedouin, a bondman;\nindifferently the voluptuous city embraced him, lulled him with the myrrh\nand cassia of her caresses, sheltering him and all others that came in the\nfolds of her monstrous robe.\n\nIn emptying rites into this furnace Nineveh also projected her gods, the\nprinces of the Chaldaean sky, the lords of the ghostland, that, in patient\nperversities, her seers had devised. Four thousand of them Babylon\nswallowed, digested, reproduced. Some were nebulous, some were saurian,\nmany were horrible, all were impure. But, chiefly, there was Ishtar.\nSemiramis conquered the world. Ishtar set it on fire.\n\nIshtar, whom St. Jerome generically and graphically described as the Dea\nMeretrix, was known in Babylon as Mylitta. Gesenius, Schrader, Muenter,\nparticularly Quinet, have told of the mysteries, Asiatically monstrous,\nnaively displayed, through which she passed, firing the trade routes with\nthe flame of her face, adding Tyrian purple and Arabian perfumes to her\nincandescent robe, trailing it from shore to shore, enveloping kingdoms\nand satrapies in her fervid embrace, burning them with the fever of her\nkisses, burning them so thoroughly, to such ashes, that to-day barely the\nmemory of their names endures; multiplying herself meanwhile, lingering\nthere where she had seemed to pass, developing from a goddess into a\npantheon, becoming Astarte in Syria, Tanit in Carthage, Ashtaroth in\nCanaan, Anaitis in Armenia, yet remaining always love, or, more exactly,\nwhat was love in those days.\n\nIn Babylon, fronting her temple was a grove in which were dove-cotes,\ncisterns, conical stones--the emblems of her worship. Beyond were little\ntents before which girls sat, chapleted with cords, burning bran for\nperfume, awaiting the will of the first that put a coin in their lap and\nin the name of the goddess invited them to her rites. Acceptance was\nobligatory. It was obligatory on all women to stop in the grove at least\nonce. Herodotus, from whom these details are taken, said that the sojourn\nof those that were fair was brief, but others less favored lingered\nvainly, insulted by the former as they left.[1]\n\nHerodotus is father of history; perhaps too, father of lies. But later\nStrabo substantiated his story. There is anterior evidence in the Bible.\nThere is antecedent testimony on a Nineveh brick. There is the further\ncorroboration of Justinus, of St. Augustin, and of Eusebius regarding\nsimilar rites in Armenia, in Phoenicia, in Syria, wherever Ishtar\npassed.[2]\n\nThe forms of the ceremony and the duration of it varied, but the worship,\nalways the same, was identical with that of the Hindu bayaderes, the\nKama-dasi, literally servants of love, more exactly servants of lust, who,\nfor hire, yielded themselves to any comer, and whose dishonorarium the\nclergy took.\n\nFrom Phoenicia the worship passed to Greece. Among local articles of\ncommerce were girls with whom the Phoenicians furnished harems. One of\ntheir agencies was at Cythera. From the adjacent waters Venus was rumored\nto have emerged. The rumor had truth for basis. But the emergence occurred\nin the form of a stone brought there on a Phoenician galley. The fact,\ncited by Maximus Tyrius, numismatics confirm. On the old coins of Paphos\nit was as a stone that Venus appeared, a stone emblematic and phallic,\nsimilar to those that stood in the Babylon grove.\n\nVenus was even otherwise Phoenician. In Semitic speech girls were called\n_benoth_, and at Carthage the tents in which the worship occurred were\ntermed _succoth benoth_. In old texts B was frequently changed to V. From\nbenoth came venoth and the final theta being pronounced, as was customary,\nlike sigma, venos resulted and so appears on a Roman medal, that of Julia\nAugusta, wife of Septimius Severus, where Venus is written Venos.\n\nMeanwhile on the banks of the Indus the stone reappeared. Posterior to the\nVedic hymns, it is not mentioned in them. Instead is the revelation of a\nbeing purer than purity, excelling excellence, dwelling apart from life,\napart from death, ineffably in the solitudes of space. He alone was. The\ngods were not yet. They, the earth, the sky, the forms of matter and of\nman, slept in the depths of the ideal, from which at his will they arose.\nThat will was love. The _Mahabharata_ is its history.\n\nThere, succeeding the clamor of primal life, come the songs of shepherds,\nthe footfall of apsaras, the murmur of rhapsodies, of kisses and harps.\nThe pages turn to them. Then follow eremites in their hermitages, rajahs\nin their palaces, chiefs in their chariots, armies of elephants and men,\nseas of blood, gorgeous pomps, gigantic flowers, marvels and enchantments.\nAbove, on thrones of lotos and gold, are the serene and apathetic gods,\nlimitless in power, complete in perfection, unalterable in felicity,\nneeding nothing, having all. Evil may not approach them. Nonexistent in\ninfinity, evil is circumscribed within the halls of time. The appanage of\nthe gods was love, its revelation light.\n\nThat light must have been too pure. Subsequent theology decomposed it. In\nits stead was provided a glare intolerably crude that disclosed divinities\napproachable in deliriums of disorder, in unions from which reason had\nfled, to which love could not come, and on which, in a sort of radiant\nimbecility, idols semi-Chaldaean, polycephalous, hundred-armed, obese,\nmonstrous, revolting, stared with unseeing eyes.\n\nIn the Vedas there is much that is absurd and more that is puerile. The\n_Mahabharata_ is a fairy-tale, interminable and very dull. But in none of\nthese works is there any sanction of the pretensions of a priesthood to\ndegrade. It was in the name of waters that slake, of fire that purifies,\nof air that regenerates, of gods dwelling not in images but in infinity,\nthat love was invoked. It was in poetry, not in perversions, that marriage\noccurred. In the Laws of Manu marriage is defined as the union of\ncelestial musicians,--music then as now being regarded as the food of\nlove.\n\nThe Buddhist Scriptures contain passages that were said to charm the birds\nand beasts. In the Vedas there are passages which, if a soudra overheard,\nthe ignominy of his caste was abolished. The poetry that resided in them,\na poetry often childish, but primal, preceding the Pentateuch, purer than\nit, chronologically anterior to Chaldaean aberrations, Brahmanism deformed\ninto rites that sanctified vice and did so, on a theory common to many\nfaiths, that the gods demand the surrender of whatever is most dear, if it\nbe love that must be sacrificed, if it be decency that must be renounced.\nThe latter refinement which Chaldaea invented, and India retained, Judaea\nreviled.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE CURTAINS OF SOLOMON\n\n\nIn the deluge women must have been swept wholly away. If not, then they\nbecame beings to whom genealogy was indifferent. The long list of Noah's\ndescendants, which Genesis provides, contains no mention of them. When\nultimately they reappear, their consistency is that of silhouettes. It is\nas though they belonged to an inferior order. Historically they did.\n\nWoman was not honored in Judaea. The patriarch was chieftain and priest.\nHis tent was visited by angels, occasionally by creatures less beatific.\nIn spite of the terrible pomps that surrounded the advent of the\ndecalogue, there subsisted for his eternal temptation the furnace of\nMoloch and Baal's orgiastic nights. These things--in themselves\ncorruptions of Chaldaean ceremonies--woman personified. Woman incarnated\nsin. It was she who had invented it. To Ecclesiasticus, the evil of man\nexcelled her virtue. To Moses, she was dangerously impure. In Leviticus,\nher very birth was a shame. To Solomon, she was more bitter than death. As\na consequence, the attitude of woman generally was as elegiac as that of\nJephthah's daughter. When she appeared it was but to vanish. In betrothals\nthere was but a bridegroom that asked and a father that gave. The bride\nwas absent or silent. As a consequence, also, the heroine was rare. Of the\ngreat nations of antiquity, Israel produced fewer notable women than any\nother. Yet, that, it may be, was by way of precaution, in order to reserve\nthe strength of a people for the presentation of one who, transcending\nall, was to reign in heaven to the genuflections of the earth.\n\nMeanwhile, conjointly with Baal and Moloch, Ishtar--known locally as\nAshtaroth--circumadjacently ruled. At a period when these abstractions\nwere omnipresent, when their temples were thronged, when their empires\nseemed built for all time, the Hebrew prophets, who continuously reviled\nthem, foretold that they would pass and with them the gods, dogmas, states\nthat they sustained. So promptly were the prophecies fulfilled that they\nmust have sounded like the heraldings of the judgment of God. But it may\nbe that foreknowledge of the future rested on a consciousness of the past.\n\nThere, in the desert, had stood a bedouin preparing the tenets of a\ncreed; in the remoter past a shadow in which there was lightning, then the\nsplendor of the first dawn where the future opened like a book, and, in\nthat grammar of the eternal, the promise of an age of gold. Through the\necho of succeeding generations came the rumor of the impulse that drew the\nworld in its flight. The bedouin had put the desert behind him and stared\nat another, the sea. As he passed, the land leaped into life. There were\ntents and passions, clans not men, an aggregate of forces in which the\nunit disappeared. For chieftain there was Might and, above, were the\nsubjects of impersonal verbs, the Elohim, from whom the thunder came, the\nrain, darkness and light, death and birth, dream too, nightmare as well.\nThe clans migrated. Goshen called. In its heart Chaldaea spoke. The Elohim\nvanished and there was El, the one great god and Isra-el, the great god's\nelect. From heights that lost themselves in immensity, the ineffable name,\nincommunicable, and never to be pronounced, was seared by forked flames on\na tablet of stone. A nation learned that El was Jehovah, that they were in\nhis charge, that he was omnipotent, that the world was theirs. They had a\nlaw, a covenant, a deity and, as they passed into the lands of the well\nbeloved, the moon became their servant, to aid them the sun stood still.\nThe terror of Sinai gleamed from their breast-plates. Men could not see\ntheir faces and live. They encroached and conquered. They had a home, then\na capital, where David founded a line of kings and Solomon, the city of\nGod.\n\nSolomon, typically satrapic, living in what then was splendor; surrounded\nby peacocks and peris; married to the daughter of a Pharaoh, married to\nmany another as well; the husband of seven hundred queens, the pasha of\nthree hundred favorites, doing, as perhaps a poet may, only what pleased\nhim, capricious as potentates are, voluptuous as sovereigns were, on his\nblazing throne and particularly in his aromatic harem, presented a\nspectacle strange in Israel, wholly Babylonian, thoroughly sultanesque. To\nlocal austerity his splendor was an affront, his seraglio a sin, the\nmemory of both became odious, and in the Song of Songs, which,\ncanonically, was attributed to him, but which the higher criticism has\nshown to be an anonymous work, that contempt was expressed.\n\nSomething else was expressed. The Song of Songs is the gospel of love.\nHumanity at the time was sullen when not base. Nowhere was there love. The\nanterior stories of Jacob and Rachel, of Rebekah and Isaac, of Boaz and\nRuth, are little novels, subsequently evolved, concerning people that had\nlived long before and probably never lived at all. To scholars they are\nwholly fabulous. Even otherwise, these legends do not, when analyzed,\ndisclose love. Ruth herself with her magnificent phrase--\"Where thou\ngoest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall\nbe my people, and thy God my God,\"--does not display it. Historically its\nadvent is in the Song of Songs.\n\nThe poem, perhaps originally a pastoral in dialogue form, but more\nprobably a play, has, for central situation, the love of a peasant for a\nshepherd, a love tender and true, stronger than death, stronger at least\nthan a monarch's will. The scene, laid three thousand years ago in\nSolomon's seraglio, represents the triumph of constancy over corruption,\nthe constancy of a girl, unique in her day, who resisted a king,\npreferring a hovel to his harem. In an epoch more frankly unmoral than any\nof which history has cognizance, this girl, a native of Shulam, very\nsimple, very ignorant, necessarily unrefined, possessed, through some\nmiracle, that instinctive exclusiveness which, subsequently disseminated\nand ingrained, refurbished the world. She was the usher of love. The Song\nof Songs, interpreted mystically by the Church and profanely by scholars,\nis therefore sacred. It is the first evangel of the heart.\n\nFrom the existing text, the original plan, and with it the original\nmeaning, have disappeared. Many exegetes, notably Ewald, have demonstrated\nthat the disappearance is due to manipulations and omissions, and many\nothers, Renan in particular, have attempted reconstructions. The version\nhere given is based on his.[3] From it a few expressions, no longer in\nconformity with modern taste, and several passages, otherwise redundant,\nhave been omited. By way of proem it may be noted that the Shulamite,\npreviously abducted from her native village--a hamlet to the north of\nJerusalem--is supposed to be forcibly brought into the presence of the\nking where, however, she has thought only of her lover.\n\n\n\nTHE SONGS OF SONGS.\n\n\nACT I.\n\nSOLOMON, IN ALL HIS GLORY, SURROUNDED BY HIS SERAGLIO AND HIS GUARDS.\n\n\nAN ODALISQUE\n\n  Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.\n\nCHORUS OF ODALISQUES\n\n  Thy love is better than delicious wine. Thy name is ointment poured\n  forth. Therefore do we love thee.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_forcibly introduced, speaking to her absent lover._)\n\n  The King hath brought me into his chamber. Draw me away, we will go\n  together.\n\nTHE ODALISQUES\n\n(_to_ SOLOMON.)\n\n  The upright love thee. We will be glad and rejoice in thee. We will\n  remember thy love more than wine.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_to the_ ODALISQUES.)\n\n  I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, comely as the tents\n  of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Do not disdain me because I am a\n  little black. It is the sun that has burned me. My mother's children\n  were angry at me. They made me keeper of the vineyards. Alas! mine own\n  vineyard I have not kept.\n\n(_Thinking of her absent lover._)\n\n  Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou takest thy flocks to\n  rest at noon that I may not wander among the flocks of thy comrades.\n\nAN ODALISQUE\n\n  If thou knowest not, O thou fairest among women, follow the flock and\n  feed thy kids by the shepherds' tents.\n\nSOLOMON\n\n(_to the_ SHULAMITE.)\n\n  To my horse, when harnessed to the chariot that Pharaoh sent me, I\n  compare thee, O my love. Thy cheeks are comely with rows of pearls,\n  thy neck with charms of coral. We will make for thee necklaces of gold,\n  studded with silver.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_aside._)\n\n  While the King sitteth at his divan, my spikenard perfumes me and to me\n  my beloved is a bouquet of myrrh, unto me he is as a cluster of cypress\n  in the vines of Engedi.\n\nSOLOMON\n\n  Yes, thou art fair, my beloved. Yes, thou art fair. Thine eyes are the\n  eyes of a dove.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_thinking of the absent one._)\n\n  Yes, thou art fair, my beloved. Yes, thou art charming, and our tryst is\n  a litter of green.\n\nSOLOMON\n\n(_to whom constancy has no meaning._)\n\n  The beams of our house are cedar and our rafters of fir.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_singing._)\n\n  I am the rose of Sharon The lily of the valley am I.\n\n(ENTER _suddenly the_ SHEPHERD.)\n\nTHE SHEPHERD\n\n  As a lily among thorns, so is my love among daughters.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_running to him._)\n\n  As is the apple among fruit, so is my beloved among men. In delight I\n  have sat in his shadow and his savor was sweet to my taste. He brought\n  me to the banquet hall and put o'er me the banner of love.\n\n(_Turning to the_ ODALISQUES.)\n\n  Stay me with wine, strengthen me with fruit, for I am swooning with\n  love.\n\n(_Half-fainting she falls in the_ SHEPHERD'S _arms._)\n\n  His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me.\n\nTHE SHEPHERD\n\n(_to the_ ODALISQUES.)\n\n  I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and the hinds of\n  the field, that ye stir not, nor awake my beloved till she will.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_dreaming in the_ SHEPHERD'S _arms._)\n\n  My own love's voice. Arise, my fair one, he tells me, arise and let us\n  go....\n\nTHE SHEPHERD\n\n  I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not, nor awake\n  my beloved till she will.\n\n(SOLOMON _motions; the_ SHEPHERD _is removed._)\n\n\nACT II.\n\nA STREET IN JERUSALEM.\n\nIn the distance is Solomon and his retinue.\n\nCHORUS OF MEN\n\n  Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness, exhaling the odor of\n  myrrh and of frankincense and all the powders of the perfumer?\n\n(SOLOMON _and his retinue advance._)\n\nFIRST JERUSALEMITE\n\n  Behold the palanquin of Solomon. Three score valiant men are about it.\n  They all hold swords....\n\nSECOND JERUSALEMITE\n\n  King Solomon has had made for him a litter of Lebanon wood. The supports\n  are of silver, the bottom of gold, the covering of purple. In the centre\n  is a loved one, chosen from among the daughters of Jerusalem.\n\nTHE CHORUS\n\n(_calling to women in the houses._)\n\n  Come forth, daughters of Zion, and behold the King....\n\n\nACT III.\n\nTHE SERAGLIO.\n\nSOLOMON\n\n(_to the_ SHULAMITE.)\n\n  Yes, thou art fair, my love, yes, thou art fair. Thou hast dove's\n  eyes.... Thou art all fair, my love. There is no spot on thee.\n\nTHE SHEPHERD\n\n(_without, in the garden, calling to the_ SHULAMITE _and referring in\nveiled terms to the seraglio and its dangers._)\n\n  Come to me, my betrothed, come to me from Lebanon. Look at me from the\n  top of Amana, from the summit of Shenir and Hermon, from the lion's den\n  and the mountain of leopards.\n\n(_The_ SHULAMITE _goes to a window and looks out._)\n\nTHE SHEPHERD\n\n  You have strengthened my heart, my sister betrothed, you have\n  strengthened my heart with one of thine eyes, with one of the curls that\n  float on thy neck. How dear is thy love, my sister betrothed! Thy\n  caresses are better than wine, and the fragrance of thy garments is\n  sweeter than spice.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n  Let my beloved come into his garden and eat its pleasant fruits.\n\nTHE SHEPHERD\n\n  I am come into my garden, my sister betrothed, I have gathered my myrrh\n  with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey. I have drunk my\n  wine with my milk.\n\n(_To the chorus._)\n\n  Eat, comrades, drink abundantly, friends.\n\n(_The_ SHEPHERD _and the chorus withdraw._)\n\n\nACT IV.\n\nTHE SERAGLIO.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_musing._)\n\n  I sleep but my heart waketh. I heard the voice of my beloved. He\n  knocked. Open to me! he said. My sister, my love, my immaculate dove,\n  open to me, for my head is covered with dew, the locks of my hair are\n  wet ... I rose to open to my beloved ... but he was gone. My soul\n  faileth me when he spoke not. I sought him, but I could not find him. I\n  called him but he did not reply.\n\n(_A pause._ SHE _relates the story of her abduction._)\n\n  The watchman that went about the city found me, they smote me, they\n  wounded me, and the keepers of the walls took away my veil.\n\n(_To the_ ODALISQUES.)\n\n  I pray you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him\n  that I die of love.\n\nCHORUS OF ODALISQUES\n\n  In what is the superiority of thy lover, O pearl among women, that thou\n  beseechest us so?\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n  My beloved's skin is white and ruddy. He is one in a thousand.... His\n  eyes are as doves.... His cheeks are a bed of flowers.... He is\n  charming. Such is my beloved, such is my dear one, O daughters of\n  Jerusalem.\n\nCHORUS OF ODALISQUES\n\n  Whither is thy beloved gone, O pearl among women? Which way did he turn,\n  that we may seek him with thee?\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n  My beloved is gone from the garden.... But I am his and he is mine. He\n  feedeth his flocks among lilies.\n\n(_Enter_ SOLOMON.)\n\n(_The_ SHULAMITE _looks scornfully at him._)\n\nSOLOMON\n\n  Thou art beautiful as Tirzah, my love, and comely as Jerusalem, but\n  terrible as an army in battle. Turn thine eyes away. They trouble me....\n\nTHE SHEPHERD\n\n(_from without._)\n\n  There are sixty queens, eighty favorites, and numberless young girls.\n  But among them all my immaculate dove is unique, she is the darling of\n  her mother. The young girls have seen her and called her blessed. The\n  queens and the favorites have praised her.\n\nTHE CHORUS\n\n(_astonished at the_ SHULAMITE'S _scorn of the King._)\n\n  Who is it that is beautiful as Tirzah but terrible as an army in battle?\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_impatiently turning her back, and relating again her abduction._)\n\n  I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the green plants in the\n  valley, to see whether the vine budded, and the pomegranates were in\n  flower. But before I was aware of it, I was among the chariots of my\n  princely people.\n\nTHE CHORUS\n\n  Turn about, turn again, O Shulamite, that we may see thee.\n\nA DANCER\n\n  What will you see in the Shulamite whom the King has compared to an\n  army?\n\nSOLOMON\n\n(_to the_ SHULAMITE.)\n\n  How beautiful are thy feet, prince's daughter,... How fair and how\n  pleasant art thou....\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_impatiently as before._)\n\n  I am my beloved's and he is sighing for me.\n\n(_Exit_ SOLOMON. _Enter the_ SHEPHERD.)\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_hastening to her lover._)\n\n  Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the fields, let us lodge in the\n  villages. We will rise early and see if the vine flourishes and the\n  grape is ripe and the pomegranates bud. There will I caress thee. The\n  love-apples perfume the air and at our gates are all manner of rich\n  fruit, new and old, which I have kept for thee, my beloved. Oh, that\n  thou wert my brother, that, when I am with thee without, I might kiss\n  thee and not be mocked at. I want to take and bring thee into my\n  mother's house. There thou shalt instruct me and I will give thee spiced\n  wine and the juice of my pomegranates.\n\n(_Falling in his arms and calling to the_ ODALISQUES.)\n\n  His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me.\n\nTHE SHEPHERD\n\n(_to the chorus._)\n\n  I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not nor awake my\n  beloved till she will.\n\n\nACT V.\n\nTHE VILLAGE OF SHULAM.\n\n(_The_ SHULAMITE, _who has escaped from the seraglio is carried in by her\nlover._)\n\nCHORUS OF VILLAGERS\n\n  Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her\n  beloved?\n\nTHE SHEPHERD\n\n(_to the_ SHULAMITE.)\n\n  I awake thee under the apple tree.\n\n(_He points to the house._)\n\n  There thou wert born.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n  Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is\n  strong as death, jealousy cruel as the grave; the flashes thereof are\n  flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord. But many waters cannot quench\n  love, nor can the floods drown it. The man who seeks to purchase it\n  acquires but contempt.\n\n\nEPILOGUE.\n\nA COTTAGE AT SHULAM.\n\nFIRST BROTHER OF THE SHULAMITE\n\n(_thinking of a younger sister whom he would sell when she is older._)\n\n  We have a little sister, still immature. What shall we do with her when\n  she is spoken for?\n\nSECOND BROTHER\n\n  If by then she is comely, we will get for her silver from a palace. If\n  she is not comely, we will get the value of cedar boards.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n(_ironically intervening._)\n\n  I am comely, yet I made them let me be.\n\nFIRST BROTHER\n\n(_significantly._)\n\n  Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon. He leased it to farmers each of\n  whom was to pay him a thousand pieces of silver.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n  But my vineyard which is mine I still have.\n\n(_Laughing._)\n\n  A thousand pieces for thee, Solomon, and two hundred for the others.\n\n(_At the door the_ SHEPHERD _appears. Behind him are comrades._)\n\nTHE SHEPHERD\n\n  Fair one, that dwelleth here, my companions hearken to thy voice, cause\n  me to hear it.\n\nTHE SHULAMITE\n\n  Hasten to me, my beloved. Hasten like a roe or a young hart on the\n  mountains of spices.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nAPHRODITE URANIA\n\n\nGreece had many creeds, yet but one religion. That was Beauty. Israel\nbelieved in hate, Greece in love. In Judaea the days of the righteous were\nlong. In Greece they were brief. Whom the gods loved died young. The gods\nthemselves were young. With the tribes that took possession of the\nHellenic hills they came in swarms. Sprung from the depths of the archaic\nskies, they were sombre and impure. When they reached Olympus already\ntheir Asiatic masks had fallen. Hecate was hideous, Hephaestos limped, but\namong the others not an imperfection remained. Divested of attributes\nmonstrous and enigmatic, they rejuvenated into divinities of joy. Homer\nsaid that their laughter was inextinguishable. He joined in it. So did\nGreece. The gayety of the immortals was appreciated by a people that\ncounted their years by their games.\n\nAs the tribes dispersed the gods advanced. Their passage, marked here by a\ntemple, there by a shrine, had always the incense of legends. These Homer\ngathered and from them formed a Pentateuch in which dread was replaced by\nthe ideal. Divinities, whom the Assyrian priests barely dared to invoke by\nname, and whose mention by the laity was forbidden, he displayed, luminous\nand indulgent, lifting, as he did so, the immense burden of mystery and\nfear under which humanity had staggered. Homer turned religion into art,\nbelief into poetry. He evolved a creed that was more gracious than\naustere, more aesthetic perhaps than moral, but which had the signal merit\nof creating a serenity from which contemporaneous civilization proceeds.\nGreece to-day lies buried with her gods. She has been dead for twenty\ncenturies and over. But the beauty of which she was the temple existed\nbefore death did and survived her.\n\nTo Homer beauty was an article of faith. But not the divinities that\nradiated it. He laughed at them. Pythagoras found him expiating his mirth\nin hell. A later echo of it bubbled in the farce of Aristophanes. It\nreverberated in the verses of Euripides. It rippled through the gardens of\nEpicurus. It amused sceptics to whom the story of the gods and their\namours was but gossip concerning the elements. They believed in them no\nmore than we do. But they lived among a people that did. To the Greeks the\ngods were real, they were neighborly, they were careless and caressing,\nsubject like mortals to fate. From them gifts came, desires as well. The\nlatter idea, precocious in its naive psychology, eliminated human\nresponsibility and made sin descend from above.\n\nOlympus was not severe. Greece was not, either. The solemnity of other\nfaiths had no place in her creed, which was free, too, of their baseness.\nIt was not Homer only, but the inherent Hellenic love of the beautiful\nthat, in emancipating her from Orientalisms, maintained her in an attitude\nwhich, while never ascetic, occasionally was sublime. The tradition of\nOrpheus and Eurydice, the fable of Psyche and her god, had in them love,\nwhich nowhere else was known. They had, too, something of the high\nmorality which the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ depict.\n\nIn the _Iliad_ a thousand ships are launched for the recovery of an\nabducted wife. The subject is equivocal, but concerning it there is not a\ndubious remark. In the _Iliad_ as in the _Odyssey_ love rested on two\ndistinct principles: First, the respect of natural law; second, the\nrespect of lawful marriage. These principles, the gods, if they willed,\ncould abolish. When they did, their victims were not blamed, they were\npitied. Christianity could not do better. Frequently it failed to do as\nwell. But the patricists were not psychologists and the theory of\ndeterminism had not come.\n\nAphrodite had. With love for herald, with pleasure for page, with the\nGraces and the Hours for handmaids, she had come among the dazzled\nimmortals. Hesiod told about it. So did de Musset.\n\n     Regrettez-vous le temps ou le Ciel, sur la terre,\n     Marchait et respirait dans un peuple de dieux?\n     Ou Venus Astarte, fille de l'onde amere,\n     Secouait, vierge encor, les larmes de sa mere,\n     Et fecondait le monde en tordant ses cheveux!\n\nBut Astarte was a stone which Aphrodite's eyes would have melted. It may\nbe that they did. The worship of the Dea Meretrix was replaced by the\npurer rites of this purer divinity, unconscious as yet of the names and\nshames of Ishtar.\n\nThe Aphrodite whom Homer revealed differed from that of Hesiod. In Hesiod\nshe was still a novice, but less austere than she afterward appeared in\nthe conceptions of Pheidias. The latter succeeded in detaining the\nfluidity of the gods. He reproduced them in stone, sometimes in gold,\nalways in beauty. He created a palpable Olympus. To die without seeing it\nwas thought a great calamity. The universal judgment of antiquity was that\nart could go no higher. At the sight of the Pheidian Zeus, a barbarian\nbrute, AEmilius Paulus, the Roman invader and victor, shrank back, awe\nstruck, smitten with sacred terror. The image was regarded less as a\nstatue than as an actual revelation of the divine. To have been able to\ndisplay it, the general assumption was that either Pheidias had ascended\nabove, or else that Zeus had descended to him. The revelation of Aphrodite\nUrania which he effected for her temple near the Cerameicus must have been\nequally august, the celestial in its supremest expression.\n\nThereafter the decadence of the goddess began. Previously she had ruled\nthrough her perfection. Subsequently, though the perfection persisted, the\nstamp of divinity ceased. In lieu of the goddess was a very pretty woman.\nIf that woman did not, as Hesiod claimed, issue from the sea, she at least\nemerged from marble. The statues differed. Sometimes there were doves on\nthem, sometimes there was a girdle embroidered with caresses and kisses,\nat times in the hand was an arrow, at others a lance, again Aphrodite was\ntwisting her hair. But chiefly she was assassinated, not like Lais by\njealous wives, but by sheer freedom of the chisel. It was these profaner\nimages that inflamed Phaedra and Pasiphae. Among them was Praxiteles'\nCnidian Aphrodite, a statue which a king tried vainly to buy and a madman\noffered to marry. The Pheidian Aphrodite belonged to an epoch in which art\nexpressed the eternal; the Praxitelean, to a period in which it suggested\nthe fugitive. One was beauty and also love, the other was beauty and\npassion.\n\nOriginally both were one. It was only the idea of her that varied. Each\nHellenic town, each upland and valley had its own faiths, its own myths.\nUniformity concerning them was not doctrinal, it was ritualistic. Then,\ntoo, Aphrodite, Apollo, Zeus himself, the whole brilliant host of Olympus\nwere once monsters of Asia. However august they had since become, memories\nand savors of anterior rites followed in their ascensions. These things\nincited them to resume their primal forms. It was pleasurably that they\nacceded. Therein is the simple mystery of their double lives, the reason\nwhy Aphrodite could be degrading and ideal, celestial and vulgar, yet\nalways Philommeis, Queen of Smiles. In Cythera and Paphos she was but a\nfresh avatar of Ishtar. In other sites she resembled the picture that\nDante made of Fortune and which an artist detached.\n\n\"Dante,\" said Saint-Victor, \"displays Fortune turning her wheel,\ndistributing good and evil, success and failure, prosperity and want.\nMortals upbraid and accuse her. 'But these she does not hear. Tranquil\namong primordial things, she turns her sphere and ineffably rejoices.' So\ndoes Venus indifferently dispense high aims and viciousness. Curses do not\nreach her, insults do not touch her, the passions she has unchained\ncannot rise to where she is. In her high place tranquilly she turns her\nsphere of stars.\n\n     'Volge sua sfera e beata si gode.'\"\n\nIt was not that serene divinity, it was the more human Aphrodite of\nHesiod, that disturbed the Argive Helen. The story of her, the story of\nthe golden fruit tossed into Olympus with its tag, To the Fairest, the\nrivalries that resulted, the decision of Paris, corrupt yet just, his\nelopement with Helen, and the war of the world which ensued, these\nepisodes the hexameters of the _Iliad_ unfold.\n\nThere, drenched with blood and bathed in poetry, is Helen. There, too, is\nParis on his scarlet prow. With them you go from Lacedaemon, past the\nfaint, fair rose of Ida's snow, over the green plain of waters, right to\nthe gates of Ilium and within, and see how each man stopped and stood and\nmused at Helen's face and her undreamed-of beauty.\n\nHer beauty was no doubt surprising. She trailed admiration but also\nrespect. Homer relates that the seated sages rose at her approach. They\ndid not blame her for the conflagration that her face had caused. They\nknew, as Priam knew, that responsibility rested not with the woman but\nwith the gods. Perhaps she was not responsible. As in an allegory of\nbeauty which itself is for all and yet for none, already she had passed\nfrom hand to hand. When she was but a child she had been abducted.\nTheseus took her from a temple in which she was dancing. Recovered by her\nbrothers, Achilles got her from them but only to cede her to Patroclus.\nLater she became the wife of Menelaus. Subsequently Aphrodite gave her to\nParis. At that she rebelled. But no mortal may resist the divine. Helen\naccompanied Paris to Troy, where, during the war that was waged for her,\nhe was killed and she remained in his brother's arms until recovered by\nMenelaus.\n\nQuintus Smyrnaeus[4] represented Menelaus, sword in hand, rushing violently\nat her. A glance of her eyes disarmed him. In the clatter of the falling\nsword was love's reawakening. Then presently, as an honored wife, she\nreturned to Lacedaemon. Even there her adventures continued. Achilles,\nhaunted in Hades by the memory of her beauty, escaped, and in mystic\nnuptials conceived with her a winged child, Euphorion. Clearly, as the\nsages thought and Priam believed, she could not have been responsible. Nor\nwas she so regarded. The various episodes of her career formed a sort of\nsacred legend for the polluting of which a poet, Stesichorus, was blinded.\nThe blindness of Homer, Plato attributed to the same cause. To degrade\nbeauty is a perilous thing. To preserve it, to make the legend more\nsacred still, it was imagined that not Helen, but a phantom of her,\naccompanied Paris to Troy, and that it was for a phantom that men fought\nand died.\n\nA thousand years later Apollonius of Tyana happened on that romance.\nApollonius knew all languages, including that of silence, and all things,\nsave the caresses of women. He knew, too, how to summon the dead. To\nverify the story, he evoked the shade that once before for Helen had\nemerged from hell. Apollonius asked: \"Is it true that Helen went to Troy?\"\n\"We thought so,\" Achilles answered, \"and we fought to get her back. But\nshe was actually in Egypt. When we discovered that we fought for Troy\nitself.\"[5]\n\nAchilles may have been right. In the _Odyssey_, in connection with Helen,\nmention is made of nepenthe. Nepenthe was an Egyptian drug that dispelled\nthe memory of whatever is sad. Helen had much to forget and probably did,\neven without assistance. She was the personification of passivity. Her\nlittle rebellion at Aphrodite was very brief. But, assuming the nepenthe,\nit has been assumed also that in it was the secret of the spell with which\nshe so promptly disarmed Menelaus. To modern eyes his attitude is\nambiguous. His complaisance has an air of complicity. But Menelaus lived\nin an heroic age. Moreover, when Sarah vacated the palace of the\nPharaohs, the complaisance of Abraham was the same.\n\nIn both instances the principle involved was one of ownership. In\npatriarchal and heroic days woman was an asset. She was the living money\nof the period. Agamemnon, in devising how he might calm the anger of\nAchilles, offered him a quantity of girls. They were so much current coin.\nWhen stolen, recovery was the owner's chief aim. What may have happened in\nthe interim was a detail, better appreciable when it is remembered that\nbooty was treated, as Helen at Ilium was treated, in the light of Paris'\nlawful wife; for robbery at that time was a highly legitimate mode of\nacquiring property, provided and on condition that the robber and the\nrobbed were foes. The idea of enticing the property was too complicated\nfor the simplicity of those days. It was in that simplicity, together with\nthe belief that whatever occurred was attributable to the gods, that the\nmorality of the epoch resided.\n\nIn the story of Paris and Helen the morality of Aphrodite is as ambiguous\nas the attitude of Menelaus. She has the air of an _entremetteuse_. But\nher purpose was not to favorize frailty. Her purpose was the exercise of\nher sovereign pleasure. Paris, in adjudging to her the prize of beauty,\nbecame the object of her special regard, his people became her people,\ntheir enemies her own. The latter prevailed, but that was because\nDestiny--to whose power the gods themselves had to yield--so willed.\n\nIn the _Odyssey_ the morality of the _Iliad_ is enhanced. The enchantments\nof Calypso, the sorceries of Circe, the seductions of sirens, long years\nthemselves, wanderings over perilous seas, dangers, hardships,\ntemptations, failed to divert Odysseus from his memories of Penelope, who\nin turn resisted every suitor for his sake. When the later philosophy of\nGreece inquired what was woman at her best, it answered its own question\nin looking back at her. A thousand years after she had been sung, Horace,\nwriting to Lollius, said: \"I have been re-reading the poet of the Trojan\nWar. No one has told so well as he what is noble and what is base.\" St.\nBasilius, writing later still, declared that the Homeric epics were a\nperpetual praise of right. The fact, he noted, was particularly obvious in\nthe passage in which Odysseus confronted Nausicaa.\n\nThat little princess, historically the first who washed household linen in\npublic, was, when so engaged, surprised by the shipwrecked hero. Instead\nof being alarmed at the appearance of this man whom the waters had\ndisrobed, she was conscious only of a deep respect. St. Basilius gives the\nreason. In default of clothing Homer had dressed him in virtue.[6]\n\nThe deduction is so pleasant that the views of the saint concerning Circe\nand Calypso would be of interest. But they are unrecorded. It may be that\nhe had none. The enchantresses themselves with their philters and\nenthralments are supposedly fabulous. Yet in the Homeric account of their\nseas, once thought to be but a dream of fairyland, mariners have found a\nlog book of Mediterranean facts so accurate that a pilot's guide is but a\nprose rendering of its indications.[7] As with the seas so with the\nsirens. Their enchantments were real.\n\nAt an epoch when women generally were but things, too passively\nindifferent and too respectfully obedient to care to attempt, even could\nthey have divined how, to captivate, Circe and Calypso displayed the then\nnovel lures of coquetry and fascination. In the charm of their voices, in\nthe grace of their manners, in the harmony of their dress, in the perfume\nof their lips, in their use of unguents, in their desire to please joined\nto the high art of it, was a subtlety of seduction so new and unimagined\nthat it was magical indeed. In the violent _Iliad_, women, hunted like\ngame, were but booty. In the suaver _Odyssey_ was their revenge. It was\nthey who captured and detained, reducing the hardiest heroes into servants\nof their pleasure. It is reasonable that their islands should have been\nthought enchanted and they enchantresses.\n\nThe story of their spells, of their refinements, and of their consequent\ndominations, exerted gradually an influence wide and profound. Women began\nto conjecture something else than marriage by right of might. Into the\nconjecturings came attempts at emancipation that preoccupied husbands and\nmoralists. Hesiod denounced the new ambitions, and, finding denunciation\nperhaps ineffective, employed irony. He told of Pandora who, fashioned\nfirst out of clay, afterward adorned with a parure of beauty, was then\ngiven perfidy, falsehood and ruse, that, in being a delight to man, she\nshould be also a disaster.[8]\n\nThe picture, interesting in its suggestion of Eve, was originally perhaps\na Chaldaean curio, imported by Phoenician traders. Its first Hellenic\nsetting was due probably to Orpheus, the great lost poet of love, whose\nsongs charmed all nature, all hell as well. From him, through problematic\nhands, it drifted to Hesiod, as already his lyre had drifted to Lesbos.\nThe picture persisted, the lyre as well. To the latter the Mitylenes\nattributed the wonder of the beauty of their nightingales, chief among\nwhom was Sappho.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nSAPPHO\n\n\nSappho was contemporaneous with Nebuchadnezzar. While he was chastening\nthe Jews, she was creating love. In her day the condition of Hellenic\nwomen differed from what it had been. Generally they were shut apart,\nexcluded from any exercise of their possible minds, restricted to strict\ndomesticity. At Athens a girl might not so much as look from a window. If\nshe did, she saw nothing. The window did not give on the street. But in\nthe temples the candor of her eyes was violated. In the festivals of Ceres\nthe modesty of her ears was assailed. Otherwise, she was securely guarded.\nIf, to her detriment, she eluded guardianship, she could be sold. With\nmarriage she entered into a form of superior slavery. When her husband's\nfriends supped with him, she was not permitted to be present. Without\npermission she could not go from one apartment to the next. Without\npermission she could not go out. When she did, it was at her husband's\nside, heavily veiled. With his permission, she might go to the theatre,\nbut only when tragedy was given. At comedies and at the games she was\nforbidden to assist. In case of disobedience the penalty was death.\nPleasures and privileges were limited to housekeeping and motherhood. At\nthe immanence of the latter her surroundings were embellished with\nbeautiful trifles, with objects of art, with whatever influences might\nprenatally affect, and, in affecting, perfect the offspring. Otherwise,\nher existence was simple and severe. The peplos tissue of gold was not for\nher. Garments colored or flowered were not, either. These were reserved\nfor her inferiors and superiors, for the hierodules of Aphrodite Pandemos\nand the images of the gods. Though her robes were simple, they had to be\nheavy. If light, a fine was incurred. If they did not hang properly,\nanother fine was imposed. If, to the detriment of her husband, a man\nsucceeded in approaching her, she could be killed or merely repudiated; in\nthe latter case, she could no longer enter a temple, any one might insult\nher. Still a slave, she was an outcast as well.\n\nSuch were the laws. Their observance is a different matter. In\nAristophanes and the comic poets generally Athenian women of position were\ndissolute when they were not stupid, and usually they were both. They may\nhave been. But poets exaggerate. Besides, divorce was obtainable. Divorce\nwas granted on joint request. On the demand of the husband it could be\nhad. In the event of superscandalous conduct on his part, it was granted\nto the wife, provided she appeared before a magistrate and personally\ndemanded it. The wife of the wicked and winning Alcibiades went on such an\nerrand. Alcibiades met her, caught her in his arms and, to the applause of\nthe wittiest people in the world, carried her triumphantly home.\nAristophanes and Alcibiades came in a later and more brilliant epoch. In\nthe days of Sappho severity was the rigorous rule, one sanctioned by the\nsentiment of a people in whose virile sports clothing was discarded, and\nin whose plays jest was too violent for delicate ears.\n\nIn Sparta the condition of women was similar, but girls had the antique\nfreedom which Nausicaa enjoyed. Destined by the belligerent constitution\nof Lacedaemon to share, even in battle, the labors of their brothers, they\ndevoted themselves, not to domesticity, but to physical development. They\nwrestled with young men, raced with them, swam the Eurotas, preparing\nthemselves proudly and purely to be mothers among a people who destroyed\nany child that was deformed, fined any man that presumed to be stout,\nforced debilitated husbands to cede their wives to stronger arms, and who,\nmeanwhile, protected the honor of their daughters with laws of which an\ninfraction was death.\n\nThe marriage of Spartan girls was so arranged that during the first years\nof it they saw their husbands infrequently, furtively, almost\nclandestinely, in a sort of hide-and-go-seek devised by Lycurgus in order\nthat love, instead of declining into indifference, should, while\ninsensibly losing its illusions, preserve and prolong its strength.\nOtherwise, the Spartan wife became subject to the common Hellenic custom.\nHer liberty departed with her girlhood. Save her husband, no man might see\nher, none could praise her, none but he could blame. Her sole jewels were\nher children. Her richest garments were stoicism and pride. \"What dower\ndid you bring your husband?\" an Athenian woman asked of one of them.\n\"Chastity,\" was the superb reply.[9]\n\nLesbos differed from Lacedaemon. The Spartans declared that they knew how\nto fight, not how to talk. They put all their art into not having any. The\nLesbians put theirs into the production of verse. At Mitylene, poetic\ndevelopment was preferred to physical culture. The girls there thought\nmore of immortality than of motherhood. But the unusual liberty which they\nenjoyed was due to influences either Boeotian or Egyptian, perhaps to\nboth. Egypt was neighborly. With Lesbos, Egypt was in constant\ncommunication. The liberty of women there, as generally throughout the\nmorning lands, religion had procured. Where Ishtar passed, she fevered,\nbut also she freed. Beneath her mantle women acquired a liberty that was\nvery real. On the very sites in which Islam was to shut them up,\nSemiramis, Strantonice, Dido, Cleopatra, and Zenobia appeared. Isis, who\nwas Ishtar's Egyptian avatar, was particularly liberal. Among the cities\nespecially dedicated to her was Naucratis.\n\nCharaxus, a brother of Sappho, went there, met Rhodopis, a local beauty,\nand fell in love with her. Charaxus was a merchant. He brought wine to\nEgypt, sold it, returned to Greece for more. During one of his absences,\nRhodopis, while lolling on a terrace, dropped her sandal which, legend\nsays, a vulture seized, carried away, and let fall into the lap of King\nAmasis. The story of Cinderella originated there. With this difference:\nthough the king, after prodigal and impatient researches, discovered the\nlittle foot to which the tiny sandal belonged, Rhodopis, because of\nCharaxus, disassociated herself from his advances. Subsequently a young\nNaucratian offered a fortune to have relations with her. Because of\nCharaxus, Rhodopis again refused. The young man dreamed that she\nconsented, dreamed that she was his, and boasted of the dream.\nIndignantly Rhodopis cited him before the magistrates, contending that he\nshould pay her as proposed. The matter was delicate. But the magistrates\ndecided it with great wisdom. They authorized Rhodopis to dream that she\nwas paid.\n\nRumors of these and of similar incidents were probably reported in Lesbos\nand may have influenced the condition of women there. But memories of\nBoeotia from which their forefathers came was perhaps also a factor.\nBoeotia was a haunt of the muses. In the temple to them, which Lesbos\nbecame, the freedom of Erato was almost of necessity accorded to her\npriestesses.\n\nLesbos was then a stretch of green gardens and white peristyles set\nbeneath a purple dome. To-day there is no blue bluer than its waters.\nThere is nothing so violet as the velvet of its sky. With such accessories\nthe presence of Erato was perhaps inevitable. In any case it was profuse.\nNowhere, at no time, has emotional aestheticism, the love of the lovely,\nthe fervor of individual utterance, been as general and spontaneous as it\nwas in this early Academe.\n\nIn the later Academe at Athens laughter was prohibited. That of Mitylene\nwas less severe. To loiter there some familiarity with the magnificence of\nHomer may have been exacted, but otherwise a receptive mind, appreciative\neyes, and kissable lips were the best passports to Sappho, the girl Plato\nof its groves, who, like Plato, taught beauty, sang it as well and with it\nthe _glukupikros_--the bitterness of things too sweet.\n\nOthers sang with her. Among those, whose names at least, the fates and the\nFathers have spared us, were Erinna and Andromeda. Sappho cited them as\nher rivals. One may wonder could they have been really that. Plato called\nSappho the tenth muse. Solon, after hearing one of her poems, prayed that\nhe might not die until he had learned it. Longinus spoke of her with awe.\nStrabo said that at no period had any one been known who in any way,\nhowever slight, could be compared to her.\n\nThough twenty-five centuries have gone since then, Sappho is still\nunexceeded. Twice only has she been approached; in the first instance by\nHorace, in the second by Swinburne, and though it be admitted, as is\ncustomary among scholars, that Horace is the most correct of the Latin\npoets, as Swinburne is the most faultless of our day, Sappho sits and\nsings above them atop, like her own perfect simile of a bride:\n\n   Like the sweet apple which reddens atop on the topmost bough,\n   Atop on the topmost twig which the pluckers forgot somehow.\n   Forget it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now.[10]\n\nIt is regrettable that one cannot now get Sappho. But of at least nine\nbooks there remain but two odes and a handful of fragments. The rest has\nbeen lost on the way, turned into palimpsests, or burned in Byzance. The\nsurviving fragments are limited some to a line, some to a measure, some to\na single word. They are the citations of lexicographers and grammarians,\nmade either as illustrations of the AEolic tongue or as examples of metre.\n\nThe odes are addressed, the one to Aphrodite, the other to Anactoria. The\nfirst is derived from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who quoted it as a\nperfect illustration of perfect verse. The second was given by Longinus as\nan example of the sublime in poetry--of the display, as he put it, not of\none emotion, but of a congress of them. Under the collective title of\n_Anactoria_, these odes together with many of the fragments, Swinburne has\ninterwoven into an exquisite whole.\n\nTo appreciate it, Sappho herself should be understood. Her features, which\nthe Lesbians put on their coins, are those of a handsome boy. On seeing\nthem one does not say, Can this be Sappho? But rather, This is Sappho\nherself. They fit her, fit her verse, fit her fame. That fame, prodigious\nin her own day, is serviceable in ours. It has retained the name of\nPhaon, her lover; the names of girls for whom she also cared. Of these,\nSuidas particularly mentioned Atthis and Gorgo. Regarding Anactoria there\nis the testimony of the ode. There is more. \"I loved thee once, Atthis,\nlong ago,\" she exclaimed in one fragment. In another she declared herself\n\"Of Gorgo full weary.\" But the extreme poles of her affection are\nsupposably represented by Phaon and Anactoria. The ode to the latter is,\napart from its perfection, merely a jealous plaint, yet otherwise useful\nin showing the trend of her fancy, in addition to the fact that her love\nwas not always returned. Of that, though, there is further evidence in the\nfragments. Some one she reproached with being \"Fonder of girls than\nGello.\" Elsewhere she said \"Scornfuller than thou have I nowhere found.\"\nBut even in the absence of such evidence, the episode connected with\nPhaon, although of a different order, would suffice.\n\nContemporaneous knowledge of it is derived from Strabo, Servius,\nPalaephatus, and from an alleged letter in one of Ovid's literary\nforgeries. According to these writers, Phaon was a good-looking young\nbrute engaged in the not inelegant occupation of ferryman. In what manner\nhe first approached Sappho, whether indeed Sappho did not first approach\nhim, is uncertain. Pliny, who perhaps was credulous, believed that Phaon\nhad happened on the male root of a seaweed which was supposed to act as a\nlove charm and that by means of it he succeeded in winning Sappho's rather\nvolatile heart. However that may be, presently Phaon wearied. It was\nprobably in these circumstances that the Ode to Aphrodite was written,\nwhich, in Swinburne's paraphrase--slightly paraphrased anew--is as\nfollows:\n\n     I beheld in sleep the light that is\n     In her high place in Paphos, heard the kiss\n     Of body and soul that mix with eager tears\n     And laughter stinging through the eyes and ears;\n     Saw Love, as burning flame from crown to feet,\n     Imperishable upon her storied seat;\n     Clear eyelids lifted toward the north and south,\n     A mind of many colors and a mouth\n     Of many tunes and kisses; and she bowed\n     With all her subtle face laughing aloud,\n     Bowed down upon me saying, \"Who doth the wrong,\n     Sappho?\" But thou--thy body is the song,\n     Thy mouth the music; thou art more than I,\n     Though my voice die not till the whole world die,\n     Though men that hear it madden; though love weep,\n     Though nature change, though shame be charmed to sleep.\n     Ah, wilt thou slay me lest I kiss thee dead?\n     Yet the queen laughed and from her sweet heart said:\n     \"Even he that flees shall follow for thy sake,\n     And he shall give thee gifts that would not take,\n     Shall kiss that would not kiss thee\" (Yea, kiss me)\n     \"When thou wouldst not\"--When I would not kiss thee!\n\nIf Phaon heard he did not heed. He took ship and sailed away, to Sicily it\nis said, where, it is also said, Sappho followed, desisting only when he\nflung at her some gibe about Anactoria and Atthis. In a letter which Ovid\npretended she then addressed to him, she referred to the gibe, but whether\nby way of denial or admission, is now, owing to different readings of the\ntext, uncertain. In some copies she said, quas (the Lesbian girls) _non_\nsine crimine (reproach) amavi. In others, quas _hic_ (in Lesbos) sine\ncrimine amavi. Disregarding the fact that the letter itself is imaginary,\nthe second reading is to be preferred, not because it is true, but\nprecisely because it is not. Sappho, though a woman, was a poet. Several\nof her verses contain allusions to attributes poetically praised by poets\nwho never possessed them, and Ovid who had not written a treatise on the\nArt of Love for the purpose of displaying his ignorance, was too adroit to\nlet his imaginary Sappho admit what the real Sappho would have denied.[11]\n\nMeanwhile Phaon refused to return. At Lesbos there was a white rock that\nstretched out to the sea. On it was a temple to Apollo. A fall from the\nrock was, at the time, locally regarded as a cure for love. Arthemesia,\nqueen of Caria, whom another Phaon had rebuffed and who, to teach him\nbetter manners, put his eyes out, threw herself from it. Sappho did also.\nIt cured her of the malady, of all others as well.\n\nSuch is the story, such, rather, is its outline, one interesting from the\nfact that it constitutes the initial love-tragedy of the Occident, as,\nalso, because of a climax befitting the singer of the bitterness of things\ntoo sweet.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE AGE OF ASPASIA\n\n\n\"Eros is son of earth and heaven, but persuasion is Aphrodite's daughter.\"\nSo Sappho sang. The note, new and true as well, became, as fresh truth\never does become, revolutionary. Athens heard it. Even Sparta listened.\nCorinth and Miletus repeated it in clinging keys.\n\nWith the new truth came a new era. Through meditations patient and\nprolonged Calypso had succeeded in adding coquetry to love. With a distich\nSappho emancipated it. To the despotism that insisted she suggested the\nduty of asking; to the submission that had obeyed she indicated the grace\nthat grants; yet, posing as barrier between each, the right and liberty of\nchoice, which already Rhodopis had exacted.\n\nThen the new era came. The gynaeceum was not emptied. Wives were still shut\napart. But elsewhere, with that marvel which Atticism was, came the sense\nof personal dignity, the conception of individuality, the theory of\nfreedom, and, ultimately, in streets where women of position could not\nventure unaccompanied and unveiled, they were free to come and go at\nwill, to mingle with men, to assist at comedies and games, to become what\nwomen are to-day, with this difference, they were more handsome and less\npretty. To a people naturally aesthetic the revolution naturally appealed.\nLed by the irresistible authority of beauty, for support it had the\nsovereign prestige of the muse.\n\nIn stooping to conquer, Erato smiled, supplying, as she did so, another\nconception, one as novel as the first, the idea that, after all, though\nlove is a serious thing, the mingling of a little gayety in it is not\nforbidden. It was to Anacreon that Erato offered that chord, threw it\nrather, laughing, in his face. The poet, laughing too, took and plucked it\nlightly, producing quick airs, conceits of pleasure and of wine. When\nSappho sang, it was with all her fervent soul. When she loved it was with\nall her fervid heart. She sang as the nightingales of Lesbos sang, because\nsinging was her life, and she sang of love because she could sing of\nnothing else. Anacreon did not pretend to sing. He hummed as the bees of\nHymettus hummed, over this flower and over that, indifferent to each,\ncaring not for them, for their sweets merely, eager to get all he could as\nquickly as he might, smacking his faunesque lips over the grape,\nstaggering with a hiccough along the lanes of love, trailing among them\nstrophes to Bacchus rather than to Eros, yet managing to combine the two\nand leaving finally to the world that chord with its notes of pleasure.\n\nThese, mounting behind Sappho's songs, spread through Hellas, creating as\nthey spread a caste that borrowed from the girl her freedom, from the bard\nhis wit, and, from the fusion, produced the hetaira.\n\nHetaira is a term which Sappho applied to her pupils. It means comrade.\nBut either because it was too elusive for history's detention or too\nfragile for its care, it became corrupted, shoved roughly by stupid hands\namong the pornai. The latter were the hierodules of Aphrodite Pandemos.\nThe hetairae were objects of art, patiently fashioned in fastidious\nconvents, a class of highly educated young women to whom marriage did not\nnecessarily appeal but to whom liberty was essential, girls \"pleasanter,\"\nAmphis said, \"than the wife, for she with the law on her side, can sit in\nyour house and despise you.\"\n\nSuch an attitude is not enticing. The hetairae were an alterative from it,\nand, at the same time, a protest against existing feminine conditions.\nThese conditions the legislature could not change but the protest the\nlegislature could and did encourage. While the wife sat contemptuous in\nthe severe gynaeceum, the hetairae mingled with men, charming them always,\nmarrying them occasionally, yet only when their own equality and\nindependence was recognized and conserved.\n\nIt was into a union of this kind that Pericles entered with Aspasia. He\nnever regretted it, though history has affected to regard it as illicit,\nand Aspasia as Omphale. The affectation is an injustice. \"In all things,\"\nPericles said, \"a man's life should be as clean as his hands.\" What\nAspasia said is not recorded. But it is not improbable that she inspired\nthe remark.\n\nAspasia was born and educated at Miletus. It was chiefly there and at\nCorinth that the hetairae were trained. In these cities, seminaries had\nbeen established where girls rose from studies as serious as those which\nthe practice of other liberal professions comport. Their instruction\ncomprised everything that concerned the perfectioning of the body and\neverything that related to the embellishment of the mind. In addition to\ncalisthenics, there were courses in music, poetry, diction, philosophy,\npolitics, and art. The graduates were admirable. Their beauty was\nadmirable also. But they were admired less for that than because the study\nof every grace had contributed to their understanding of the unique art,\nwhich is that of charming. Charm they exhaled. Gifted and accomplished,\nthey were the only women with whom an enlightened Greek could converse.\nTheir attitude was irreproachable, their distinction extreme, and they\ndiffered from other women only in that their manners were more correct.\nPlato had one of them for muse. Sophocles another. To Glycera, of whom\nMenander wrote, poetry was an insufficient homage, a statue was erected to\nher.[12]\n\nThese instances, anomalous now, were logical then. To the Greek the gifts\nof the gods were more beneficent here than hereafter. Of divine gifts none\nwas more appreciated and none more allied to the givers than beauty. The\nvalue attached to it, prodigious in peace, was potent in war, potent in\nlaw. At Plataea, Callicrates was numbered among the heroes because of his\nlooks. For the same reason Philippus, killed in battle, was nobly buried\nand worshipped by those who had been his foes. For the same reason Phryne,\ncharged with high crimes, was acquitted.\n\nAt the Eleusinian mysteries, beneath the portico of the temple, before\nassembled Athens, Phryne appeared in the guise of Aphrodite rising from\nthe sea. Charged with parodying the rites, she was summoned before the\nAreiopagus. Conviction meant death. But her beauty, which her advocate\nsuddenly and cleverly disclosed, was her sole defence. It sufficed for\nthe acquittal of this woman whose statue, the work of Praxiteles, was\nplaced in the temple at Delphi.\n\nThe tomb of a sister had for epitaph: \"Greece, formerly invincible, was\nconquered and enslaved by the beauty of Lais, daughter of Love, graduate\nof Corinth, who here rests in the noble fields of Thessaly.\" For Thais a\nmonument was erected. At Tarsus Glycera had honors semi-divine. In Greece,\nlet a woman be what she might, if beautiful she was deified, if charming\nshe was adored. In either case she represented vivified aestheticism to a\npeople at once intellectual and athletic, temperate and rich, a people\nwho, contemptous of any time-consuming business, supported by a nation of\nslaves, possessing in consequence that wide leisure without which the\nrichest are poor, attained in their brilliant city almost the ideal. They\nknew nothing of telegraphs and telephones, but they knew as little of\nhypocrisy and cant. Art and aesthetics sufficed.\n\nIn Corinthian and Milesian convents aesthetics were taught to girls who,\nlifting their fair hands to Aphrodite, prayed that they might do nothing\nthat should not charm, say nothing that should not please. These studies\nand rituals were supplemented in the Academe. There they learned that the\nrightful path in love consisted in passing from beautiful manners to\nbeautiful thoughts, from beautiful thoughts to beautiful aspirations,\nfrom beautiful aspirations to beautiful meditations, and that, in so\npassing, they attained wisdom absolute which is beauty supreme.\n\nIt would be excessive to fancy that all graduates followed these precepts\nand entered with them into the austere regions where Beauty, one and\nindivisible, resides. It would be not only excessive but unreasonable.\nManners were proper for all, but for some revenues were better. Those of\nPhryne were so ample that she offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes.\nThose of Lais were such that she erected temples. But Phryne and Lais came\nlater, in post-Aspasian days, when Corinth, in addition to schools, had\nmarts in which beauty was an article of commerce and where pleasure\nreceived the same official encouragement that stoicism had at Sparta. In\nthe train of Lais, Ishtar followed. It was Alexander that invoked her.\n\nIn the age of Pericles and Aspasia, Athens was too aesthetic to heed the\none, too young to know the other. Pallas alone, she who from her crystal\nparapets saw and foresaw what the years would bring, could have told.\nOtherwise there was then not a shadow on Athens, light only, light that\nhas never been excelled, light which from high porches, from tinted\nperistyles, from gleaming temples, from shining statues, from white\nimmortals, from hill to sea, from Olympus itself, radiated, revealing in\nits intense vibrations the glare of genius at its apogee.\n\nWhatever is beautiful had its apotheosis then. Whatever was superb found\nthere its home. Athens had risen to her full height. Salamis had been\nfought. A handful of athletes had routed Asia. Reverse the picture and the\nglare could not have been. Its aurora would have swooned back into\ndarkness. But such was the luminousness it acquired that one ray, piercing\nthe mediaeval night, created the Renaissance, art's rebirth, the recall of\nantique beauty.\n\nSalamis lifted Greece to the skies. In the return was a new epoch, the\nmost brilliant the world has known, a brief century packed with the art of\nages, filled to the tips with grace, lit with a light that still dazzles.\nIt was too fair. Willed by destiny, it menaced the supremacy of the\ndivine. \"But by whom,\" Io asked, \"is Destiny ruled?\" \"By the Furies,\" was\nthe prompt reply.\n\nThey were there. From the depths of the archaic skies they were peering,\nprepared to pounce. After one war, another. After the rout of incoherent\nPersia, a duel between Athens and Sparta, a duel of jealousy, feminine in\nrancor, virile in strength, from which Sparta backed, yet only to return\nand fight again, only to fall at last as Athens did, as Thebes did too,\nbeneath the might of Macedon, expiring all of them in those convulsions\nthat summoned Rome.\n\nMeanwhile there was but light. Death had not come. In between was the\nunexampled reign of beauty during which, after AEschylus and Pindar, came\nthe splendors of Sophocles, the magnificence of Euripides, Socratic\nwisdom, and the rich, rare laugh of Aristophanes. That being insufficient,\nthere was Pheidias, there was Plato, art at its highest, beauty at its\nbest, and, that the opulent chain they formed might not sever too\nsuddenly, there followed Praxiteles, Apelles, Aristotle, Epicurus, and\nDemosthenes. Even with them that chain could not end. Intertwisting with\nthe coil of death, it Hellenized Asia, Atticized Alexandria, girdled Rome,\nresting in the latter's Lower Empire until recovered by the delighted\nRenaissance.\n\nThe names of the Periclean age are high. There is a higher one yet, that\nof Pericles. Statesman, orator, philosopher, soldier, artist, poet, and\nlover, Pericles was so great that, another Zeus, he was called the\nOlympian. If to him Egeria came, would it not, a poet somewhere asked, be\nuncivil to depict her as less than he? It would be not only uncivil but\nuntrue.\n\nSaid Themistocles, \"You see that boy of mine? Though but five, he governs\nthe universe. Yes, for he rules his mother, his mother rules me, I rule\nAthens and Athens the world.\" After Themistocles it was Pericles' turn to\ngovern and be ruled. His sovereign was Aspasia.\n\nAspasia had come from Miletus with another hetaira to Athens which her\ncompanion vacated to be bride of a Thessalian king, but where she became\nthe wife of one beside whom mere kings were nothing. It was her beauty\nthat first attracted Pericles. Beauty does attract, but only graciousness\ncan detain. In the home of Pericles there was none, a woman merely of the\nXantippe type from whom he separated by common consent and put Aspasia,\nnot in her inferior place, but on a pedestal before which he knelt.\nAspasia became not merely his wife but his inspiration, his comrade, his\naid. She worked for him and with him. She encouraged him in his work,\naccompanied him in his battles, consoled him in his fatigues, entertained\nhis friends, talked philosophy with Socrates, frivolity with Alcibiades,\nart with Pheidias, but love to him, displaying what Athens had socially\nnever seen, the spectacle of delicacy, culture, wit, beauty, and ease\nunited in a woman, and that woman a woman of the world.\n\nThe sight, highly novel, established a precedent and with it fresh\nconceptions of what woman might be. In the _Iliad_, she was money. Money\nhas a language of its own. In the enchanted islands of the _Odyssey_ she\nwas charm. Charm has a more distinct appeal. In Lesbos she was emancipated\nand that made her headier still. But in the opulent Athenian nights\nAspasia revealed her not physically attractive merely, not personally\nalluring only, not simply free, but spirituelle, addressing the mind as\nwell as the eye, inspiring the one, refining the other, captivating the\nsoul as well as the senses, the ideal woman, comrade, helpmate, and\nsweetheart in one.\n\nLike the day it was too fair. Presently the duel occurred. Lacedaemon,\ntrailing the pest in her tunic, ravaged the Eleusinian glades. Pericles\ndied. Aspasia disappeared. The duel, waning a moment, was resumed. It\ndebilitated Sparta, exhausted Athens, and awoke Thebes, who fell on both\nbut only to be eaten by Philip.\n\nIt would have been interesting to have seen that man and his Epeirote\nqueen who hung serpents about her, played with them among poisonous weeds\nand who, because of another woman, killed her king, burned her rival\nalive, and gave to the world Alexander.\n\nIt would have been more interesting still to have seen the latter when,\nundermined by every vice of the vicious East, with nothing left to\nconquer, with no sin left to commit, with no crime left undone, he\ndescended into the great sewer that Babylon was and there, in a golden\nhouse, on a golden throne, in the attributes of divinity was worshipped as\na god. Behind him was a background of mitred priests and painted children,\nabout him were the fabulous beasts that roamed into heraldry, with them\nwas a harem of three hundred and sixty-five odalisques apportioned to the\ndays of the year, while above swung the twelve signs of the zodiac. In\nthat picture Rome was to find the prototype of her Caesars, as in it\nalready Hellas has seen the supplanting of Aphrodite by Ishtar.\n\nGreece, still young, lingered briefly, then without decrepitude, without\ndecadence, ceased, nationally, to be. Aphrodite, young too, died with her.\nAs Venus Pandemos Rome evoked her. The evocation was successful. Venus\nPandemos appeared. But even from Olympus, which together with Hellenic\ncivilization, Rome absorbed, Aphrodite had already departed. Those who\ntruly sought her found her indeed, but like the art she inspired only in\nmarble and story.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE BANQUET\n\n\nIt used to be a proverb that Apollo created AEsculapius to heal the body\nand Plato to heal the soul. Plato may have failed to do that. But he\nheightened its stature. It has been loftier since he taught. In his\nteaching was the consummation of intellect. His mind was sky-like, his\nspeech perfection. Antiquity that thought Zeus must have revealed himself\nto Pheidias, thought, too, that should the high god deign to speak to\nmortals, it would be in the nightingale tongue of refinement which Plato\nemployed. The beauty of it is not always apprehensible. His views, also,\nare not always understood. Yet an attempt must be made to supply some\nsemblance of the latter because of the influence they have had.\n\n\"I know but one little thing,\" said Socrates. \"It is love.\" Socrates was\nironical. That which it pleased him to call little, Plato regarded as a\nspecial form of the universal law of attraction. His theories on the\nsubject are contained in the _Phaedrus_ and the _Symposion_, two poetically\nluxurious works produced by him in the violet-crowned city during the\nbrilliant Athenian day, before Socrates had gone and Sparta had come.\n\nThe _Symposion_ is a banquet. A few friends, Phaedrus and Pausanias, men of\nletters; Eryximachus, a physician; Aristophanes, the poet; Socrates, the\nseer, have been supping at the house of Agathon. By way of food for\nthought love is suggested. Discussion regarding it follows, in which\nSocrates joins--a simple expedient that enabled Plato to put in his\nmaster's mouth the aesthetic nectar of personal views of which the real\nSocrates never dreamed.\n\nAmong the first disputants is Phaedrus. In his quality of man of letters he\nbegan with extravagant praise of Eros, whom he called the mightiest of all\ngods, the chief minister of happiness.\n\nTo this, Pausanias, also a literary man and therefore indisposed to agree\nwith another, objected. \"Phaedrus would be right,\" he said, \"if there were\nbut one Eros. But there are two. Love is inseparable from Aphrodite. If\nthere were only one Aphrodite there would be only one love. But there are\ntwo Aphrodites. Hence there must be two loves. One Aphrodite is Urania or\ncelestial, the other Pandemos or common. The divinities should all be\nlauded. Still there is a distinction between these two. They vary as\nactions do. Consider what we are now doing, drinking and talking. These\nthings in themselves are neither good nor evil. They become one or the\nother in accordance with the way in which we do them. In the same manner,\nnot every love, but only that which is inherently altruistic, can be\ncalled divine. The love inspired by Aphrodite Pandemos is essentially\ncommon. It is such as appeals to vulgar natures. It is of the senses, not\nof the soul. Intemperate persons experience this love, which seeks only\nits own gross end. Whereas the love that comes of Aphrodite Urania has for\nobject the happiness and improvement of another.\"\n\nWith all of which Eryximachus agreed. Eryximachus was a physician,\nconsequently more naturalistic, and in agreeing he extended the duality of\nlove over all things, over plants and animals as well as over man,\nclaiming for it a universal influence in nature, science, and the arts,\nexpressing himself meanwhile substantially as follows:\n\nIn the human body there are two loves, confessedly different, as such\ntheir desires are unlike, the desire of the healthy body being one thing,\nthat of the unhealthy something else. The skilful physician knows how to\nseparate them, how to convert one into the other, and reconcile their\nhostile elements. In music there is the same reconciliation of opposites.\nThis is demonstrable by rhythm, which is composed of elements short and\nlong, and which, though differing, may be harmonized. The course of the\nseasons is also an example of both principles. When the opposing forces,\nsunlight and rain, heat and cold, blend harmoniously they bring fertility\nand health, precisely as their discord has a counter influence. The\nknowledge of love in relation to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies is\ntermed astronomy. Lastly, religion, through the knowledge which it has of\nwhat is pious and what is impious, is love's intermediary between men and\ngods.\n\nSuch is love's universal sway. The origin of its duality Aristophanes then\nexplained. Sages, neighbors of the gods, of whom Empedocles was the last\nrepresentative, had supposed, that in the beginning of things, those that\nloved were one. Later they were separated. Thereafter they sought the\nbetter half which they had lost. This tradition, possibly Orphic,\nAristophanes took for text and embroidered it with his usual\ngrotesqueness. But beneath the humor of his illustrations there was an\nidea less profound perhaps than delicate. Love, however regarded, may not\nimproperly be defined as the union of two beings who complete each other\nand who, from the stand-point of the Orphic tradition, reciprocally\ndiscover in each other what individually they once had and since have\nlacked. On the other hand, it may be that in the symbolism which\nAristophanes employed was an attempt to apply to humanity the theory\nwhich Eryximachus had set forth. At the origin of all things is unity,\nwhich divides and becomes multiple only to return to its primal shape.\nHuman nature, as masculinely and femininely exemplified, is primitive\nunity after division has come, and love is the return to that unity which\nin itself is of all things the compelling law. In other words, one is\nmany, and, love aiding, many are one.\n\nBut whatever Aristophanes may have meant, his views were subsidiary. It\nwas to Socrates that Plato reserved the privilege of penetrating into the\nessence of love and of displaying its progressus and consummation. \"How\nmany things that I never thought of,\" Socrates on reading his own\ndiscourse, exclaimed, \"this young man has made me say.\"\n\nAmong them was an exposition of the fundamental law of human nature, the\nuniversal desire for happiness. In the demonstrations that followed good\nwas shown to be a means to happiness; consequently, every one, loving\nhappiness, loves good also. In this sense love belongs to all. Every one,\nin loving happiness, loves good and craves a perpetual possession of both.\nBut different minds have different ways of attaining the same end. One man\naspires to happiness through wealth, another through place, a third\nthrough philosophy. These are uninfluenced by Eros. The influence of Eros\nis exerted when the perpetual possession of happiness is sought in\nimmortality.\n\nBut life itself comports no continuity. Life is but a succession of\nphenomena, of which one departs as another appears, and of which each,\ncreated by what has gone before, creates that which ensues, the result\nbeing that, though from womb to tomb a man be called the same, never,\neither mentally or physically, is he. The constant disintegration and\nrenovation of tissues correspond with the constant flux and reflux of\nsensations, emotions, thoughts. The man of this instant perishes. He is\nreplaced by a new one during the next. That proposition true of the\nindividual is equally true of the species, continuance of either being\nsecured only through reproduction. The love of immortality manifests\nitself therefore through the reproductive impulse. Beauty, in another,\nexercises an attractive force that enables a gratification of the impulse\nwhich ugliness arrests. Hence comes the love of beauty. In some, it\nstimulates the body, attracting them to women and inducing them to\nperpetuate themselves through the production of children. In others, it\nstimulates the mind, inducing the creation of children such as Lycurgus\nleft to Sparta, Solon to Athens, Homer and Hesiod to humanity, children\nthat built them temples which women-born offspring could not erect.\n\nThese are the lesser mysteries of love. The higher mysteries, then\nunveiled, disclose a dialectic ladder of which the first rung touches\nearth, the last the divine. To mount from one to the other, love should\nrise as does the mind which from hypothesis to hypothesis reaches truth.\nIn like manner, love, mounting from form to form, reaches the primordial\nprinciple from which all beauty proceeds. The rightful order of going\nconsists in using earthly beauties as ascending steps, passing from one\nfair form to all fair forms, from fair forms to beautiful deeds, from\nbeautiful deeds to beautiful conceptions, until from beautiful conceptions\ncomes the knowledge of beauty supreme.\n\n\"There,\" Socrates continued, \"is the home of every science and of all\nphilosophy. It is not, though, initiation's final stage. The heart\nrequires more. Drawn by the power of love, it cannot rest in a sphere of\nabstraction. It must go higher, higher yet, still higher to the ultimate\ndegree where it unites with beauty divine.\"\n\nThat union which is the true life is not, Socrates explained,\nannihilation, nor is it unity, or at least not unity which excludes\ndivision. The lover and the beloved are distinct. They are two and yet but\none, wedded in immaculate beauty.\n\n\"If anything,\" Socrates concluded, \"can lend value to life it is the\nspectacle of that beauty, pure, unique, aloof from earthly attributes,\nfree from the vanities of the world. It is a spectacle which,\napprehensible to the mind alone, enables the beholder to create, not\nphantoms, but verities, and in so doing, to merit immortality, if mortal\nmay.\"\n\nSocrates, who had been leaning against the table, lay back on his couch.\nThe grave discourse was ended. Aristophanes was preparing to reply.\nSuddenly there was violent knocking at the door without. A little later\nthe voice of Alcibiades was heard resounding through the court. In a state\nof great intoxication he was roaring and shouting \"Agathon! Where is\nAgathon? Lead me to Agathon.\" Then at once, massively crowned with\nflowers, half supported by a flute girl, Alcibiades, ribald and\nimportunate, staggered in. The grave discourse was ended, the banquet as\nwell.\n\nThere is an Orphic fragment which runs: The innumerable souls that are\nprecipitated from the great heart of the universe swarms as birds swarm.\nThey flutter and sink. From sphere to sphere they fall and in falling\nweep. They are thy tears, Dionysos. O Liberator divine, resummon thy\nchildren to thy breast of light.\n\nIn the Epiphanies at Eleusis the doctrine disclosed was demonstrative of\nthat conception. The initiate learned the theosophy of the soul, its\ncycles and career. In that career the soul's primal home was color, its\nsustenance light. From beatitude to beatitude it floated, blissfully, in\nethereal evolutions, until, attracted by the forms of matter, it sank\nlower, still lower, to awake in the senses of man.\n\nThe theory detained Plato. In the _Phaedrus_, which is the supplement of\nthe _Symposion_, he made it refract something approaching the splendor of\ntruth revealed. With Socrates again for mouthpiece, he declared that in\nanterior existence we all stood a constant witness of the beautiful and\nthe true, adding that, if now the presence of any shape of earthly\nloveliness evokes a sense of astonishment and delight, the effect is due\nto reminiscences of what we once beheld when we were other than what we\nare.\n\n\"It seems, then,\" Plato noted, \"as though we had found again some object,\nvery precious, which, once ours, had vanished. The impression is not\nillusory. Beauty is really a belonging which we formerly possessed.\nMingling in the choir of the elect our souls anteriorly contemplated the\neternal essences among which beauty shone. Fallen to this earth we\nrecognize it by the intermediary of the most luminous of our senses.\nSight, though the subtlest of the organs, does not perceive wisdom. Beauty\nis more apparent. At the sight of a face lit with its rays, memory\nreturns, emotions recur, we think love is born in us and it is, yet it is\nbut born anew.\"\n\nThere is a Persian manuscript which, read one way, is an invocation to\nlove in verse, and which, read backward, is an essay on mathematics in\nprose. Love is both a poem and a treatise. It was in that aspect Plato\nregarded it. It had grown since Homer. It had developed since the Song of\nSongs. With Plato it attained a height which it never exceeded until Plato\nhimself revived with the Renaissance. In the interim it wavered and\ndiminished. There came periods when it passed completely away. Whether\nPlato foresaw that evaporation, is conjectural. But his projection of the\ndrunken Alcibiades into the gravity of the Banquet is significant. The\ndissolute, entering suddenly there, routed beauty and was, it may be, but\nan unconscious prefigurement of the coming orgy in which love also\ndisappeared.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nROMA-AMOR\n\n\nIt was the mission of Rome to make conquests, not statues, not to create,\nbut to quell. Her might reverberated in the roar of her name. Roma means\nstrength. It is only in reading it backward that Amor appears. Love there\nwas secondary. Might had precedence. It was Might that made first the\nhome, then the state, then the senate that ruled the world. That might,\nwhich was so great that to ablate it the earth had to bear new races, was\nbased on two things, citizenship and the family. The title Romanus sum was\nequal to that of rex. The title of matron was superior.\n\nThe Romans, primarily but a band of outlaws, carried away the daughters of\ntheir neighbors by force. Their first conquest was woman. The next was the\ngods. In the rude beginnings the latter were savage as they. Revealed in\npanic and thunder, they were gods of prey and of fright. Rome, whom they\nmortified, made no attempt to impose them on other people. With superior\ntact she lured their gods from them. She made love to them. With naive\neffrontery she seduced them away. The process Macrobius described. At the\nwalls of any beleaguered city, a consul, his head veiled, pronounced the\nconsecrated words. \"If there be here gods that have under their care this\npeople and this city, we pray, supplicate, and adjure them to desert the\ntemples, to abandon the altars, to inspire terror there, to come to Rome\nnear us and ours, that our temples, being more agreeable and precious, may\npredispose them to protect us. It being understood and agreed that we\ndedicate to them larger altars, grander games.\"[13]\n\nIt was with that formula that Rome conquered the world. She omitted it but\nonce, at the walls of Jerusalem. The deity whom she forgot there to\ninvoke, entered her temples and overthrew them.\n\nMeanwhile the flatteries of the formula no known god could resist. In\ntriumph Rome escorted one after another away, leaving the forsaken but\ndoorposts to worship, and stimulating in them the desire to become part of\nthe favored city where their divinities were. But in that city everything\nwas closed to them. Deserted by their gods, divested, in consequence, of\nreligion and, therefore, of every right, they could no longer pray, the\nsignificance of signs and omens was lost to them, they were plebs. But the\nRomans, who had captivated the divinities, and who, through them, alone\npossessed the incommunicable science of augury, were patrician. In that\ndistinction is the origin of Rome's aristocracy and her might.\n\nThe might pre-existed in the despotic organization of the home. There the\nslaves and children were but things that could be sold or killed. They\nwere the chattels of the paterfamilias, whose wife was a being without\ninfluence or initiative, a creature in the hands of a man, unable to leave\nhim for any cause whatever, a domestic animal over whom he had the right\nof life and death, a ward who, regarded as mentally irresponsible--_propter\nanimi laevitatem_--might not escape his power even though he died, a woman\nwhom he could repudiate at will and of whom he was owner and judge.[14]\n\nSuch was the law and such it remained, a dead letter, nullified by a\nreason profoundly human, which the legislature had overlooked, but which\nthe Asiatics had foreseen and which they combated with the seraglio where\nwoman, restricted to a fraction of her lord, exhausted herself in\ncontending even for that. But Rome, in making the paterfamilias despotic,\nmade him monogamous as well. He was strictly restricted to one wife. As a\nconsequence, the materfamilias, while theoretically a slave, became\npractically what woman with her husband to herself and no rivals to fear\nalmost inevitably does become--supreme. Legally she was the property of\nher husband, actually he was hers. When he returned from forage or from\nwar, she alone had the right to greet him, she alone might console and\ncaress. In the eye of the gods if not of the law she was his equal when\nnot his superior. By virtue of the law he could divorce her at will, he\ncould kill her if she so much as presumed to drink wine. By virtue of her\nsupremacy five hundred and twenty years passed before a divorce\noccurred.[15]\n\nThe supremacy was otherwise facilitated. The atrium, unlike the gynaeceum,\nwas not a remote and inaccessible apartment, it was the living-room, the\nsanctuary of the household gods, a common hall to which friends were\nadmitted, visitors came, and where the matron presided. From the moment\nwhen, in accordance with the ceremonies of marriage, her hair--in memory\nof the Sabines--parted by a javelin's point, an iron ring--symbol of\neternity--on her fourth finger, the wedding bread eaten, her purchase\nmoney paid, and she, lifted over the threshold of the atrium, uttered the\nsacramental words--Ubi tu Caius, ibi ego Caia--from that moment, legally\n_in manum viri_, actually she became mistress of whatever her husband\npossessed, she became his associate, his partner, sharing with him the\nadministration of the patrimony, governing the household, the slaves,\nCaius himself.\n\nSaid Cato: \"Everywhere else women are ruled by men, but we who rule all\nmen, are ruled by women.\" They had done so from the first. The treatment\nof the Sabines was clearly violent in addition to being mythical. But,\neven in legend, these young women were not deserted as were the Ariadnes\nand Medeas of Greece. They became Roman matrons, as such circled with\nrespect. Later, Egeria instituted with symbolic nymphs a veritable worship\nof women. Thereafter feminine prerogatives developed from the theory and\npractice of marriage itself. In theory, marriage was an association for\nthe pursuit of things human and divine.[16] In practice, it was the fusion\nof two lives--a fusion manifestly incomplete if all were not held in\ncommon. Community of goods means equality. From equality to superiority\nthere is but a step. The matron took it. She became supreme as already she\nwas patrician.\n\nBetween patrician and plebeian there was an abyss too wide for marriage to\nbridge. Such a union would have been regarded as abnormal. The plebeian\ndid not at first dare to conceive of such a thing. When later he protested\nagainst his helotry it was in silence. He but vacated the city where the\nearth threatened to open beneath him and where his lost gods brooded\ninimical still. Ultimately, protests persisting, the patricians consented\nthat these nobodies should be somebodies, provided at least they were men.\nAlready Roman by birth, they became Roman by law.\n\nWhether man or woman, it was a high privilege to be that. The woman who\nwas not, the manumitted slave, the foreigner within the walls, the code\ndisdained to consider. Statutes against shames took no account of her.\nBeyond the pale even of ethics, the attitude to her of others concerned\nbut herself.\n\nBut about the Roman woman were thrown Lycurgian laws. A forfeiture of her\nhonor was a disgrace to the State. Her people killed her--_Cognati necanto\nuti volent_--as they liked. On the morrow there was nothing that told of\nthe tragedy save the absence of a woman seen no more. If she were seen, if\nfather or husband neglected his duty, public indictment ensued with death\nor exile for result. From the indictment and its penalties appeal could be\nhad. From the edile could be obtained the _Licentia stupri_, the right to\nthe antique livery of shame. But thereafter the purple no longer bordered\nthe robe of the ex-patrician. She could no longer be driven in chariots or\nbe borne in litters by slaves; the fillet, taken from her, was replaced\nby a yellow wig; a harlot then, she was civilly dead.[17]\n\nTacitus has said that under Tiberius a special law had to be enacted to\nprevent women of rank from such descent. During the austerer days of the\nrepublic the derogation was unknown. The Greek ideal of woman which the\nhetaira exemplified was beauty. Honor, which was the Roman ideal, the\nmatron achieved.\n\nTo the matrons reverently Rome bowed. The purple border on their mantle\ncompelled respect. The modesty of their eyes and ears was protected by\ngrave laws. In days of danger the senate asked their aid. The gods could\nhave no purer incense than their prayers. There was no homage greater than\ntheir esteem. Such a word as dignity was too colorless to be employed\nregarding them, it was the term majesty that was used. The vestal was but\na more perfect type of these women on whose tomb _univirae_--the wife of\none man--was alone inscribed.\n\nThe honor of the Roman matron was a national affair, the honor of a Roman\ngirl a public concern. Because of the one, royalty was abolished. Because\nof the other, the decemvirs fell. In neither case was there revolution. On\nthe contrary. In the first instance, that of Lucretia, it was the\ninsurrection of Tarquin against the inviolability of virtue. In the\nsecond, that of Virginia, it was the insurrection of Appius Claudius\nagainst the inviolability of love, dual insurrections, probably mythical,\nwhich Rome, with legendary fury, suppressed, and which, whether historic\nor imaginary, was typical of the energetic character that made her what\nshe was, proud, despotic, sovereign of the world.\n\n\"The empire that Rome won,\" St. Augustin, with agreeable ingenuousness,\nremarked, \"God gave her in order that, though pagan and consequently\nunrewardable hereafter, her virtues should not remain unrecognized below.\"\nNor were they, and that, too, despite the fact that they omitted to\nendure, except, as Cicero said, in books; \"in old books,\" he added, \"which\nno one reads any more.\" But in the interim three things had occurred.\nGreece, wounded to the death, had flooded Rome with the hemorrhages of her\nexpiring art. Asia had undyked the sea of her corruption. Both had\ncascaded their riches. Rome hitherto had been poor, she had been puritan.\nHers had been the peasant's hard plain life. The costume of the matron,\nwhich custom had made stately, the lex Oppia had made severe. This\nstatute, passed at the time of the Carthagenian invasion, was a measure of\npublic utility devised to increase the budget of war. Its abrogation\ncoincided with the fall of Macedon and the return of AEmilius Paulus,\nbringing with him the sack of seventy cities, the prodigious booty of\nravaged Greece, the prelude to that of the East. Behind these eruptions\nwas the contagion of fastidious caprices that demoralized Rome.\n\nHeretofore, innocent of excesses, ignorant of refinements, in antique\nsimplicity, Rome had sat briefly and upright before her frugal fare.\nThereafter, on cushioned beds were repasts, long and savorous, eaten to\nthe sound of crotal and of flute. There were after-courses of ballerine\nand song, the refreshment of perfume, the luxurious tonic of the bath, the\nred feather that enabled one to eat again, the marvels of Asiatic\ndebauchery, the surprises of Hellenic grace. In the charm of foreign\nspells former austerities were forgot. Romans who had not been initiated\nin them abroad had the returning victors for tutors at home.\n\nSylla was particularly instructive. Carthagenian in ferocity, Babylonian\nin lubricity, Hamilcar and Belshazzar in one, the ugliest and most\nformidable Roman of the lot, his life, which an ulcer ravaged, was a\nsuccession of massacres, orgies, and crimes. Married one after another to\nthree women of wealth, who to him were but stepping stones to fortune, on\na day when he was preparing to give one of those festivals, the splendor\nand the art of which he had learned from Mithridates, his third wife fell\nill. Death discourages Fortune. Sylla sent her a bill of divorce and\nordered her to be taken from the house, which was done, just in time, she\nwas dying. Sylla promptly remarried, then married again, and yet again.\nMeanwhile, he had a daughter and an eye on the promising Pompey. His\ndaughter was married. So too was Pompey. He forced his daughter from her\nhusband, forced Pompey to repudiate his wife, and forced them to marry.\n\nSylla had brought with him from the East its curious cups in which blood\nand passion mingled, and spilled them in the open streets. Crassus outdid\nhim in magnificence, and Lucullus eclipsed them both. Asia had yielded to\nthese men the fortune of her people, the honor of her children, the\ntreasure of her temples, the secrets of their sin. The Orientalisms which\nthey imported, their deluge of coin, their art of marrying cruelty to\npleasure, set Rome mad.\n\nAmong the maddest was Catiline. That tiger, in whose vestibule were\nengraved the laws of facile love, affiliated women of rank, others of\nnone, soldiers and slaves, in his convulsive cause. Shortly, throughout\nthe Latin territory, a mysterious sound was heard. It was like the clash\nof arms afar. The augurs, interrogated, announced that the form of the\nState was about to change. The noise was the crackling of the\nrepublic.[18]\n\nBefore it fell came Caesar. Sylla told him to repudiate his wife as Pompey\nhad. Caesar declined to be commanded. The house of Julia, to which he\nbelonged, descended, he declared, from Venus. Venus Pandemos, perhaps. But\nthe ancestry was typical. Cinna drafted a law giving him the right to\nmarry as often as he chose. After the episodes in Gaul, when he entered\nRome, his legions warned the citizens to have an eye to their wives.\nMeanwhile, he had repudiated Pompeia, his wife, not to please Sylla but\nhimself, or rather because Publius Claudius, a young gallant, had been\ndiscovered disguised as a woman assisting at the mysteries of the Bona\nDea, held on this occasion in Caesar's house. To these ceremonies men were\nnot admitted. The affair made a great scandal. Pompeia was suspected of\nhaving helped Publius to be present. The suspicion was probably unfounded.\nBut Caesar held that his wife should be above suspicion. He divorced her in\nconsequence and married Calpurnia, not for love but for place. Her father\nwas consul. Caesar wanted his aid and got it. Then, after creating a\nsolitude and calling it peace, after turning over two million people into\nso many dead flies, after giving geography such a twist that to-day whoso\nsays Caesar says history--after these pauses in the ascending scale of his\nunequalled life, at the age of fifty, bald, tired, and very pale, there\nwas brought to him at Alexandria a bundle, from which, when opened, there\nemerged a little wonder called Cleopatra, but who was Isis unveiled.[19]\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.\n\n\nIn Greece beauty was the secret of life. In Egypt it was the secret of\ndeath. The sphinxes that crouched in the avenues, the caryatides at the\npalace doors, the gods on their pedestals, had an expression enigmatic but\nidentical. It was as though some of them listened, while others repeated\nthe story of the soul's career. In the chambers of the tombs the echo of\nthe story descended. The dead were dreaming, and draining it. Saturated\nwith aromatics, wound about with spirals of thin bands, they were dressed\nas for nuptials. On their faces was the same beatitude that the statues\ndisplayed.\n\nIsis typified that beatitude. The goddess, in whose mysteries were taught\nboth the immortality of the soul and the secret of its migrations, was one\nof Ishtar's many avatars, the only one whose attributes accorded even\nremotely with the divine. Egypt adored her. There were other gods. There\nwas Osiris, the father; Horus, the son, who with Isis formed the trinity\nwhich India and Persia both possessed, and which Byzance afterward\nperpetuated. There were other gods also, a hierarchy of great idle\ndivinities with, beneath them, cohorts of inferior fiends. But the great\nlight was Isis. Goddess of life and goddess of death, she had for sceptre\na lotos and for crown a cormorant; the lotos because it is emblematic of\nlove, and the cormorant because, however replete, it says never Enough.\n\nIsis was the consort of Osiris. She was also his sister. It was customary\nfor the queens of Egypt to call themselves after her, and, like her, to\nmarry a brother. Cleopatra followed the usual custom. In other ways she\nmust have resembled her. She was beautiful, but not remarkably so. The\nEgyptian women generally were good-looking. The Asiatics admired them very\nmuch. They were preferred to the Chinese, whose eyes oblique and\nhalf-closed perturbed sages, demons even, with whom, Michelet has\nsuggested, they were perhaps akin. Cleopatra lacked that insidiousness.\nSemi-Greek, a daughter of the Ptolomies, she had the charm of the Hellenic\nhetaira. To aptitudes natural and very great, she added a varied\nassortment of accomplishments. It is said that she could talk to any one\nin any tongue. That is probably an exaggeration. But, though a queen, she\nwas ambitious; though a girl, she was lettered; succinctly, she was\nmasterful, a match for any man except Caesar.\n\nCleopatra must have been very heady. Caesar knew how to keep his head. He\ncould not have done what he did, had he not known. Dissolute, as all men\nof that epoch had become, he differed from all of them in his\nepicureanism. Like Epicurus, he was strictly temperate. He supped on dry\nbread. Cato said that he was the first sober man that had tried to\noverthrow the republic. But, then, he had been to school, to the best of\nschools, which the world is. His studies _in anima vili_ had taught him\nmany things, among them, how to win and not be won. Cleopatra might almost\nhave been his granddaughter. But he was Caesar. His eyes blazed with\ngenius. Besides, he was the most alluring of men. Tall, slender, not\nhandsome but superb--so superb that Cicero mistook him for a fop from whom\nthe republic had nothing to fear--at seventeen he had fascinated pirates.\nEver since he had fascinated queens. In the long list, Cleopatra was but\nanother to this man whom the depths of Hither Asia, the mysteries that lay\nbeyond, the diadems of Cyrus and Alexander, the Vistula and the Baltic\nclaimed. There were his ambitions. They were immense. So were also\nCleopatra's. What he wanted, she wanted for him, and for herself as well.\nShe wanted him sovereign of the world and herself its empress.\n\nThese views, in so far as they concerned her, did not interest him very\ngreatly. His lack of interest he was, however, too well bred to display.\nHe solidified her throne, which at the time was not stable, left her a son\nfor souvenir, went away, forgot her, remembered her, invited her to Rome,\nwhere, presumably with Calpurnia's permission, he put her up at his house,\nand again forgot her. He was becoming divine, what is superior, immortal.\nEven when dead, his name, adopted by the emperors of Rome, survived in\nCzars and Kaisers. His power too, coextensive with Rome, persisted.\nSevered as it was like his heart when he fell, the booty was divided\nbetween Octavius, Lepidus, and Marc Antony.\n\nTheir triumvirate--duumvirate rather, Lepidus was nobody--matrimony\nconsolidated. Octavius married a relative of Antony and Antony married\nOctavius' sister. Then the world was apportioned. Octavius got the\nOccident, Antony the Orient. Rome became the capital of the one,\nAlexandria that of the other. At the time Alexandria was Rome's rival and\nsuperior. Rome, unsightly still with the atrocities of the Tarquins, had\nneither art nor commerce. These things were regarded as the occupations of\nslaves. Alexandria, purely Greek, very fair, opulent, and teeming, was the\nuniversal centre of both, of learning too, of debauchery as well--elements\nwhich its queen, a viper of the Nile, personified.\n\nBefore going there Antony made and unmade a dozen kings. Then, presently,\nat Tarsus he ordered Cleopatra to come to him. Indolently, his subject\nobeyed.\n\nCaesar claimed descent from Venus. Antony's tutelary god was Bacchus, but\nhe claimed descent from Hercules, whom in size and strength he resembled.\nThe strength was not intellectual. He was an understudy of genius, a\nsoldier of limited intelligence, who tried to imitate Caesar and failed to\nunderstand him, a big barbarian boy, by accident satrap and god.\n\nAt Rome he had seen Cleopatra. Whether she had noticed him is uncertain.\nBut the gilded galley with the purple sails, its silver oars, its canopy\nof enchantments in which she went to him at Tarsus, has been told and\nretold, sung and painted.\n\nAt the approach of Isis, the Tarsians crowded the shore. Bacchus, deserted\non his throne, sent an officer to fetch her to him. Cleopatra insisted\nthat he come to her. Antony, amused at the impertinence, complied. The\ninfinite variety of this woman, that made her a suite of surprises,\ninstantly enthralled him. From that moment he was hers, a lion in leash,\nled captive into Alexandria, where, initiated by her into the inimitable\nlife, probably into the refinements of the savoir-vivre as well, Bacchus\ndeveloped into Osiris, while Isis transformed herself anew. She drank\nwith him, fished with him, hunted with him, drilled with him, played\ntricks on him, and, at night, in slave's dress, romped with him in\nRhakotis--a local slum--broke windows, beat the watch, captivating the\ncaptive wholly.[20]\n\nWhere she had failed with Caesar she determined to succeed with him, and\nwould have succeeded, had Antony been Caesar. Octavius was not Caesar,\neither. Any man of ability, with the power and resources of which Antony\ndisposed, could have taken the Occident from him and, with Cleopatra,\nruled the world.\n\nTogether they dreamed of it. It was a beautiful dream, inimitable like\ntheir life. Rumors of the one and of the other reached Octavius. He\nwaited, not impatiently and not long. Meanwhile Antony was still the\nhusband of Octavia. But Cleopatra had poisoned her brother-husband. There\nbeing, therefore, no lawful reason why she and Antony should not marry,\nthey did. Together, in the splendid palace of the Bruchium--an antique gem\nof which the historic brilliance still persists--they seated themselves,\nhe as Osiris, she as Isis, on thrones of gold. Their children they\ndeclared kings of kings. Armenia, Phoenicia, Media, and Parthea, were\nallotted to them. To Cleopatra's realm Antony added Syria, Lydia, and\nCyprus. These distributions constituted just so many dismemberments of\nthe res publica, Antony thought them so entirely within the scope of his\nprerogatives that he sent an account of the proceedings to the senate.\nWith the account there went to Octavia a bill of divorce. Rome stood by\nindignant. It was precisely what Octavius wanted.\n\nOctavius had divorced his wife and married a married woman. According to\nthe ethics of the day, he was a model citizen, whereas Antony throning as\nOsiris with a female Mithridates for consort, was as oblivious of Roman\ndignity as of conjugal faith. In addition, it was found that he had made a\nwill by which Rome, in the event of capture, was devised as tributary city\nto Cleopatra. Moreover, a senator, who had visited Antony at the Bruchium,\ntestified that he had seen him upholding the woman's litter like a slave.\nIt was obvious that he was mad, demented by her aphrodisiacs. But it was\nobvious also that the gods of the East were rising, that Isis with her\ncormorant, her lotos and her spangled arms, was arrayed against the Roman\npenates.[21]\n\nWar was declared. At Actium the clash occurred. Antony might have won. But\nbefore he had had time to lose, Cleopatra, with singular clairvoyance,\ndeserted him. Her reasons for believing that he would be defeated are not\nclear, but her motive in going is obvious. She wanted to rule the world's\nruler, whoever he might be, and she thought by prompt defection to find\nfavor with Octavius.\n\nAt the sight of her scudding sail Antony lost his senses. Instead of\nremaining and winning, as he might have, he followed her. Together they\nreached Alexandria. But there it was no longer the inimitable life that\nthey led, rather that of the inseparables in death, or at least Antony so\nfancied. Cleopatra intoxicated him with funereal delights while\ncorresponding in secret with Octavius who had written engagingly to her.\nIn the Bruchium the nights were festivals. By day she experimented on\nslaves with different poisons. Antony believed that she was preparing to\ndie with him. She had no such intention. She was preparing to be rid of\nhim. Then, suddenly, the enemy was at the gates. Antony challenged\nOctavius to single combat. Octavius sent him word that there were many\nother ways in which he could end his life. At that the lion roared. Even\nthen he thought he might demolish him. He tried. He went forth to fight.\nBut Cleopatra had other views. The infantry, the cavalry, the flotilla,\njoined the Roman forces. The viper of the Nile had betrayed him. Bacchus\nhad also. The night had been stirred by the hum of harps and the cries of\nbacchantes bearing the tutelary god to the Romans.\n\nAntony, staggering back to the palace, was told that Cleopatra had killed\nherself. She had not, but fearful lest he kill her, she had hidden with\nher treasure in a temple. Antony, after the Roman fashion, kept always\nwith him a slave who should kill him when his hour was come. The slave's\nname, Plutarch said, was Eros. Antony called him. Eros raised a sword, but\ninstead of striking his master, struck himself. Antony reddened and\nimitated him. Another slave then told him that Cleopatra still lived. He\nhad himself taken to where she was, and died while attempting to console\nthis woman who was preparing for the consolations of Octavius.\n\nIt is said that she received the conqueror magnificently. But his engaging\nletters had been _ruses de guerre_. They had triumphed. The new Caesar\nwanted to triumph still further. He wanted Cleopatra, a chain about her\nneck, dragged after his chariot through Rome. He wanted in that abjection\nto triumph over the entire East. Instead of yielding to her, as she had\nexpected, he threatened to kill her children if she eluded him by killing\nherself. The threat was horrible. But more horrible still was the thought\nof the infamy to be.\n\nShortly, on a bed of gold, dressed as for nuptials, she was found dead\namong her expiring women, one of whom even then was putting back on her\nhead her diadem which had fallen. At last the cormorant had cried\n\"Enough!\"\n\nSaid Horace: \"Nunc est bibendum.\"\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nTHE IMPERIAL ORGY\n\n\nDeath, in taking Cleopatra, closed the doors of the temple Janus. After\ncenturies of turmoil, there was peace. The reign of the Caesars had begun.\nOctavius became Augustus, the rest of the litter divine. The triumvirs of\nwar were succeeded by the triumvirs of love. These were the poets.\n\nCatullus had gone with the republic. In verse he might have been primus.\nHe was too negligent. His microscopic masterpieces form but a brief bundle\nof pastels. The face repeated there is Lesbia's. He saw her first lounging\nin a litter that slaves carried along the Sacred Way. Immediately he was\nin love with her. The love was returned. In the delight of it the poet was\nborn. His first verses were to her, so also were his last. But Lesbia\nwearied of song and kisses, at least of his. She eloped with his nearest\nfriend. In the _Somnambula_ the tenor sings _O perche non posso\nodiarte_--Why can I not hate thee? The song is but a variant on that of\nCatullus. Odi et amo, I love and hate you, he called after her. But, if\nshe heard, she heeded as little as Beatrice did when Dante cursed the day\nhe saw her first. Dante ceased to upbraid, but did not cease to love. He\nwas but following the example of Catullus, with this difference: Beatrice\nwent to heaven, Lesbia to hell, to an earthly hell, the worst of any, to a\nhorrible inn on the Tiber where sailors brawled. She descended to that,\nfell there, rather. Catullus still loved her.\n\nAt the sight of Cynthia another poet was born. What Lesbia pulchra had\nbeen to Catullus, Cynthia pulchrior became to Propertius. He swore that\nshe should be his sole muse, and kept his word, in so far as verse was\nconcerned. Otherwise, he was less constant. It is doubtful if she deserved\nmore, or as much. Never did a girl succeed better in tormenting a lover,\nnever was there a lover so poetically wretched as he. In final fury he\nflung at her farewells that were maledictions, only to be recaptured,\nbeaten even, subjugated anew. She made him love her. When she died, her\ndeath nearly killed him. Nearly, but not quite. He survived, and, first\namong poets, intercepted the possibility of reunion there where all things\nbroken are made complete, and found again things vanished--_Lethum non\nomnia finit_.\n\nHorace resembled him very remotely. A little fat man--brevis atque obesus,\nSuetonius said--he waddled and wallowed in the excesses of the day,\ntelling, in culpable iambics, of fair faces, facile amours, easy\nepicureanism, rose-crowned locks, yet telling of them--and of other\nmatters less admissible--on a lyre with wonderful chords. At the\nconclusion of the third book of the _Odes_, he declared that he had\ncompleted a monument which the succession of centuries without number\ncould not destroy. \"I shall not die,\" he added. He was right. Because of\nthat flame of fair faces, lovers turn to him still. Because of his\niambics, he has a niche in the hearts of the polite. Versatile in love and\nin verse, his inconstancy and his art are nowhere better displayed than in\nthe incomparable _Donec gratus eram tibi_, which Ponsard rewrote:\n\n\nHORACE.\n\n     Tant que tu m'as aime, que nul autre plus digne\n     N'entourait de ses bras ton col blanc comme un cygne,\n     J'ai vecu plus heureux que Xerxes le grand roi.\n\nLYDIE.\n\n     Tant que tu n'as aime personne plus que moi,\n     Quand Chloe n'etait pas preferee a Lydie,\n     J'ai vecu plus illustre et plus fiere qu'Ilie.\n\nHORACE.\n\n     J'appartiens maintenant a la blonde Chloe,\n     Qui plait par sa voix douce et son luth enjoue.\n     Je suis pret a mourir pour prolonger sa vie.\n\nLYDIE.\n\n     Calais maintenant tient mon ame asservie,\n     Nous brulons tous les deux de mutuels amours,\n     Et je mourrais deux fois pour prolonger ses jours.\n\nHORACE.\n\n     Mais quoi! Si j'ai regret de ma premiere chaine?\n     Si Venus de retour sous son joug me ramene?\n     Si je refuse a l'autre, et te rends mon amour?\n\nLYDIE.\n\n     Encor que Calais soit beau comme le jour,\n     Et toi plus inconstant que la feuille inconstante,\n     Avec toi je vivrais et je mourrais contente.\n\nHorace was the poet of ease, Catullus of love, Propertius of passion,\nTibullus of sentiment. Ovid was the poet of pleasure. A man of means, of\nfashion, of the world, what to-day would be called a gentleman, he might\nhave been laureate of the Empire. Corinna interfered. Corinna was his\nfigurative muse. Whether she were one or many is uncertain, but nominally\nat least it was for her that he wrote the suite of feverish fancies\nentitled the \"Art of Love\" and which were better entitled the \"Art of not\nLoving at all.\" Subsequently, he planned a great Homeric epic. But, if\nCorinna inspired masterpieces, she gave him no time to complete them. She\nwanted her poet to herself. She refused to share him even with the gods.\nIt is supposed that Corinna was Julia, daughter of Augustus. Because of\nher eyes, more exactly because of her father's, Ovid was banished among\nbarbarian brutes. It was rather a frightful penalty for participating in\nthe indiscretions of a woman who had always been the reverse of discreet.\nCorinna, as described by Ovid, was a monster of perversity. Julia, as\ndescribed by Tacitus, yielded to her nothing in that respect.\n\nThe epoch itself was strange, curiously fecund in curious things that\nbecame more curious still. Rome then, thoroughly Hellenized, had become\nvery fair. There were green terraces and porphyry porticoes that leaned to\na river on which red galleys passed, there were bronze doors and garden\nroofs, glancing villas and temples more brilliant still. There were\nspacious streets, a Forum curtained with silk, the glint and evocations of\ntriumphal war. There were theatres in which a multitude could jeer at an\nemperor, and arenas in which an emperor could watch a multitude die. On\nthe stage, there were tragedies, pantomime, farce. There were races in the\ncircus and in the sacred groves, girls with the Orient in their eyes and\nslim waists that swayed to the crotals. Into the arenas patricians\ndescended, in the amphitheatre were criminals from Gaul, in the Forum,\nphilosophers from Greece. For Rome's entertainment the mountains sent\nlions; the deserts giraffes; there were boas from the jungles, bulls from\nthe plains, hippopotami from the rushes of the Nile, and, above them,\nbeasts greater than they--the Caesars.\n\nThere had been the first, memory of whose grandiose figure lingered still.\nRome recalled the unforgettable, and recalled, too, his face which\nincessant debauches had blanched. After him had come Augustus, a pigmy by\ncomparison, yet otherwise more depraved. He gone, there was the spectacle\nof Tiberius devising infamies so monstrous that to describe them new words\nwere coined. That being insufficient, there followed Caligula, without\nwhom Nero, Claud, Domitian, Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus could\nnever have been. It was he who gave them both inspiration and incentive.\nIt was he who built the Cloacus Maximus in which all Rome rolled.\n\nAugustus had done a little digging for it himself, but hypocritically as\nhe did everything, devising ethical laws as a cloak for turpitudes of his\nown. Mecaenas, his minister and lackey, divorced and remarried twenty\ntimes. Augustus repudiated his own marriages, those of his kin as well.\nSuetonius said of Caligula that it was uncertain which were viler, the\nunions he contracted, their brevity, or their cause. With such examples,\nit was inevitable that commoner people united but to part, and that,\ninsensibly, the law annulled as a caprice a clause that defined marriage\nas the inseparable life.[22]\n\nUnder the Caesars marriage became a temporary arrangement, abandoned and\nre-established as often as one liked. Seneca said that women of rank\ncounted their years by their husbands. Juvenal said that it was in that\nfashion that they counted their days. Tertullian added that divorce was\nthe result of marriage. Divorce, however, was not obligatory. Matrimony\nwas. According to the Lex Pappea Poppoea, whoso at twenty-five was not\nmarried, whoso, divorced or widowed, did not remarry, whoso, though\nmarried, was childless, _ipso facto_ became a public enemy, incapable of\ninheriting or of serving the State. To this law--an Augustan\nhypocrisy--only a technical attention was paid. Men married just enough to\ngain a position or inherit a legacy. The next day they got a divorce. At\nthe moment of need a child was adopted. The moment passed the brat was\ndisowned. As with men so with women. The univira became the many-husbanded\nwife, occasionally a matron with no husband at all, one who, to escape the\nconsequences of the lex Pappea Poppoea, hired a man to loan her his\nname, and who, with an establishment of her own, was free to do as she\nliked, to imitate men at their worst, to fight like them and with them\nfor power, to dabble in the bloody dramas of State, to climb on the throne\nand kill there or be killed; perhaps, less ambitiously, whipping her\nslaves, summoning the headsman to them, quieting her nerves with drink,\nappearing on the stage, in the arena even, contending as a gladiator\nthere, and remaining a patrician meanwhile.\n\nIn those days a sin was a prayer, and a prayer, Perseus said, was an\ninvocation at which a meretrix would blush to hear pronounced aloud.\nReligion sanctioned anything. The primal gods, supplemented with the lords\nand queens of other skies, had made Rome an abridgment of every\nsuperstition, the temple of every crime. Asiatic monsters, which Hellenic\npoetry had deodorized, landed there straight from the Orient, their native\nhideousness unchanged. It was only the graceful Greek myths that Rome\ntransformed. Eros, who in Arcady seemed atiptoe, so delicately did he\ntread upon the tender places of the soul, acquired, behind the mask of\nCupid, a maliciousness that was simian. Aphrodite, whose eyes had been\nlifted to the north and south, and who in Attica was draped with light,\nobtained as Venus the leer of the Lampsacene. Long since from Syria\nAstarte had arrived, as already, torn by Cilician pirates from Persia,\nMithra had come, while, from Egypt, had strayed Apis from whose mouth two\nphalluses issued horizontally.\n\nThese were Rome's gods, the divinities about whom men and maidens\nassembled, and to whom pledges were made. There were others, so many, in\nsuch hordes had they come, that Petronius said they outnumbered the\npopulation. The lettered believed in them no more than we do. But, like\nthe Athenians, they lived among a people that did. Moreover, the lettered\nwere few. Rome, brutal at heart, sanguinary and voluptuous, fought, she\ndid not read. She could applaud, but not create. Her literature, like her\ngods, her art, her corruption, had come from afar. Her own breasts were\nsterile. When she gave birth, it was to a litter of monsters, by accident\nto a genius, again to a poet, to Caesar and to Lucretius, the only men of\nletters ever born within her walls.\n\nMeanwhile, though the Pantheon was obviously but a lupanar, the people\nclung piously to creeds that justified every disorder, tenaciously to gods\nthat sanctified every vice, and fervently to Caesars that incarnated them\nall.\n\nThe Caesars were religion in a concrete form. Long before, Ennius, the\nHomer of Latium, had announced that the gods were but great men. The\nCaesars accepted that view with amplifications. They became greater than\nany that had been. Save Death, who, in days that precede the fall of\nempires, is the one divinity whom all fear and in whom all believe, they\nalone were august. In the absence of the aromas of tradition, they had\nsomething superior. The Olympians inspired awe, the Caesars fright. Death\nwas their servant. They ordered. Death obeyed. In the obedience was\napotheosis. In the apotheosis was the delirium that madmen know. At their\nfeet, Rome, mad as they, built them temples, raised them shrines, created\nfor them hierophants and flamens, all the phantasmagoria of the\nmegalomaniac Alexander, and, with it, a worship which they accepted as\ntheir due perhaps, but in which their reason fled. That of Caesar withstood\nit. Insanity began with Antony, who called himself Osiris. The brain of\nTiberius, very steady at first, was insufficiently strong to withstand the\nnectar fumes. The latter intoxicated Caligula so sheerly that he invited\nthe moon to share his couch. Thereafter, the palace of the Caesars became a\nvast court in which the wives and daughters of the nobility assisted at\nperversions which a Ministry of Pleasure devised, and where Rome abandoned\nwhatever she had held holy, the innocence of girlhood, patrician pride,\neverything, shame included.\n\nIn post-pagan convulsions there was much that was very vile. But there is\none aspect of evil which subsequent barbarism reproved, and in which Rome\ndelighted. It was the symbolized shapes of sin, open and public, for\nwhich in modern speech there is no name, and which were then omnipresent,\nsung in verse, exhibited on the stage, paraded in the streets, put on the\namulets that girls and matrons wore, put in the nursery, consecrated by\ncustom, art, religion, and since recovered from disinterred Pompeii. \"The\nmouth,\" said Quintillian, \"does not dare describe what the eyes behold.\"\nRome that had made _orbs_ and _urbs_ synonymous was being conquered by the\nturpitudes of the quelled.\n\n\"I have told of the Prince,\" said Suetonius, \"I will tell now of the\nBeast.\" It was his privilege. He wrote in Latin. In English it is not\npossible. Gautier declared that the inexpressible does not exist. Even his\npen might have balked, had he tried it on the imperial orgy. The ulcer\nthat ravaged Sylla, gangrened a throne, and decomposed a world. Less\nviolent under Tiberius than under Caligula, under Nero the fever rose to\nthe brain and added delirium to it. In reading accounts of the epoch you\nfeel as though you were assisting at the spectacle of a gigantic asylum,\nfrom which the keepers are gone, and of which the inmates are omnipotent.\nBut, in spite of the virulence of the virus, the athletic constitution of\nthe empire, joined to its native element of might, resisted the disease so\npotently that one must assume that there was there a vitality which no\nother people had had, a hardiness that enabled Rome to survive excesses in\nwhich Nineveh and Babylon fainted. From the disease itself Rome might have\nrecovered. It was the delirium that brought her down. That delirium,\nmounting always, increased under Commodus, heightened under Caracalla, and\nreached its crisis in Heliogabalus. Thereafter, for a while it waned only\nto flame again under Diocletian. The virus remained. To extirpate it the\nearth had to produce new races. Already they were on their way.\n\nMeanwhile, though there were reigns when, in the words of Tacitus, virtue\nwas a sentence of death, the emperors were not always insane. Vespasian\nwas a soldier, Hadrian a scholar, Pius Antoninus a philosopher, and Marcus\nAurelius a sage. Rome was not wholly pandemoniac. There is goodness\neverywhere, even in evil. There was goodness even in Rome. Stoicism, a\ncode of the highest morality, had been adopted by the polite. Cicero, in\nexpounding it, had stated that no one could be a philosopher who has not\nlearned that vice should be avoided, however concealable it may be.\nAristotle had praised virtue because of its extreme utility. Seneca said\nthat vices were maladies, among which Zeno catalogued love, as Plato did\ncrime. To him, vice stood to virtue as disease does to health. All guilt,\nhe said, is ignorance.\n\nExpressions such as these appealed to a class relatively small, but highly\nlettered, whom the intense realism of the amphitheatre, the suggestive\npostures of the pantomimes, and the Orientalism of the orgy shocked. There\nare now honest men everywhere, even in prison. Even in Rome there were\nhonest men then. Moreover, paganism at its worst, always tolerant, was\noften poetic. Then, too, life in the imperial epoch, while less fair than\nin the age of Pericles, was so splendidly brilliant that it exhausted\npossible glamour for a thousand years to come. Dazzling in violence, its\ncoruscations blinded the barbarians so thoroughly that thereafter there\nwas but night.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nFINIS AMORIS\n\n\nThe first barbarian that invaded Rome was a Jew. There was then there a\nsmall colony of Hebrews. Porters, pedlers, rag-pickers, valets-de-place,\nthey were the descendants mainly of former prisoners of war. The Jew had a\nmessage for them. It was very significant. But it conflicted so entirely\nwith orthodox views that there were few whom it did not annoy. A\ndisturbance ensued. The ghetto was raided. A complaint for inciting\ndisorder was lodged against a certain Christos, of whom nothing was known,\nand who had eluded arrest.\n\nRome, through her relations with Syria, was probably the first Occidental\ncity in which the name was pronounced. Though the message behind it\nannoyed many, others accepted it at once. These latter, the former\ndenounced. Some suppression ensued. But it had no religious significance.\nThe purport of the message and the attitude of those who accepted it was\nseditious. Both denied the divinity of the Caesars. That was treason. In\naddition, they announced the approaching end of the world. That was a slur\non the optimism of State. A law was passed--_Non licet esse Christianos_.\nNone the less, they multiplied. The message that had been brought to Rome\nwas repeated throughout the Roman world. It crossed the frontiers. It\nreached races of whom Rome had never heard. They came and peered at her.\nOver the context of the message they drank hydromel to her fall.\n\nThe message, initially significant, dynamic at birth, developed under\nmultiplying hands into a force so disruptive that it shook the gods from\nthe skies, buried them beneath their ruined temples, and in derision\ntossed after them their rites for shroud. In the convulsions a page of\nhistory turned. The great book of paganism closed. Another opened. In it\nwas a new ideal of love.\n\nRealization was not immediate. Entirely uncontemplated and equally\nunforeseen, the ideal was an after-growth, a blossom among other ruins, a\nflower that developed subtly with the Rosa mystica from higher shrines.\n\nMeanwhile, the message persisted. Titularly an evangel, it meant good\nnews. The Christ had said to his disciples: \"As ye go, preach, saying, The\nKingdom of God is at hand--for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have\ngone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come.\"\n\n\"All these things shall come upon this generation,\" were his subsequent\nand explicit words. After the incident in the wilderness he declared: \"The\ntime is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand.\" Later he asserted:\n\"Verily I say unto you that there be some of them that stand by which\nshall in no wise taste of death till they see the Kingdom of God come with\npower.\"[23]\n\nIn repeating these tidings, the evangelists lived in a state of constant\nexpectation. Their watchword was \"Maran atha\"--the Lord cometh. In fancy\nthey saw themselves in immediate Edens, seated on immutable thrones.\n\nThe corner-stone of the early Church was based on that idea. When, later,\nit was recognized as a misconception, the coming of the Kingdom of God was\ninterpreted as the establishment of the Christian creed.\n\nJesus had no intention of founding a new religion. He came to prepare men\nnot for life, but for death. He believed that the world was to end. Had he\nnot so believed, his condemnation of labor, his prohibition against\nwealth, his injunction to forsake all things for his sake, his praise of\ncelibacy, his disregard of family ties, and his abasement of marriage\nwould be without meaning. Observance of his orders he regarded as a\nnecessary preparation for an event then assumed to be near. It was\nexacted as a means of grace.\n\nOn the other hand, it may be that there was an esoteric doctrine which\nonly the more spiritual among the disciples received. The significant\nthreat, \"In this life ye shall have tribulation,\" contains a distinct\nsuggestion of other views. Possibly they concerned less the termination of\nthe world than the termination of life. Life extinct, obviously there must\nensue that peace which passeth all understanding, the Pratscha-Paramita,\nor beyond all knowledge, which long before had been taught by the Buddha,\nin whose precepts it is not improbable that Jesus was versed.\n\nTo-day there are four gospels. Originally there were fifty. In some of\nthem succincter views may have been expressed. The possibility, surviving\ntexts support. These texts are provided by Clement of Alexandria. They are\nquoted by him from the Gospel according to the Egyptians, an Evangel that\nexisted in the latter half of the second century and which was then\nregarded as canonical. In one of them, Jesus said: \"I am come to destroy\nthe work of woman, which is generation and death.\" In another, being asked\nhow long life shall continue, he answered: \"So long as women bear\nchildren.\"[24]\n\nThese passages seem conclusive. Even otherwise, the designed effect of\nthe exoteric doctrine was identical. It eliminated love and condemned the\nsex. In the latter respect, Paul was particularly severe. In violent words\nhe humiliated woman. He enjoined on her silence and submission. He\nreminded her that man was created in the image of God, while she was but\ncreated for him. He declared that he who giveth her in marriage cloth\nwell, but he that giveth her not doth better.[25]\n\nTheoretically, as well as canonically, marriage thereafter was regarded as\nunholy. The only union in which it was held that grace could possibly be,\nwas one that in its perfect immaculacy was a negation of marriage itself.\nSt. Sebastian enjoined any other form. The injunction was subsequently\nratified. It was ecclesiastically adjudged that whoso declared marriage\npreferable to celibacy be accursed.[26] St. Augustin, more leniently,\npermitted marriage, on condition, however, that the married in no\ncircumstance overlooked the object of their union, which object was the\ncreation of children, _not to love them_, he added, but to increase the\nnumber of the servants of the Lord.[27]\n\nSt. Augustin was considerate. But Jesus had been indulgent. In the\nplentitudes of his charity there was both commiseration and forgiveness.\nThroughout his entire ministry he wrote but once. It was on an occasion\nwhen a woman was brought before him. Her accusers were impatient. Jesus\nbent forward and with a finger wrote on the ground. The letters were\nillegible. But the symbol of obliteration was in the dust which the wind\nwould disperse. The charge was impatiently repeated. Jesus straightened\nhimself. With the weary comprehension of one to whom hearts are as books,\nhe looked at them. \"Whoever is without sin among you, may cast the first\nstone.\"\n\nThe sins of Mary Magdalen were many. He forgave them, for she had loved\nmuch. His indulgence was real and it was infinite. Yet occasionally his\nseverity was as great. At the marriage of Cana he said to his mother:\n\"Woman, what have I to do with thee?\" In the house of the chief of the\nPharisees he more emphatically announced: \"If any man come unto me and\nhate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and\nsisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.\" Elsewhere\nhe advocated celibacy enforced with the knife. John, his favorite\ndisciple, beheld those who had practised it standing among the\nredeemed.[28]\n\nThat vision peopled the deserts with hermits. It filled the bastilles of\nGod, the convents and monasteries of pre-mediaeval days. The theory of it\nwas adopted by kings on their thrones. Lovers in their betrothals engaged\nto observe it reciprocally. Husbands and wives separated that they might\nlive more purely apart.\n\nThe theory, contrary to the spirit of paganism, was contrary also to that\nof the Mosaic law. The necessity of marriage was one of the six hundred\nand thirteen Hebraic precepts. The man who omitted to provide himself with\nheirs became a homicide. In the Greek republics celibacy was penalized. In\nRome, during the republic, bachelors were taxed. Under the empire they\ncould neither inherit nor serve the State. But the law was evaded. Even\nhad it not been, the people of Rome, destroyed by war or as surely by\npleasure, little by little was disappearing. Slaves could not replace\ncitizens. The affranchised could be put in the army, even in the senate,\nas they were, but that did not change their servility, and it was\nprecisely that servility which encouraged imperial aberrations and\nwelcomed those which Christianity brought.\n\nThe continence which the Church inculcated was not otherwise new. The\nPersians had imposed it on girls consecrated to the worship of the Sun. It\nwas observed by the priests of Osiris. It was the cardinal virtue of the\nPythagoreans. It was exacted of Hellenic hierophants. Gaul had her\ndruidesses and Rome her vestals. Celibacy existed, therefore, before\nChristianity did. But it was exceptional in addition to being not very\nrigorously enforced. Vesta was a mother. All the vestals that faltered\nwere not buried alive. There was gossip, though it be but legend, of the\ndruidesses, of the muses as well. Immaculacy was the ideal condition of\nthe ideal gods. Zeus materially engendered material divinities that\npresided over forces and forms. But, without concurrence, there issued\narmed and adult from his brain the wise and immaculate Pallas.\n\nLike her and the muses, genius was assumed to be ascetic also. Socrates\nthought otherwise. His punishment was Xantippe, and not a line to his\ncredit. A married Homer is an anomaly which imagination cannot comfortably\nconjure. A married Plato is another. Philosophers and poets generally were\nsingle. Lucretius, Vergil, and the triumvirs of love were unmarried. In\nthe epoch in which they appeared Rome was aristocratically indisposed to\nmatrimony. To its pomps there was a dislike so pronounced that Augustus\nintroduced coercive laws. Hypocrite though he were, he foresaw the dangers\notherwise resulting. It was these that asceticism evoked.\n\nThe better part of the tenets of the early Church--sobriety, stoicism,\nthe theory of future reward and punishment, pagan philosophy professed.\nAdherents could, therefore, have been readily recruited. But the doctrine\nof asceticism and, with it, the abnegation of whatever Rome loved,\nangered, creating first calumny, then persecution.\n\nInfanticide at the time was very common. To accuse the Christians of it\nwould have meant nothing. They were charged instead with eating the\nchildren that they killed. That being insufficient they were further\ncharged with the united abominations of OEdipus and Thyestes.[29]\n\nThereafter, if the Tiber mounted or the Nile did not, if it rained too\nheavily or not enough, were there famine, earthquakes, pests, the fault\nwas theirs. Then, through the streets, a cry resounded, _Christianos ad\nleonem!_--to the arena with them. At any consular delay the mob had its\ntorches and tortures. Persecution augumented devotion. \"Fast,\" said\nTertullian. \"Fasting prepares for martyrdom. But do not marry, do not bear\nchildren. You would only leave them to the executioner. Garment yourselves\nsimply, the robes the angels bring are robes of death.\"\n\nThe robes did not always come, the executioner did not, either. The\nKingdom of God delayed. The world persisted. So also did asceticism.\nClement and Hermas unite in testifying that the immaculacy of the single\nnever varied during an epoch when even that of the vestals did, and that\nthe love of the married was the more tender because of the immaterial\nrelations observed.[30] Gregoire de Tours cited subsequently an instance\nin which a bride stipulated for a union of this kind. Her husband agreed.\nMany years later she died. Her husband, while preparing her for the grave,\nopenly and solemnly declared that he restored her to God as immaculate as\nshe came. \"At which,\" the historian added, \"the dead woman smiled and\nsaid, 'Why do you tell what no one asked you.'\"\n\nThe subtlety of the question pleased the Church. The Church liked to\ncompare the Christian to an athlete struggling in silence with the world,\nthe flesh, and the devil. It liked to regard him as one whose life was a\ncontinual exercise in purification. It liked to represent his celibacy as\nan imitation of the angels. At that period Christianity took things\nliterally and narrowly. Paul had spoken eloquently on the dignity of\nmarriage. He authorized and honored it. He permitted and even counselled\nsecond marriages. But his pre-eminent praise of asceticism was alone\nconsidered. Celibacy became the ideal of the early Christians who\nnecessarily avoided the Forum and whatever else was usual and Roman. It is\nnot, therefore, very surprising that they should have been defined as\nenemies of gods, emperors, laws, customs, nature itself, or, more briefly,\nas barbarians.\n\nYet there were others. At the north and at the west they prowled,\nnourished in hatred of Rome, in wonder, too, of the effeminate and\nsplendid city with its litters of gold, its baths of perfume, its\ninhabitants dressed in gauze, and its sway from the Indus to Britannia.\nFrom the day when a mass of them stumbled on Marius to the hour when\nAlaric laughed from beneath the walls his derision at imperial might,\nalways they had wondered and hated.\n\nIn the slaking of the hate Christianity perhaps unintentionally assisted.\nThe Master had said, \"All they that take the sword shall perish by the\nsword.\" His believers omitted to do either. When enrolled, they deserted.\nOn the frontiers they refused to fight. The path of the barbarians was\neasy. In disorganized hordes they battened on Rome and melted away there\nin excesses. Tacitus and Salvian rather flattered them. They were neither\nintelligent or noble. They must have lacked even the sense of\nindependence. They pulled civilization down, but they fell with it--into\nserfdom.\n\nAlready from the steppes of Tartary had issued cyclones of Huns. Painted\nblue, wrapped in cloaks of human skin, it was thought that they were the\nwhelps of demons. Their chief was Attila. The whirlwind that he loosed\nswept the world like a broom. In the echoes of his passage is the crash of\nfalling cities, the cries of the vanquished, the death rattle of nations,\nthe surge and roar of seas of blood. In the reverberations Attila looms,\ndragging the desert after him, tossing it like a pall on the face of the\nearth. \"But who are you?\" a startled prelate gasped. Said Attila, \"I am\nthe Scourge of God.\"\n\nSatiated at last, overburdened with the booty of the world, he galloped\nback to his lair where, on his wedding couch, another Judith killed him.\nIn spite of him, in spite of preceding Goths and subsequent Vandals, Rome,\nunlike her gods that had fled the skies, was immortal. She could fall, but\nshe could not die. But though she survived, antiquity was dead. It\ndeparted with the lords of the ghostland.\n\n\n\n\nHISTORIA AMORIS\n\n_Part Two_\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE CLOISTER AND THE HEART\n\n\nIn the making of the world that was Rome, ages combined. Centuries\nunrolled in its dissolution. Step by step it had ascended the path of\nempire, step by step it went down. The descent completed, Rome herself\nsurvived. The eternal feminine is not more everlasting than the Eternal\nCity. Yet, in the descent, her power, wrested from a people who had but\nthe infirmities of corruption, by others that had only the instincts of\nbrutes, left but vices and ruins. From these feudalism and serfdom\nerupted. Humanity became divided into beasts of burden and beasts of prey.\n\nFeudalism was the transmission of authority from an overlord to an\nunderlord, from the latter to a retainer, and thence down to the lowest\nrung of the social ladder, beneath which was the serf, between whom and\nhis master the one judge was God.\n\nThe resulting conditions have no parallel in any epoch of which history\nhas cognizance. Except in Byzance, the glittering seat of Rome's surviving\ndominion, and in Islam, the glowing empire further east, nowhere was there\nlight. Europe, pitch-black, became, almost in its entirety, subject to the\ncaprices of a hierarchy of despots who managed to be both stupid and\nfierce, absolute autocrats, practically kings. To the suzerain they owed\nhomage at court, assistance in war; but in their own baronies, all power,\nwhether military, judiciary, or legislative, centred in them. They had the\nfurther prerogative, which they abundantly abused, of maintaining\ncenturies of anarchy and intellectual night. The fief and the sword were\nthe investiture of their power. The donjon--a pillory on one side, a\ngibbet on the other--was the symbol of their might. The blazon, with its\nsanguinary and fabulous beasts, was emblematic of themselves. Could wolves\nform a social order, their model would be that of these brutes, to whom\nGod was but a bigger tyrant. Their personal interest, which alone\nprevented them from exterminating everybody, was the determining cause of\naffranchisement when it came, and, when it did, was accompanied by\nconditions always hard, often grotesque, and usually vile, among which was\nthe _jus primae noctis_ and the affiliated _marchetum_, subsequently\ntermed droit du seigneur, the dual right of poaching on maidenly and\nmarital preserves.[31]\n\nWith that, with drink and pillage for relaxations, the chief business of\nthe barons was war. When they descended from their keeps, it was to rob\nand attack. There was no security, not a road was safe, war was an\nintermittent fever and existence a panic.\n\nIn the constant assault and sack of burgs and keeps, the condition of\nwoman was perilous. Usually she was shut away more securely and remotely\nthan in the gynaeceum. If, to the detriment of her lord, she emerged, she\nmight have one of her lips cut off, both perhaps, or, more expeditiously,\nbe murdered. She never knew which beforehand. It was as it pleased him.\nPenalties of this high-handedness were not sanctioned by law. There was\nnone. It was the right of might. Civilization outwearied had lapsed back\ninto eras in which women were things.\n\nThe lapse had ecclesiastical approbation. At the second council of Macon\nit was debated whether woman should not be regarded as beyond the pale of\nhumanity and as appertaining to a degree intermediary between man and\nbeast. Subsequent councils put her outside of humanity also, but on a\nplane between angels and man. But in the capitularies generally it was as\n_Vas infirmius_ that she was defined. Yet already Chrysostom, with a\nbetter appreciation of the value of words, with a better appreciation of\nthe value of woman as well, had defined her as danger in its most\ndelectable form. Chrysostom means golden mouth. His views are of interest.\nThose of the mediaeval lord are not recorded, and would not be citable, if\nthey were.\n\nFrom manners such as his and from times such as those, there was but one\nrefuge--the cloister, though there was also the tomb. They were not always\ndissimilar. In the monasteries, there was a thick vapor of crapulence and\nbad dreams. They were vestibules of hell. The bishops, frankly barbarian,\ncoarse, gluttonous, and worse, went about armed, pillaging as freely as\nthe barons. Monks less adventurous, but not on that account any better,\nsaw Satan calling gayly at them, \"Thou art damned.\" Yet, however drear\ntheir life, it was a surcease from the apoplexy of the epoch. Kings\ndescended from their thrones to join them. To the abbeys and priories came\nwomen of rank.\n\nIn these latter retreats there was some suavity, but chiefly there was\nsecurity from predatory incursions, from husbands quite as unwelcome,\nfrom the passions and violence of the turbulent world without. But the\nsecurity was not over-secure. Women that escaped behind the bars, saw\nthose bars shaken by the men from whom they had fled, saw the bars sunder,\nand themselves torn away. That, though, was exceptional. In the cloister\ngenerally there was safety, but there were also regrets, and, with them, a\nleisure not always very adequately filled. To some, the cloister was but\nanother form of captivity in which they were put not of their own\nvolition, but by way of precaution, to insure a security which may not\nhave been entirely to their wish. Yet, from whatever cause existence in\nthese retreats was induced, very rapidly it became the fashion.\n\nThere had been epochs in which women wore garments that were brief, there\nwere others in which their robes were long. It was a question of mode.\nThen haircloth came in fashion. In Greece, women were nominally free. In\nRome, they were unrestrained. In Europe at this period, they were\ncloistered. It was the proper thing, a distinction that lifted them above\nthe vulgar. Bertheflede, a lady of very exalted position, who, Gregoire de\nTours has related, cared much for the pleasures of the table and not at\nall for the service of God, entered a nunnery for no other reason.\n\nThere were other women who, for other causes, did likewise. In particular,\nthere was Radegonde who founded a cloister of her own, one that within\nhigh walls had the gardens, porticoes, and baths of a Roman villa, but\nwhich in the deluge of worldly sin, was, Thierry says, intended to be an\nark. There Radegonde received high ecclesiastics and laymen of position,\namong others Fortunatus, a poet, young and attractive, whom the abbess,\nyoung and attractive herself, welcomed so well that he lingered, supping\nnightly at the cloister, composing songs in which were strained the honey\nof Catullus, and, like him, crowned with roses.[32]\n\nBut Radegonde was not Lesbia, and Fortunatus, though a poet, confined his\nlicence to verse. Together they collaborated in the first romance of pure\nsentiment that history records, one from which the abbess passed to\nsanctity, and the poet to fame. Thereafter the story persisting may have\nsuggested some one of the pedestals that antiquity never learned to\nsculpture and to which ladies were lifted by their knights.\n\nMeanwhile love had assumed another shape. Radegonde, before becoming an\nabbess, had been a queen. As a consequence she had prerogatives which\nother women lacked. It was not every one that could entertain a tarrying\nminstrel. It was not every one that would. The nun generally was\nemancipated from man as thoroughly as the hetaira had been from marriage.\nBut the latter in renouncing matrimony did not for that reason renounce\nlove and there were many cloistered girls who, in renouncing man, did not\nrenounce love either. One of them dreamed that on a journey to the\nfountain of living waters, a form appeared that pointed at a brilliant\nbasin, to which, as she stooped, Radegonde approached and put about her a\ncloak that, she said, was sent by the girl's betrothed.\n\nRadegonde was then dead and a saint. The dream of her, particularly the\ngift, more especially its provenance, seemed so ineffable that the girl\ncould think of nothing else save only that when at last the betrothed did\ncome, the nuptial chamber should be ready. She begged therefore that there\nbe given her a little narrow cell, a narrow little tomb, to which, the\nrequest granted, other nuns led her. At the threshold she kissed each of\nthem, then she entered; the opening was walled and within, with her mystic\nspouse, the bride of Christ remained.[33]\n\nAt Alexandria, something similar had already occurred. There another\nHypathia, fair as she, refused Christianity, refused also marriage. God\ndid not appeal to her, man did not either. But a priest succeeded in\ninteresting her in the possibility of obtaining a husband superior to\nevery mortal being on condition only that she prayed to Mary. The girl did\npray. During the prayer she fell asleep. Then beautiful beyond all beauty\nthe Lord appeared to whom the Virgin offered the girl. The Christ refused.\nShe was fair but not fair enough. At that she awoke. Immortally lovely and\nmortally sad she suffered the priest to baptize her. Another prayer\nfollowed by another sleep ensued in which she beheld again the Christ who\nthen consenting to take her, put on her finger a ring which she found on\nawakening.\n\nThe legend, which afterward inspired Veronese and Correggio, had a\ncounterpart in that of St. Catherine of Sienna. To her also the Christ\ngave a ring, yet one which, Della Fonte, her biographer, declared, was\nvisible only to herself. The legend had also a pendant in the story of St.\nTheresa, a Spanish mystic, who in her trances discovered that the\npunishment of the damned is an inability to love. In the _Relacion de su\nvida_ the saint expressed herself as follows:\n\n\"It seemed to me as though I could see my soul, clearly, like a mirror,\nand that in the centre of it the Lord came. It seemed to me that in every\npart of my soul I saw him as I saw him in the mirror and that mirror, I\ncannot say how, was wholly absorbed by the Lord, indescribably, in a sort\nof amorous confusion.\"\n\nThe mirror was the imagination, the usual reflector of the beatific. It\nwas that perhaps to which Paul referred when he said that we see through a\nglass darkly. But it was certainly that which enabled Gerson to catalogue\nthe various degrees of ravishment of which the highest, ecstasy,\nculminates in union with Christ, where the soul attaining perfection is\nfreed.\n\nGerson came later but theories similar to his, which neoplatonism had\nadvanced, were common. In that day or more exactly in that night, the\nsilver petals of the lily of purity were plucked so continuously by so\nmany hands, so many were the eyes strained on the mirror, so frequent were\nthe brides of Christ, that the aberration became as disquieting as\nasceticism. Then through fear that woman might lose herself in dreams of\nspiritual love and evaporate completely, an effort was attempted which\nsucceeded presently in deflecting her aspirations to the Virgin who,\nhitherto, had remained strictly within the limits originally traced.\nCommiserate to the erring she was Regina angelorum, the angel queen. In\nthe twelfth century suddenly she mounted. From queen she became sovereign.\nCeremonies, churches, cathedrals, were consecrated uniquely to her. In\npomp and importance her worship exceeded that of God. When Satan had the\nsinner in his grasp, it was she who in the prodigalities of her divine\ncompassion rescued and redeemed him.[34]\n\nIn the art of the period, such as it was, the worship was reflected. The\nthin hands of saints, the poignant eyes of sinners, were raised to her\nequally. The fainting figures that were painted in the ex-voto of the\ntriptiques seemed ill with love. The forms of women, lost beneath the\ndraperies, disclosed, if anything, emaciation. The expression of the face\nalone indicated what they represented and that always was adoration. They\ntoo were swooning at the Virgin's feet.\n\nPreviously Paul had been studied. It was seen that a thorn had been given\nhim, a messenger of Satan, from which, three times he had prayed release.\nBut the Lord said to him: \"My grace is sufficient to thee, for my strength\nis made perfect in weakness.\" \"Wherefore,\" said Paul, \"most gladly will I\nglory in my infirmities.\"[35]\n\nPrecisely what the apostle meant is immaterial. But from his words the\ninference was drawn that in weakness is salvation and in sin the glory of\nGod.\n\nThe early Church had not interpreted the evangels with entire correctness.\nIt is possible that in the Graeco-Syrian dialect which the apostles\nemployed, their meaning was sometimes obscure. It is presumable for\ninstance that the coming of the Kingdom of God which they proclaimed was\nnot the material termination of a material world but the real Kingdom\nwhich did really come in the hearts of those that believed. \"Comprends,\npecheur,\" Bossuet thundered at a later day, \"que tu portes ton paradis et\nton enfer en toi-meme.\" The patricists were not Bossuets. They were\nliteral folk. They stuck to the letter. Having discovered what they\nregarded as a divine command for abstinence, asceticism in all its rigors\nensued. Subsequent exegetes finding in Paul a few words not over precise,\ndiscovered in them a commendation of sin as a means of grace. The\ndiscovery, amplified later by Molinos, had results that made man even less\nattractive than he had been.\n\nMeanwhile, between insanity and disorder, woman, indifferent as always to\ntexts, had found a form of love which, however impossible, was one that in\nits innocence obscured the stupidities and turpitudes of the day. Then,\nafter the substitution of the Rosa mystica for the mystic lily,\ntentatively there began an affranchisement of communes, of women and of\nthought.\n\nHitherto it had been blasphemy to think. The first human voice that the\nMiddle Ages heard, the first, voice distinguishable from that of kings,\nof felons and of beasts, was Abailard's. Whatever previously had been said\nwas bellowed or stuttered. It was with the forgotten elegance of Athens\nthat Abailard spoke, preaching as he did so the indulgence of God, the\nrehabilitation of the flesh, the inferiority of fear, love's superiority.\n\nAbailard, fascinating and gifted, was familiar with Greek and Hebrew,\nattainments then prodigious to which he added other abilities, the art of\ncalming men while disturbing women--among others a young Parisian,\nHeloise, herself a miracle of erudition and of beauty.\n\nAbailard at the time was nearly thirty-eight, Heloise not quite eighteen.\nBetween them a liaison ensued that resulted in a secret marriage which\nAbailard afterward disavowed and which, for his sake, Heloise denied. It\nruined their lives and founded their fame. Had it been less catastrophic\nno word or memory of them could have endured. Misfortune made immortal\nthese lovers, one of whom took the veil and the other the cowl and whose\nstory has survived that of kingdoms.\n\nIn separation they corresponded. The letters of Heloise are vibrant still.\nOnly Sappho, in her lost songs to Phaon, could have exceeded their fervor.\n\"God knows,\" she wrote, \"in you I sought but you, nothing but you. You\nwere my one and only object, marriage I did not seek, nor my way but\nyours uniquely. If the title of wife be holy, I thought the name of\nmistress more dear. Rather would I have been called that by you than\nempress by an emperor.\"\n\nAbailard's frigid and methodical answers were headed \"To the bride of\nChrist,\" or else \"To my sister in Christ, from Abailard, her brother.\" The\ntone of Heloise's replies was very different. \"To my master, no; to my\nbrother, no; to my husband, no; his sister, his bride, no; from Heloise to\nAbailard.\" Again she wrote: \"At every angle of life God knows I fear to\noffend you more than Him, I desire to please Him less than I do you. It\nwas your will not His that brought me where I am.\"\n\nIt was true. She took the veil as though it were poison. She broke into\nthe priory violently as the despairful plunge into death. Even that could\nnot assuage her. But in the burning words which she tore from her breaking\nheart the true passion of love, which nothing earthly or divine can still,\nfor the first time pulsated.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE PURSUIVANTS OF LOVE\n\n\nThere is no immaculate history. If there were it would relate to a better\nworld. Unable to be immaculate, history usually is stupid, more often\nfalse. Concerning the Middle Ages it has contrived to be absurd. It\nattributed the recovery of light to the Tiers etat. Darkness was dispersed\nby love, whose gereralissimi were the troubadour and the knight.\nConcerning the latter history erred again. Tacitus aiding, it derived\nchivalry from Germany. Chivalry originated in the courts of the emirs. The\nknight and the troubadour came from Islam. Together they resummoned\ncivilization.\n\nThe world at the time was divided. Long since Europe and Asia had gone\ntheir separate ways. When at last they caught sight of each other, the\nChurch sickened with horror. There ensued the Crusades in which the Papacy\npitted Christianity against Muhammadanism and staked the authenticity of\neach in the result. The result was that Muhammadanism proved its claim. On\nthe way to it was Byzance.\n\nBeside the bleak burgs, squalid ignorance and abysmal barbarism of Europe,\nByzance isolated and fastidious, luxurious and aloof, learned and subtle,\nRoman in body but Greek in soul, contrasted almost supernaturally. Set\napart from and beyond the mediaeval night, her marble basilicas, her golden\ndomes, her pineapple cupolas covered with colors, her ceaseless and\ngorgeous ceremonials, gave her the mysterious beauty of a city shimmering\non uplands of dream. It was a dream, the final flower of Hellenic art. The\npeople, delicately nurtured on delicate fare, exquisitely dressed in\npainted clothes, rather tigerish at heart but exceedingly punctilious,\nequally contemptuous and very well bred, must have contrasted too with the\nCrusaders.\n\nContiguous was Persia which, taken by Muhammad, had, with but the magic\nwand of her own beauty, transformed his trampling hordes into a superb and\nromantic nation, fanatic indeed, quick with the scimitar, born fighters\nwho had passed thence into Egypt, Andalusia, Syria, Assyria and beyond to\nthe Indus. The diverse lands they had subjugated and united into one vast\nempire. Baghdad was their caliphate.\n\nBefore the latter and on through the Orient were strewn in profusion the\nmarvellous cities of the Thousand and One Nights, the enameled houses of\nthe Thousand and One Days. There, in courtyards curtained with cashmeres,\nchimeras and hippogriffs crouched. The turbans of the merchants that\npassed were heavy with sequins and secrets. The pale mouths of the\nblue-bellied fish that rose from the sleeping waters were aglow with gems.\nIn the air was the odor of spices, the scent of the wines of Shiraz.\nOccasionally was the spectacle of a faithless favorite sewn in a sack and\ntossed by hurrying eunuchs into the indifferent sea.\n\nThe sight was rare. The charm of Scheherazade and Chain-of-Hearts\nprevailed. The Muslim might dissever heads as carelessly as he plucked an\norange, they were those of unbelievers, not of girls. Among the peris of\nhis earthly paradise he was passionate and gallant. It is generally in\nthis aspect that he appears in the _Thousand and One Nights_, which, like\nthe _Thousand and One Days_, originally Persian in design, had been done\nover into arabesques that, while intertwisting fable and fact, none the\nless displayed the manners of a nation. Some of the stories are as\nknightly as romaunts, others as delicate as lays; all were the\nunconsidered trifles of a people who, when the Saxons were living in huts,\nhad developed the most poetic civilization the world has known, a social\norder which, with religion and might for basis, had a superstructure of\nart and of love.\n\nIt was this that louts in rusty mail went forth to destroy. But though\nthey could not conquer Islam, the chivalry of the Muslim taught them how\nto conquer themselves. From the victory contemporaneous civilization\nproceeds.\n\nWith the louts were women. An army of Amazons set out for the Cross where\nthey found liberty, new horizons, larger life, and, in contact with the\nmost gallant race on earth, found also theories of love unimagined. In the\nsecond crusade Eleanor, then Queen of France, afterward Queen of England,\nalternated between clashes and amours with emirs. The example of a lady so\nexalted set a fashion which would have been adopted any way, so\nirresistible were the Saracens.[36]\n\nIt was therefore first in Byzance and then in Islam that the Normans and\nAnglo-Normans who in the initial crusade went forth to fight went\nliterally to school. They had gone on to sweep from existence inept bands\nof pecculant Bedouins and discovered that the ineptity was wholly their\nown. They had thought that there might be a few pretty women in the way,\nonly to find their own women falling in love with the foe. They had\nthought Tours and Poictiers were to be repeated.\n\nIt was in those battles that Europe first encountered Islam. Had not the\ndefeat of the latter resulted, the world might have become Muhammadan, or,\nas Gibbon declared, Oxford might to-day be expounding the Koran. But\nthough the Moors, who otherwise would have been masters of Europe,\nretreated, it is possible that they left a manual of chivalry behind. Even\nhad the attention been overlooked, already from Andalusia the code was\nfiltering up through Provence. Devised by a people who of all others have\nbeen most chivalrous in their worship of women it surprised and then\nappealed. Adopted by the Church, it became the sacrament of the preux\nchevalier who swore that everywhere and always he would be the champion of\nwomen, of justice and of right.\n\nThe oath was taken at an hour when justice was not even in the\ndictionaries--there were none--at an epoch when every man who was not\nmarauding was maimed or a monk. At that hour, the blackest of all, there\nwas proposed to the crapulous barons an ideal. Thereafter, little by\nlittle, in lieu of the boor came the knight, occasionally the paladin of\nwhom Roland was the type.\n\nRoland, a legend says, died of love before a cloister of nuns. Roland\nhimself was legendary. But in the _Chanson de Roland_ which is the right\nlegend, he died embracing his sole mistress, his sword. Afterward a girl\nasked concerning him of Charlemagne, saying that she was to be his wife.\nThe emperor, after telling of his death, offered the girl his son. The\ngirl refused. She declined even to survive. In the story of Roland that\nis the one occasion in which love appeared. It but came and vanished with\na hero whose name history has mentioned but once and then only in a\nmonkish screed,[37] yet whose prowess romance ceaselessly celebrated,\ninverting chronology in his behalf, enlarging for his grandiose figure the\nlimits of time and space, lifting his epic memories to the skies.\n\nWhat Jason had been in mythology, Roland became in legend, the first\nOccidental custodian of chivalry's golden fleece, which, he gone, was\nfound reducible to just four words--Death rather than dishonor.\n\nDishonor meant to be last in the field and first in the retreat. Honor\nmeant courage and courtesy, the reverencing of all women for the love of\none. It meant bravery and good manners. It meant something else. To be\nfirst in the field and last in the retreat was necessary not merely for\nvalor's sake, but because courage was the surest token to a lady's favor,\nwhich favor fidelity could alone retain. Hitherto men had been bold,\nchivalry made them true. It made them constant for constancy's sake,\nbecause inconstancy meant forfeiture of honor and any forfeiture\ndegradation.\n\nWhen that occurred the spurs of the knight were hacked from his heels, a\nceremony overwhelming in the simplicity with which it proclaimed him\nunfit to ride and therefore for chivalry.\n\nYet though a man might not be false to any one, to some one he must be\ntrue. If he knew how to break a lance but not how to win a lady he was\nless a knight than a churl. \"A knight,\" said Sir Tristram, \"can never be\nof prowess unless he be a lover.\" \"Why,\" said the belle Isaud to Sir\nDinadan, \"are you a knight and not a lover? You cannot be a goodly knight\nexcept you are?\" \"Jesu merci,\" Sir Dinadan replied. \"Pleasure of love\nlasts but a moment, pain of love endures alway.\"\n\nSir Dinadan was right, but so was Sir Tristram, so was the belle Isaud. A\nknight had to be brave, he had to be loyal and courteous in war, as in\npeace. But he had to be also a lover and as a lover he had to be true.\n\n     \"L'ordre demande nette vie\n     Chastete et curtesye.\"\n\nThe demand was new to the world. Intertwisting with the silver thread\nwhich chivalry drew in and in throughout the Middle Ages, it became the\nbasis of whatever is noble in love to-day. The sheen of that thread,\notherwise dazzling, shines still in Froissart and in Monstrelet, as it\nmust have shone in the tournaments, where, in glittering mail, men dashed\nin the lists while the air was rent with women's names and, at each\nachievement, the heralds shouted \"Loyaute aux Dames,\" who, in their\ntapestried galleries, were judges of the jousts.\n\nDazzling there it must have been entrancing in the halls and courts of the\ngreat keeps where knights and ladies, pages and girls, going up and down,\ntalked but of arms and amours, or at table sat together, two by two, in\nhundreds, with one trencher to each couple, feasting to the high\nflourishes of trumpets and later knelt while she who for the occasion had\nbeen chosen Royne de la Beaulte et des Amours, awarded the prizes of the\ntourney, falcons, girdles or girls.\n\nLife then was sufficiently stirring. But the feudal system was not devised\nfor the purposes of love, and matrimony, while not inherently prejudicial\nto them, omitted, as an institution, to consider love at all. Love was not\nregarded as compatible with marriage and a lady married to one man was\nopenly adored by another, whom she honored at least with her colors, which\nhe wore quite as openly in war and in war's splendid image which the\ntournament was.\n\nIn circumstances such as these and in spite of ideals and injunctions, it\nbecomes obvious if only from the _Chansons de geste_, which are replete\nwith lovers' inconstancies, that the hacking of spurs could not have\ncontinued except at the expense of the entire caste. The ceremony was one\nthat hardly survived the early investitures of the men-at-arms of God. It\nwas too significant in beauty.\n\nThe fault lay not with chivalry but with the thousand-floored prison that\nfeudalism was. In it a lady's affections were administered for her.\nMarriage she might not conclude as she liked. If she were an heiress it\nwas arranged not in accordance with her choice but her suzerain's wishes\nand in no circumstances could it be contracted without his consent. Under\nthe feudal system land was held subject to military service and in the\nevent of the passing of a fief to a girl, the overlord, whose chief\nconcern was the number of his retainers, could not, should war occur, look\nto her for aid. The result being that whatever vassal he thought could\nserve him best, he promptly gratified with the land and the lady, who of\nthe two counted least.[38]\n\nThe proceeding, if summary, was not necessarily disagreeable. Girls whose\naccomplishments were limited to the singing of a lai or the longer romaunt\nand who perhaps could also strum a harp, were less fastidious than they\nhave since become. Advanced they may have been in manners but in delicacy\nthey were not. Their conversation as reported in the fabliaux and novelle\nwas disquietingly frank. When, as occasionally occurred, the overlord\nomitted to provide a husband, not infrequently they demanded that he\nshould. As with girls, so with widows. Usually they were remarried at once\nto men who had lost the right to kill them but who might beat them\nreasonably in accordance with the law.[39]\n\nThe law was that of the Church who, in authorizing a reasonable beating,\nmay have had in view the lady's age, which sometimes was tender. Legally a\ngirl could not be married until she was twelve. But feudalism had evasions\nwhich the Church could not always prevent. Sovereign though she were over\nvilleins and vassals and suzerains as well, yet the high lords, sovereign\ntoo, married when and whom they liked, children if it suited them and\nthere was a fief to be obtained.\n\nThey married the more frequently in that marriage was easily annulled.\nEven the primitive Church permitted divorce. \"Fabiola,\" said a saint,\n\"divorced her husband because he was vicious and married again.\"[40] In\nthe later Church matrimony was prohibited within the seventh degree of\nconsanguinity in which the nominal relationship of godfather and godmother\ncounted equally with ties of blood and created artificial sets of\nbrothers, sisters, cousins and remoter relatives, all of whom stood within\nthe prohibited degrees. Relationship of some kind it was therefore\npossible to discover and also to invent, or, that failing, there was yet\nanother way. A condition precedent to matrimony was the consent, actual or\nassumed, of the contracting parties. But as in the upper classes it was\ncustomary to betroth children still in the cradle, absence of consent\ncould readily be alleged. As a consequence any husband that wished to be\noff with the old wife in order to be on with the new, might, failing\nrelationship on his part, advance absence of consent on hers, the result\nbeing that the chivalric injunction to honor all women for the love of\none, continued to be observed since one was so easily multiplied.[41]\n\nThereafter began the subsidence of the order which at the time represented\nwhat heroism had in the past, with the difference, however, that chivalry\nlifted sentiment to heights which antiquity never attained. The heights\nwere perhaps themselves too high. On them was the exaltation of whatever\nis lofty--honor, courage, courtesy and love. It was the exaltation of love\nthat made Don Quixote station himself in the high road and prevent the\nmerchants from passing until they acknowledged that in all the universe\nthere was no one so beautiful as the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso. But it\nwas the exaltation of humor that made him answer a natural inquiry of the\nmerchants in regard to the lady by exclaiming: \"Had I shown her to you\nwhat wonder would it be to acknowledge so notorious a truth? The\nimportance of the thing lies in compelling you to believe it, confess it,\nswear it, and maintain it without seeing her at all.\"\n\nExaltation lifted to a pitch so high could but squeak. The world laughed.\nChivalry outfaced by ridicule succumbed. It had become but a great piece\nof empty armor that needed but a shove to topple. In the levelling\ndemocracy of fire-arms it fell, pierced by the first bullet, yet surviving\nitself in the elements of which the gentleman is made and in whatever in\nlove is noble.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE PARLIAMENTS OF JOY\n\n\nThe decalogue of the Zend-Avesta mentions many strange sins. The strangest\namong them is sorrow. The Persian abhorred it. His Muhammadan victor, who\nhad learned from him much, learned also its avoidance. If it ever\nperturbed the Moors, by the time Andalusia was theirs it had vanished. Joy\nwas a creed with them. Their poets made it the cardinal virtue. The\nAragonese and Provencals, whom they indoctrinated, made it the basis of\nthe _gaya cienca_--the gay science of love, and chivalry the parure of the\nknight.\n\nBefore chivalry departed and very shortly after it appeared, that joy,\nlifted into joie d'amour, glowed like a rose in the gloom of the world. It\nhumanized very notably. It dismissed much that was dark. It brought graces\nhitherto unknown. It inspired loyalty, fealty and parage--the nobility of\nnoble pride--but particularly the worship of woman.\n\nIn the East, woman had also been worshipped. But not as she was in Europe\nat this period. At no epoch since has she been as sovereign. Set\nfiguratively with the high virtues in high figurative spheres, she ruled\non earth only less fully than she reigned in heaven. The cultus,\ninstituted first by the troubadours, then adopted by royals, connected\nconsequently with pride of place, became fashionable among an aristocracy\nfor whose convenience the rest of humanity labored. Too elevating for the\nmaterialism of the age that had gone and too elevated for the democracy of\nthe age that followed, it was comparable to a precipitate of the chemistry\nof the soul projected into the heart of a life splendid and impermanent, a\nform of existence impossible before, impossible since, a social order very\nvaliant, very courteous, to which the sense of rectitude had not come but\nin which joy, unparalleled in history, really, if unequally, abounded.\nNever more obvious, never either was it more obscure. It was abstruse. It\nhad its laws, its jurists, its tribunals and its code.\n\nChivalry required of the novice various proofs and preliminaries before\nadmitting him to knighthood. The gay science had also its requirements,\npreparatory tests which young men of quality gave and primary instruction\nwhich they received, before their novitiate could terminate. The tests\nrelated to women married and single. By address in the lists, by valor in\nwar, by constant courtesy and loyalty, it was the duty of the aspirant to\nplease them. Pending the novitiate no word of love was permitted and any\nadvancement might be lost through an awkwardness of speech or gesture. But\nthe caprices of a lady properly endured and the tests undergone\nunfalteringly, relations might ensue, in which case, if the lady were\nsingle, the connection was not thought contrary to the best traditions,\nprovided that it was a prelude to marriage, nor, if the lady were already\nmarried was it thought at variance with those traditions, provided that\nthe articles of the code were observed.[42]\n\nConcerning the origin of the code history stammers. The chief authority,\nMaitre Andre, said that in Broceliande--a locality within the confines of\nthe Arthurian myth--a vavasour--quidam miles--met a lass--formosa\npuella--who agreed to accept his attentions on condition that he\noutjousted the Knights of the Round Table and got a falcon from them for\nher. These labors accomplished and the vavasour rewarded--plenius suo\nremuneravit amore--there was found attached to the falcon's claw, a\nscroll, a holy writ, a code of love, a corpus juris amoris.[43]\n\nThe story is as imaginary as Broceliande. The code was probably derived\nfrom some critique of pure courtesy then common in manuals of chivalry.\nBut its source is unimportant. Gradually promulgated throughout\nChristendom it resulted in making love the subject of law for the\nadministration of which courts open and plenary were founded. These courts\nwhich were at once academies of fine sentiments and parliaments of joy,\nexisted, Maitre Andre stated, before Salahaddin decapitated a Christian\nand lasted, Nostradamus declared, until post-Petrarchian days.[44]\n\nThe code is as follows:\n\n          I. Causa conjugii ab amore non est excusatio recta.\n\n         II. Qui non celat amare non potest.\n\n        III. Nemo duplici potest amore ligari.\n\n         IV. Semper amorem minui vel crescere constat.\n\n          V. Non est sapidum quod amans ab invito sumit amante.\n\n         VI. Masculus non solet nisi in plena pubertate amare.\n\n        VII. Biennalis viduitas pro amante defuncto superstiti\n             praescribitur amanti.\n\n       VIII. Nemo, sine rationis excessu, suo debet amore privari.\n\n         IX. Amare nemo potest, nisi qui amoris suasione compellitur.\n\n          X. Amor semper ab avaritia consuevit domiciliis exulare.\n\n         XI. Non decet amare quarum pudor est nuptias affectare.\n\n        XII. Verus amans alterius nisi suae coamantis ex affectu non cupit\n             amplexus.\n\n       XIII. Amor raro consuevit durare vulgatus.\n\n        XIV. Facilis perceptio contemptibilem reddit amorem, difficilis\n             eum parum facit haberi.\n\n         XV. Omnis consuevit amans in coamantis as pectupallescere.\n\n        XVI. In repentina coamantis visione, cor tremescit amantis.\n\n       XVII. Novus amor veterem compellit abire.\n\n      XVIII. Probitas sola quemcumque dignum facit amore.\n\n        XIX. Si amor minuatur, cito deficit et raro convalescit.\n\n         XX. Amorosus semper est timorosus.\n\n        XXI. Ex vera zelotypia affectus semper crescit amandi.\n\n       XXII. De coamante suspicione percepta zelus interea et affectus\n             crescit amandi.\n\n      XXIII. Minus dormit et edit quem amoris cogitatio vexat.\n\n       XXIV. Quilibet amantis actus in coamantis cogitatione finitur.\n\n        XXV. Verus amans nihil beatum credit, nisi quod cogitat amanti\n             placere.\n\n       XXVI. Amor nihil posset amori denegare.\n\n      XXVII. Amans coamantis solatiis satiari non potest.\n\n     XXVIII. Modica praesumptio cogit amantem de coamante suspicari\n             sinistra.\n\n       XXIX. Non solet amare quem nimia voluptatis abundantia vexat.\n\n        XXX. Verus amans assidua, sine intermissione, coamantis imagine\n             detinetur.\n\n       XXXI. Unam feminam nihil prohibet a duobus amari, et a duabus\n             mulieribus unum.\n\nOf these articles, the translation of a few may suffice.\n\n     The allegation of marriage is an insufficient plea against love.\n\n     No one should love two people at the same time.\n\n     Without exceeding good reason no one should be forbidden to love.\n\n     No one need love unless persuasion invite.\n\n     It is not seemly to love one whom it would be unseemly to marry.\n\n     A new love banishes an old one.\n\n     Love readily yielded is lightly held.\n\nThe establishment of courts for the maintenance of principles such as\nthese may seem unnecessary. Yet they had their raison d'etre. In cases of\ntort and felony the lord of a fief possessed the right of justice high and\nlow. There are crimes now which the law cannot reach. It was the same way\nthen. There were controversies which no mere man could adjust. To remedy\nthe defect the wives of the lords created tribunals of their own.\n\nIn the English dominions on the Continent generally, as also in Flanders,\nChampagne and Provence, these courts were frequent. In describing them\nNostradamus said that \"disputes arising from the beautiful and subtle\nquestions of love were submitted to illustrious ladies who, after\ndeliberation, rendered judgments termed, 'Lous arrests d'amours.'\"\n\nOf the beautiful and subtle questions here is one: A confidant charged by\na friend with messages of love found the lady so to his liking that he\naddressed her in his own behalf. Instead of being repulsed he was\nencouraged. Whereupon the injured party brought suit. Maitre Andre,\nprothonotary of the court, relates that the plaintiff prayed that the\nfraud be submitted to the Countess of Champagne, who, sitting in banco\nwith sixty ladies, heard the complaint and, on deliberation, rendered\njudgment as follows: \"It is ordered that the defendants henceforth be\ndebarred the frequentation of honest people.\" Here is another instance. A\nknight was charged by a lady not to say or do anything in her praise. It\nso fell about that her name was lightly taken. The knight challenged the\ndefamer. Thereupon the lady contended that he had forfeited all claim to\nher regard. Action having been brought the court decided that the defence\nof a lady being never illicit the knight should be rehabilitated in favor\nand reinstated in grace. Which, the prothonotary states, was done.\n\nIt was over these delicate matters, over others more delicate still, that\nthe Courts of Love claimed and exercised jurisdiction. Execution of the\ndecrees may seem to have been arduous. But judgments were enforced not by\na constabulary but by the community. Disregard of a decision entailed not\nloss of liberty but loss of caste. In the case of a man, entrance was\ndenied him at the tournaments. In the case of a woman, the drawbridges\nwere up. Throughout the land there was no one to receive her. As a result\nthe delinquent was rare. So too was contempt of the jurists. Sometimes a\ngirl appeared before them. Sometimes a king.\n\nTo-day it all seems very trivial. But at the time marriage was a matter\nconcerning which the party most interested had the least to say. Love was\nnot an element of it and disinclination a detail. Moreover in the\napoplectic conditions of the world a woman's natural guardians were not\nalways at hand, the troubadour always was; the consequence being that a\nlady was left to do more or less as she saw fit and it was in order that\nshe might do what was fittest that decretals were made.\n\nThey served another purpose. They set a standard which is observed to-day.\nArticle XI of the code: Non decet amare quarum pudor est nuptias\naffectare,--It is not seemly to love one whom it would not be seemly to\nmarry, is one of the pivots of modern ethics. On it was constructed _Ruy\nBlas_. The tale is tragic but then the entire realm of love is choked\nwith tragic tales, though it is less so when the precept is observed and\nstill less when there is regard for the injunction against double loving.\n\nIn addition, the provisions of the code were instrumental in originating\nthat regard for appearances which society previously had neglected and\nfrom which contemporaneous refinement proceeds. Chivalry came with the\ncrusades; with the Courts of Love, good manners.\n\nThey had another merit. In guiding the affections they educated them. To\nlove and to be loved is not simple but complex. Love may come from mutual\nattraction. That is common. It may come of natural selection, which is\nrare. Natural selection presupposes a discernment that leads a man through\nmazes of women to one woman in particular, to a woman who to him is the\none woman in all the world, to the woman who has been awaiting him and who\nrecognizes him when he comes. Or _vice versa_. In the Middle Ages it was\nusually from the woman that the initial recognition proceeded. It was she\nwho did the selecting. In the best society she does so still.\n\nTo encourage her the Courts of Love authorized a form of contemplative\nunion in which lovers exchanged vows similar to those taken at the\ninvestiture of a vassal. The knight knelt before the lady, put his hands\nin hers and acknowledged himself her liegeman. The homage was formally\naccepted. The knight received a kiss which was renewable every year. But\nnothing more. In theory at least. Any further reward of fealty being due\nto the sheer generosity of the lady who then was lord. The kiss however\nwas collectable. In the event of deferred payment action could be brought.\nOne was. By way of defence the defendant alleged that Mr. Danger was\npresent. Mr. Danger was the defendant's husband.[45]\n\nThese hymens of the heart, instituted by virtue of Article I, Causa\nconjugii ab amore non est excusatio recta--Against love marriage is an\ninsufficient excuse--resulted in a sort of moral bigamy that was\nsanctioned generally by custom, in Provence by the clergy, and which, like\nmarriage was contracted in the presence of witnesses. Gerard de\nRoussillon, a mediaeval writer, described a lady who while marrying one man\ncoincidentally gave a ring and promise of love to another. The proceeding\nwas strictly in accordance with the sentiment of the day which regarded\nlove as incompatible with marriage.\n\nA case in point is contained in the reports of Martial d'Auvergne. A\nknight loved a lady who could not accept his vows inasmuch as she loved\nsome one else. But she promised to do so if it so happened that she lost\nthe other man--a contingency which to-day would mean if he died or ran\naway. Very differently the jurisprudence of the epoch interpreted it. The\nlady married the man she loved whereupon the knight exacted fulfilment of\nthe agreement. Queen Eleanor, before whom the case was heard, decided in\nhis favor, on the ground, perhaps subtle, that the lady's husband, in\nbecoming her husband, became _ipso facto_, by that very act, amatorially\ndefunct.\n\nIn a case not similar but cognate, judgment rendered by the Countess of\nChampagne was as follows: \"By these presents we declare and affirm that\nlove cannot exist between married people for the reason that lovers grant\neverything unconstrainedly whereas married people are obliged to submit to\none another. Wherefore shall this decision, reached prudently in\nconformity with the opinion of many other ladies, be to you all a constant\nand irrefragible truth. So adjudged in the year of grace 1174, the third\nday of the calends of May, seventh indiction.\"\n\nIn another case Ermengarde of Narbonne decided that the addition of the\nmarriage tie cannot invalidate a prior affair, _nisi_--unless the lady has\nin mind to have done with love forever.\n\nDecretals of this nature, however absurd they may seem, were at least\nserviceable in the reforms they effected. According to the civil law if a\nhusband absented himself for ten years, the wife had the right to remarry.\nAccording to the law of love, the absence of a lover, however prolonged,\ndid not release the lady from her attachment. The civil law authorized a\nwidow to remarry in a year and a day. The law of love exacted for the\nheart a widowhood of twice that period. The civil law permitted a husband\nto beat his wife reasonably. The law of love enforced for the lady\nrespect.[46]\n\nThe resulting conditions, perhaps analogous to those of eighteenth-century\nItaly where every woman of position had, in addition to a husband a\ncavaliere servente, succeeded none the less in developing outside of\nmarriage and directly in opposition to it, the ideal of what marriage is,\nthe union not only of hands but of hearts. The Courts of Love might go,\ntheir work endured. They made woman what she had been in republican Rome\nand what she is to-day, the guide and associate of man.\n\nSlowly thereafter they followed knight-errantry to its grave without\nhowever meanwhile becoming what Hallam described as \"fantastical\nsolemnities.\" \"I never had,\" Hallam declared, \"the patience to look at the\nolder writers who discussed this tiresome subject.\" In view of which his\nopinions are not important, particularly as the Courts of Love so far from\nbecoming fantastic went to the other extreme. Instead of questions\nbeautiful and subtle, there arose others, highly realistic, together with\ninvestigations _de visu_ which young gentlewomen treated in terms precise.\n\nBefore decadence set in, at a time when these establishments were at their\nbest and notwithstanding the ethical purport of their decisions,\nmisadventures occurred. Of these, one, commonly reported by all\nauthorities, is curious.\n\nThe Lord Raymond of Castel-Roussillon had for wife the Lady Marguerite.\nGuillaume de Cabstain, a lad of quality came to their court where he was\nmade page to the countess and where, after certain episodes, he composed\nfor her the lai which runs:\n\n     \"Sweet are the thoughts\n     That love awakes in me.\"\n\nEtc. When Raymond heard the song he led Guillaume far from the castle, cut\nhis head off, put it in a basket, cut his heart out, put it also in a\nbasket, returned to the castle, had the heart roasted and had it served at\ntable to his wife. The Lady Marguerite ate without knowing what it was.\nThe repast concluded, Raymond stood up. He told his wife that what she had\neaten was the heart of the page. He fetched and showed her the head and\nasked how the heart had tasted.\n\nThe Lady Marguerite, recognizing the head, replied that the heart had been\nso appetizing that never other food or drink should take from her its\nsavor. Raymond ran at her with his sword. She fled away, threw herself\nfrom a balcony and broke her skull.\n\nThe story, though commonly reported, has not been substantiated. It\noccurred a long time ago and, it may be, never occurred at all. But as a\npicture of mediaeval love, life and death, it is exact. If it did not\noccur, it might have. Joy's fingers are ever at its lips bidding farewell.\nIt was in that attitude that its parliaments departed.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE DOCTORS OF THE GAY SCIENCE\n\n\nBefore joy and its parliaments had dispersed the general gloom, minstrels\nwent about singing distressed maidens, imprisoned women, jealous husbands,\nthe gamut of love and lore. Usually they sang to ears that were\nindifferent or curious merely. But occasionally a knight errant overheard\nand at once, lance in hand, he was off on his horse to the rescue. The\nsource of the minstrel's primal migration was Spain.\n\nIn the mediaeval night, Spain, or, more exactly Andalusia, was brilliant.\nOn the banks of the Great River, Al-Ouad-al-Kebyr, subsequently renamed\nGuadalquivir, twelve hundred cities shimmered with mosques, with enamelled\npavilions, with tinted baths, alcazars, minarets. From three hundred\nthousand filigree'd pulpits, the glory of Allah and of Muhammad his\nprophet were daily proclaimed.\n\nAt Ez Zahara, the pavilion of the pleasures of the Caliphs of Cordova,\nforty thousand workmen, working for forty years, had produced a stretch\nof beauty unequalled then and unexceeded since, a palace of dream, of\ngems, of red gold walls; a court of alabaster fountains that tossed\nquick-silver in dazzling sheafs; a patio of jasper basins in which floated\nsilver swans; a residence ceiled with damasquinures, curtained with\nIsfahan silks; an edifice filled with poets and peris, an establishment\nthat thirteen thousand people served.[47]\n\nEz Zahara, literally, The Fairest, a caliph had built to the memory of a\nlove. It was regal. The caliphs were also. The reigns of some of them were\nso prodigal that they were called honeymoons. At Seville and Granada were\nother palaces, homes as they were called, but homes of flowers, of\nwhispers, of lovers or of peace. Throughout the land generally there was a\nchain of pavilions and cities through which minstrels passed, going up and\ndown the Great River, serenading the banks that sent floating back wreaths\nof melody, the sound of clear voices, the tinkle of dulcimers and lutes.\nBut most beautiful was Cordova. Under the Moors it eclipsed Damascus,\nsurpassed Baghdad, outshone Byzance. It was the noblest place on earth.\n\nThroughout Europe at that time, the Moors and the Byzantines alone had\nthe leisure and the inclination to think. They alone read and alone\npreserved the literature of the past. Together they supplied it to the\nRenaissance. But from the Moors went poetry of their own. It was they who\ninvented rhyme.[48] Charmed with the novelty, they wrote everything in it,\nchallenges, contracts, treaties, diplomatic notes, and messages of love.\nThe composition of poetry was an occupation, usual in itself, which led to\nunusual honors, to the dignity of office and high place. Ordinary\nconversation not infrequently occurred in verse which was otherwise\nfacilitated by the extreme wealth of the language. Some of the\ndictionaries known generally from their immensity as Oceans--which,\nescaping later the unholy hand of the Holy Office,[49] the Escorial\npreserved, were arranged not alphabetically but in sequence of rhyme. In\naddition to the latter the Moors invented the serenade and for it the\ndulcimer and guitar. They not only lived poetry and wrote it and talked it\nbut died of it. The unusual honors to which it led and which resulted in a\ngovernment of poets left them defenceless. Verse which was their glory was\nalso their destruction. Meanwhile it was from them that the world got\nalgebra and chivalry besides.\n\nChivalry has been derived from Germany. The Teutons invented the false\nconception of honor--revenge for an affront, the duel and judgment by\narms. That is not chivalry or even bravery, it is bravado. Bravery itself,\nperhaps the sole virtue of the early Teuton, was not the only one or even\nthe first that was required of the Moorish Rokh. To merit that title which\nwas equivalent to that of knight, many qualities were indispensable:\ncourtesy, courage, gentility, poetry, diction, strength, and address. But\ncourtesy came first. Then bravery, then gentility, in which was comprised\nthe elements that go to the making of the gentleman--loyalty,\nconsideration, the sense of justice, respect for women, protection of the\nweak, honor in war and in love.[50]\n\nThese things the Teutons neither knew nor possessed. The Muslim did. Prior\nto the first crusade, the male population of Christendom was composed of\nmen-at-arms, serfs, priests, monks. The knight was not there. But in\nSicily, at the court of the polished Norman kings where Saracens had\ngone, particularly in Spain, and certainly at Poictiers, the knight had\nappeared. The chivalry which he introduced was an insufficient gift to\nbarbarism. To it the Moors added perfumery and the language of flowers.\n\nMuhammad's biographers state that there were but two things for which he\nreally cared--women and perfume. His followers the Moors could not do more\nthan do better. Other inventions of theirs being inadequate, they joined\nto them the art of preserving perfume by distillation and the art, higher\nstill, of perfuming life with love. Muhammad was unable to convert\nhumanity to a belief in the uniqueness of Allah, but the Moors, for a\nwhile at least, converted Europe to a belief that love was unique.\nMuhammad created a paradise of houris and musk. More subtly the Moors\ncreated a heaven on earth. It had its defects as everything earthly must\nhave, but such were its delights that the courtesan had no place in its\nparks. For the first time in history a nation appeared that renounced\nVenus Pandemos. For the first time a nation appeared among whom woman was\nneither punished nor bought.[51]\n\nIn the Koran it is written: \"Man shall have pre-eminence over woman\nbecause of the advantages wherein God hath caused one of them to excel\nthe other. The honest women are obedient, careful in the absence of their\nhusbands. But those whose perverseness ye shall be apprehensive of,\nrebuke, remove into separate apartments and chastise.\"\n\nThe Moors were devout. They were also schismatic. They had separated from\nOriental Islam. Even in the privacy of the harem they would not have\nstruck a woman with a rose.\n\nThe harem was not a Muhammadan invention. It was a legacy from Solomon.\nOriginally the Muslim faith was a creed of sobriety that included a\ndeference to women theretofore unknown. Its subsequent corruption was due\nto Assyria and the ferocious apostolicism of the Turk. The Islamic\nseclusion of women came primarily from an excess of delicacy. It was\ndevised in order that their beauty might not excite desires in the hearts\nof strangers and they be affronted by the ardor of covetous eyes. That\nardor the Moors deflected with a talisman composed of the magic word\nMasch-Allah which, placed in filigree on the forehead of the beloved was\nsupposed to indicate--and perhaps did--that her heart was not her own. In\nBaghdad where men are said to have been so inflammable that they fell in\nlove with a woman at the rumor of her beauty, at even the mere sight of\nthe impress of her hand, it was not entirely unnatural that they should\nhave secluded those for whom they cared. With finer jealousy the Moors\nsuggested to the women who cared for them the advantage of secluding\nthemselves. To-day a woman who loves will do that unprompted.\n\nIn the suggestion of the Moors there was nothing emphatic. Usually girls\nof position saw, to the day of their marriage, but relatives and womenfolk\nwhom the husband and his friends then routed with daggers of gold. But\naccess to Chain-of-Hearts was not otherwise always impossible. In default\nof gold daggers there were silk ladders let down from high windows and up\nwhich one might climb. In the local tales of love and chivalry, in the\nstory, for instance, of _Medjnoun and Leilah_, in that of the _Dovazdeh\nRokh_--the Twelve Knights--many such ladders and windows appear, many are\nthe kisses, multiple are the furtive delights. Apart from them history has\nfrequent mention of Andalusian Sapphos, free, fervid, poetic, charming the\nleisures of caliphs, or, after an exacter pattern of the Lesbian,\ninstructing other girls in what were called the keys of felicities--the\n_divans_ of the poets, the art and theory of verse; more austerely still,\nin mathematics and law.[52]\n\nTo please young women of that distinction, a man had to be something more\nthan a caliph, something else than violently brave. Necessarily he had to\nbe expert in fantasias with arms and horse, but he had to be also\ndiscreet; in addition he had to be able to contend and successfully in the\nmoufakhara, or tournaments of song--struggles of glory that proceeded\ndirectly from Mekke where the verses of the victors were affixed with gold\nnails to the doors of the Mosque. From these tournaments all modern poetry\nproceeds. Acclimatized, naturalized and embellished in Andalusia, they\nwere imitated there by the encroaching Castilians who proudly but falsely\ncalled themselves _los primeros padres de la poesia vulgar_.\n\nAt that time, the Provencal tongue, called the Limosin or Langue d'oc, was\nspoken not only throughout the meridional provinces of France but\ngenerally in Christian Spain.[53] Whatever was common to Spanish poetry\nwas common to that of Provence: both drank from the same source, the\noverflowing cup of the Moors. The original form of each is that employed\nin the _divans_ of the latter. There is in them also the tell-tale novelty\nrhyme which, unknown to Greece and Rome, lower Latinity had not achieved.\nIn addition the Provencal and Spanish tensons, or contentions of song,\nare but replicas of the moufakhara, or struggles of glory, while the\nminstrel going up and down the Great River is the obvious father of the\nitinerant poets whom Barbarossa welcomed in Germany and from whom the\nMinnesaenger came. In Italy, Provencal verse was the foundation of that of\nDante and Petrarch. From it in England Chaucer proceeds. In Aragon it\nfounded the _gaya cienca_--the gay science, which passing into Provence\noverspread the world. The passing was effected by the troubadour, a title\nderived from _trobar_, to compose, whence troubadour, a composer of verse.\n\nTechnically the troubadour was not only a composer but a knight and not\nmerely that but the representative of chivalry in its supreme expression.\nPoetry was the attribute of his order as joy was the parure of the preux\nchevalier. But though except in bearing and appearance the knight did not\nhave to be poetic, the troubadour had to be poetic and chivalrous as well.\nThe vocation therefore, which in addition to these characteristics\npresupposed also rank and wealth, was such that while a troubadour might\ndisdain to be king, there were kings, Alfonso of Aragon and\nCoeur-de-Lion among others, who were proud to be troubadours.\n\nRank was not essentially a prerequisite. Poetry, exalting and fastidious,\noccasionally stooped, lifting from the commonality a man naturally though\nnot actually born for the sphere. The Muse aiding, Bernard de Ventadour, a\nbaker's son; was raised to the lips of the rather volatile Queen Eleanor.\nBut the process, hazardous in itself, was infrequent. Royals were not\nnecessarily on a footing with troubadours, but the latter, who were the\npeers of kings, required, for the maintenance of their position, abundant\nmeans. They held it becoming to be ceaselessly lavish, to play high and\nlong, to dazzle not only in the tensons but in the banquets and jousts.\nImpoverishment supervening they went forth in the crusades to die, or,\nless finely, dropped back among the jongleurs, minstrels, strollers and\nmere poets with whom subsequently they were generally confused. These\nlatter, sometimes stipendiary, sometimes donatable like jesters and fools,\ntold in their verse of great ladies whom they had never seen, or in the\nquality of handy man attached themselves to women of rank, to whom they\ngave songs in return for graces which included largesse, acquiring in\ntheir society a knowledge more or less incomplete of the niceties of love\nand occasionally, if their verse were good, the title of Maestro d'Amor.\nEven so, only in the embroidery of legend were they troubadours.\n\nThe troubadours, the true masters and real doctors of the gay science, in\nfull armor, the visor up, the lance in bucket, rode from keep to keep,\nfrom court to court, from one to another of the long string of castles\nthat stretched throughout Provence, throughout the English districts on\nthe Continent, throughout England as well, celebrating as they passed the\nbeauty of this chatelaine and of that, breaking lances for women, devising\nnew lays to their eyes, contending with rivals in duels of song,\nchallenging them in the tourneys, singing and killing with equal\nsatisfaction, leading generally a life vagabond, prodigal, puerile,\ndelightful, absurd and humanizing in the extreme.\n\nPreviously keeps and castles were lairs of rapine and of brutes,\nconditions which chivalry and the Courts of Love remodelled. But the\ncoincidental influence of poetry expressed by the best and richest men of\nthe day had an effect so edulcifying that whatever crapulousness the\nknight overlooked the troubadour extinguished.\n\nNothing is perfect. The system like all others had its defects. In keeps,\nwhen tilts, feasts, and entertainments were over, the boudoir's more\nrelaxing atmosphere, that of the adjoining balconies and outlying gardens\nas well, had also their effect. The presence there of a man whose one\nobject was to sing love and make it, the fact that he was a stranger and\nof all men the stranger who but comes and passes, disturbs the\nimagination most; the further fact that if he but so pleased he could in\nhis lays trail the fame of a lady from Northumbria to Lebanon, the\nperfectly natural wish for such renown, the equally feminine\ndisinclination to be ignored when others were praised, the concomitant\ndesire to have a troubadour or a part of one, as one's very own, these\nstimulants had consequences that were not always very ethical.\n\nThe troubadour's religion, intoxicating in itself, was love. That was his\ncreed, his vocation, his life, his death. Song was its vehicle, his\npresence its introduction. He exhaled it. The perfume, always heady, but\nwhich in its first fragrance had mended manners, turned acid and ended by\ndissolving morals. They melted before it. The social conditions that\nprevailed in the Renaissance and later in the Restoration and Regency,\nproceeded directly from these poets who, meanwhile, in a cataclysm had\nvanished.\n\nTheir terrific ablation was due to an interconnection with the Albigenses,\na Languedoc sect who, in a jumble of Gnosticism and Manicheism, professed\nthat since evil is coeval with good it must be just as justifiable; hence\nthere is nothing blamable, everything is relative and morality--\nunobligatory--a matter of taste.\n\nProvence, always receptive to Orientalisms, was charmed with theories\nthat gave a mystic sanction to troubadourian views. Caught up and\nrepeated, discussed in tournament and tenson, the opinions of ladies and\nlovers on the subject would have disturbed nobody, history would have\nignored them, had the original heretics been satisfied with the plaything\nthey had found. But they compared it to official religion. They also\nquestioned the prerogatives of the Holy See.\n\nIndignantly the Papacy pitted Christianity against it, as already it had\npitted the latter against Islam. In this instance with greater success.\nFrom a thousand pulpits a new religious war was preached. The fanaticism\nof Europe was aroused. Provence was stormed. Chateaux were levelled, vines\nuprooted, the harvests of poetry and song destroyed. Sixty thousand people\nwere massacred. The Inquisition was founded. Plentifully the doctors of\nthe gay science were burned. In spite of chivalry, in spite of love, in\nspite of verse, in spite of Muhammad, the Moors and the Madonna, Europe\nwas barbarous still.\n\nThe smoke, obscuring the sky, left but darkness. If anywhere there was\nlight, it was in Sicily, always volcanic, or in Tuscany, another Provence.\nThere surviving troubadours escaped and left a legacy which Dante,\nPetrarch and Boccaccio diversely shared.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE APOTHEOSIS\n\n\nIn the boyhood of Dante, Florence, the Flower City, was a place of much\nbeauty, of perfect calm, of almost perfect equality, of pleasurable and\npolished life. There a brigade, the _Brigata Amorosa_, formed of a\nthousand people, had a lord who was a Lord of Love. During one of their\nrecurrent festivals an entertainment was held at the home of Folco\nPortinari. To such entertainments Boccaccio said that children frequently\naccompanied their parents. To this particular entertainment, Dante, then a\nlad of nine, came with his father. He found there a number of boys and\ngirls, among whom was Folco's daughter, Beatrice, a child with delicate\nfeatures whose speech and attitude were perhaps superserious for her age.\n\nDante looked at her. \"At that moment,\" he afterward, wrote, \"I may truly\nsay that the spirit of life which dwells in the most secret chambers of my\nheart, trembled in such wise that the least pulses of my being shook....\nSo noble was her manner, that assuredly one might repeat of her the words\nof Homer: 'She seemed born not of mortal but of God.'\"\n\nYears passed during which often he encountered her, without, however, a\nword being interchanged. Subsequently, at a festival, she recognized him\nand bowed--\"so virtuously,\" he said, \"that I thought myself lifted to the\nlimits of beatitude.\"\n\nAnother interval ensued. Again she met him. Dante was then twenty,\nBeatrice nineteen. On this occasion she omitted to bow. The omission\naffected him profoundly. It was even inspirational. He began to write, \"so\nwell\" said Boccaccio \"that he effaced the fame of poets that had been and\nmenaced that of those to be.\"\n\nIn promenading his young glory he again encountered Beatrice, this time in\na house where a betrothal was being celebrated. On entering he was so\nemotionalized that he had to lean against a wall. The women who were\npresent divined the reason. Beatrice was there. The situation amused them.\nThey laughed. Beatrice also laughed.[54] Whether or not it was her\nbetrothal that was being feted is uncertain. It may have been. Shortly she\nbecame the wife of Simon dei Bardi, _gentiluomo_.\n\nDante more profoundly affected than ever cursed the day on which they met:\n\n     Io maledico il di ch'io vidi imprima\n     La luce de' vostri occhi traditori.\n\nTo the melody of the imprecation, Petrarch, in honor of Laura, added a\nvariant:\n\n     Benedetto sia l'giorno, e l'mese, e l'anno.\n\nBoth were unfortunate in their loves but of the two Dante's was the least\nfavored. It had nothing for sustenance. Yet, save for that one reproach,\nit persisted. Its continuance was fully justified by the code, though, in\nthe absence of any reciprocity whatever, it was perhaps more vaporous than\nany that the codifiers had considered.\n\nHitherto Dante had hoped but for a bow. Thereafter the hope seemed\nambitious. He ceased to expect so much. A woman, cognizant, as all\nFlorence was, of the circumstances said to him: \"Since you barely dare to\nlook at Beatrice, what can your love for her be?\" Dante answered: \"The\ndream of my love was in her salutation but since it has pleased her to\nwithhold it from me, my happiness now resides in what cannot be\nwithdrawn.\" \"And what is that?\" the donna asked. \"In words that praise\nher,\" he replied.\n\nSeemingly instead of that, instead rather of limiting his previous\nambition to a salutation he might have supplanted Dei Bardi. Dante too was\n_gentiluomo_. In addition he was famous. Had he asked, doubtless it would\nhave been given. But Dante, nourished on troubadourian verse and views,\nheld love to be incompatible with marriage. Afterward, if any Provencal\nsuggestion of extra-matrimonial possibilities presented itself, it was too\nincongruous with the ideal to be detained. Even otherwise, shortly and\nspeedily Beatrice died and he very nearly died also.\n\nThe distraction of writing of her, of drawing angels that resembled her,\nthese occupations, combined with other incidents, consoled. Then presently\nhe had visions, among them one in which he saw that which decided him to\nwrite nothing further until he could do so more worthily. \"To that end,\"\nhe said, \"I labor all I can, as she well knows. Wherefore if it please\nHim, through whom all things live, that my life be suffered to continue\nyet awhile, I hope one day to say of her what has not been said of any\nwoman. After which may it please the Lord of Grace that my soul go hence\nin quest of the Blessed Beatrice who now gazes continuously on the\ncountenance of Him qui est omnia secula benedictus. Laus Deo!\"\n\nWith these words, with which the _Vita Nuova_ ends, the _Divina Commedia_\nis announced. Voltaire commended an imbecile for calling the latter a\nmonster. It is regrettable that there are not more like it. Other\nimbeciles have called Beatrice an abstraction. That she lived is fully\nattested. Dante admired a child who became a young woman from whom he\nasked next to nothing, which, being refused, he asked nothing at all,\ncontenting himself with laudations. From that moment, Beatrice, who had\nreally been, ceased to really be. She became a personified worship.\nFinally she died and her death was her assumption, an apotheosis in which\ntypifying the Eternal Feminine, she lifted the poet from sphere to sphere,\nfrom glory to glory, to the heights where, imperishable, he stands.\n\nSaid Tennyson:\n\n     King that hast reigned six hundred years and grown\n     In power and ever growest ...\n     I, wearing but the garland of a day\n     Cast at thy feet one flower that fades away.\n\nThe tribute, perfect in itself, was perfectly deserved. There never was\nsuch tenderness as Dante's. There never was such intensity. Save only in\nthe case of the human oceans that men call Homer and Shakespeare, there\nnever has been such greatness.\n\nHomer engendered antiquity. From Dante modernity proceeds. Of\nShakespeare, England was born. Without resemblance to one another, on\ntheir thrones in the ideal each sits alone. Behind them is the past, at\ntheir feet the present, before them the centuries unroll. They are the\nimmortals. They have all time as we all have our day. It is from them we\nget our daily bread. Their genius feeds our starving soul. Talent has\nnever done that. Talent makes us laugh and forget and yawn. Talent is\nagreeable, it provides us with pleasures, with means of getting rid of\ntime. But to the heart it brings no message, for the soul it has no food.\nIt is ephemeral, not eternal. Only genius and its art endure.\n\nThe genius of Dante, Beatrice awoke, of his art she was the inspiration.\nFor that be she, as he called her, Blessed,--thrice Blessed since she did\nnot love him. Had she loved him, he could not have done better, that is\nnot possible, and he might have omitted to do as well.\n\nDante made Francesca say of Paolo:\n\n     Questi che mai da me non fia diviso,\n     La bocca mi bacio tutto tremente.\n\nFrancesca added:\n\n_Quel giorno piu non vi leggemmo avante_--we read no more that day. Nor on\nany other. Had she, from whom Dante is equally inseparable, tremblingly\nkissed his mouth, it may be that not their reading merely but his writing\nwould have ceased. But Dante, whom Petrarch called a miracle of nature,\nwas not Paolo. Far from attempting to kiss Beatrice he did not even aspire\nto such a grace. He had, as the genius should have, everything, even to\nsex, in his brain, a circumstance that might have preserved him from Gemma\nDonati and la Gentucca,--the first, his wife; the second, another's--dual\ninfidelities for which, at the summit of Purgatory, Beatrice, who, in the\ninterim, had become very feminine, reproached him with slow scorn.\n\nFor punishment he beheld her. The spectacle of her beauty was such that\nmemories of his sins seared him like thin flames. He was in Purgatory. But\nBeatrice who in a cloud of flowers--_un nuvola di fiori_--had come,\nforgave him. Together then their ascension began. _Ella guardava suso, ed\nio in lei._ She looked above and he at her. In the mounting his sins fell\nby. As they did so her beauty increased. In proportion to his redemption\nshe became more fair.\n\nThat picture, at once real and ideal, displayed in its exquisiteness the\nmiracle of two hearts saving and embellishing each other. Set at the\nthreshold of modern life it prefigured what love was to be, what it is now\nwhen it truly appears, but what it was long in becoming.\n\nIt had no part in the conceptions of Cecco Angioleiri, a poet\ncontemporaneous, very vulgar, consequently more popular, who \"sat\" his\nheart on a donna and flung at her cries that were squeaks.\n\n     Io ho in tal donna lo mio core assiso,\n     Che chi dicesse: Ti fo imperadore,\n     E sta che non la veggi per due ore,\n     Io li direi: Va che to sia ucciso.\n\nOther was Petrarch,\n\n     From whose brain-lighted heart were thrown\n     A thousand thoughts beneath the sun,\n     Each lucid with the name of One.\n\nThe One was Laura. Petrarch, young, good-looking, already aureoled, saw\nher first at matins in a church at Avignon. She too was young. Married, a\nwoman of position, of probable beauty, she was dark-eyed, fair-haired,\npensive, serene. With spells as gossamer as those of the Monna Bice, at\nonce she imparadised his heart. Precipitately he presented it to her. She\nrefused it.\n\nHughes de Sade, her husband, was a perfectly unsympathetic person, jealous\nwithout reason, notoriously hard. Yet his excuse, if he had one, may have\nresided in local conditions. Avignon stately and luxurious, was, Petrarch\ndeclared, the gully of every vice. \"There is here,\" he said, \"nothing\nholy, nothing just, nothing human. Decency and modesty are unknown.\"[55]\n\nYet he found them there. Laura represented both. In the profligacy of the\nPapal city she at least was pure. She would have none of Petrarch, or,\nmore exactly, so little that hardly can it be said to count. Rebuffed he\ndeparted. She beckoned him back, rebuffed him again and, alternately, for\ntwenty-one years, rebuffed and beckoned, preserving his love without\naccording her own, giving him an infrequent smile, now and then a nod from\na window, on one memorable occasion as much as the touch of her hand. Once\nonly, and that at their last interview her eyes looked longly in his. That\nwas all.\n\nTo be near her he purchased at Vaucluse an estate so gloomy that his\nservants forsook him and where, such women as he saw, it mortified him to\nlook at. The expression is his own. Day after day he stood before her\ngates, which he never entered, fully repaid, if among the orange trees\nthere, he but caught sight of her. On one occasion he met her by accident,\non another he was fortunate enough to be able to restore a glove which she\nhad dropped, again in a reunion where were assembled the ladies of\nAvignon, a foreign prince marched up to the woman whom Petrarch's verses\nhad made famous and kissed her on the eyes. It was a prince's privilege.\nPetrarch related the occurrence in a sonnet. It was incidents of this\ncharacter that form the bundle of poetry that immortalized them both.\n\nSometimes he rebelled. He went away, travelled, studied, worked. Whatever\nhe did, where-ever he were, always, in haunting constancy, she was before\nhim. Always her presence inhabited his eyes. He tried to vanquish the love\nof woman in the love of God. In the struggle it was he who was defeated.\nEven age, even death could not aid him. Laura ultimately had nine\nchildren. She was growing old, certainly she was worn. To Petrarch always\nshe was in the first festival of her beauty.\n\n     Blessed be the day and the month and the year,\n     And the season, the hour, the minute,\n     And the fair land and the spot itself where\n     Her beautiful eyes subjected my spirit.\n\nIt was that which he had ever before him. It was that which made him what\nhe was, the foremost personality of his day. It was that which\ndistinguished him from other poets. Unlike anybody, every one wanted to\nresemble him. It was love that did it. Dante told of love with an\nintensity that was divine. Petrarch wrote with a comprehensiveness that\nwas human. There have been thousands of poets and but one Dante, myriads\nof lovers and but one Petrarch. Whether Laura deserved his devotion must\nbe a matter of opinion. This alone is obvious. She made his life a combat\nwhich antiquity would not have understood, which chivalry would not have\nappreciated and which Dante did not experience. In antiquity love had for\nform but the senses. That form chivalry draped with graces and Dante\ndematerialized. In Petrarch, love was both of the flesh and of the spirit\nin addition to being sincere. That was a great step. With him for the\nfirst time there entered into history an honest man ardently in love with\nan honest woman. To the superficial she has seemed but a coquette and he\nmerely sentimental. He were perhaps better regarded as creative, the\nfounder of the real love which is the love of the heart, the \"_amour\neternel en un moment concu_.\"\n\nThe quality of Laura's love, whether she loved him or whether she did not,\nwhether for that matter she was capable of loving at all, whether on the\nother hand while loving him wholly she, like the woman in the sonnet of\nArvers who inspired the \"_amour eternel_\" preferred to remain \"piously\nfaithful to the austere devoir,\" is immaterial and unimportant. Another\nman would have abandoned her completely or carried her violently away.\nPetrarch, too sincere for treason and too poetic for vulgarity, unfit in\nconsequence for either enterprise, became obsessed with a love that\ndeveloped into a delicate malady, a disease that sent him from his\nstudies, tormenting him into an incessant struggle with the most terrible\nof all combatants--one's self. The malady had its compensations. It made\nhim the source of modern lyricism and the most conspicuous figure of his\nday. In Milan when he appeared every head was uncovered. On the Po, a\nbattle was interrupted that he might pass. At Venice his seat was at the\nright of the doge. Rome's ghost revived in beauty for him and put a laurel\non his brow. It was his verse that induced these tributes. The verse was\ninspired by love.\n\nTo Dante, love was what it had been to Plato, a mysterious initiation into\nthe secrets of the material world. To Petrarch it was a rebellion against\nthose very things. In Dante it was sublimated, in Petrarch it was\ndistilled. Laura stood at the parting of the roads, midway between the\nsymbolism of the _Divina Commedia_ and the freedom of the _Decamerone_.\n\nThe _Decamerone_ is the chronicle of a society in extremis of which the\nDivine Comedy is the Last Judgment. One is the dirge of the past, the\nother the dawn of the future. Between the gravity of the one and the\nunconcern of the other is the distance of the poles. Separated but by\nhalf a century the cantos are the antipodes of the novellas. In the former\nis gloom, palpable and thick. In the latter is light, frivolous and clear.\nOne is mediaeval, the other, modern. But one was constructed for all time,\nthe other for a day. If the _Decamerone_ still survive, it is through one\nof Time's caprices.\n\nBoccaccio wrote endlessly. He produced treatises theological, historical,\nmystical. With his pen he built a vast monument. Time passed and in\npassing loosed from the edifice a single stone. The rest it reduced to\ndust. But that stone it sent rolling into posterity, regarding it, wrongly\nor rightly as a masterpiece. A masterpiece is a thing that seems easy to\nmake and which no one can duplicate. The Queen of Navarre tried and failed\naugustly. Indolent reviewers have summarized both efforts as gossip.\nBoccaccio's work was at once that and something else. It was a viaticum\nfor the Middle Ages and a signal for the Renaissance.\n\nThrough Florence at that hour stalked the Black Pest. The narrow streets\nwere choked with corpses. The people were dying. So too was an epoch.\nWhile grave-diggers were at work a page of history was being turned. On\nthe other side was a dawn which now is day. The knell of expiring night\nBoccaccio answered with laughter. Into a shroud he tossed flowers. Of\nthese many were frail, some blood-red, others toxic; a few only were\nwhite. From them come the odors that formed the moral atmosphere of\nindifferent Italy, of careless France, of England after the Restoration.\nThey were the parterre on which gallantry grew.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nBLUEBEARD\n\n\nBefore the parterre of gallantry budded, at an epoch when the Middle Ages\nwere passing away, there appeared a man, known to amateurs of light opera\nand of fairy tales as Bluebeard, but who, everywhere, save in the nursery\nand the study, has been regarded as unreal.\n\nBluebeard was no more a creation of Perrault or of Offenbach than Don Juan\nwas a creation of Mozart or of Moliere. Both really lived, but Bluebeard\nthe more demoniacally. According to the documents contained in what is\ntechnically known as his _proces_, his name was Gilles de Retz and, at a\nperiod contemporaneous with the apparition of Jehanne d'Arc, he was a\ngreat Breton lord, seigneur of appreciable domains.[56]\n\nAt Tiffauges, one of his seats, the towers of the castle have fallen, the\ndrawbridge has crumbled, the moat is choked. Only the walls remain. Within\nis an odor of ruin, a sensation of chill, a savor of things damned, an\nimpression of space, of shapes of sin, of monstrous crimes, of sacrilege\nand sorcery. But in his day it probably differed very little from other\nkeeps except in its extreme fastidiousness. Gilles de Retz was a poet. In\na land where no one read, he wrote. At a time when the chief relaxation of\na baron was rapine, he preferred the conversation of thinkers. Very rich\nand equally sumptuous, the spectacle which he presented must have been\nthat of a great noble living nobly, one who, as was usual, had his own\nmen-at-arms, his own garrison, pages, squires, the customary right of\njustice high and low, but, over and above these things, a taste for\nelegancies, for refinements, for illuminated missals, for the music of\ngrave hymns. He was devout. In addition to a garrison, he had a chapel\nand, for it, almoners, acolytes, choristers. Necessarily a soldier, he had\nbeen a brave one. In serving featly his God he had served loyally his\nking. At the siege of Orleans, Charles VII rewarded him with the title and\nposition of Marechal de France. It was lofty, but not more so than he.\nMeanwhile, during the progress of the war, for which he furnished troops;\nsubsequently, in extravagant leisures at court; later, at Tiffauges, where\nhe resided in a manner entirely princely, he exhausted his resources.\n\nThe one modern avenue to wealth then open was matrimony. Gilles followed\nit. But insufficiently. The dower of one lady, then of others, however\nlarge, was not enough. He needed more. To get it he took a different\nroute. Contiguous to the avenue was a wider highway which, descending from\nthe remotest past, had at the time narrowed into a blind alley. In it was\na cluster of alchemists. They were hunting the golden chimera which Hermes\nwas believed to have found, and whose escaping memories, first satraps,\nthen emperors, had tried vainly to detain.\n\nThese memories Bacon sought in alembics, Thomas Aquinas in ink.\nExperiments, not similar but cognate, had resulted in the theory that, at\nthat later day, success was impossible without the direct assistance of\nthe Very Low. The secret had escaped too far, memories of it had been too\nlong ablated to be rebeckoned by natural means. For the recovery of the\nevaporated arcana it was necessary that Satan should be invoked. Satan\nthen was very real. The atmosphere was so charged with his legions, that\nspitting was an act of worship. In the cathedrals, through shudders of\nsong, his voice had been heard inviting maidens to swell the red\nquadrilles of hell. From encountering him at every turn man had become\nused to his ways, and had imagined a pact whereby, in exchange for the\nsoul, Satan agrees to furnish whatever is wanted.\n\nTo get gold, Gilles de Retz prepared to enter into that pact. What were\nthe preliminary steps, more exactly, what were the preliminary thoughts,\nthat led this man, who had been devout and a poet, into the infamies which\nthen ensued, is problematic. It is the opinion of psychologists that the\nmost poignant excesses are induced by aspirations for superterrestrial\nfelicities, by a desire, human, and therefore pitiable, to clutch some\nfringe of the mantle of stars. Psychologists may be correct, but\npathologists give these yearnings certain names, among which is\nhaematomania, or blood-madness. Caligula, Caracalla, Attila, Tamerlane,\nIvan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Philip II had it. Complicated with\nanother disorder, it manifested itself in the Marquis de Sade. It was that\nwhich affected Gilles de Retz.\n\nActuated by it, he lured alchemists to Tiffauges. With them from the\nconfines of the Sabbat, magicians came. Conjointly it is not improbable\nthat they succeeded then in really evoking Satan, whose response to any\nsummons consists, perhaps, not in a visible apparition, but in making men\nas base as they have conceived him to be.\n\nIn the horrible keep something of the kind must have occurred. Gilles de\nRetz became actually obsessed. His soul turned a somersault. Where the\nscholar had been, a vampire emerged. Satan was believed to enjoy the blood\nof the young. To minister to the taste, Gilles killed boys and girls. For\nfourteen years he stalked them. How many he bagged is conjectural. He had\nomitted to keep tally.\n\nHis first victim was a child whose heart he extracted, and with whose\nblood he wrote an invocation to Satan. Then the list elongated\nimmeasurably. That lair of his echoed with cries, dripped with gore,\nshuddered with sobs. The oubliettes were turned into cemeteries, the halls\nreeked with the odor of burning bones. Through them the monster prowled,\nvirtuoso and vampire in one, determining how he might destroy not merely\nbodies but souls, inventing fresh repasts of flesh, devising new tortures,\nsavoring tears as yet unshed, and, with them, the spectacle of helpless\nagony, of unutterable fear, the contortions of little limbs simultaneously\nsubjected to hot irons and cold steel. Witnesses deposed that some of the\nchildren cried very little, but that the color passed from their eyes.[57]\n\nThere is a limit to all things earthly. Precisely as no one may attain\nperfection, so has infamy its bounds. There are depths beneath which there\nis nothing. To their ultimate plane Gilles de Retz descended. There,\nsmitten with terror, he tried to grope back. It was too late. Leisurely,\nafter fourteen years of Molochism, the echo of the cries and odor of the\ncalcinated reached Nantes, with, for result, the besieging of Tiffauges,\nthe taking of Gilles, his arrest, trial, confession--a confession so\nmonstrous that women fainted of fright, while a priest, rising in horror,\nveiled the face on a crucifix which hung from the wall--a confession\nfollowed by excommunication and the stake.[58]\n\nIn this super-Neronian story Bluebeard is not apparent. Yet he is there.\nIt is he that is Gilles de Retz. Years ago at Morbihan in a Breton church\nthat dates from the fourteenth century, there was found a series of\npaintings. One represents the marriage of Trophine, daughter of the Duc de\nVannes to a Breton lord. In another the lord is leaving his castle. As he\ngoes he warningly intrusts to his wife the key to a forbidden door. It is\nspotted with blood. The scenes which follow represent the lady opening the\nforbidden door and peering into a room from the rafters of which six women\nhang. Then come the return of the lord, his questioning and menacing\nglance, the tears of the lady, her prayers to her sister, the alarm given\nby the latter, the irruption of her brothers and her rescue from that\nroom.\n\nThe story which the paintings tell still endures in Brittany. It has\nGilles de Retz for villain. Yet for the honor of his race and of the land,\ninstead of his name that of Bluebart, the cognomen of a public enemy, was\ngiven.[59]\n\nIn the story, Gilles de Retz, after marrying Catherine de Thouars, one of\nthe great heiresses of the day, subsequently and successively married six\nother women. Whether he murdered them all or whether they died of delight\nis not historically certain. The key spotted with blood obviously is\nfancy. But like other fancies it might be truth. It symbolizes the eternal\ncuriosity of the eternal Eve concerning that which has been forbidden.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE RENAISSANCE\n\n\nNominally with Bluebeard the Middle Ages cease. In the parturitions of\nthat curious period order emerged from chaos, language from dialects,\nnations from hordes, ideals from dirt. Mediaevalism was the prelude,\nmediocre and in minor key, to the great concert of civilization of which\nthe first chorus was the Renaissance, the second the Reformation, the\nthird the Revolution, and of which Democracy, the fourth, but presumably\nnot the last, is swelling now.\n\nMeanwhile the world was haggard. The moral pendulum, that had oscillated\nbetween mud and ether, was back again at the starting point. Death,\nFortune, Love, the three blind fates of life, were the only recognized\ndivinities. But beyond the monotonous fog that discolored the sky beauty\nwas waiting. With the fall of Constantinople it descended. The result was\nthe Renaissance. To the Renaissance many contributed; mainly the dead, the\nartists of the past, but also the living, the prophets of the future.\nMediaevalism was a forgetting, the Renaissance a recovery. It was an epoch\nfrom which the mediocre, in departing, saw as it went the re-establishment\nof altars to beauty. In the midst of feudal barbarism, at an hour when\nFrance was squalid, Germany uncouth, when English nobles could barely\nread, when Europe generally had a contempt for letters which was not due\nto any familiarity with them, but when Italy--a century in advance of\nother lands--was merely corrupt, at that hour, the wraiths of Greece\nmingling with the ghosts of Rome, made the mistress of the old world\nsovereign of the new. Not in might but in art and intellect, again the\nEternal City ruled supreme.\n\nFrom the annals of the epoch bravi peer and swarm--soldati di gran\ndiavolo, men more fiendish than animal, artists that contrived to drape\nthe abominable with cloths which, if crimson, were also of gold; poets\nrefined by generations of scrupulous polish but disorganized by a form of\ncorruption that was the more unholy in that it proceeded not from the\nsenses but the mind.\n\nFor centuries luxury had been reaccumulating about them. To it, after the\nfall of Byzance, an unterrified spirit of beauty came. In between was a\nsense of equality, one that a recently discovered hemisphere was to\nassimilate, but which meanwhile enabled a man of brains to rise from\nnowhere to anything, permitting a mercer to breed popes and an apothecary\nLorenzo the Magnificent. These factors, generally unconsidered, induced a\ntone that could change instantly from the suave to the tragic, the tone of\na people that had no beliefs except in genius and no prejudices except\nagainst stupidity, a tone ethically nul and intellectually great, the only\nimaginable one that could produce combinations artistic and viperish as\nthe Borgias, aesthetic and vulperine as the Medici. Monsters such as they,\ndid not astonish. Columbus, in enlarging the earth, and Copernicus in\nunveiling the skies, had so astounded that the ability to be surprised was\nlost. Men could only admire and create.\n\nThese occupations were not hindered by the pontiffs. What the latter were,\ndiarists and historians--Infessura and Gregorovius--have told. As their\npages turn, pagan Rome revives. The splendid palaces had crumbled, the\nsuperb porticoes were dust. The victorious eagles of the victorious\nlegions had flown to their eyries forever. The shouting throngs, the ivory\nchariots, the baths of perfume and of blood, these things long since had\nvanished. There were friars where gladiators had been, pifferari in lieu\nof augurs, imperias instead of vestals, in place of an emperor there was a\npope. In details of speech, costume and mode there were further\ndifferences. Otherwise Rome was as pagan, murderous and gay. In the thick\nair of the high-viced city the poison of the antique purple dripped.\n\nBut into the toxic a new ingredient had entered, a fresh element, a modern\nnote. In the Rome of Nero a sin was a prayer. In the Rome of Leo X it was\na taxable luxury. Anything, no matter what, was lawful provided an\nindulgence were bought. The Bank of Pardons was established for the\nobvious proceeds, but the latter were sanctified by their consecration to\nart. Among the results is St. Peter's.\n\nIt was in a very different light that Luther contemplated them. The true\nfounder of modern society, radical as innovators must be, dangerous as\nreformers are, it was with actual fury that he attacked the sale, attacked\nconfession, the entire doctrine of original sin. The hysteria of\nasceticism was as inept to him as the celibacy of the priesthood; love he\ndeclared to be no less necessary than food and he preached to men, saying,\n\"If women are recalcitrant, tell them others will consent; if Esther\nrefuse, let Vashti approach.\"[60]\n\nBeauty, emerging meanwhile from her secular tomb, had uttered a new Fiat\nLux. Spontaneously as the first creation there resulted another in which\nart became an object of worship. Suddenly, miraculously yet naturally,\nthere sprang into being a race of sculptors inferior only to Pheidias, a\nrace of painters superior even to Apelles, real artists who were great men\nin an epoch really great. It was said of Raphael that he had resuscitated\nthe corpse of Rome. Benvenuto Cellini was absolved of a murder by Paul III\non the ground that men like him were above the law. Julius II launched\nanathemas at any sovereign who presumed, however briefly, to lure from him\nMichel Angelo. Charles V, ruler of a realm wider than Alexander's, stooped\nand restored a brush which Titian had dropped, remarking as he did so,\nthat only by an emperor could an artist be properly served.\n\nThe epoch in which appeared these exceptional beings and with them\nlettered bandits comparable only to tigers in the gardens of Armide--the\nage which produced in addition to them, others equally, if differently,\ngreat, approached in its rare brilliance that of Pericles. Even Plato was\nthere.\n\n\"Since God has given us the Papacy,\" said Leo X, \"let us enjoy it.\" In the\nenjoyment he had Plato for aid. An estray from Byzance, tossed thence on\nthe shores of the mediaeval Dead Sea, translated in the Florentine Academy,\nprinted in the Venetian metropolis of pleasure and dedicated to the\nscholar pope, no better aid to enjoyment could he or any one have had. In\nthe mystic incense of the liturgy to Aphrodite was what prelates and\npatricians, the people and the planet long had needed, a doctrine of love.\n\nIn the _Republic_ Plato stated that those who contemplate the immutable\nessence of things possess knowledge not views. That was precisely what was\nwanted. But what was wanted Plato did not perhaps very adequately supply.\nHitherto love had been regarded sometimes as the fusion of souls sometimes\nas that of the senses. There had been asceticism. There had also been\nlicense. Plato, from whom something more novel was wanted, seemed to offer\nbut an antidote to both. In the _Symposion_ love was represented as the\nrather vulgar instinct of persistence and beauty, one and indivisible,\nalone divine. Moreover, from the austere regions of that abstraction came\nno explanation of the charm which feminine loveliness exercises over man.\nOn the other hand, Plato had told of two Aphrodites, one celestial, the\nother common, a distinction which doctors in quintessences utilized for\nthe display of two forms of love, one heavenly, the other mundane,\nsimianizing in so doing, what is human, humanizing that which is divine\nand succeeding between them in producing for the world the modern\nconception of platonic affection, which, in so far as it relates to the\nreciprocal relations of men and women, not for a moment had entered\nPlato's sky-like mind.\n\nThe doctors were Ficino--a Hellenist whom Cosmo dei Medici had had\ntrained for the sole purpose of translating Plato--and Bembo, a prelate,\nwho already had written for Lucrezia Borgia a treatise on love. What\nFicino advanced Bembo expounded.\n\nBembo's commentary was to the effect that earthly loveliness is a\nprojection of celestial beauty irradiated throughout creation. Falling as\nlight falls it penetrates the soul and repercuted creates love, which\nconsequently is a derivative of divine beauty transmitted through a\nwoman's eyes. To man the source of that beauty is, however, not the soul\nbut the flesh. From this error disillusion proceeds. For the rightful\nenjoyment of beauty cannot consist in material satisfaction from which\nsatiety, weariness, and aversion result, but rather in disinterestedness,\nwhich is the chief factor in abiding delight.[61]\n\nThe theory, casuistic and subtle, appealed momentarily to a society that\nhad no theories at all. It particularly appealed to women. Matrimony had\nnot always been propitious to them. Barring death or annulment the brand\nof the ceremony was ineffaceable. In England Henry VIII maintained the\nbrand but, by means of divorce which he prescribed for himself, he\nrendered it cumulative, a process which Parliament, subsequently\npetitioned by Milton, regularized. In Italy meanwhile the pseudo-platonism\nwhich Ficino and Bembo were expounding, omitted any interference with it.\nIn the corpus juris amoris matrimony was held to be incompatible with love\nand pseudo-platonism, going a step further, eliminated even the\npossibility of it. Pseudo-platonism maintained that if happiness consists\nin love and love consists in yielding, yielding itself has its degrees.\nThere is the yielding of the body and of the soul, the yielding of the one\nwithout the other, the yielding of the second without the first.\nPlatonism, as interpreted by pseudo-platonists, was the yielding of the\nsecond, matrimony the yielding of the first. But into that yielding it had\nalready shown that not delight but its contrary enters.\n\nOn fanciful tenets such as these the moral bigamy of Provence returned,\nwith the difference that it enabled a lady to be as intangible to her\nhusband as she had supposedly been to her knight. A historian has related\nthat a woman of position, married to a man morally inferior and otherwise\nobjectionable, encountered these tenets and coincidentally, in a person of\ngreater distinction, encountered also her ideal. Together, in the most\nperfect propriety, they departed and, with analogous couples of their\nacquaintance, assembled in a villa where, reversing the _Decamerone_,\nthey philosophized agreeably on the charm of the new distinction between\nlove and love, one of which, the love matrimonial, was worldly and mortal\nwhile the other, vivifying to the soul, was divine.[62]\n\nThereafter spiritual elopements became frequent. But not general. It was\nnot every woman that was capable of putting but her soul in the arms of a\nlover nor was it every lover whom the ethereality of the proceeding\npleased. Dilettantes of crystal flirtations became, like poets,\nomnipresent and yet rare. The majority that entered the mazes of the\nimmaterial did so with no other object than that of getting out. When one\nof the parties did not lose her head the other lost his temper.\n\nLa Bruyere had not then come, but there are maxims which do not need\nexpression to be appreciated and then as since men contended that when a\nwoman's heart remained unresponsive it was because she had not met the one\nwho could make it beat. Others, less finely, insisted that a woman who\ncould love and would not should be made to. Love then had its martyrs,\nplatonism its agnostics. That, though, was perhaps inevitable. Platonism,\nwhether real or imaginary, has always been less a theory than a melody; as\nsuch unsuited to every voice. But at the time it was serviceable. It\ndeodorized, however partially, an atmosphere supercharged with pagan\nairs. It turned some women into saints, others into sisters of charity\nthat penetrated the poverties of the heart and distributed there the\nfragrance of a divine largesse. In that was its beauty and also its\ndefect. Being in its essence poetic, it could appeal only to epicures. To\nmere kings like Henry VIII, to felons like Henri III, to the vulgar\ngenerally, to people incapable of sentiment and eager only for sensations,\nas the vulgar always are, it was Greek, unapproachable when not unknown.\nThere were virtuose that drew from it delicious accords, there were others\nthat with it executed amazing _pas seuls_. Otherwise its exponents in\nattempting to convert life into a fancy ball and love in a battle of\nflowers failed necessarily. The flowers wilted, the dancers departed, the\nmusic ceased. The moral pendulum swung again from ether to earth.\n\nIn the downward trend Venice perhaps assisted. Venice then was a salon\nfloored with mosaics where Europe and Asia met. Suspended between earth\nand sky, unique in construction, orientally corrupt, byzantinely fair, a\nlabyrinth of liquid streets and porphyry palaces in which masterpieces\nfelt at ease, it was the ideal city of the material world, a magnet of\nsuch attraction that the hierodules of the renaissant Aphrodite, whose\npresence Rome had found undesirable, made it their home. Qualified,\nnaively, perhaps, but with much courtesy, as Benemeritae, they exercised a\nsway which history has not forgotten and became the renegades of\npseudo-platonic love. To enjoy their society, to sup for instance with the\nbella Imperia, whose blinding beauty is legendary still, or with Tullia\nd'Aragona, who had written a tract of the \"Infinity of Perfect Love,\"\nprinces came and lingered enchanted by their meretricious charm.\n\nPlatonism had its renegades but it had also its saints--Leonora d'Este,\nVittoria Colonna, Marguerite of France, the three Graces of the\nRenaissance.\n\nMarguerite of France, surnamed the Marguerite des Marguerites, was a\nflower that had grown miraculously among the impurities of the Valois\nweeds. Slightly married to a Duc d'Alencon and, at his death, as slightly\nto a King of Navarre, she held at Pau a little court where, Marot, her\npoet and lackey, perhaps aiding, she produced the _Heptameron_, a\ncollection of nouvelles modelled after the _Decamerone_, a bundle of\nstories in which the characters discuss this and that, but mainly love,\nparticularly the love of women \"qui n'ont cherche nulle fin que\nl'honnestete.\"\n\nHonnestete was what Marguerite also sought. In days very dissolute, a\nsense of exclusiveness which whether natural or acquired is the most\nrefining of all, suggested, it may be, her device:--_Non inferiora\nsecutus_. She would have nothing inferior. One might know it from her\nportraits which bear an evident stamp of reserve. In them she has the air\nof a great lady occupied only with noble things. All other things,\nhusbands included, were to her merely abject.\n\nThe impression which her portraits provide is not reflected in the\nphraseology of the _Heptameron_. The fault was not hers. She used the\ncurrent idiom. Prelates at the time employed in the pulpit expressions\nwhich to-day a coster would avoid. Terms that are usual in one age become\ncoarse in the next. But, if her language was rude, her sentiments were\nelevated. In her life she loved but once and then, idolatrously. The\nobject was her brother, the very mundane Francois I{er}, who, on a\nwindow-pane wrote with a diamond--the proper pen for a king--Toute femme\nvarie, an adage to which legend added Bien fol est qui s'y fye and\nShakespeare variously adapted.\n\nNeither the adage nor its supplements applied to Marguerite. The two loves\nof pseudo-platonism she disentangled from their subtleties and, with\nentire simplicity, called one good, the other evil. Hers was the former.\nShe was born for it, said Rabelais.\n\nIn the _Heptameron_ it is written: \"Perfect lovers are they who seek the\nperfection of beauty, nobility and grace and who, had they to choose\nbetween dying and offending, would refuse whatever honor and conscience\nreprove.\"\n\nThere is the _Non inferiora secutus_ expounded. The device may have\nappealed to Leonora d'Este. Tasso said that when he was born his soul was\ndrunk with love. Leonora intoxicated it further. Of a type less\naccentuated than Marguerite she was not more feminine but more gracious.\nAt Ferrara, in the wide leisures of her brother's court, Tasso,\nStundenlang, as Goethe wrote, sat with her.\n\n\"Vita della mia vita,\" he called her in the easy rime amorose with which\nin saluting her he saluted the past, Dante and Petrarch, and saluted too\nthe future, preluding behind the centuries the arias wherewith Cimarosa,\nRossini and Bellini were to enchant the world. A true poet and a great\none, Byron said of him:\n\n     Victor unsurpassed in modern song\n     Each year brings forth its millions but how long\n     The tide of generations shall roll on\n     And not the whole combined and countless throng\n     Compose a mind like thine?\n\nThe treasures of that mind he poured at Leonora's feet. The cascade\nenraptured her and Italy. Rome that for Petrarch had recovered the old\ncrown of pagan laurel saw there another brow on which it might be placed.\nBefore that supreme honor came Leonora died and Tasso, who for fifteen\nyears had served her, was insane.\n\nBeauty may be degraded, it cannot be vulgarized. With the beauty of their\nlives and love, time has tampered but without marring the perfection of\nwhich both were made and to which at the time the love of Vittoria Colonna\nand Michel Angelo alone is comparable.\n\nMichel Angelo, named after the angel of justice, as Raphael was after the\nangel of grace, separated himself from all that was not papal and\nmarmorean. Only Leonardo da Vinci who had gone and Ludwig of Bavaria who\nhad not come, the one a painter, the other a king, but both poets were as\nisolating as he. He was disfigured. Because of that he made a solitude and\npeopled it grandiosely with the grandeur of the genius that was his,\ndisplaying in whatever he created that of which art had hitherto been\nunconscious, the sovereignty not of beauty only but of right.\n\nBalzac wrote abundantly to prove the influence that names have on their\npossessors. In the curious prevision that gave Michel Angelo his name\nthere was an ideal. He followed it. It led him to another. There he knelt\nbefore Vittoria Colonna who represented the soul of the Renaissance as he\ndid the conscience. The love that thereafter subsisted between them was,\nif not perfect, then almost as perfect as human love can be; a love\nneither sentimental nor sensual but gravely austere as true beauty ever\nis.\n\nSince the days of Helen, love had been ascending. Sometimes it fell.\nOccasionally it lost its way. There were seasons when it passed from\nsight. But always the ascent was resumed. With Michel Angelo and Vittoria\nColonna it reached a summit beyond which for centuries it could not go. In\nthe interim there were other seasons in which it passed from sight.\nMeanwhile like Beauty in the mediaeval night it waited. From Marguerite of\nFrance it had taken a device:--_Non inferiora secutus_.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nLOVE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY\n\n\nThe modern history of love opens with laughter, the rich faunesque laugh\nof Francois I{er}. In Italy he had lost, as he expressed it,\neverything--fors l'honneur. For his consolation he found there gallantry,\nwhich Montesquieu defined as love's light, delicate and perpetual lie.\n\nPlatonism is the melody of love; gallantry the parody. Platonism\nbeautifies virtue, gallantry embellishes vice. It makes it a marquis,\ngives it brilliance and brio. However it omit to spiritualize it does not\ndegrade. Moreover it improves manners. Gallantry was the direct cause of\nthe French Revolution. The people bled to death to defray the amours of\nthe great sent in their bill. Love in whatever shape it may appear is\nalways educational.\n\nHugo said that the French Revolution poured on earth the floods of\ncivilization. Mignet said that it established a new conception of things.\nBoth remarks apply to love. But before it disappeared behind masks,\npatches, falbalas and the guillotine, to reappear in the more or less\nhonest frankness which is its Anglo-Saxon garb to-day, there were several\ncostumes in its wardrobe.\n\nIn Germany, and in the North generally, the least becoming fashions of the\nMiddle Ages were still in vogue. In Spain was the constant mantilla.\nOriginally it was white. The smoke of the auto-da-fe had, in blackening\nit, put a morbid touch of hysteria beneath. In France, a brief bucolic\nskirt, that of Amaryllis, was succeeded by the pretentious robes of\nRambouillet. In England, the Elizabethan ruff, rigid and immaculate--when\nseen from a distance--was followed by the yielding Stuart lace. Across the\nsea fresher modes were developing in what is now the land of Mille Amours.\n\nIn Italy at the moment, gallantry was the fashion. Francois I{er} adopted\nit, and with it splendor, the magnificence that goes to the making of a\nmonarch's pomp. In France hitherto every castle had been a court than\nwhich that of the king was not necessarily superior. Francois I{er} was\nthe first of French kings to make his court first of all courts, a place\nof art, luxury, constant display. It became a magnet that drew the\nnobility from their stupid keeps, detaining them, when young, with\nadventure; when old, with office, providing, meanwhile, for the beauty of\nwomen a proper frame. Already at a garden party held on a field of golden\ncloth the first Francis of France had shown the eighth Henry of England\nhow a king could shine. He was dreaming then of empire. The illusion,\nlooted at Pavia, hovered over Fontainebleau and Chambord, royal residences\nwhich, Italian artists aiding, he then constructed and where, though not\nemperor, for a while he seemed to be.\n\nElsewhere, in Paris, in his maison des menus plaisirs--a house in the rue\nde l'Hirondelle--the walls were decorated with salamanders--the fabulous\nemblems of inextinguishable loves; or else with hearts, which, set between\nalphas and omegas, indicated the beginning and the end of earthly aims.\nThe loves and hearts were very many, as multiple as those of Solomon.\nExcept by Brantome not one of them was compromised. Francois I{er} was the\nloyal protector of what he called l'honneur des dames, an honor which\nthereafter it was accounted an honor to abrogate for the king.[63]\n\n\"If,\" said Sauval, \"the seraglio of Henri II was not as wide as that of\nFrancois I{er}, his court was not less elegant.\"\n\nThe court at that time had succumbed to the refinements of Italy. Women\nwho previously were not remarkable for fastidiousness, had, Brantome\nnoted, acquired so many elegancies, such fine garments and beautiful\ngraces that they were more delectable than those of any other land.\nBrantome added that if Henri II loved them, at least he loved but one.\n\nThat one was Dianne de Poytiers. Brantome suspected her of being a\nmagician, of using potable gold. At the age of seventy she was, he said,\n\"aussy fraische et aussy aymable comme en l'aage de trente ans.\" Hence the\nsuspicion, otherwise justified. In France among queens--de la main\ngauche--she had in charm but one predecessor, Agnes Sorel, and but one\nsuperior, La Valliere. The legendary love which that charm inspired in\nHenri II had in it a troubadourian parade and a chivalresque effacement.\nIn its fervor there was devotion, in its passion there was poetry, there\nwas humility in its strength. At the Louvre, at Fontainebleau, on the\nwalls without, in the halls within, on the cornices of the windows, on the\npanels of the doors, in the apartments of Henri's wife, Catherine de'\nMedici, everywhere, the initials D and H, interlaced, were blazoned.\nDianne had taken for device a crescent. It never set. No other star\neclipsed it. When she was sixty her colors were still worn by the king who\nin absence wrote to her languorously:\n\n     Madame ma mye, je vous suplye avoir souvenance de celuy quy n'a\n     jamais connu que ung Dyeu et une amye, et vous assurer que n'aurez\n     poynt de honte de m'avoyr donne le nom de serviteur, lequel je vous\n     suplye de me conserver pour james.[64]\n\nDianne too had but ung Dyeu et un amy--one God and one friend. It was not\nthe king. More exactly it was a king greater than he. This woman who\nfascinated everybody even to Henri's vampire-wife was, financially,\ninsatiable. The exactions of the Pompadour and the exigencies of the Du\nBarry were trumpery beside the avidity with which she absorbed castles,\nduchies, provinces, compelling her serviteur to grant her all the vacant\nterritories of the realm--a fourth of the kingdom. At his death, beautiful\nstill, \"aussy fraische et aussy belle que jamais,\" she retreated to her\ndomain, slowly, royally, burdened with the spoils of France.\n\nBrantome was right. She did drink gold. She was an enchantress. She was\nalso a precedent for women who in default of royal provinces for\nthemselves got royal dukedoms for their children.\n\nBy comparison Catherine de' Medici is spectral. In her train were perfumes\nthat were poisons and with them what was known as moeurs italiennes,\ncustoms that exceeded anything in Suetonius and with which came\nhybrid-faced youths whose filiation extended far back through Rome,\nthrough Greece, to the early Orient and who, under the Valois, were\nmignons du roi. Apart from them the atmosphere of the queen had in it\ncorruption of decay, an odor of death from which Henri II recoiled as from\na serpent, issued, said Michelet, from Italy's tomb. Cold as the blood of\nthe defunct, at once sinister and magnificent, committing crimes that had\nin them the grandeur of real majesty, the accomplice if not the instigator\nof the Hugenot massacre, Satan gave her four children:--Francois II, the\ngangrened husband of Mary Stuart; Charles IX, the maniac of St.\nBartholomew; Henri III who, pomp deducted, was Heliogabalus in his quality\nof Imperatrix, and the Reine Margot, wife of Henri IV.\n\nIt would have been interesting to have seen that couple, gallant,\ninconstant, memorable, popular, both, to employ a Gallicism, franchement\npaillards. But it would have been curious to have seen Margot, as a\nhistorian described her, carrying about a great apron with pockets all\naround it, in each of which was a gold box and in each box, the embalmed\nheart of a lover--memorabilia of faces and fancies that hung, by night, at\nher bed.[65]\n\n\"All the world published her as a goddess,\" another historian declared,\n\"and thence she took pleasure all her life in being called Venus Urania,\nas much to show that she participated in divinity as to distinguish her\nlove from that of the vulgar, for she had a higher idea of it than most\nwomen have. She affected to hold that it is better practised in the spirit\nthan in the flesh, and ordinarily had this saying in her mouth:\n'Voulez-vous cesser d'aimer, possedez la chose aimee.'\"[66]\n\nThe historian added: \"I could make a better story about it than has ever\nbeen written but I have more serious matters in hand.\"\n\nWhat Dupleix omitted Brantome supplied. To the latter the pleasure of but\nbeholding Margot equalled any joy of paradise.\n\nHenri IV must have thought otherwise. He tried to divorce her. Margot\nobjected. The volage Henri had become interested in the beaux yeux of\nGabrielle d'Estrees. Margot did not wish to be succeeded by a lady whom\nshe called \"an ordinary person.\" But later, for reasons dynastic, she\nconsented to abdicate in favor of Marie de Medici, and, after the divorce,\nremained with Henri on terms no worse than before, visited by him, a\ncontemporary has stated, reconciled, counselled, amused.[67]\n\nGabrielle, astonishingly delicate, deliciously pink, apparently very\npoetic, but actually prosaic in the extreme, entranced the king who\nceaselessly had surrendered to the fair warriors of the Light Brigade.\nBut to Gabrielle the surrender was complete. He delivered his sword to mes\nchers amours, as he called her, mes belles amours, regarding as one yet\nmultiple this fleur des beautes du monde, astre clair de la France, whose\nportrait, painted as he expressed it in all perfection, was in his soul,\nhis heart, his eyes--temporarily that is, but, while it lasted, so\ncoercive that it lifted this woman into a sultana who shared as consort\nthe honors of the triumphal entry of the first Bourbon king into the Paris\nthat was worth to him a mass.\n\n\"It was in the evening,\" said L'Estoile, \"and on horseback he crossed the\nbridge of Notre Dame, well pleased at the sight of all the people crying\nloudly 'Live the King!' And, it was laughingly, hat in hand, that he bowed\nto the ladies and demoiselles. Behind him was a flag of lilies. A little\nin advance, in a magnificent litter, was Gabrielle covered with jewels so\nbrilliant that they offended (offusquoient) the lights.\"\n\nHowever much or little the gems then affected the lights, later they\npleased the Medician Marie. She draped herself with them. In the interim a\ndivorce had been got from Margot. Death had brought another from\nGabrielle. The latter divorce poison probably facilitated. Gabrielle,\nthrough the sheer insolence of her luxury had made herself hated by the\npoverty-stricken Parisians. The detail is unimportant. There was another\nhatred that she had aroused. Not Henri's however. When she died he\ndeclared that the root of his love, dead with her, would never grow\nagain--only to find it as flourishing as ever, flourishing for this woman,\nflourishing for that, budding ceaselessly in tropic profusion, until the\ndagger put by Marie in the hand of Ravaillac, extirpated it, but not its\nblossoms, which reflowered at Whitehall.\n\nHenri's daughter, Henriette de France, was mother of Charles the Second.\n\nThe latter's advent in Puritan England effected a transformation for which\nhistory has no parallel. In the excesses of sanctimoniousness in which the\nwhole country swooned, it was as though piety had been a domino and the\nRestoration the stroke of twelve. In the dropping of masks the world\nbeheld a nation of sinners where a moment before had been a congregation\nof saints.\n\nPreviously, in the Elizabethan age, social conditions had made up in\nwinsomeness what they lacked in severity. Whitehall, under James, became a\nreplica, art deducted, of the hermaphroditisms of the Valois court.\nThereafter the quasi-divinity of the sovereign evaporated in a contempt\nthat endured unsatiated until Charles I, who had discovered that a king\ncan do no wrong, discovered that he could lose his head. In the amputation\na crown fell which Cromwell disdained to gather. Meanwhile the false\nspirit of false godliness that generated British cant and American\nhypocrisy made a nation, as it made New England, glum. In Parliament where\na Bible lay open for reference, it was resolved, that no person should be\nadmitted to public service of whose piety the House was not assured. In\ncommittees of ways and means, members asked each other had they found the\nLord. Amusements were sins; theatres, plague-spots; trifles, felonies; art\nwas an abomination and love a shame.[68]\n\nIsrael could not have been more depressing than England was then. A\nreaction was indicated. Even without Charles it would have come. But when\nthe arid air was displaced by the Gallic atmosphere which he brought,\nEngland turned a handspring. The godliness that hitherto had stalked\nunchecked was flouted into seclusion. Anything appertaining to Puritanism\nwas jeered away. Only in the ultra-conservatism of the middle-classes did\nprudery persist. Elsewhere, among criminals and courtiers, the new fashion\nwas instantly in vogue. The memoirs and diaries of the reign disclose a\nworld of rakes and demi-reps, a life of brawls and assignations, much\ndrink, high play, great oaths, a form of existence summarizable in the\nepisode of Buckingham and Shrewsbury in which the former killed the\nlatter, while Lady Shrewsbury, dressed as a page, held the duke's horse,\nand approvingly looked on.\n\nThe Elizabethan and intermediate dramatists, mirroring life as they saw\nit, displayed infidelity as a punishable crime and constancy as a\nrewardable virtue. By the dramatists of the Restoration adultery was\nrepresented as a polite occupation and virtue as a provincial oddity. Men\nwooed and women were won as readily as they were handed in to supper,\nscarcely, Macaulay noted, with anything that could be called a preference,\nthe men making up to the women for the same reason that they wore wigs,\nbecause it was the fashion, because, otherwise, they would have been\nthought city prigs, puritans for that matter. Love is not discernible in\nthat society though philosophy is. But it was the philosophy of Hobbes who\ntaught that good and evil are terms used to designate our appetites and\naversions.\n\nHigher up, Charles II, indolent, witty, debonair, tossing handkerchiefs\namong women who were then, as English gentlewomen are to-day, the most\nbeautiful in the world, was suffering from that nostalgia for mud which\naffected the fifteenth Louis.\n\nThe Du Barry, who dishonored the scaffold as well as the throne, has a\nfamily likeness to Nell Gwynne. Equally canaille, the preliminary\noccupations of these grisettes differed only in taste. One sold herrings,\nthe other hats. The Du Barry's sole heirs were the cocottes of the Second\nEmpire. From Nell, the dukes of St. Albans descend. From Barbara Palmer\ncome the dukes of Grafton; from Louise de la Querouaille, the dukes of\nRichmond; from Lucy Walters, the dukes of Buccleuch. These ladies, as Nell\ncalled them, were early miniatures of the Chateauroux and the Pompadour.\nLike them they made the rain and the fine weather, but, though dukes also,\nnot princes of the blood. Charles cared for them, cared for others, cared\nfor more but always cavalierly, indifferent whether they were constant or\nnot, yet most perhaps for Nell, succumbing ultimately in the full\nconsciousness of a life splendidly misspent, apologizing to those that\nstood about for the ridiculous length of time that it took him to die,\nasking them not to let poor Nelly starve and bequeathing to the Georges\nthe excellence of an example which those persons were too low to grasp.\n\nAnteriorly, before Charles had come, at the period of London's extremest\npiety, Paris was languishingly sentimental. Geography, in expanding\nsurprises, had successively disclosed the marvels of the Incas, the elder\nsplendors of Cathay and the enchantments of fairyland. Then a paradise\nvirgin as a new planet swam into the general ken. In Perrault's tales,\nwhich had recently appeared, were vistas of the land of dreams. Directly\nadjoining was the land of love. Its confines extended from the Hotel de\nRambouillet.\n\nIn that house, to-day a department store, conversation was first\ncultivated as an art. From the conversation a new theory of the affections\ndeveloped. For the first time people young and old learned the precious\ncharm of sentiment. The originator, Mme. de Rambouillet, was a woman of\nmuch beauty who, in days very lax, added to the allurement of her\nappearance the charm of exclusiveness. It was so novel that people went to\nlook at it. Educated in Italy, imbued with its pretentious elegancies,\nsaturated with platonic strains, physically too fragile and\ntemperamentally too sensitive for the ribald air of a reckless court, she\ndrew society to her house, where, without perhaps intending it she\nsucceeded in the chimerical. Among a set of people to whom laxity was an\narticle of faith she made the observance of the Seventh Commandment an\nobject of fashionable meditation. She did more. In gallantry there is a\nlittle of everything except love. To put it there is not humanly\npossible. Mme. de Rambouillet did not try. She did better. She inserted\nrespect.\n\nIn her drawing-room--historically the first salon that the world\nbeheld--this lady, in conjunction with her collaborators, exacted from men\nthat deference, not of bearing merely, but of speech, to which every woman\nis entitled and which, everywhere, save only in Italy, women had gone\nwithout. Hitherto people of position had not been recognizable by their\nmanners, they had none; nor by their language which was coarse as a string\nof oaths. They were known by the elegance of their dress. In the Hotel de\nRambouillet, and thereafter little by little elsewhere, they became known\nby the elegance of their address. It was a great service and an enduring\none and though, through the abolition of the use of the exact term, it\nfaded the color from ink, it yet induced the lexical refinement from which\ncontemporaneous good form proceeds. In polishing manners it sandpapered\nmorals. It gave to both the essential element of delicacy which they\npossess to-day. Subsequently, under the dissolvent influences of\nVersailles and through ridicule's more annihilating might, though manners\npersisted morals did not. But before the reaction came attar of rose was\nreally distilled from mud. Gross appetites became sublimated. Instead of\nribaldry there were kisses in the moonlight, the caress of eyes from which\nrecklessness had gone. Petrarchism returned, madrigals came in vogue, the\nsocial atmosphere was deodorized again. Into gallantry an affected\nsentimentality entered, loitered awhile and languished away. Women,\nhitherto disquietingly solid, became impalpable as the Queens of Castile\nwhom it was treason to touch. Presently, when, in the _Precieuses\nRidicules_, Moliere laughed at them, the shock was too great, they\ndisintegrated. In the interim, sentiment dwindled into nonsense and love,\nevaporating in pretentiousness, was discoverable, if anywhere, only on a\nmap.\n\nThat surprising invention was the work of Mlle. de Scudery, one of the\naffiliated in the Hotel de Rambouillet. A little before, Honore d'Urfe had\nwritten a pastoral in ten interminable volumes. Entitled _Astree_ it was a\nmirror for the uncertain aspirations of the day, a vast flood of\ntenderness in which every heart-throb, every reason for loving and for not\nloving, every shape of constancy and every form of infidelity, every joy,\nevery deception, every conscience twinge that can visit sweethearts and\nswains was analyzed, subdivided and endlessly set forth. To a world still\nin fermentation it provided the laws of Love's Twelve Tables, the dream\nafter realism, the high flown after the matter of fact. Its vogue was\nprodigious. Whatever it omitted Mlle. de Scudery's _Clelie_, another\nnovel, equally interminable, equally famous, equally forgotten, supplied.\n\nThe latter story which was translated into all polite tongues, Arabic\nincluded, taught love as love had never been taught before. It taught it\nas geography is taught to-day, providing for the purpose a Carte du\nTendre, the map of a country in which everything, even to I hate you, was\ntenderly said.\n\nA character described it.\n\n     The first city at the lower end of the map is New Friendship. Now,\n     inasmuch as love may be due to esteem, to gratitude, or to\n     inclination, there are three cities called Tenderness, each situated\n     on one of three different rivers that are approached by three\n     distinct routes. In the same manner, therefore, that we speak of\n     Cumes on the Ionian Sea and Cumes on the Sea of Tyrrhinth, so is\n     there Tenderness-on-Inclination, Tenderness-on-Esteem, and\n     Tenderness-on-Gratitude. Yet, as the affection which is due to\n     inclination needs nothing to complete it, there is no stopping place\n     on the way from New Friendship there. But to go from New Friendship\n     to Tenderness-on-Esteem is very different. Along the banks are as\n     many villages as there are things little and big which create that\n     esteem of which affection is the flower. From New Friendship the\n     river flows to a place called Great Wit, because it is there that\n     esteem generally begins. Beyond are the agreeable hamlets of Pretty\n     Verses and Billets Doux, after which come the larger towns of\n     Sincerity, Big Heart, Honesty, Generosity, Respect, Punctuality, and\n     Kindness. On the other hand, to go from New Friendship to\n     Tenderness-on-Gratitude, the first place reached is Complaisance,\n     then come the borough of Submission, and, next, Delicate-Attentions.\n     From the latter Assiduousness is reached and, finally, Great\n     Services. This place, probably because there are so few that get\n     there is the smallest of all. But adjoining it is Obedience and\n     contiguous is Constancy. That is the most direct route to\n     Tenderness-on-Gratitude. Yet, as there are no routes in which one may\n     not lose one's way, so, if, after leaving New Friendship, you went a\n     little to the right or a little to the left, you would get lost also.\n     For if, in going from Great Wit, you took to the right, you would\n     reach Negligence, keeping on you would get to Inequality, from there\n     you would pass to Lukewarm and Forgetfulness, and presently you would\n     be on the lake of Indifference. Similarly if, in starting from New\n     Friendship you took to the left, one after another you would arrive\n     at Indiscretion, Perfidiousness, Pride, Tittle-Tattle, Wickedness\n     and, instead of landing at Tenderness-on-Gratitude, you would find\n     yourself at Enmity, from which no boats return.\n\nThe vogue of _Astree_ was enormous. That of _Clelie_ exceeded it.\nThroughout Europe, wherever lovers were, the map of the Pays du Tendre was\nstudied. But its indications, otherwise excellent, did not prevent Mlle.\nde Scudery from reaching Emnity herself. The Abbe d'Aubignac produced a\nhistory of the Kingdom of Coquetry in which were described Flattery\nSquare, Petticoat Lane, Flirtation Avenue, Sweet Kiss Inn, the Bank of\nRewards and the Church of Good-by. Between the abbe and the demoiselle a\nconversation ensued relative to the priority of the idea. It was their\nfirst and their last. The one real hatred is literary hate.\n\nMeanwhile the puerilities of _Clelie_ platitudinously repeated across the\nChannel, resulted at Berlin in the establishment of an Academy of True\nLove. Then, into the entire nonsense, the _Cid_ blew virilly a resounding\nnote.\n\nIn that splendid drama of Corneille, Rodrigue and Chimene, the hero and\nheroine, are to love what martyrs were to religion, all in all for it and\nfor nothing else whatever. They moved to the clash of swords, to the\nclatter of much duelling, a practice which Richelieu opposed. Said\nBoileau:\n\n     En vain contre le Cid un ministre se ligue,\n     Tout Paris pour Chimene a les yeux de Rodrigue.\n\nThey merited the attention. Theirs was real love, a love struggling\nbetween duty and fervor, one that effected the miracle of an interchange\nof soul, transferring the entity of the beloved into the heart of the\nlover and completed at last by a union entered into with the pride of\nthose who recognize above their own will no higher power than that of God.\nAdmirable and emulative the beauty of it passed into a proverb:--\"C'est\nbeau comme le Cid.\"\n\nThe Cid was a Spaniard. But of another age. Melancholy but very proud, the\nSpaniard of the seventeenth century lived in a desert which the\nInquisition had made. The Holy Office that had sent Christ to the Aztecs\nbrought back Vizlipoutzli, a Mexican deity whose food was hearts. His\ncarnivorousness interested the priests at home. They put night around\nthem, a night in which there was flame, fireworks of flesh at which a\npunctilious etiquette required that royalty should assist and which, while\ninducing the hysteria that there entered into love, illuminated the path\nof empire from immensity to nothingness.\n\nAt the close of the seventeenth century, Spain, bankrupt through the\nexpulsion of the Jews, barren through loss of the Moors, was a giant,\nmoribund and starving. Only the Holy Office, terribly alive, was terribly\nfed. Every man was an object of suspicion and every man was suspicious.\nThe secret denunciation, the sudden arrest, the dungeon, the torture, the\nstake, these things awaited any one. The nation, silent, sombre, morbid,\nmiserably poor, none the less was draped proudly enough in its tatters.\nThe famine, haughty itself, that stalks through the pages of Cervantes is\nthe phantom of that pride. Beside it should be placed the rigid ceremonial\nof an automaton court where laughter was neither heard nor permitted,\nwhere men had the dress and the gravity of mutes, where women counted\ntheir beads at balls, where a minutious etiquette that inhibited a queen\nfrom looking from a window and assumed that she had no legs, regulated\neverything, attitudes, gifts, gestures, speech, the etiquette of the\nhorrible Escorial through which gusts of madness blew.\n\nOther courts had fools. The court of Spain had Embevecidos, idiots who\nwere thought to be drunk with love and who, because of their condition,\nwere permitted, like grandees, to wear the hat in the presence. On\nfestivals there were other follies, processions semi-erotic, wholly\nmorbid, through cathedrals haunted by entremetteuses, through chapels in\nwhich hung Madonnas that fascinated and shocked, Virgins that more nearly\nresembled Infantas serenaded by caballeros than queens of the sky and\nbeneath whose indulgent eyes rendez-vous were made by lovers whom,\nelsewhere, etiquette permitted only the language of signs.[69]\n\nTo journey then from Madrid to Paris was like passing from a picture by\nGoya to a tale of Perrault. Paris at the time was marvelling at two\nwonders, an earthly Olympus and real love. The first was Versailles, the\nsecond La Valliere. Louis XIV created the one and destroyed the other.\nAlready married, attentive meanwhile to his brother's wife, he was\ncoincidentally epris with their various maids of honor. Among them was a\nfestival of beauty in the festival of life, a girl of eighteen who had\nbeen made for caresses and who died of them, the only human being save\nLouis XIV that ever loved the fourteenth Louis. Other women adulated the\nking. It was the man that Louise de la Valliere adored. To other women his\nsceptre was a fan. To her it was a regret. Could he have been some mere\nlieutenant of the guards she would have preferred it inexpressibly. The\ntitle of duchess which he gave her was a humiliation which she hid beneath\nthe name of Soeur Louise de la Misericorde. For her youth which was a\npoem of love had the cloister for climax. That love, a pastime to him, was\ndeath to her. At its inception she fled from it, from the sun, from the\nSun-King, and flinging at him a passionate farewell, flung herself as\npassionately into a convent.\n\nLouis stormed it. If necessary he would have burned it. He strode in\nbooted and spurred as already he had stalked into Parliament where he\nshouted:--\"L'Etat c'est moi.\" Mlle. de la Valliere c'etait lui aussi. The\ngirl, then prostrate before a crucifix, was clinging to the feet of a\nChrist. But her god was the king. He knew it. When he appeared so did she.\nFor a moment, Louis, he to whom France knelt, knelt to her. For a moment\nthe monarch had vanished. A lover was there. From a chapel came an odor of\nincense. Beyond, a knell was being tolled. For background were the scared\nwhite faces of nuns, alarmed at this irruption of human passion in a\nretreat where hearts were stirred but by the divine. A moment only. Louis,\nwith his prey, had gone.\n\nThereafter for a few brief years, this girl who, had she wished could have\nruled the world, wanted, not pomp, not power, not parade, love, merely\nlove, nothing else. It was very ambitious of her. Yet, precisely as\nthrough fear of love she had flung herself into a cloister, at the loss of\nit she returned there, hiding herself so effectually in prayer that the\nking himself could hardly have found her--had he tried. He omitted to.\nLouis then was occupied with the Marquise de Montespan. Of trying he never\nthought. On the contrary. Mme. de Montespan was very fetching.\n\nA year later, in the Church of the Carmelites, in the presence of the\npatient queen, of the impatient marquise, of the restless court--complete,\nsave for Louis who was hunting--Mlle. de la Valliere, always semi-seraphic\nbut then wholly soul, saw the severe Bossuet slowly ascend the pulpit, saw\nhim bow there to the queen, make the sign of the cross and, before he\nmotioned the bride to take the black veil which was a white shroud, heard,\nabove the sobs of the assistants, his clear voice proclaim:--\n\n     'Et dixit qui sedebat in throno: Ecce nova facio omnia.'\n\nBehind the bars, behind the veil, wrapped in that shroud, for thirty-six\nyears Louise de la Misericorde, dead to love and dead to life, expiated\nher ambition.\n\nThe fate of Louis Quatorze was less noble. The Olympus in which he was\nJupiter with the Montespan for Venus became a prison. The jailer was Mme.\nde Maintenon. Intermediately was the sun. That was his emblem. About him\nthe spheres revolved. To him incense ascended. A nobody by comparison to\nAlexander, unworthy of a footnote where Caesar is concerned, through sheer\npomp, through really royal magnificence, through a self-infatuation at\nonce ridiculous and sublime, through the introduction of a studied\npoliteness, a ceremonial majestic and grave, through a belief naively\nsincere and which he had the ability to instil, that from him everything\nradiated and to him all, souls, hearts, lives, property, everything,\nabsolutely belonged, through these things, in a gilded balloon, this pigmy\nrose to the level of heroes and hung there, before a wondering world, over\na starving land, until the wind-inflated silk, pierced by Marlborough,\ncollapsed.\n\nIn the first period Versailles was an opera splendidly given, the\npartition by Lully, the libretto by Moliere, in which the monarch, as\ntenor, strutted on red heels, ogling the prime donne, eyeing the house,\nwarbling airs solemn yet bouffe. In the second the theatre was closed.\nDon Juan had turned monk. The kingdom of Louis XIV was no longer of this\nworld. It was then only that he was august. In the first period was the\napogee of absolutism, the incarnation of an entire nation in one man who\nin pompous scandals, everywhere imitated, gave a ceremonious dignity to\nsin. Over the second a biblical desolation spread.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nLOVE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY\n\n\nTo the cradle of the eighteenth century came the customary gifts, in\nthemselves a trifle unusual. Queen Anne sent the dulness of perfect\ngentility. Queen Maintenon gave bigotry. Louis XIV provided the spectacle\nof a mythological monster. But Molinos, a Spanish fairy, uninvited at the\nchristening, malignantly sent his blessing. The latter, known as quietism,\nwas one of love's aberrations. It did not last for the reason that nothing\ndoes. Besides the life of a century is long enough to outgrow many things,\ncurses as well as blessings. For the time being, however, throughout\nEurope generally and in certain sections of America, quietism found\nadherents.\n\nThe new evangel, originally published at Rome, had a woman, Mme. Guyon,\nfor St. Paul. Its purport Boileau summarized as the enjoyment in paradise\nof the pleasures of hell. As is frequently the case with summaries, that\nof Boileau was not profound. Diderot called it the true religion of the\ntender-hearted. Diderot sometimes nodded. Quietism was not that. A little\nbefore rose-water had been distilled from mud. Quietism reversed the\nprocess. From the lilies of mysticity it extracted dirt. In itself an\netherealized creed of predeterminism, it put fatalism into love. The added\ningredient was demoralizing. Already Maria d'Agreda, a Spanish nun, had\nwritten a tract that made Bossuet blush. The doctrine of Molinos made him\nfurious. Against it, against Mme. Guyon, against Fenelon who indorsed her,\nagainst all adherents, he waged one of those memorable wars which the\nworld has entirely forgotten. It had though its justification. Morbid as\neverything that came from Spain, quietism held that temptations are the\nmeans that God employs to purge the soul of passion. It taught that they\nshould not be shunned but welcomed. The argument advanced was to the\neffect that, in the omnisapience of the divine, man is saved not merely by\ngood works but by evil deeds, by sin as well as by virtue.\n\nIn the Roman circus, the Christian, once subtracted from life, was\nsubtracted also from evil. What then happened to his body was a matter of\nindifference to him. In quietism that indifference was solicited before\nsubtraction came. It was disclosed as a means of grace to the living.\nThrough the exercise of will, or, more exactly through its extinction, the\nChristian was told, to separate soul from body. The soul then, asleep in\nGod, lost to any connection between itself and the flesh, was indifferent,\nas the martyr, to whatever happened.\n\nThe result is as obvious as it was commodious. The body, artificially\nreleased from all restraint and absolved from any responsibility, was free\nto act as it listed.\n\nIn discussing the doctrine, Fenelon declared that there are souls so\ninflamed with the love of God and so resigned to His will that, if they\nbelieved themselves damned, they would accept eternal punishment with\nthanksgiving.\n\nFor propagating this insanity Fenelon was accorded the honors of a\nbishopric which was exile. Mme. Guyon received the compliment of a _lettre\nde cachet_ which was prison. The Roman Inquisition cloistered Molinos.\nThat was fame. The doctrine became notorious. Moreover, there was in it\nsomething so old that it seemed quite new. Society, always avid of\nnovelties, adopted it. But presently fresher fashions supervened. In\nFrance these were originated by the Regent, in England by Germany.\n\nAt the accession of Louis XIV, Germany, for nearly thirty years, had been\na battlefield. The war waged there was in the interests of religion. The\nHoly Office was not unique in its pastimes. There was fiendishness\neverywhere, cruelty married to mania, in which Germany joined. Germany\nemployed the serviceable rack, the thumbscrew, the wheel, vats of vitriol,\nburning oil, drawing and quartering. Occasionally there were iron cages in\nwhich the wicked were hung on church steeples with food suspended a little\nhigher, just out of reach. Occasionally also criminals were respited and\nreleased when, through some miracle of love there were those that agreed\nto marry them.[70]\n\nThat indulgence occurred after the Peace of Westphalia. Germany, then,\ndecimated and desolate, was so depopulated that the Franconian Estates\nlegalized bigamy. Every man was permitted two wives. Meanwhile barbarism\nhad returned. Domestic life had ceased. Respect for women had gone. Love\nhad died with religion. From the nervous strain recovery was slow. It was\na century before the pulse of the people was normal. Previously love,\nbetter idealized by the Minnesaenger than by the minstrel, had been put on\na pedestal from which convulsive conditions shook it. Later, when it arose\nagain, it was in two forms which, while distinct, were not opposed. In one\nwas the influence of France, in the other the native Schwaermerei. The\nformer affected kings, the latter appealed to urbaner folk among whom it\ninduced an attitude that was maudlin when not anarchistic. The\nanarchistic attitude was represented by artists generally. For these love\nhad no laws and its one approach was the swift current running from New\nFriendship to Tenderness-on-Inclination. Similarly the conservatives\nlanded at a village that Clelie overlooked, Tenderness-on-Sympathy, a spot\nwhere, through sheer contagion, everybody engaged in duels of emotion\nduring which principals and seconds fell on each other's neck, wept,\nembraced, swore affection auf immerdar--beyond the tomb and, in the\nprocess, discovered elective affinities, the Wahlverwandtschaften of which\nGoethe later told, relationships of choice that were also anarchistic.\n\nThe influence of France brooded over courts. At Versailles love strolled\non red heels through a minuet. In the grosser atmosphere of the German\nResidenzen it kicked a chahut in sabots. In all the world there was but\none Versailles. In Germany there were a hundred imitations, gaunt, gilded,\nhideous barracks where Louis Quatorze was aped. In one of them, at\nKarlsruhe, the Margrave Karl Wilhelm peopled a Teuton Trianon with\nnameless nymphs. In another, at Dresden, the Elector Augustus of Saxony\nbecame the father of three hundred and fifty children. At Mannheim,\nBayreuth, Stuttgart, Brunswick, Darmstadt, license was such that the Court\nof Charles the Second would have seemed by comparison puritan. Beyond\nthem, outside their gates and garden vistas, the people starved or, more\nhumanely, were whipped off in herds to fight and die on the Rhine and\nDanube. But within, at the various Wilhelmshoehe and Ludwigslust, kinglets\ndanced with their Frauen. At Versailles it was to the air of Amaryllis\nthat the minuet was walked. In the German Residenzen it was to the odor of\nschnapps that women chahuted.\n\nThe women lacked beauty. They lacked the grace of the Latin, the charm of\nthe Slav, the overgrown angel look of the English, the prettiness that the\nAmerican has achieved. But in girlhood generally they were endearing,\nalmost cloying, naturally constant and, when otherwise, made so by man and\nthe spectacle of court corruption.\n\nEuropean courts have always supplied the neighborhood with standards of\nmorals and manners. Those of eighteenth-century Germany were coarse. The\ntone of society was similar. \"Berlin,\" an observer wrote, \"is a town\nwhere, if fortis may be construed honest, there is neither vir fortis nec\nfoemina casta. The example of neglect of all moral and social duties\nraised before the eyes of the people by the king show them vice too\nadvantageously.[71] In other words and in another tongue, similar remarks\nwere made of Hanover.[72] From there came George the First. After him\ntrooped his horrible Herrenhausen harem.\n\nSince the departure of Charles the Second, London life had been relatively\ngenteel. Throughout the Georgian period it was the reverse. The memoirs of\nthe period echo still with shouts and laughter, with loud, loose talk,\nwith toasts bawled over brimming cups, with the noise of feasting, of\ngaming and of pleasure. The pages turn to the sound of fiddles. From them\narises the din of an immense Sir Roger de Coverley, in which the dancers\ngo up and down, interchanging hearts and then all hands round together. In\nEngland at the time a king, however vulgar, was superterrestrial, a lord\nwas sacro-sanct, a gentleman holy and a lady divine.\n\nThe rest of the world was composed of insects, useful, obsequious,\nparasitic that swarmed beneath a social order less coarse than that of\nGermany, less amiably than that of France, but as dissolute and reckless\nas either, a society of macaronis and rouged women, of wits and prodigals,\nof dare-devils and fatted calves, a life of low scandals in high places,\nof great fortunes thrown into the gutter, of leisurely suppers and sudden\nelopements--runaways that had in their favor the poetry of the\npost-chaise, pistol-shots through the windows and the dignity of danger--a\nlife mad but not maudlin, not sober but strong, free from hysteria and\nsentimentality, and in which, apart from the bacchanalian London world,\nthere must have been room, as there always is, for real love and much\nsweetness besides, yet which, in its less alluring aspect was very\nfaithfully followed by colonial New York. Meanwhile the world that made\nthe pace and kept it, saw it reflected back from boards and books, in\nplays and novels, some of which are not now even mentionable. That pace,\nset by a boozing sovereign is summarizable in a scene that occurred at the\ndeath-bed of Queen Caroline, when the latter told old George II. to marry\nagain, while he blubbered: \"Non, non, j'aurai des maitresses,\" and she\nretorted, \"Ah! mon Dieu! Cela n'empeche pas.\"[73]\n\nThese Germans talked French. It was the fashion, one adopted in servile\nhomage of the Grand Monarque. At the latter's departure the Regency came.\nWith the Restoration England turned a moral handspring. With the Regency,\nFrance turned a double one. The Regency was the first act of the\nRevolution. The second was Louis Quinze. The third was the Guillotine--a\nclimax for which great ladies rehearsed that they might die, as they had\nlived, with grace.\n\nMoscow, meanwhile, was a bloody sewer, Vienna a reconstruction of the\ncities that overhung the Bitter Sea. In Paris were the beginnings of\nhumanitarianism, the commencements of to-day, preludes quavering and\nuncertain, hummed over things intolerably base, but none the less audible,\nnone the less there. In them was the dawn of liberty, the rebirth of real\nlove, an explosion of evil but also of good.\n\nSaid Tartuffe:\n\n     Le scandale du monde est ce qui fait l'offense\n     Et ce n'est pas pecher que pecher en silence.\n\nUnder the Maintenon regime the theory had been very fully exploited.\nMultiple turpitudes were committed but in the dark. Under the Regency they\noccurred openly, unhypocritically, in the daylight. The mud that was there\nwas dried by the sun. It ceased to be unwholesome. Though vile it was not\nvicious. Moreover, in the air was a carnival gayety, put there by the\nRegent, who, while not the best man in the world was not the worst, an\nartistic Lovelace that gave the tone to a Neronian society, already in\ndissolution, one that Law tossed into the Niagara of bankruptcy and\nCartouche held up, a society of which Beranger said:\n\n     Tous les hommes plaisantaient,\n     Et les femmes se pretaient\n       A la gaudriole.\n\nMme. de Longueville being in the country was asked, would she hunt. Mme.\nde Longueville did not care for hunting. Would she fish, would she walk,\nwould she drive? No, she would not. Mme. de Longueville did not care for\ninnocent pleasures. Mme. de Longueville was a typical woman of the day.\nLife to such as she was a perpetual bal d'opera and love, the image of\nFragonard's Cupid, who, in the picture of the Chemise enlevee, divested it\nof modesty with a smirk.[74]\n\nModesty then was neither appreciated nor ingrained. The instinct of it was\nlacking. It was a question of pins, a thing attachable or detachable at\nwill. Women of position received not necessarily in a drawing-room, or\neven in a boudoir but in bed. In art and literature there was an equal\nsans-gene. In affairs of the heart there was an equivalent indifference.\nThere was no romance, no dream, no beyond. Chivalric ideals were regarded\nas mediaeval bric-a-brac and fine sentiments as rubbish. Even gallantry\nwith its mimic of being jealous and its pretended constancy was vieux jeu.\nLove, or what passed for it, had become a fugitive caprice, lightly\nassumed and as readily discarded, without prejudice to either party.\n\n     On s'enlace. Puis, un jour,\n     On s'en lasse. C'est l'amour.\n\nIt had, however, other descents, a fall to depths of which history\nhitherto had been ignorant. Meanwhile the Regent had gone. Louis XV had\ncome. With him were the real sovereigns of the realm, Mme. de Chateauroux,\nPetticoat I; the Pompadour, Petticoat II; the Du Barry, Petticoat\nIII--legitimatized queens of love, with courts of their own, with the\nrights, prerogatives and immunities of princesses of the blood, the\nprivilege of dwelling with the king, of receiving foreign ambassadors and\nof pillaging France.\n\n\"Sire,\" said Choiseul, \"the people are starving.\" Louis XV answered: \"I am\nbored.\"\n\nThe boredom came from precocious pleasures that had left him, without\nenergy or conviction, a cold, dreary brute, Asiatic and animal, a sort of\nOriental idol gloomy and gilded, who, while figuratively a spoke in the\nwheel of monarchy then rolling down to '89, personally was a minotaur in a\nfeminine labyrinth which he filled, emptied, renewed, indifferent to the\ninmates as he was to his wife,[75] wringing for the various Petticoats\nprodigal sums from a desolate land, supplying incidentally to fermiers\ngeneraux and grands seigneurs an example in Tiberianism which, assured of\nimmunity, they greedily followed and, generally, making himself so\nloathed that when he died, delight was national.\n\nIt was in those days that Casanova promenaded through palace and cottage,\nconvent and inn, inveigling in the course of the promenade three thousand\nwomen, princesses and soubrettes, abbesses and ballet girls, matrons and\nmaids. The promenade, which was a continuous sin, he recited at length in\nhis memoirs. During the recital you see a hideous old man, slippered and\nslovenly, fumbling in a box in which are faded ribbons, rumpled notes,\nsouvenirs and gages d'amour.\n\nRichelieu was another of that type which the example of the throne had\ncreated and which de Sade alone eclipsed. It was then there appeared in\nPetersburg, in Vienna, in London, wherever society was, a class of men,\nwho depraved women for the pleasure of it, and a class of women who\ndestroyed men for destruction's sake, men and women who were the hyenas of\nlove, monsters whose treachery was premeditated and malignant, and who,\ntheir object attained, departed with a laugh, leaving behind but ruin.\nRuin was insufficient. Something acuter was required. That something was\nfound by de Sade.\n\nIn ways which Bluebeard had but outlined, the Marquis de Sade, lineal\ndescendant of Petrarch's Laura, mingled kisses with blood. Into affection\nhe put fright, into love he struck terror, he set the infernal in the\ndivine.\n\nIt was the logical climax to which decadence had groped and to it already\nthe austere guillotine was attending.\n\nThere love touched bottom. It could not go lower. But though it could and\ndid remount it did not afterward reach higher altitudes than those to\nwhich it had previously ascended. In the eighteenth century the possible\nsituations of its infinite variety were, at least temporarily, exhausted.\nThereafter the frailties of great ladies, the obscurer liaisons of lesser\nones, attachments perfect and imperfect, loves immaculate and the reverse,\nhowever amply set forth, disclose no new height. As the pages of\nchronicles turn and faces emerge, lovers appear and vanish. In the various\nannals of different lands their amours, pale or fervid as the case may be,\ndiffer perhaps but only in atmosphere and accessories. On antecedent types\nno advance is accomplished. Recitals of them cease to enlighten. Love had\nbecome what it has since remained, a harper strumming familiar airs,\nstrains hackneyed if delicate, melodies very old but always new, so novel\neven that they seem original. To the music of it history discloses fresher\nmouths, further smiles, tears and kisses. History will always do that.\nWrongly is it said that it repeats itself. Except with love it never\ndoes. In life as in death change is the one thing constant. Between them\nlove alone stands changeless. Since it first appeared it has had many\ncostumes, a wardrobe of tissues of every hue. But in character it has not\naltered. Influences favorable or prejudicial might degrade it or exalt. In\nabasements and assumptions love, like beauty, being one and indivisible,\nremained unchangeably love. What varied was the costume.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHE LAW OF ATTRACTION\n\n\n\"To renounce your individuality, to see with another's eyes, to hear with\nanother's ears, to be two and yet but one, to so melt and mingle that you\nno longer know are you you or another, to constantly absorb and constantly\nradiate, to reduce earth, sea, and sky and all that in them is to a single\nbeing, to give yourself to that being so wholly that nothing whatever is\nwithheld, to be prepared at any moment for any sacrifice, to double your\npersonality in bestowing it--that is love.\"\n\nSo Gautier wrote, very beautifully as was his beautiful custom. But in\nthis instance inexactly. That is not love. It is a description, in gold\nink, of one of love's many costumes. Every poet has provided one. All give\nimages and none the essence. Yet that essence is the sphinx's riddle. Its\nonly OEdipus is philosophy.\n\nPhilosophy teaches that the two fundamental principles of thought are\nself-preservation and the preservation of the species. Every idea that has\nexisted or does exist in the human mind is the result of the permutations\nand combinations of these two principles and their derivatives. Of the two\nthe second is the stronger. Its basis is a sentiment which antiquity\ndeified, primitive Christianity scorned, chivalry nimbused and the\nRenaissance propelled over the paths easy or perilous which it has since\npursued. But into the precise nature of that sentiment metaphysics alone\nhas looked. Plato was the first that analyzed it. For the few thereafter\nthe rich courses of his Banquet sufficed. They regaled themselves on it.\nBut for humanity at large, to whom the feast was Greek, there was only the\ndescriptions of poets and the knowledge, agreeable or otherwise, which\npersonal experience supplied. In either case the noumenon, the Ding an\nsich, the thing in itself, escaped. It was too tenuous perhaps for\ndetention or else too obvious. Plato himself did not grasp it.\n\nThe omission Schopenhauer discerned. Schopenhauer was an idealist. The\nforms of matter and of man he arranged in two categories, which he called\nRepresentation and Will. In his system of philosophy everything not\nproduced by the one is the result of the other. Among the effects of the\nlatter is love.[76]\n\nThis frivolity--the term is Schopenhauer's--is, he declared, a\nmanifestation of the Genius of the Species, who, behind a mask of\nobjective admiration, deludes the individual into mistaking for his own\nhappiness that which in reality concerns but the next generation. Love is\nWill projecting itself into the creation of another being and the precise\ninstant in which that being emerges from the original source of whatever\nis into the possibilities of potential existence, is the very moment in\nwhich two young people begin to fancy each other. The seriousness with\nwhich on first acquaintance they consider each other is due to an\nunconscious meditation concerning the child that they might create. The\nresult of the meditation determines the degree of their reciprocal\ninclinations. That degree established, the new being becomes comparable to\na new idea. As is the case with all ideas it makes an effort to manifest\nitself. In the strength of the effort is the measure of the attraction.\nIts degrees are infinite while its extremes are represented by Venus\nPandemos and Venus Urania--ordinary passion and exalted affection. But in\nits essence love is always and everywhere the same, a meditation on the\ncomposition of the next generation and the generations that thence\nproceed--_Meditatio compositionis generationis futurae e qua iterum pendent\ninnumerae generationes_.\n\nThe character of the meditation, its durability or impermanence, is,\nSchopenhauer continued, in direct proportion to the presence of\nattributes that attract. These attributes are, primarily, physical.\nAttraction is induced by health, by beauty, particularly by youth, in\nwhich health and beauty are usually combined, and that because the Genius\nof the Species desires above all else the creation of beings that will\nlive and who, in living, will conform to an integral type. After the\nphysical come mental and temperamental attributes, all of which, in\nthemselves, are insufficient to establish love except on condition of more\nor less perfect conformity between the parties. But as two people\nabsolutely alike do not exist, each one is obliged to seek in another\nthose qualities which conflict least with his or her own. In the\ndifficulty of finding them is the rarity of real love. In connection with\nwhich Schopenhauer noted that frequently two people, apparently well\nadapted to one another, are, instead of being attracted, repelled, the\nreason being that any child they might have would be mentally or\nphysically defective. The antipathy which they experience is induced by\nthe Genius of the Species who has in view only the interests of the next\ngeneration.\n\nTo conserve these interests, nature, Schopenhauer explained, dupes the\nindividual with an illusion of free will. In affairs of the heart the\nindividual believes that he is acting in his own behalf, for his own\npersonal benefit, whereas he is but acting in accordance with a\npredetermined purpose for the accomplishment of which nature has instilled\nin him an instinct that moves him to her ends, and so forcibly that rather\nthan fail he is sometimes compelled to sacrifice what otherwise he would\ndo his utmost to preserve--honor, health, wealth and reputation. It is\nillusion that sets before his eyes the deceiving image of felicity. It is\nillusion which convinces him that union with some one person will procure\nit. Whatever efforts or sacrifices he may consequently make he will\nbelieve are made to that end only yet he is but laboring for the creation\nof a predetermined being who has need of his assistance to arrive into\nlife. But, once the work of nature accomplished, disenchantment ensues.\nThe illusion that duped him has vanished.\n\nAccording to Schopenhauer love is, therefore, but the manifestation of an\ninstinct which, influenced by the spirit of things, irresistibly attracts\ntwo people who, through natural conformity, are better adapted to\nconjointly fulfil nature's aims than they would be with other partners.\nSchopenhauer added that in such circumstances, when two individuals\ncomplete each other and common and exclusive affection possesses them\nboth, their affection represents a special mission delegated by the Genius\nof the Species, one which consequently assumes a character of high\nelevation. In these cases, in addition to physical adaptation there is, he\nnoted, a mental and temperamental concordance so adjusted that the parties\nalone could have achieved nature's aims. In actuating them to that end the\nGenius of the Species desired, for reasons which Schopenhauer described as\ninaccessible, the materialization of a particular being that could not\notherwise appear. In the series of existing beings that desire had no\nother sphere of action than the hearts of the future parents. The latter,\nseized by the impulsion, believe that they want for themselves that which\nas yet is but purely metaphysical, or, in other words, beyond the circle\nof actually existing things. In this manner, from the original source of\nwhatever is, there then darts a new being's aspiration for life which\naspiration manifests itself in the actuality of things by the love of its\npotential parents, who, however, once the object of the Genius of the\nSpecies attained, find, to their entire astonishment, that that love is no\nmore. But meanwhile, given that love, and the potential parents may become\nso obsessed by it that they will disregard anything which, ordinarily,\nwould interfere.\n\nThis disregard, Schopenhauer further explained, is due to the Genius of\nthe Species to whom the personal interests of the individual, laws,\nobstacles, differences of position, social barriers and human conventions\nare so many straws. Caring only for the generation to be lightly he\ndismisses them. It is his privilege, Schopenhauer declared. Our existence\nbeing rooted in him, he has over us a right anterior and more immediate\nthan all things else. His interests are supreme.\n\n\"That point,\" Schopenhauer concluded, \"antiquity perfectly understood when\nit personified the Genius of the Species as Eros, a divinity who, in spite\nof his infantile air, is hostile, cruel, despotic, demoniac and none the\nless master of gods and of man.\n\n     'Tu, deorum hominumque tyranne, Amor!'\"\n\nFor a philosopher Schopenhauer is very graphic. It is his great charm and\npossibly his sole defect. In the superabundance of his imagination there\nwas not always room for the matter of fact. Then too he had a theory.\nEverything had to yield to it. The trait, common to all metaphysicians,\nvon Hartmann shared. In the latter's _Philosophie des Unbewussten_ the\nGenius of the Species becomes the Unconscious, the same force with a\ndifferent name, a sort of anthropomorphic entity lurking on the back\nstairs of Spencer's Unknowable and from there ruling omnipotently the\nlives and loves of man.\n\nBoth systems are ingenious. They are profound and they are admirable.\nThey have been respectfully received by the doct. But in their metaphysics\nof the heart there is a common error. Each confounds instinct with\nsentiment. Moreover, assuming the validity of their hypothetical idol,\nthere are phenomena left unexplained, the ordinary case for instance of an\nindividual inspiring but not requiting another's love. In one of the two\nparties to it the entity obviously has erred. According to Schopenhauer\nand von Hartmann the entity is the unique cause of love, which itself is\nan instinct that deludes into the furtherment of nature's aims. But in an\nunrequited affection such furtherment is impossible. In which event if\nphilosophy is not at fault the entity must be; the result being that it\nlacks the omnipotence claimed. Demonstrably it has some power, it is even\nclear that that power is great, but in the same sense that occultists deny\nthat death is, so may true lovers deny that the entity exists. For them it\nis not. Without doubt it is the modern philosophic representative of Eros,\nbut of Eros Pandemos, son and heir of the primitive Aphrodite whom Plato\ndescribed.\n\nLove does not proceed from that source. The instinct of it certainly does\nbut not sentiment which is its basis. Commonly instinct and sentiment are\nconfused. But, if a distinction be effected between their manifestations,\nit will be recognized that though desire is elemental in both, in\ninstinct desire is paramount while in sentiment it is secondary and\nfrequently, particularly in the case of young women, it is dormant when\nnot absent, even though they may be what is termed \"wildly in love.\"\nInstinct is a primitive and general instigation, coeval and conterminous\nwith life. Love is a specific emotion, exclusive in selection, more or\nless permanent in duration and due to a mental fermentation in itself\ncaused by a law of attraction, which Plato called imeros and Voltaire the\nmyth of happiness invented by Satan for man's despair.\n\nImeros is the longing for love. The meditation which Schopenhauer\ndescribed may enter there, and usually does, whether or not the parties\ninterested are aware of it. But it need not necessarily do so. When\nHeloise was in her convent there could have been no such meditation, yet,\nshe loved Abailard as fervently as before. Moreover, when the work of\nnature is accomplished, disenchantment does not, as Schopenhauer insisted,\ninvariably ensue. Disenchantment results when the accomplishing is due to\ninstinct but not when sentiment is the cause. Had instinct alone prevailed\nhumanity would hardly have arisen from its primitive state. But the\nevolution of the sentiment of love, in developing the law of attraction,\nlifted men from animality, angels from the shames of Ishtar, and\nheightened the stature of the soul.\n\nThe advance effected is as notable as it is obvious, but its final term is\nprobably still remote. Ages ago the sphinx was disinterred from beneath\nmasses of sand under which it had brooded interminably. In its simian\npaws, its avian wings, in its body which is that of an animal, in its face\nwhich is that of a sage, before Darwin, before history, in traits great\nand grave, the descent of man was told.\n\nThere remains his ascent. Future monuments may tell it. Meanwhile\nevolution has not halted. Undiscernibly but indefatigably its advance\nproceeds. Its culmination is not in existing types. If humanity descends\nfrom apes, from humanity gods may emerge. The story of Olympus is but a\ntale of what might have been and what might have been may yet come to\npass. Even now, if the story were true and the old gods could return, it\nis permissible to assume that they would evaporate to ghostland eclipsed.\nThe inextinguishable laughter which was theirs is absent from the prose of\nlife. Commerce has alarmed their afflatus away. But the telegraph is a\nbetter messenger than they had, the motor is surer than their chariots of\ndream. In contemporary homes they could have better fare than ambrosia and\nbehold faces beside which some of their own might seem less divine. The\nprodigies of electricity might appear to them more potent than the\nthunderbolts of Zeus and, at the sight of modern engines, possibly they\nwould recall the titans with whom once they warred and sink back to their\nsacred seas outfaced.\n\nIn the same manner that we have exceeded them it is also permissible to\nassume that posterity will exceed what we have done. From its parturitions\ngods may really come, beings that is, who, could contemporaneous man\nremain to behold them, would regard him as he regards the ape.\n\nThat advance, if effected, love will achieve. In its history, already\nlong, yet relatively brief, it has changed the face of the earth. It has\ntransformed laws and religions. It has reversed and reconstructed every\ninstitution human and divine. As yet its evolution is incomplete. But when\nthe final term is reached, then, doubtless, the words of the Apocalypse\nshall be realized, for all things will have been made anew.\n\n\nFINIS HISTORIAE AMORIS\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n  ABAILARD and Heloise, story of, 136-137\n\n  ACADEME of Athens, 46;\n    of Mitylene, 46, 47;\n    its teaching to women, 58-59\n\n  ACTIUM, 93\n\n  ADAM and EVE, married before mated, 1;\n    their union a Persian conceit, 1\n\n  ADULTERY, as represented by the Restoration Dramatists, 223\n\n  ALARIC, 120\n\n  ALCHEMY, 193\n\n  ALCIBIADES, 43\n\n  AEMILIUS PAULUS, 83\n\n  AESCULAPIUS, created to heal the body, 65\n\n  AFFINITIES, Elective, 241\n\n  AGREDA, 238\n\n  ALEXANDER, his bad influence on Greek worship of beauty, 59;\n    his _decensus Averni_, 63-64;\n    the prototype of the Roman Caesars, 64\n\n  ALBIGENSES, the, 175\n\n  ANACREON, his treatment of love, 54;\n    compared with Sappho's singing, 54\n\n  ANAITIS, 5\n\n  ANDRE, Maitre, 152\n\n  ANDROMEDA, the Friend of Sappho, 47\n\n  ANNE, Queen, 237\n\n  ANTONINUS PIUS, 108\n\n  ANTONINUS, MARCUS, 108\n\n  ANTONY, 90;\n    his treatment of Cleopatra, 91;\n    his conquest by Cleopatra, 91-92;\n    his marriage with Cleopatra, 92;\n    his divorce of Octavia, 93;\n    war with Octavius, 93-94;\n    deserted by Cleopatra, 93;\n    his ruin by Cleopatra, 94-95\n\n  APELLES, 61\n\n  APHRODITE, worship of, in Greece, 31, 32;\n    De Musset on, 31;\n    Homer's idea of, different from Hesiod's, 31;\n    Hesiod's, 34;\n    death of, in Greece, 64;\n    inspired sculpture in her death, 64;\n    Urania, 28-40;\n    Pandemos, 55;\n    Pandemos, love inspired by, 67;\n    Urania, love inspired by, 67;\n    degraded by Rome, 104\n\n  APIS, 104\n\n  APOLLONIUS of Tyana, his view of Helen of Troy, 36\n\n  AQUINAS, Thomas, 193\n\n  \"ARABIAN Nights, The,\" 139-140\n\n  ARABS, in Spain, 163-167\n\n  ARAGON, the source of the _gaya cienca_, 172\n\n  ARISTOPHANES, 29; Athenian women in, 42;\n    his explanation of the duality of love, 69-70\n\n  ARISTOTLE, 61\n\n  ARMENIA, its contribution to Babylon, 3\n\n  ART, Greek, bad influence of, on the worship of Aphrodite, 32\n\n  ARTHUR, King, story of, 152\n\n  ASCETICISM, its persistence, 118-119\n\n  ASHTAROTH, 5;\n    ruled in Judaea, 11;\n    reviled by the Hebrew Prophets, 11, 12\n\n  ASPASIA, the age of, 53-64;\n    her relation with Pericles, 56;\n    her story, 56-57;\n    the ruler of Pericles, 62;\n    her power over Pericles, 63;\n    what she did for woman, 62;\n    her revelation of womanly power, 63\n\n  ASTARTE, 5;\n    came to Rome from Syria, 104\n\n  ASTRONOMY, relation to love, 68\n\n  ATHENS, in the age of Pericles, 59-60;\n    and Sparta, duel between, 60-61\n\n  ATTHIS, lover of Sappho, 49\n\n  ATTILA, 121;\n    his death, 121\n\n  ATTRACTION, the law of, 259\n\n  AUGUSTUS, age of, 101-106;\n    his turpitude, 102\n\n\n  BAAL, 10, 11\n\n  BACON, Friar, 193\n\n  BABYLON, influence of Semiramis on, 3;\n    influence of Nineveh on, 3, 4;\n    contribution of Armenia to, 3;\n    the daughters of, 4;\n    the inspirer of Solomon, 13\n\n  BACCHUS, Antony's tutelary god, 91\n\n  BEATRICE and Dante, 98;\n    Dante's love for, 177-180\n\n  BEAUTY, the religion of Greece, 28, 29;\n    its worship by the Greeks, 58-59;\n    its stimulating force, 70-71;\n    the secret of life, 87;\n    the secret of death, 87;\n    at the beginning of the Reformation, 201;\n    as advanced by Ficino and expounded by Bembo, 204, 205;\n    may be degraded but never vulgarized, 211\n\n  BEMBO, 204\n\n  BERANGER, on Society, 249\n\n  BERTHEFLEDE, story of, 125\n\n  BLUEBEARD, 191-197;\n    an example of haematomania, 194-196\n\n  BOCCACCIO, 177, 178;\n    the Decameron of, 188-190;\n    his work the signal for the Renaissance, 189-190\n\n  BOEOTIA, the scene of Lesbian rites, 46\n\n  BORGIAS, the, 200\n\n  BOSSUET, 135;\n    and Quietism, 238\n\n  BRAHMANISM, its evil influence on the poetry of the Vedas, 9\n\n  BROCELIANDE, 152\n\n  BRANTOME, 215, 216, 217, 219\n\n  BUDDHA, his teachings the same as Christ's, 113\n\n  BYZANCE, in the Middle Ages, 139;\n    the teacher of English civilization, 141\n\n\n  CAESAR, JULIUS, his treatment of women, 85;\n    his temperament, 89;\n    Cato's opinion of, 89;\n    his treatment of Cleopatra, 89\n\n  CAESARS, the palace of, abandoned to orgies, 106\n\n  CALIGULA, his vileness, 102\n\n  CALLICRATES, 57\n\n  CALPURNIA, 85\n\n  CALYPSO, 38, 39;\n    added coquetry to love, 53\n\n  CARTHAGE, worship of Venus in, 6, 7\n\n  CASANOVA, Jacques, 248\n\n  CATHERINE of Siena, 132\n\n  CATILINE, his evil influence on Rome, 84-85\n\n  CATO, his expression on woman's position in Rome, 79;\n    his opinion of Caesar, 89\n\n  CATULLUS, his passing away with the republic, 97-98;\n    his songs, 97-98\n\n  CELIBACY, penalized by the Greeks, 116;\n    taxed by the Romans, 116;\n    inculcated by the Church, 116;\n    how viewed variously, 116-117;\n    the ideal of the early Christians, 120\n\n  CELLINI, BENVENUTO, 202\n\n  CERVANTES, 231\n\n  CHALDAEA, the ideas of, with regard to Nature, 3;\n    originated picture of Pandora, 40\n\n  CHAMPAGNE, Countess of, 160\n\n  CHARAXUS, story of his love for Rhodopis, 45-46\n\n  CHARLES II of England, his influence on England, 221-224;\n    his court, 223;\n    his mistresses, 224\n\n  CHASTITY, the pride of Spartan women, 44\n\n  CHATEAUROUX, Mme. de, 247\n\n  CHIVALRY, origin of, 138;\n    Muslim, 141;\n    adopted by the Church, 142;\n    Age of, how it regarded love, 145-146;\n    ridiculed out of existence, 149;\n    killed by the invention of gunpowder, 149;\n    code of love in, 153-155;\n    its merits, 158;\n    Courts of Love, 155;\n    subtle case in, 156;\n    other cases, 158-160;\n    wrongly derived from Germany, 167;\n    rightly originated in the Moors, 167-168\n\n  CHRIST, the new messenger of love, 111;\n    the bringer of good news, 111-112;\n    his teaching, 112-113;\n    preceded by Buddha, 113;\n    his opinion of woman, 113;\n    his treatment of woman, 115;\n    women the brides of, 133\n\n  CHRISTIANITY, unable to better Homeric faith, 30;\n    Roman hatred of, 120;\n    misinterpreted by the early Church, 135;\n    conquered by Muhammadanism, 138\n\n  CHRISTIANS, Roman persecution of, 118-119\n\n  CHRYSOSTOM, on woman, 128\n\n  CHURCH, Early Christian, corner-stone of, 112\n\n  CHURCH, the, adopts the code of Chivalry, 142\n\n  CHURCH, the Early, its struggles, 119\n\n  CHURCH, the later, its restrictions on marriage, 147, 148;\n    its divorce laws, 148\n\n  CICERO, his exposition of stoicism, 108\n\n  CINDERELLA, story of, in the story of Rhodopis, 45-46\n\n  CIRCE, 38, 39\n\n  CLEMENT, 118\n\n  CLEMENT of Alexandria, 113\n\n  CLEOPATRA, Isis unveiled, 86;\n    her beauty, 88;\n    her headiness, 89;\n    how treated by Caesar, 89;\n    how treated by Antony, 91;\n    her conquest of Antony, 91-92;\n    her ambitious dreams, 92;\n    her desertion of Antony, 93;\n    her schemes for Octavius, 94;\n    her evil influence on Antony, 94-95;\n    her death, 96\n\n  CLOISTER, the, 128-129\n\n  CONSTANTINOPLE, the Fall of, 198;\n    its consequences, 199-200\n\n  CONVENTS, of Corinth and Miletus, 58\n\n  COPERNICUS, 200\n\n  COQUETRY, the kingdom of, by the Abbe d'Aubignac, 229\n\n  CORDOVA, Caliphs of, 164-165\n\n  CORINNA, 100\n\n  CORINTH, the hetairae of, 56;\n    convents of, 58\n\n  CORNEILLE, his _Rodrigue and Chimene_, 230;\n    his _Cid_, 230-231\n\n  CORREGGIO, 132\n\n  COURTS of Love, 155-157\n\n  CRASSUS, 84\n\n  CRUSADES, the, 138\n\n  CYNTHIA and Propertius, 98\n\n\n  DANTE, and Beatrice, 98;\n    his idea of Fortune, 33;\n    his poetry founded in Provencal verse, 172;\n    his early life and career, 177-184;\n    Voltaire's opinion of, 181;\n    Tennyson's opinion of, 181;\n    his influence, 182;\n    and Petrarch, compared, 186-187\n\n  D'AUBIGNAC, Abbe, his Kingdom of Coquetry, 229\n\n  D'AUVERGNE, Martial, 159\n\n  DECAMERONE, Il, its scope and influence, 188-90\n\n  DEMOSTHENES, 61\n\n  DE MUSSET, on Aphrodite, 31\n\n  DIANE DE POYTIERS, 216-217\n\n  DIVANS, the, of the Moors, 171\n\n  DIVORCE, in Greece in Sappho's time, 43;\n    not obligatory under the Caesars, 103;\n    how obtained under the Caesars, 103;\n    under the later Church, 148;\n    in England under Henry VIII, 204;\n    in Italy, 205\n\n  DON QUIXOTE, 148-149\n\n  DU BARRY, Duchesse de, 244, 247\n\n  DUPLEIX, his account of Margot of France, 219\n\n  D'URFE, HONORE, his pastoral, 227\n\n\n  ECCLESIASTICUS, his view of woman, 10\n\n  EGYPT, position of women in, 45;\n    influence of women of, 46;\n    its acceptance of beauty, 87-88;\n    the gods of, 87-88\n\n  ELEANOR of England, 141\n\n  ELEUSINIAN mysteries, 57;\n    Epiphanies, 72-73\n\n  ENGLAND, born of Shakespeare, 182;\n    divorce in, 204-205;\n    Puritan, 221;\n    Elizabethan, 221-222;\n    Early Stuart, 221;\n    Cromwellian, 222;\n    under the Georges, 243\n\n  ENNIUS, 105\n\n  EPICURUS, 29, 61\n\n  ERATO, finds freedom in Lesbos, 46\n\n  ERINNA, 47\n\n  ERMENGARDE of Narbonne, 160\n\n  EROS, degraded by Rome, 104\n\n  EURIPIDES, 29\n\n  EUROPE, after the fall of Rome, 126;\n    how influenced by Islam, 141-142;\n    before the Renaissance, 198-199;\n    in the eighteenth century, 244-245\n\n  EURYDICE and Orpheus, 30\n\n  EVE, suggested by Hesiod's Pandora, 40\n\n  EVOLUTION, 260\n\n  EWALD, on \"The Song of Songs,\" 15\n\n  EZ ZAHARA, 164-165\n\n\n  FABIOLA, 147\n\n  FAMILY, the, the outcome of a better treatment of, 2\n\n  FENELON, and Quietism, 239\n\n  FEUDALISM, its origin, 125;\n    its bad influence on woman, 146;\n    marriage under, 146-147\n\n  FICINO, 203-204\n\n  FLORENCE, in the time of Dante, 177\n\n  FRAGONARD, 246\n\n  FRANCESCA and Paolo, 182\n\n  FRANCOIS I, the king of Gallantry, 213, 214;\n    the Court of, 214\n\n  FRIGHT, early man's first sensations, 2\n\n\n  GABRIELLE d'Estrees, 219-220\n\n  GALLANTRY, as defined by Montesquieu, 213;\n    the parody of love, 213;\n    embellishes vice, 213;\n    the direct cause of the French Revolution, 213;\n    adopted by Francois I, 214\n\n  GAUTIER, THEOPHILE, his definition of love, 251\n\n  GAY Science, the, 164-176;\n    founded in Aragon, 172\n\n  GENIUS, ascetic, 117\n\n  GEORGE II of England, 244\n\n  GERMANY, at the time of Louis XIV, 239-240;\n    love in, in the eighteenth century, 240-244;\n    aping of Louis XIV, 241\n\n  GERSON, his catalogue of ravishment, 133\n\n  GLYCERA, 57, 58\n\n  GORGO, lover of Sappho, 49\n\n  GOSPELS, the, 113;\n    the lost gospels, 113\n\n  GRANADA, palaces of, 165\n\n  GREECE, worship of Ishtar in, 6;\n    a gay nation, 28;\n    and Judaea, contrasted, 28;\n    had many creeds, but one religion, 28;\n    amours of, a part of its worship of beauty, 29;\n    its gods real to it, 29-30;\n    women in, in Sappho's time, 41-42;\n    beautiful women deified in, 58;\n    sale of beauty in, 59;\n    its decadence, 64\n\n  GREEK poetry, its splendors, 61\n\n  GREEKS, the, their appreciation of this world's gifts, 57\n\n  GREGOIRE DE TOURS, 119, 129\n\n  GREGOROVIUS, his description of Rome, 200-201\n\n  GUYON, Mme., and Quietism, 237-239\n\n  GWYNNE, NELL, 224\n\n\n  HADRIAN, 108\n\n  HAEMATOMANIA, 194\n\n  HALLAM, his opinion of knight-errantry, 161-162\n\n  HARLOTS, in Rome, 80-81\n\n  HECATE, 28\n\n  HELEN of Troy, her place in poetry, 34-35;\n    her influence on the Greek people, 35;\n    her degradation an evil influence, 35;\n    her idealization a source of inspiration, 35-36;\n    as viewed by Apollonius of Tyana, 36;\n    and Menelaus, 36-37;\n    and Paris, 37;\n    as a man's property, 37\n\n  HENRY IV, of France, 218;\n    and Gabrielle d'Estrees, 219-220\n\n  HEPHAESTOS, 28\n\n  HERODOTUS, on Ishtar, 5, 6\n\n  HESIOD, his idea of Aphrodite, 31;\n    Eve suggested by his Pandora, 40\n\n  HETAIRA, the, 55\n\n  HETAIRAE, the girls of the, 56-57\n\n  HELOISE and Abelard, story of, 136-137\n\n  HEPTAMERON, the, 209-210\n\n  HERMAS, 118\n\n  HERMITS, the outcome of Christianity, 116\n\n  HOME, the outcome of a better treatment of woman, 2\n\n  HOMER, 28;\n    his influence on Greek thought, 29;\n    his faith in beauty, 29;\n    _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ of, 30;\n    his idea of Aphrodite, 31;\n    _Odyssey_ and _Iliad_, morality of, 38;\n    the sirens of, 39-40\n\n  HONOR, the chivalrous meaning of, 143\n\n  HORACE, his view of the _Iliad_, 38;\n    compared with Sappho, 47;\n    \"the little fat man,\" 98-99;\n    his art as sung by Ponsard, 99-100\n\n  HORUS, 87\n\n  HUGO, VICTOR, 213\n\n  HUNS, their invasion of Rome, 121\n\n\n\n  _Iliad_, the, its view of woman, 62-63\n\n  IMMORTALITY, love of, 70\n\n  INFANTICIDE, in Rome, 118\n\n  INQUISITION, founded, 176\n\n  ISHTAR, her influence in the world, 4;\n    history of, 5, 6;\n    worship of, identical with the Hindu Kama-dasi, 6;\n    in Greece, 6;\n    rites of, 6, 7\n\n  ISIS, 87, 88\n\n  ISLAM, its influence on Europe, 141-142\n\n  ISLAMISM, treatment of women under, 169-170\n\n\n  JEHOVAH, the evolution of, among the Jews, 11, 12\n\n  JEWS, their view of woman, 10;\n    their prophets reviled the worship of Ashtaroth, 11, 12;\n    evolution of Jehovah among the, 11, 12;\n    their message for Rome, 110-11\n\n  JOY, the Parliaments of, 150-163\n\n  JUDAEA, did not honor women, 10;\n    the position of the patriarch in, 10;\n    and Greece, contrasted, 28\n\n  JULIUS II, 202\n\n  JUVENAL, 103\n\n\n  KAMA-DASI, the Hindu, identical with worship of Ishtar, 6\n\n  KNIGHTHOOD, its meaning, 144\n\n  KNIGHT-ERRANTRY, 161-162\n\n  KORAN, a precept in, 168-169\n\n\n  LACEDAEMON, 63;\n    its effect on Sparta and Greece, 63\n\n  LAIS, her epitaph, 58;\n    wealth of, 59\n\n  LAURA and Petrarch, 183-188;\n    the quality of her love, 187-188;\n    her position between Dante and Boccaccio, 188\n\n  LA VALLIERE, 232-233\n\n  LEONORA D'ESTE, 208;\n    her character, 210\n\n  LEO X, 201;\n    his expression of the Papacy, 202\n\n  LEPIDUS, 90\n\n  LESBOS, the women of, 44-45;\n    women of, influenced by Egypt, 46\n\n  L'ESTOILE, PIERRE DE, 219, 220\n\n  LIFE, Definition of, 70\n\n  LONDON, in the Georgian period, 243\n\n  LONGINUS, his reverence for Sappho, 47\n\n  LONGUEVILLE, Mme. de, 245-246\n\n  LORENZO, the Magnificent, 200\n\n  LOUIS XIV, of France, 232-234;\n    his mistresses, 232-236;\n    his kingdom, 236\n\n  LOUIS XV, of France, 247\n\n  LOVE, absent from Eden, 1;\n    evolution of, in history, 7, 8;\n    evil influence of theology on, 8;\n    the Gospel of, \"The Song of Songs\" viewed as, 13, 14;\n    its change in Sappho's time, 54;\n    Plato's view of, 65-66;\n    in the _Phaedrus_ of Plato, 66;\n    in the _Symposium_ of Plato, 66;\n    argument on, by Plato, 66-67;\n    not every love divine, 67;\n    two loves in the human body, 67;\n    in relation to astronomy, 68;\n    religion, intermediary of, 68;\n    duality of, explained by Aristophanes, 68;\n    Socrates's statement of the essence of, 69-70;\n    exerted in happiness in immortality, 70;\n    higher mysteries of, 71;\n    its value to life, 71-72;\n    how regarded by Plato, 74;\n    the new ideal of, through Christ, 111;\n    dispersed the darkness of the Middle Ages, 138;\n    how regarded in the Age of Chivalry, 145-146;\n    exalted under Feudalism, 148;\n    joy of, its humanizing influence, 150;\n    Courts of, 155-157;\n    code of, in chivalry, 153-155;\n    its merits, 158;\n    cases of, in chivalry, 158-160;\n    a picture of, in mediaeval times, 162-163;\n    the religion of the troubadours, 175;\n    to Petrarch, 188;\n    to Dante, 189;\n    as viewed by Boccaccio, 188-190;\n    as viewed by Plato, 203;\n    Platonic, 205-206;\n    as influenced by Platonism, 205-207;\n    as influenced by Venice, 207;\n    as shown by Marguerite of France, 209-210;\n    a high summit reached in Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna, 212;\n    _non inferiora secutus_, 212;\n    in the seventeenth century, 213-236;\n    its modern history opens with laughter, 213;\n    its melody in Platonism, its parody in gallantry, 213;\n    always educational, 213;\n    in Spain, Germany, France, and England in the seventeenth century, 214;\n    under Francois I, 215;\n    under Henry IV, of France, 218-222;\n    its degradation under the Restoration, 224;\n    the Scudery map of, 228-230;\n    in the eighteenth century, 237-250;\n    in Germany in the eighteenth century, 241;\n    the dawn of its rebirth in the eighteenth century, 245;\n    the lowest depths of, 249;\n    changes in form but never in character, 250;\n    as defined by Gautier, 251;\n    the subject for philosophy, 251;\n    its basis, 252;\n    first analyzed by Plato, 252;\n    its nature elaborated by Schopenhauer, 252-257;\n    a manifestation of the Genius of Species, 253;\n    its nature is will for the purpose of creation, 253;\n    used by Nature as a means to an end, 254-255;\n    Nature's veil of illusion, 255;\n    the manifestation of an instinct, 255;\n    its purpose, the materialization of a particular being, 256;\n    wrongly diagnosed by Schopenhauer, 259-260;\n    its advance in evolution, 260;\n    modern, 260-261\n\n  LOVERS, Socrates's ideal, 171\n\n  LUCRETIA, 82\n\n  LUCREZIA BORGIA, 204\n\n  LUCULLUS, 84\n\n  LUTHER, the true founder of modern society, 201\n\n  LYCURGUS, his laws on marriage, 44\n\n\n  MACAULAY, 222, 223\n\n  MACON, second council of, on woman, 127\n\n  MACROBIUS, his description of Roman Saturnalia, 75-76\n\n  MACAENAS, lackey of Augustus, 102\n\n  MAHABHARATA, the, The Vedic history of love, 7, 8\n\n  MAN, early, his attitude toward Nature, 2, 3;\n    pleasure not known to him, 2\n\n  MANU, laws of, on marriage, 8\n\n  MARGOT, wife of Henry IV of France, 218-219\n\n  MARGUERITE of France, 208;\n    208-210;\n    the Heptameron of, 209-210\n\n  MARIUS, 120\n\n  MARRIAGE, laws of Manu on, 8;\n    position of women in Greece in, 42;\n    in Sparta, 44;\n    in Rome, 79-80;\n    under the Caesars, 103;\n    Lex Pappea Poppoea, 103;\n    as viewed by the Early Christian Church, 114;\n    St. Sebastian on, 114;\n    St. Augustine on, 114;\n    made incumbent by Hebrew law, 116;\n    St. Paul on the dignity of, 119-120;\n    under the feudal system, 146-147;\n    how restricted by the later Church, 147-148;\n    in days of chivalry, 157\n\n  MARY MAGDALEN, 115\n\n  MATRIMONY, as interpreted by later Platonism, 205\n\n  MEDLIAEVALISM, the prelude to the Renaissance, 198\n\n  MEDICI, CATHERINE DE, 217\n\n  MENANDER, 57\n\n  MENELAUS, and Helen of Troy, 36-37\n\n  MICHAEL ANGELO, 202;\n    his love for Vittoria Colonna, 211-212\n\n  MIGNET, 213\n\n  MILETUS, convents of, 58\n\n  MINSTRELS, the, 164\n\n  MITHRA, 104\n\n  MODESTY, in the eighteenth century, 246\n\n  MOLIERE, his ridicule of the _Precieuses_, 227\n\n  MOLINOS, 135;\n    his Quietism, 237\n\n  MOLOCH, 10, 11\n\n  MONASTERIES, 128-129\n\n  MONTESPAN, Marquise de, 234-235\n\n  MONTESQUIEU, his definition of gallantry, 213\n\n  MOORS, in Spain, 163-167;\n    their learning and poetry, 166;\n    originated chivalry, 167-168;\n    their power in Europe, 168;\n    their treatment of women, 169-170\n\n  MORBIHAN, the paintings in, 196\n\n  MOSES, his view of woman, 10, 11\n\n  MOSLEMS, chivalry of, 141\n\n  MUHAMMAD, conquers Persia, 139;\n    the two things he really cared for, 168\n\n\n  NATURE, early man, attitude toward, 2\n\n  NAUSICAA, 38\n\n  NEBUCHADNEZZAR, 41\n\n  NEPENTHE, an Egyptian drug, 36\n\n  NINEVEH, its influence on Babylon, 3, 4\n\n  NOSTRADAMUS, 153, 155\n\n  NUNS, 131\n\n\n  OCTAVIUS, 90;\n    a model citizen, 93;\n    his opinion of Cleopatra, 93;\n    war with Antony, 93-94;\n    his design against Cleopatra, 95;\n    defeated by Cleopatra's death, 95-96\n\n  ODYSSEUS, 38;\n    Homer's service to, 38\n\n  _Odyssey_, the, its view of woman, 63\n\n  OLYMPUS, kindly to its worshippers, 30;\n    influence of the gods of, on Greek mind, 33\n\n  OMPHALE, 56\n\n  ORPHEUS, and Eurydice, 30\n\n  OSIRIS, 87, 88\n\n  OVID, his picture of Sappho, 51;\n    his \"Art of Love,\" 100;\n    poet of pleasure, 100-101;\n    his banishment, 101\n\n\n  PALLAS, 59\n\n  PALMER, BARBARA, 224\n\n  PANDORA, 40;\n    picture of, of Chaldaean origin, 40\n\n  PANTHEON, Roman, a lupanar, 105\n\n  PAPACY, the, its war against the troubadours, 176;\n    as expressed by Leo X, 202\n\n  PARIS, and Helen, 37\n\n  PARIS, love in, under Francois I, 215\n\n  PATRIARCH, the, his position in Judaea, 10\n\n  PAUL III, 202\n\n  PAUL, St., his humiliation of woman, 114;\n    on the dignity of marriage, 119-120;\n    his view of Christianity, 134-135\n\n  PERICLES, his relation with Aspasia, 56;\n    his deification, 61;\n    Age of, the period of Greek decline, 61\n\n  PERSEUS, on Roman thought and life, 104\n\n  PETRARCH, his poetry, 172;\n    and Laura, 183-188;\n    and Dante compared, 186-187;\n    his love for Laura, 187-188\n\n  PHAEDRUS, 73-74;\n    its theory of Beauty, 73-74\n\n  PHAON, his relation with Sappho, 49-51\n\n  PHEIDIAS, influence of his Zeus on AEmilius Paulus, 31-32\n\n  PHILIP of Macedon, 63\n\n  PHILIPPUS, 57\n\n  PHOENICIA, furnished girls for Greek harems, 6\n\n  PHRYNE, 57;\n    as Aphrodite, 57;\n    her acquital before the Areiopagus, 57-58;\n    Praxiteles's statue of, 58;\n    her wealth, 59\n\n  PINDAR, 61\n\n  PLATO, his opinion of Sappho, 47;\n    healer of the mind, 65;\n    his teaching, 65;\n    his view of love, 65-66;\n    his _Phaedrus_ and _Symposion_, 65-66;\n    his _Phaedrus_, 73-74;\n    his theory of beauty in the _Phaedrus_, 73-74;\n    his _Republic_, 202;\n    his _Symposion_, 203\n\n  PLATONISM, its view of matrimony interpreted, 205;\n    its influence on love, 206-207;\n    its three saints, 201;\n    the melody of love, 213;\n    beautifies virtue, 213\n\n  PLEASURE, a later growth in man, 2\n\n  POMPADOUR, Mme. de, 247\n\n  POMPEIA, 85\n\n  PONSARD, his poem on Horace, 99-100\n\n  PRAXITELES, his Aphrodite, 32-33;\n    his statue of Phryne, 58\n\n  PROPERTIUS and Cynthia, 98\n\n  PROVENCAL, poetry, 171-172;\n    the foundation of Dante and Petrarch, 172\n\n  PROVENCE, its troubadourian dogmas, 175-176\n\n  PSYCHE, story of, 30\n\n  PUBLIUS CLAUDIUS, 85\n\n\n  QUEROUAILLE, LOUISE DE LA, 224\n\n  QUIETISM, the teaching of, 237-289\n\n\n  RADEGONDE, Story of, 130-131\n\n  RAMBOUILLET, Hotel de, 225\n\n  RAMBOUILLET, Madame de, 225-226;\n    her influence, 227\n\n  RAPHAEL, 202\n\n  RAVAILLAC, 221\n\n  RAYMOND, Lord, of Castel-Roussillon, 162-163\n\n  REFORMATION, the, its influence on love, 201\n\n  RELIGION, love's intermediary, 68\n\n  RENAISSANCE, the, due to Greek thought, 60;\n    woman under, 151-152;\n    198-212;\n    the three Graces of, 208\n\n  RENAN, on \"The Song of Songs,\" 15\n\n  RESTORATION, the time of, 222-223\n\n  RETZ, GILLES DE, 191-197\n\n  REVOLUTION, the French, the effect of Gallantry, 213\n\n  RHODOPIS, story of her relation with Charaxus, 45-46;\n    the original of Cinderella, 45\n\n  RICHELIEU, 248\n\n  ROLAND, the story of, 142-143\n\n  ROMANS, their primal characteristics, 75-76;\n    the Saturnalia of, 75-76\n\n  ROME, mission of, 75;\n    love secondary in, 75;\n    its treatment of the strange gods, 76-77;\n    its attitude to slaves and children, 77;\n    its treatment of women, 77-78;\n    St. Augustine's view of, 82;\n    puritan in poverty, 82-83;\n    Sylla's immoral influence on, 83-84;\n    Catiline's bad influence on, 84-85;\n    the Triumvirate of, 90;\n    in the Augustan age, 101-106;\n    amusements of, 101;\n    under the Emperors, 101-109;\n    degraded Eros into Cupid, 104;\n    degraded Aphrodite into Venus, 104;\n    later gods of, 104-105;\n    degraded under Imperialistic sway, 105;\n    its Pantheon a lupanar, 105;\n    its delight in sensuality, 106-107;\n    its palaces abandoned to orgies, 106-107;\n    more abandoned than Nineveh or Babylon, 108;\n    Imperialistic, compared with age of Pericles, 109;\n    first barbarian who invaded, 110;\n    the message of the Jews for, 110-111;\n    persecution of early Christians, 118-119;\n    its fall, 120;\n    its hatred of Christianity, 120;\n    invaded by the Huns, 121;\n    its antiquity dead, 121;\n    the elements that went to make its greatness, 125;\n    its dissolution, 125;\n    European darkness after fall of, 126-127;\n    as described by Gregorovius, 200-201;\n    under the Papacy, 201\n\n  ROUND Table, Knights of, 152\n\n  ROUSSILLON, GERARD DE, 159\n\n  RUY BLAS, 157-158\n\n\n  SADE, Marquis de, 248-249\n\n  SALAMIS, battle of, 60;\n    its influence on Greece, 60\n\n  SALVATION, in weakness, 134\n\n  SAPPHO, 41-45;\n    how appreciated by the ancients, 47;\n    the girl Plato, 47;\n    poems of, 48;\n    sources of Odes of, 48;\n    portraits of, 48-49;\n    lover of Atthis, 49;\n    lover of Gorgo, 49;\n    contemporary knowledge of, 49;\n    her relation with Phaon, 49-50;\n    as told by Swinburne, 50;\n    as pictured by Ovid, 51;\n    emancipated love, 53;\n    her singing of love, 54;\n    her influence on the relation of women, 55\n\n  SAUVAL, 215\n\n  SCHEHERAZADE, 140\n\n  SCHOPENHAUER, his exposition of love, 252-257;\n    his error, 259-260\n\n  SCIENCE, the Gay, 150-151;\n    164-176;\n    founded in Aragon, 172\n\n  SCUDERY, Mlle. de, 227;\n    her map of love, 228-230\n\n  SEMIRAMIS, her influence on Babylon, 3\n\n  SENECA, 103;\n    his condemnation of vice, 108-109\n\n  SEVILLE, palaces of, 165\n\n  SHAKESPEARE, his influence, 182\n\n  SIRENS, the Homeric, 39-40\n\n  SLAVES in Rome, 77\n\n  SOCIETY, after the fall of Rome, 126-127\n\n  SOCRATES, his statement of the essence of love, 69-70;\n    his ideal lovers, 71-72;\n    his discourse on love, 70-72;\n    117\n\n  SOLOMON, his view of woman, 11;\n    wholly Babylonic, 13\n\n  SOLON, his opinion of Sappho, 47\n\n  \"SONG OF SONGS,\" The, the Gospel of love, 13, 14;\n    exposition of, as a drama of love, 14, 15;\n    reset as a love drama, 15-27\n\n  SOPHOCLES, 61\n\n  SORROW, a sin, 150\n\n  SPAIN, the home of Moorish chivalry, 170-171;\n    at the close of the seventeenth century, 231-233;\n    Court of, at end of seventeenth century, 232\n\n  SPARTA, condition of women in, 43-44;\n    and Athens, rivalry between, 60-61\n\n  ST. AUGUSTINE, his view of Rome, 82;\n    on marriage, 114\n\n  ST. BASILIUS, his praise of Homer, 38\n\n  STOICISM, in Rome, 108\n\n  STRABO, on Ishtar, 5, 6;\n    his view of Sappho, 47, 49\n\n  ST. SEBASTIAN, on marriage, 114\n\n  SUETONIUS, his character of Caligula, 102;\n    his Prince and Beast, 107\n\n  SWINBURNE, compared with Sappho, 47;\n    his \"Ode to Aphrodite,\" 50\n\n  SYLLA, his moral destruction of Rome, 83-84\n\n\n  TACITUS, on women, 81\n\n  TANIT, 5\n\n  TASSO, 210;\n    his love for Leonora d'Este, 210-211\n\n  TENDERNESS-on-Sympathy, in Germany, 241\n\n  TENNYSON, his opinion of Dante, 181\n\n  TERTULLIAN, 103\n\n  THAIS, monument to, 58\n\n  THEBES, 63;\n    its fall, 61\n\n  THEMISTOCLES, son of, 61-62\n\n  THEOLOGY, its base influence on love, 8\n\n  THERESA, St., story of, 132-133\n\n  TIBERIUS, his laws on women, 81\n\n  TOURNAMENTS, 144-145\n\n  TRISTRAM and Isaud, 144\n\n  TROUBADOURS, the, 172-174;\n    their religion, 175;\n    opposed by the Papacy, 176\n\n\n  VEDAS, the, on love, 7, 8;\n    the poetry of, deformed by Brahmanism, 9\n\n  VENICE, its evil influence on love, 207\n\n  VENTADOUR, BERNARD DE, 173\n\n  VENUS, worship of, 6;\n    name of Hebrew origin, 7;\n    her indifference to mortal aspirations, 33-34\n\n  VERONESE, 132\n\n  VERSAILLES, 232, 235\n\n  VESPASIAN, 108\n\n  VIRGIN, the, aspirations to, 133;\n    the _Regina angelorum_, 133;\n    reflected in art, 134\n\n  VIRGINIA, 82\n\n  VITTORIA COLONNA, 208;\n    her character, 211\n\n  VOLTAIRE, his opinion of the _Divina Commedia_, 181\n\n\n  WALTERS, LUCY, 224\n\n  WESTPHALIA, Peace of, 240\n\n  WIDOWS, under code of chivalry, 161\n\n  WIVES, treatment of, in Sappho's time, 53-54\n\n  WOMAN, early treatment of, 1, 2;\n    family life, the outcome of better treatment of, 2;\n    common property once, 2;\n    man's early treatment of, 2;\n    not honored in Judaea, 10;\n    incarnated sin to the Jews, 10;\n    as viewed by Ecclesiasticus, 10;\n    as viewed by Moses, 10, 11;\n    as viewed by Solomon, 11;\n    worshipped in the Renaissance, 15;\n    a man's chattel, 37;\n    as viewed by Homer, 39-40;\n    beginning of her emancipation, 40;\n    what she represented in Greece, 58;\n    her development through Aspasia, 62;\n    how viewed by the _Iliad_, 62-63;\n    how viewed by the _Odyssey_, 62-63;\n    treatment of, by Rome, 77-78;\n    her legal and actual position in Rome, 78;\n    her supremacy in Rome, 78-79;\n    her position stated by Cato, 79;\n    position of, in Rome compared with her position in Greece, 79;\n    hampered by Roman laws, 80-81;\n    Christ's opinion of, 113;\n    little thought of by St. Paul, 114;\n    her treatment of Christ, 115;\n    condition of, in dark ages, 127;\n    how regarded by the second council of Macon, 127;\n    St. Chrysostom on, 128;\n    retreat to cloister, 129;\n    legend of a, 131-132;\n    her enfranchisement in the Middle Ages, 135-136;\n    her condition in the Crusade times, 141;\n    the arbiter of knightly honor, 143-144;\n    badly influenced by Feudalism, 146;\n    Courts of Love for, 155-157;\n    Code of Love for, 153-155;\n    marriage of, in days of chivalry, 157;\n    her position in days of chivalry, 158;\n    knightly homage for, 158-159;\n    widows under code of chivalry, 161;\n    position of, in Italy, 161;\n    beloved by Muhammad, 168;\n    the Koran on, 168-169;\n    Moorish treatment of, 169-170;\n    seclusion under Islamism, 169-170;\n    her position in Italy in Bembo's time, 204-205\n\n  WOMEN, lost in the deluge, 10;\n    in Greece in Sappho's time, 41-42;\n    of Lesbos, 44-45;\n    Sappho's influence on, 55;\n    deification of, in Greece, 58;\n    Tacitus on, 81;\n    laws of Tiberius on, 81;\n    married, reverenced in Rome, 81-82;\n    Caesar's treatment of, 85;\n    as brides of Christ, 133;\n    in Germany in eighteenth century, 242;\n    morals of, in Germany, 242;\n    in the eighteenth century, 246\n\n\n  XANTIPPE, 117\n\n\n  ZEND AVESTA, the decalogue of the, 150\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[1] Herodotus, I., 199.\n\n[2] Strabo, XVI., xi., 532. Baruch, VI. Justinus, XVIII. St. Augustin:\nCivit. Dei, IV., 10. Eusebius: Vita Constantini, III., 53-56. _Cf._\nJuvenal, Satir. 9: Nam quo non prostat femina templo?\n\n[3] Renan: Le Cantique des Cantiques.\n\n[4] Paraleipomena, XIII.\n\n[5] Philostratus: Apollonius Tyanensis, IV., 16.\n\n[6] Ethica S. Basilii.\n\n[7] Berard: Les Pheniciens et l'Odyssee.\n\n[8] Opera et Dies, 70.\n\n[9] Xenophon: de Republica Lacedaemoniorum.\n\n[10] Rossetti, D. G.\n\n[11] Epistolae Heroidum, XV.\n\n[12] Athenaeus, XIII. Musonius: de Luxu. Becker: Charikles.\n\n[13] Saturnalia, III., 9.\n\n[14] Leg. XII Tabularum, Tab. quinta. \"Veteres voluerunt foeminas etiam\nperfectae aetatis, propter animi laevitatem, in tutela esse. Itaque, si quis\nfilio filiaeve testamento tutorem dederit, et ambo ad pubertatem\npervenerint, filius quidem desinit habere tutorem, filia vero nihilominus\nin tutela permanet.\"\n\n[15] Valerius Maximus, II., i. Pliny, XIV., 13.\n\n[16] \"Juris humani et divini communicatio.\"--Modestin.\n\n[17] Leg. XII. Tabularum. Valerius Maximus, VI., i. Livy, X., 31; XXV., 2.\nTacitus: Annal., II., 85. Ulpianus: de Ritu Nuptiarum.\n\n[18] Cicero: de Arusp. Quod in agro Latiniensi auditus est strepitus cum\nfremitu. _Ibid_: Providete ne reipublica status commutetur.\n\n[19] Michelet: Histoire Romaine. Saltus: Imperial Purple.\n\n[20] Plutarch: Antonii vita. _Cf._ Michelet, _op. cit._\n\n[21] Suetonius: Augustus, XVIII. Velleius Paterculus, II. lxxxiii. Vergil:\nAEneid, VIII. Horace: Epod., 9.\n\n[22] Cod. 2, de inutil. Stipulat.\n\n[23] Matthew xvi. 21.\n\n[24] Stromata, III., 6-9.\n\n[25] Timothy ii. 11-12. 1 Corinthians ix. 9. 1 Corinthians vii. 38.\n\n[26] Concil. Trident., sess. XXIV., canon 10.\n\n[27] Augustin: De bono conjugio.\n\n[28] Matthew xix. 12. Revelations xiv.\n\n[29] St. Justin: Apolog., I., 14, 35.\n\n[30] Clement: Strom., III., 6. Hermas: Similit., IX., ii. \"Nobiscum dormi\nnon ut maritus, sed ut frater.\" Hermas: Visio, I., 2. \"Conjugi tuae quae\nfutura est (incipit esse) soror tua.\"\n\n[31] Boetius, Lib. XVII. Quidam dominus quem vidi, primam sponsarum\ncarnalem cognitionem ut suam petebat. Du Cange: _Marchetum_. Marcheto\nmulieris dicitur virginalis pudicitiae violatio et delibatio.\n\n[32] Recits des Temps Merovingiens.\n\n[33] Acta Sanctorum.\n\n[34] Michelet: Histoire de France.\n\n[35] I Corinthians xii. 7-9.\n\n[36] Michaud: Histoire des Croisades.\n\n[37] Eginhard: Vita Karoli IX.\n\n[38] Summa Hostiensis, IV. De Sponsalibus.\n\n[39] Beaumanoir, LVII. \"Tout mari peut battre sa femme, pourvu que ce soit\nmoderement et sans que mort s'ensuivre.\"\n\n[40] St. Jerome: Vita S. Fabiolae.\n\n[41] Juris Pontificii Analecta.\n\n[42] Ste. Palaye: L'ancienne Chevalerie.\n\n[43] Maitre Andre, chapelain de la cour royale de France. Manuscrit de la\nBibliotheque nationale, No. 8758.\n\n[44] \"Des personnages de grands renoms estant venus visiter le pape\nInnocent III a Avignon, furent ouir les definitions et sentences d'amour\nprononcees par les dames.\"--Nostradamus.\n\n[45] Martial d'Auvergne: Les Arrets d'Amour.\n\n[46] Assises de Jerusalem.\n\n[47] Conde: Historia de la dominacion de los Arabes en Espana.\n\n[48] \"Ex Arabibus versum simili sono concluendorum artem accepimus.\" Huet.\n\n[49] \"De orden del cardenal Cisneros se abrazaron mas de ochenta mil\nvolumenes como si no tuvieran mas libros que su Alcoran.\"--Aledres;\nDescripcion de Espana.\n\n[50] \"... Fue muy buen caballero, y se decia de el que tenia las diez\nprendas que distinguen a los nobles y generosos, que consisten en bondad,\nvalentia, caballeria, gentileza, poesia, bien hablar, fuerza, destreza en\nla lanza, en la espada y en el tirar del arco.\" Conde, II., 63.\n\n[51] \"Dans les pays soumis a l'Islam on ne voit aucune femme\npublique.\"--Viardot: Hist. des Arabes.\n\n[52] Conde, II., 93.\n\n[53] Escolano: Historia de Valencia. \"La lengua maestria de la Espana es\nla lemosina.\"\n\n[54] \"Con l'altre donne mia vista gabbate.\"\n\n[55] Epistolae sine titulo.\n\n[56] Lobineau: Histoire de Bretagne.\n\n[57] Manuscrit de la Bibl. nationale, No. 493, F.\n\n[58] Saltus: The Pomps of Satan.\n\n[59] Michelet: Hist. de France.\n\n[60] Luther: Tisch-Reden.\n\n[61] Castiglione: Il Cortegiano. Ficino: Il comento sopra il convito.\n\n[62] Firenzuola: Ragionamenti.\n\n[63] Sauval: Memoires Historiques concernant les amours des rois de\nFrance.\n\n[64] Guiffrey: \"Lettres inedites.\"\n\n[65] Tallemant des Reaux: Historiettes.\n\n[66] Dupleix: Histoire de Louis XIII.\n\n[67] Pierre de l'Estoile: Memoires et journaux.\n\n[68] Macaulay: \"History of England.\"\n\n[69] Saint-Victor: L'Espagne sous Charles II.\n\n[70] Menzel: Germany.\n\n[71] Earl Malmesbury's Diaries and Correspondence.\n\n[72] Scherr: Deutsche Kulturgeschichte.\n\n[73] Hervey: Memoirs.\n\n[74] Goncourt: La Femme au dix-huitieme siecle.\n\n[75] \"Il lui fit sept enfants sans lui dire un mot.\"--d'Argenson.\n\n[76] Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nPassages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.\n\nSuperscripted letters are shown in {brackets}.\n\nSome quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors\nhave been silently closed, while those requiring interpretation have\nbeen left open.\n\nThe following misprints have been corrected:\n  \"at\" corrected to \"as\" (page 131)\n  \"hubsands\" corrected to \"husbands\" (page 169)\n  \"Wmen\" corrected to \"Women\" (page 215)\n  \"it\" corrected to \"is\" (page 260)\n  \"Sapho\" corrected to \"Sappho\" (index)\n  \"at\" corrected to \"as\" (index)\n  \"teh\" corrected to \"the\" (index)\n\nThe following spellings have been standardized in the index:\n  \"Heloise\" standardized to \"Heloise\"\n  \"Muhammedanism\" standardized to \"Muhammadanism\"\n  \"Islam\" standardized to \"Islam\"\n  \"HEPTAMERON\" standardized to \"HEPTAMERON\"\n  \"MUHAMMED\" standardized to \"MUHAMMAD\"\n  \"GERARD\" standardized to \"GERARD\"\n  \"SCUDERY\" standardized to \"SCUDERY\"\n  \"Mohammed\" standardized to \"Muhammad\"","title":"Historia Amoris: A History of Love, Ancient and Modern","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":57500}