much as in the dreadful passions of strife and hatred. The beginning of the erotic development of Greek poetry is seen in the Lyric field; and the first great example is the renowned Sappho. Further on, in the Idyllists, and in the Anthology, the delicate refinements of amatory expression are cultivated to the utmost. Thus Greek poetry, as a whole, supplied a copious fund of erotic diction, which was extended by the Roman poets, and handed down to modern times.

The Lyric poets are wanting in story or plot, and trust to energy of expression, elevation of figure and melodious verse. In them, intensity is the characteristic: they show love in its aspect of passionate fury, and they must be judged by the principles applicable to such compositions.

The style and genius of Sappho have to be gathered from her scanty remains, and from her influence on later poets. The hymn to Venus acquires intensity by the form of supplication, and by the elevation of the language. The epithets applied to Venus, in their first freshness, are grand, and yet not out of keeping with tender passion.

Venus, bright goddess of the skies,
To whom unnumber'd temples rise,
Jove's daughter fair, whose wily arts
Delude fond lovers of their hearts;
O listen gracious to my prayer,
And free my mind from anxious care.

The iteration of the last stanza serves to enforce the intensity of feeling.

Once more, O Venus! hear my prayer,
And ease my mind of anxious care;
Again vouchsafe to be my guest,

And calm this tempest in my breast!

The only other complete Ode of Sappho known to us is one preserved by Longinus as an example of the very general quality of apt selection and combination of circumstances. It is an accumulation of the miseries of disappointed passion, and is celebrated for its accuracy of delineation.

Our interest in love scenes, as already observed, extends to the pains of thwarted love. One merit of such descriptions is, that they be truthful; for although we may accept the ideal in bliss, we do not desire misery to be exaggerated. In Romance, we are usually requited by a happy conclusion. The thoroughly sustained intensity as well as truthful

ness of Sappho's description satisfies us that she is in earnest, which is itself a great charm.

Blest as the immortal gods is he,
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears, and sees thee all the while
Softly speak and sweetly smile.

'Twas this depriv'd my soul of rest,
And rais'd such tumults in my breast;
For while I gaz'd, in transport tost,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost.
My bosom glow'd; the subtile flame
Ran quick through all my vital frame;
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung;
My ears with hollow murmurs rung.
In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd;
My blood with gentle horrors thrill'd
My feeble pulse forgot to play,

I fainted, sunk, and died away.

Sappho's contemporary, Anacreon, was a great erotic genius in a different style. The characteristics of his style are usually given as simplicity, grace, melody, with an originality that made a fresh departure in literature.

The poetized delineation of personal beauty was greatly developed by Anacreon. See the companion pictures in the two odes-one describing his mistress, the other addressed to Bathyllus.

Again, the joys of love, usually coupled with wine, are portrayed with luxurious arts of language; but, in this portraiture, the lower aspects of the subject are chiefly prominent.

He is also a master of the fancied adventures of the love deity Venus and her child Cupid, so largely employed in depicting the incursions of love.

He maintains a perpetual protest against the burden of the Epic poets-War.

The Tragedians, as already noticed, systematically excluded the Love Passion; yet Sophocles, in one short passage in the Antigone, showed his capability of working up à delineation of its power. We need to pass on to the Idyllists of the third century B.C. to obtain the further development of erotic poetry. Partly in Theocritus, the founder of the Bucolic idylls, and still more in Bion, have we the expression of the sexual passion in its full strength. Theocritus supplies the picture of a Syracusan lady deserted

by her lover, and details the fury of her revenge in terms of tragic exaggeration : she resorts to magic rites, she seeks the aid of poison, and indulges in all the excesses of an infuriated woman.

Bion composed delicately finished love-songs, and, in one, he rises to the tragic height, in setting forth the lamentation of Venus for the slain Adonis; a couple whose love and misfortunes often reappear in erotic poetry.

Next to the Idyllists, we have to search the Greek Anthology at large for love embodiments. Made up of short poems, called Epigrams, it embraces many themes; the Amatory being but one department. The Anthology ranges through all the history of Greek literature down to its decadence. The greatest of the poets of the Amatory series is Meleager, in the first century B.C. His poem in praise of Heliodora is an early example of the use of flowers to illustrate love. The following is Goldwin Smith's translation, quoted by Symonds :

I'll twine white violets, and the myrtle green;
Narcissus will I twine, and lilies sheen;
I'll twine sweet crocus, and the hyacinth blue;
And last I'll twine the rose, love's token true:
That all may form a wreath of beauty, meet
To deck my Heliodora's tresses sweet.

Another poet constructs a retreat for lovers under the spreading branches of a plane. The translation, by W. Shepherd, runs thus :—

Wide spreading plane-tree, whose thick branches meet

To form for lovers an obscure retreat,
Whilst with thy foliage closely intertwine
The curling tendrils of the clustering vine,
Still mayst thou flourish, in perennial green,
To shade the votaries of the Paphian quean.

The later Anthology brings us to the Anacreontic Odes, which have a definite amatory character, only partially derived from the real Anacreon, the contemporary of Sappho. Their date was subsequent to the great age of Roman Literature, which had largely included amatory subjects in its sphere. Wanting in originality, for their time, they are yet illustrative of particular mannerisms in the erotic style.

The opening poetry of the Romans is made up of Tragedy and Comedy; the last represented by Plautus and Terence, imitators of the Greek comedians, such as Menander. Love

is introduced only to prepare for the production of humour. The love passions of the young are a mainspring of comic situations, but they are assumed rather than developed.

The great poem of Lucretius, without dwelling on the erotic passion, abounds in effects of tenderness. The stanza in Gray's Elegy,' 'For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,' is almost literally borrowed from him.

The first erotic poet of Rome was Catullus, and with him are classed three others-Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid; while Virgil and Horace contributed to enrich the amatory strain of diction.

Those of the poets that made love their main theme-as Catullus, Tibullus, Ovid-all labour under the common defect, that they proceeded upon free love, or perfectly promiscuous attachments, including direct reference to sensual pleasure. Hence their diction, although often felicitous for its own end, is not a model for the poet of the present time.

The genius of Virgil, in the Eneid, has depicted a few love incidents with his characteristic grace and power. The splendid delineation of Dido's love for Æneas follows Sappho in illustrating the unrest of love. Her fury and despair at being deserted are tragical in the extreme. The pictures in both poets are heartrending, and have nothing in our eyes. to redeem them but the poetical dress. In Virgil's time, the desertion was looked at with indifference: to us, it is a serious flaw in the character of the hero, and cannot be condoned by his usual reference to celestial guidance.

A highly-wrought delineation of feminine beauty, not ending in a love-alliance, is furnished in the picture of Camilla the Volscian huntress, of the Diana type. The Latin princess, Lavinia, is won by Æneas at the termination of the story-without courtship.

A considerable number of the poems of Horace deal with love as their subject. They are characterized by all his usual perfection of poetic form; but as to their matter, it is only the lighter aspects of love that are usually handled. The charms of the fair one and the pleasures of her society are often described, as well as the pains of unrequited love, but without the simplicity and intensity that are natural to love in its deeper forms. They have not the characteristics of sincerity and earnestness, such as were noted in Sappho; their prominent features are wit and elegance, without passion.

The decadence of Greek literature is illustrated by one remarkable love-poem-Hero and Leander. The pathetic incident is known to Virgil (Georg. III. 258); the working out is by Musæus, a littérateur of the fifth century A.D. As a tale of the first-sight fascination of a beautiful pair, followed by love consummation under extraordinary difficulties, and ending fatally to both, it is unique, and highly wrought at every point. It is the first great example of the often repeated tragedy of young lovers,-the Romeo and Juliet of the classical world. The Greek version is expanded by Marlowe, with the tenderness peculiar to his treatment of the love passion. In the original, most of the arts of diction accumulated in the twelve hundred years of Greek poetry may be found exemplified.

The personal charms of the lovers are given with touches of high art. Thus Hero

Her lovely cheeks a pure vermilion shed,
Like roses beautifully streak'd with red:
A flowery mead her well-turn'd limbs disclose,
Fraught with the blushing beauties of the rose ;
But when she moved, in radiant mantle dress'd,
Flowers half unveil'd adorn'd her flowing vest,
And numerous graces wanton'd on her breast.
The ancient sages made a false decree,

Who said, the Graces were no more than three;
When Hero smiles, a thousand graces rise,

Sport on her cheek, and revel in her eyes.

The poet does not neglect the powerful aid of the universal admiration, before introducing her destined loverThe wondering crowds the radiant nymph admire,

And every bosom kindles with desire;

Eager each longs, transported with her charms,

To clasp the lovely virgin in his arms;

Where'er she turns, their eyes, their thoughts pursue,

They sigh, and send their souls at every view.

Then comes the real lover

But when Leander saw the blooming fair,

Love seized his soul instead of dumb despair.

The play of his passion, and the counter play of Hero's, are given in well-sustained luxury of phrase; and after a sufficient dialogue of wooing and parrying the fair one is gained and, with fruition, the dreadful difficulties of the situation are unfolded, with its tragic catastrophe.

The description of the storm, in the fatal night, attains the pitch of sublimity mingled with terror.