A Problem in Greek Ethics: Being an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion, addressed especially to medical psychologists and juristsSymonds, John Addington
Philosophy
A Problem in Greek Ethics: Being an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion, addressed especially to medical psychologists and jurists
Symonds, John Addington
Ethics -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality
Upon a topic of great difficulty, which is, however, inseparable from
the subject-matter of this inquiry, I shall not attempt to do more than
to offer a few suggestions. This is the relation of paiderastia to Greek
art. Whoever may have made a study of antique sculpture will not have
failed to recognise its healthy human tone, its ethical rightness. There
is no partiality for the beauty of the male sex, no endeavour to reserve
for the masculine deities the nobler attributes of man's intellectual
and moral nature, no extravagant attempt to refine upon masculine
qualities by the blending of feminine voluptuousness. Aphrodite and
Artemis hold their place beside Erôs and Hermes. Ares is less
distinguished by the genius lavished on him than Athene. Hera takes rank
with Zeus, the Nymphs with the Fauns, the Muses with Apollo. Nor are
even the minor statues, which belong to decorative rather than high art,
noticeable for the attribution of sensual beauties to the form of boys.
This, which is certainly true of the best age, is, with rare exceptions,
true of all the ages of Greek plastic art. No prurient effeminacy
degraded, deformed, or unduly confounded, the types of sex idealised in
sculpture.
The first reflection which must occur to even prejudiced observers, is
that paiderastia did not corrupt the Greek imagination to any serious
extent. The license of Paganism found appropriate expression in female
forms, but hardly touched the male; nor would it, I think, be possible
to demonstrate that obscene works of painting or of sculpture were
provided for paiderastic sensualists similar to those pornographic
objects which fill the reserved cabinet of the Neapolitan Museum. Thus,
the testimony of Greek art might be used to confirm the asseveration of
Greek literature, that among free men, at least, and gentle, this
passion tended even to purify feelings which, in their lust for women,
verged on profligacy. For one androgynous statue of Hermaphroditus or
Dionysus there are at least a score of luxurious Aphrodites and
voluptuous Bacchantes. Erôs himself, unless he is portrayed according to
the Roman type of Cupid, as a mischievous urchin, is a youth whose
modesty is no less noticeable than his beauty. His features are not
unfrequently shadowed with melancholy, as appears in the so-called
Genius of the Vatican, and in many statues which might pass for genii of
silence or of sleep as well as love. It would be difficult to adduce a
single wanton Erôs, a single image of this god provocative of sensual
desires. There is not one before which we could say--The sculptor of
that statue had sold his soul to paiderastic lust. Yet Erôs, it may be
remembered, was the special patron of paiderastia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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