The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
went on to say,—And in this point alone you are imitators of the
master of your school, Zeno the Phœnician, who was always a slave to
the most infamous passions (as Antigonus the Carystian relates, in
his History of his Life); for you are always saying that "the proper
object of love is not the body, but the mind;" you who say at the same
time, that you ought to remain faithful to the objects of your love,
till they are eight-and-twenty years of age. And Ariston of Ceos, the
Peripatetic, appears to me to have said very well (in the second book
of his treatise on Likenesses connected with Love), to some Athenian
who was very tall for his age, and at the same time was boasting of his
beauty, (and his name was Dorus,) "It seems to me that one may very
well apply to you the line which Ulysses uttered when he met Dolon—
Great was thy aim, and mighty is the prize.[19]
16. But Hegesander, in his Commentaries, says that all men love
seasoned dishes, but not plain meats, or plainly dressed fish. And
accordingly, when seasoned dishes are wanting, no one willingly
eats either meat or fish; nor does any one desire meat which is raw
and unseasoned. For anciently men used to love boys (as Aristophon
relates); on which account it came to pass that the objects of their
love were called παιδικά. And it was with truth (as Clearchus
says in the first book of his treatise on Love and the Affairs of Love)
that Lycophronides said—
No boy, no maid with golden ornaments,
No woman with a deep and ample robe,
Is so much beautiful as modest; for
'Tis modesty that gives the bloom to beauty.
And Aristotle said that lovers look at no other part of the objects of
their affection, but only at their eyes, in which modesty makes her
abode. And Sophocles somewhere represents Hippodamia as speaking of the
beauty of Pelops, and saying—
And in his eyes the charm which love compels
Shines forth a light, embellishing his face:
He glows himself, and he makes me glow too,
Measuring my eyes with his,—as any builder
Makes his work correspond to his careful rule.[20]
[Sidenote: LOVE.]
17. And Licymnius the Chian, saying that Somnus was in love with
Endymion, represents him as refusing to close the eyes of the youth
even when he is asleep; but the God sends his beloved object to sleep
with his eyelids still open, so that he may not for a single moment
be deprived of the pleasure of contemplating them. And his words are
these—
But Somnus much delighted
In the bright beams which shot from his eyes,
And lull'd the youth to sleep with unclosed lids.
And Sappho says to a man who was admired above all measure for his
beauty, and who was accounted very handsome indeed—
Stand opposite, my love,
And open upon me
The beauteous grace which from your eyes doth flow.
And what says Anacreon?—
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