“Cesarion, let us keep unspoiled Our faith, and be true friends, And pair our lives like noble Greeks, And to like noble ends! That friend from friend may never hide A fault through weakness or thro’ pride, Or sentiment that cloys. Thus gold in fire the brighter glows, And far more rare and precious grows, Refined from all alloys.” [Sidenote: _Frederick to Cesarion_] There is also in the same collection a long and beautiful ode “To the shades of Cesarion,” of which the following are a few lines:— “O God! how hard the word of Fate! Cesarion dead! His happy days Death to the grave has consecrate. His charm I mourn and gentle grace. He’s dead—my tender, faithful mate! A thousand daggers pierce my heart; It trembles, torn with grief and pain. He’s gone! the dawn comes not again! Thy grave’s the goal of my heart’s strife; Holy shall thy remembrance be; To thee I poured out love in life; And love in death I vow to thee.” [Sidenote: _Herder on Greek Friendship_] Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) as theologian, philosopher, friend of Goethe, Court preacher at Weimar, and author of _Ideas on the Philosophy of History_ has had a great and enduring reputation. The following extract is from the just-mentioned book:— “Never has a branch born finer fruit than that little branch of Olive, Ivy, and Pine, which was the victor’s crown among the Greeks. It gave to the young men good looks, good health, and good spirits; it made their limbs nimble, graceful and well-formed; in their souls it lighted the first sparks of the desire for good name, the love of fame even, and stamped on them the inviolable temper of men who live for their city and their country. Finally, what was most precious, it laid the foundation in their characters of that predilection for male society and friendship which so markedly distinguishes the Greeks. In Greece, woman was not the one prize of life for which the young man fought and strove; the loveliest Helen could only mould the spirit of one Paris, even though her beauty might be the coveted object of all manly valour. The feminine sex, despite the splendid examples of every virtue that it exhibited in Greece, as elsewhere, remained there only a secondary object of the manly life. The thoughts of aspiring youths reached towards something higher. The bond of friendship which they knitted among themselves or with grown men, compelled them into a school which Aspasia herself could hardly have introduced them to; so that in many of the states of Greece manly love became surrounded and accompanied by those intelligent and educational influences, that permanence of character and devotion, whose sentiment and meaning we read of in Plato almost as if in a romance from some far planet.” [Sidenote: _Von Kupffer on Ethics and Politics_]