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
Greek art, like Greek mythology, embodied a finely graduated
half-unconscious analysis of human nature. The mystery of procreation
was indicated by phalli on the Hermæ. Unbridled appetite found
incarnation in Priapus, who, moreover, was never a Greek god, but a
Lampsacene adopted from the Asian coast by the Romans. The natural
desires were symbolised in Aphrodite Praxis, Kallipugos, or Pandemos.
The higher sexual enthusiasm assumed celestial form in Aphrodite
Ouranios. Love itself appeared personified in the graceful Erôs of
Praxiteles; and how sublimely Pheidias presented this god to the eyes of
his worshippers can now only be guessed at from a mutilated fragment
among the Elgin marbles. The wild and native instincts, wandering,
untutored and untamed, which still connect man with the life of woods
and beasts and April hours, received half-human shape in Pan and
Silenus, the Satyrs and the Fauns. In this department of semi-bestial
instincts we find one solitary instance bearing upon paiderastia. The
group of a Satyr tempting a youth at Naples stands alone among numerous
similar compositions which have female or hermaphroditic figures, and
which symbolise the violent and comprehensive lust of brutal appetite.
Further distinctions between the several degrees of love were drawn by
the Greek artists. Himeros, the desire that strikes the spirit through
the eyes, and Pothos, the longing of souls in separation from the object
of their passion, were carved together with Erôs by Scopas for
Aphrodite's temple at Megara. Throughout the whole of this series there
is no form set aside for paiderastia, as might have been expected if the
fancy of the Greeks had idealised a sensual Asiatic passion. Statues of
Ganymede carried to heaven by the eagle are, indeed, common enough in
Græco-Roman plastic art; yet, even here, there is nothing which
indicates the preference for a specifically voluptuous type of male
beauty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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