Chapter 78

Quite in the spirit of these ordinances of the great Manu are the directions for wives given in the _Padma Purana_, one of the books of highest authority, whose rules are, as Dubois informs us (316), kept up in full vigor to this day. A wife, we read therein, must regard her husband as a god, though he be a very devil. She must laugh if he laughs, eat after him, abstain from food which _he_ dislikes, burn herself after his death. If he has another wife she must not interfere, must always keep her eyes on her master, ready to receive his commands; she must never be gloomy or discontented in his presence; and though he abuse or even beat her she must return only meek and soothing words.

[269] In Calcutta nearly one-half the females--42,824 out of 98,627--were widows. In India in general one-fifth of the women (or, excluding the Mohammedans, one-third) are widows.

[270] _Journal of the National Indian Assoc._, 1881, 624-30.

[271] Ploss-Bartels, I., 385-87; Lamairesse, 18, 95, XX., etc.

[272] Here again we must guard against the naïve error of benevolent observers of confounding chastity with an assumption of modest behavior. In describing the streets of Delhi Ida Pfeiffer says (_L.V.R.W._, 148):

"The prettiest girlish faces peep modestly out of these curtained bailis, and did one not know that in India an unveiled face is never an innocent one, the fact certainly could not be divined from their looks or behavior." It happens to be the fashion even for bayadères to preserve an appearance of great propriety in public.

[273] Pp. 143 and 160 of Kellner's edition of this drama (Reclam). The extent to which indifference to chastity is sometimes carried in India may be inferred from the facts that in the famous city of Vasali "marriage was forbidden, and high rank attached to the lady who held office as the chief of courtesans;" and that the same condition prevails in British India to this day in a town in North Canara (Balfour, _Cyclop. of India_, II., 873).

[274] Hâla's date is somewhat uncertain, but he flourished between the third and fourth centuries A.D. Professor Weber's translation of his seven hundred poems, with the professor's comments, takes up no fewer than 1,023 pages of the _Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes_, Vols. V. and VII. I have selected all those which throw light on the Hindoo conception of love, and translated them carefully from Weber's version. Hâla's anthology served as prototype, about the twelfth century, to a similar collection of âryâ verses, the erotic Saptacati of Govardhana, also seven hundred in number, but written in Sanskrit. Of these I have not been able to find a version in a language that I can read, but the other collection is copious and varied enough to cover all the phases of Hindoo love. The verses were intended, as already indicated, to be sung, for the Hindoos, too, knew the power of music as a pastime and a feeder of the emotions. "If music be the food of love, play on," says the English Shakespere, and the "Hindoo Shakespere" wrote more than a thousand years before him:

"Oh, how beautifully our master Rebhila has sung! Yes, indeed, the zither is a pearl, only it does not come from the depths of the sea. How its tones accord with the heart that longs for love, how it helps to while away time at a rendezvous, how it assuages the grief of separation, and augments the delights of the lovers!" (_Vasantasena_, Act III., 2.)

[275] The disadvantage of arguing against the believers in primitive, Oriental, and ancient amorous sentiment is that some of the strongest evidence against them cannot be cited in a book intended for general reading. Professor Weber declares in his introduction to Hâla's anthology that these poems take us through all phases of sentimental love (_innigen Liebeslebens_) to the most licentious situations. He is mistaken, as I have shown, in regard to the sentiment, but there can be no doubt about the licentiousness. Numbers 5, 23, 62, 63, 65, 71, 72, 107, 115, 139, 161, 200, 223, 237, 241, 242, 300, 305, 336, 338, 356, 364, 369, 455, 483, 491, 628, 637, depict or suggest improper scenes, while 61, 213, 215, 242, 278, 327, 476, 690 are frankly obscene. Lower and higher things are mixed in these poems with a naïveté that shows the absence of any idea of refinement.

[276] I have here followed Kellner, though Boehtlingk's version is more literal and Oriental: "Mir aber brennt Liebe, O Grausamer, Tag und Nacht gewaltig die Glieder, deren Wünsche auf dich gerichtet sind."

[277] _Anas Casarea_, a species of duck which, in Hindoo poetry, is allowed to be with his mate only in the daytime and must leave her at night, in consequence of a curse; thereupon begin mutual lamentations.

[278] For a Hindoo, unless he has a son to make offerings after his death, is doomed to live over again his earthly life with all its sorrows. A daughter will do, provided she has a son to attend to the rites.

[279] The sequel of the story, relating to the misfortunes of Nala and Damayanti after marriage, will be referred to presently. The famous tale herewith briefly summarized occurs in the _Mahâbhârata_, the great epic or mythological cyclopaedia of India, which embraces 220,000 metric lines, and antedates in the main the Christian era. The story of Savitri also occurs in the _Mahâbhârata_; and these two episodes have been pronounced by specialists the gems not only of that great epic, but of all Hindoo literature. I have translated from the edition of H.C. Kellner, which is based on the latest and most careful revisions of the Sanscrit text. I have also followed Kellner's edition of Kalidasa's _Sakuntala_ and Otto Fritze's equally critical versions of the same poet's _Urvasi_ and _Malavika and Agnimitra_. Some of the earlier translators, notably Rückert, permitted themselves unwarranted poetic licenses, modernizing and sentimentalizing the text, somewhat as Professor Ebers did the thoughts and feelings of the ancient Egyptians. I will add that while I have been obliged to greatly condense the stories of the above dramas, I have taken great care to retain all the speeches and details that throw light on the Hindoo conception of love, reserving a few, however, for comment in the following paragraphs.

[280] Our poets speak of fright making the hair stand on end--but only on the head. Can the alleged Hindoo phenomenon be identical with what we call goose flesh--French frisson? That would make it none the less artificial as a symptom of love. Hertel says, in his edition of the _Hitopadesa_ (26):

"With the Hindoos it is a consequence of great excitement, joy as well as fear, that the little hairs on the body stand erect. The expression has become conventional."

[281] _Hitopadesa_ (25). This gratification the Hindoos regard as one of the four great objects of life, the other three being liberty (emancipation of the soul), wealth, and the performance of religious duties.

[282] Robert Brown has remarked that "moral and intellectual qualities seem to be entirely omitted from the seven points which, according to Manu, make a good wife." And Ward says (10) that no attention is paid to a bride's mind or temper, the only points being the bride's person, her family, and the prospect of male offspring.

[283] This is the list, as given by the eminent Sanscrit scholar, Professor Albrecht Weber in the _Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Abendlandes_, Vol. V., 135. Burton, in his original edition of the _Arabian Nights_ (III., 36), gives the stages thus: love of the eyes; attraction of the manos or mind; birth of desire; loss of sleep; loss of flesh; indifference to objects of sense; loss of shame; distraction of thought; loss of consciousness; death. _Cf_. Lamairesse, p. 179.

[284] Preferably in Boehtlingk's literal version, which I have followed whenever Kellner idealizes. In this case Kellner speaks of covering "den Umfang des Brüstepaars," while Boethlingk has "das starke Brüstepaar," which especially arouse the king's "love."

[285] It would hardly be surprising if Kalidasa had had some conception of true love sentiment, for not only did he possess a delicate poetic fancy, but he lived at a time when tidings of the chivalrous treatment and adoration of women might have come to him from Arabia or from Europe. The tradition that he flourished as early as the first century of our era was demolished by Professor Weber (_Ind. Lit. Ges._, 217). Professor Max Müller (91) found no reason to place him earlier than our sixth century; and more recent evidence indicates that he lived as late as the eleventh. Yet he had no conception of supersensual love; marriage was to him, as to all Hindoos, a union of bodies, not of souls. He had not learned from the Arabs (like the Persian poet Saadi, of the thirteenth century, whom I referred to on p. 199) that the only test of true love is self-sacrifice. It is true that Bhavabhuti, the Hindoo poet, who is believed to have lived at the end of our seventh century, makes one of the lovers in _Malati and Madhava_ slay a tiger and save his beloved's life; but that is also a case of self-defence. The other lover--the "hero" of the drama--faints when he sees his friend in danger! Generally speaking, there is a peculiar effeminacy, a lack of true manliness, about Hindoo lovers They are always moping, whining, fainting; the kings--the typical lovers--habitually neglect the affairs of state to lead a life of voluptuous indulgence. Hindoo sculpture emphasizes the same trait: "Even in the conception of male figures," says Lübke (109), "there is a touch of this womanly softness;" there is "a lack of an energetic life, of a firm contexture of bone and muscle." It is not of such enervated stuff that true lovers are made.

[286] An explanation of this discrepancy may be found in A.K. Fiske's suggestion (191) that there is a double source for this story. The reader will please bear in mind that all my quotations are from the revised version of the Bible. I do not believe in retaining inaccurate translations simply because they were made long ago.

[287] McClintock and Strong's _Encyclop. of Biblical Literature_ says: "It must be borne in mind that Jacob himself had now reached the mature age of seventy-seven years, as appears from a comparison of Joseph's age... with Jacob's." That Rachel was not much over fifteen may be assumed because among Oriental nomadic races shepherd girls are very seldom unmarried after that age, or even an earlier age, for obvious reasons.

[288] Gen. 19: 1-9; 19: 30-38; 34: 1-31; 38: 8-25; 39: 6-20; Judges 19: 22-30; II. Sam. 3: 6-9; 11: 2-27; 13: 1-22; 16: 22; etc.

[289] For whom the Hebrew poet has a special word _(dodi)_ different from that used when Solomon is referred to.

[290] See Renan, Preface, p. iv. It is of all Biblical books, the one "pour lequel les scribes qui ont décidé du sort des écrits hébreux ont le plus élargi leurs règles d'admission."

[291] McClintock and Strong.

[292] In the seventh chapter there are lines where, as Renan points out (50), the speaker, in describing the girl, "vante ses charmes les plus intimes," and where the translator was "obligé à des attenuations."

[293] Renan says justly that it is the most obscure of all Hebrew poems. According to the old Hebrew exegesis, every passage in the Bible has seventy different meanings, all of them equally true; but of this Song a great many more than seventy interpretations have been given: the titles of treatises on the Canticles fill four columns of fine print in McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia. Griffis declares that it is, "probably, the most perfect poem in any language," but in my opinion it is far inferior to other books in the Bible. The adjective perfect is not applicable to a poem so obscure that more than half its meaning has to be read between the lines, while its plan, if plan it has, is so mixed up and hindmost foremost that I sometimes feel tempted to accept the view of Herder and others that the _Song of Songs_ is not one drama, but a collection of unconnected poems.

[294] Mr. Griffis' lucid, ingenious, and admirably written monograph entitled, _The Lily among Thorns_, is unfortunately marred in many parts by the author's attitude, which is not that of a critic or a judge, but of a lawyer who has a case to prove, that black and gray are really snow white. His sense of humor ought to have prevented him from picturing an Eastern shepherd complimenting a girl of his class on her "instinctive refinement". He carries this idealizing process so far that he arbitrarily divides the line "I am black but comely," attributing the first three words to the Shulamite, the other two to a chorus of her rivals in Solomon's harem! The latter supposition is inconceivable; and why should not the Shulamite call herself comely? I once looked admiringly at a Gypsy girl in Spain, who promptly opened her lips, and said, with an arch smile, "soy muy bonita"--"I am very pretty!"--which seemed the natural, naïve attitude of an Oriental girl. To argue away such a trifling spot on maiden modesty as the Shulamite's calling herself comely, while seeing no breach of delicacy in her inviting her lover to come into the garden and eat his precious fruits, though admitting (214) that "the maiden yields thus her heart and her all to her lover," is surely straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.

[295] Which, however, evidently was not saying much, as he immediately added that he was ready to give her up provided they gave him another girl, lest he be the only one of the Greeks without a "prize of honor." Strong individual preference, as we shall see also in the case of Achilles, was not a trait of "heroic" Greek love.

[296] I have already commented (115) on Nausicäa's lack of feminine delicacy and coyness; yet Gladstone says (132) "it may almost be questioned whether anywhere in literature there is to be found a conception of the maiden so perfect as Nausicäa in grace, tenderness, and delicacy"!

[297] How Gladstone reconciled his conscience with these lines when he wrote (112) that "on one important and characteristic subject, the exposure of the person to view, the men of that time had a peculiar and fastidious delicacy," I cannot conceive.

[298] It will always remain one of the strangest riddles of the nineteenth century why the statesman who so often expressed his righteous indignation over the "Bulgarian atrocities" of his time should not only have pardoned, but with insidious and glaring sophistry apologized for the similar atrocities of the heroes whom Homer fancies he is complimenting when he calls them professional "spoilers of towns." I wish every reader of this volume who has any doubts regarding the correctness of my views would first read Gladstone's shorter work on Homer (a charmingly written book, with all its faults), and then the epics themselves, which are now accessible to all in the admirable prose versions of the _Iliad_ by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers, and of the _Odyssey_ by Professor George H. Palmer of Harvard--versions which are far more poetic than any translations in verse ever made and which make of these epics two of the most entertaining novels ever written. It is from these versions that I have cited, except in a few cases where I preferred a more literal rendering of certain words.

[299] In all the extracts here made I follow the close literal prose version made by H.T. Wharton, in his admirable book on Sappho, by far the best in the English language.

[300] P.B. Jevons refers to some of these as "mephitic exhalations from the bogs of perverted imaginings!" Welcker's defence of Sappho is a masterpiece of naïveté written in ignorance of mental pathology.

[301] The most elaborate discussion of this subject is to be found in Moll's _Untersuchungen_, 314-440, where also copious bibliographic references are given. The most striking impression left by the reading of this book is that the differentiation of the sexes is by no means as complete yet as it ought to be. All the more need is there of romantic love, whose function it is to assist and accelerate this differentiation.

[302] As long ago as 1836-38 a Swiss author, Heinrich Hössli, wrote a remarkable book with the title _The Unreliability of External Signs as Indications of Sex in Body and Mind_. I may add here that if it were known how many of the "shrieking sisterhood" who are clamoring for masculine "rights" for women, are among the unfortunates who were born with male brains in female bodies, the movement would collapse as if struck by a ton of dynamite. These amazons often wonder why the great mass of women are so hard to stir up in this matter. The reason is that the great mass of women--heaven be thanked!--have feminine minds as well as feminine bodies.

[303] Probably no passage in any drama has ever been more widely discussed than the nine lines I have just summarized. As long ago as the sixteenth century the astronomer Petrus Codicillus pronounced them spurious. Goethe once remarked to Eckermann; (III., March 28, 1827) that he considered them a blemish in the tragedy and would give a good deal if some philologist would prove that Sophocles had not written them. A number of eminent philologists--Jacob, Lehrs, Hauck, Dindorf, Wecklein, Jebb, Christ, and others--have actually bracketed them as not genuine; but if they are interpolations, they must have been added within a century after the play was written, for Aristotle refers to them (_Rhet. III_., 16,9) in these words: "And should any circumstance be incredible, you must subjoin the reason; as Sophocles does. He furnishes an example in the _Antigone_, that she mourned more for her brother than for a husband and children; for these, if lost, might again be hers.

"'But father now and mother both being lost, A brother's name can ne'er be hailed again.'"

It is noticeable that Aristotle should pronounce Antigone's preference strange or incredible from a Greek point of view; that point of view being, as we have seen, that a woman's first duties are toward her husband, for whom she should ever sacrifice herself. It has been plausibly suggested that Sophocles borrowed the idea of those nine lines from his friend Herodotus, who (III., 118) relates the story of Darius permitting the wife of Intophernes to save one of her relatives from death and who chooses her brother, for reasons like those advanced by Antigone. It has been shown (_Zeitschrift f. d. Oesterreich Gymn_., 1898; see also _Frankfurter Zeitung_, July 22, 24, 27, 1899; _Hermes_, XXVIII.) that this idea occurs in old tales and poems of India, Persia, China, as well as among the Slavs, Scandinavians, etc. If Sophocles did introduce this notion into his tragedy (and there is no reason for doubting it except the unwarranted assumption that he was too great a genius to make such a blunder), he did it in a bungling way, for inasmuch as Antigone's brother is dead she cannot benefit her family by favoring him at the expense of her betrothed; and moreover, her act of sacrificing herself in order to secure the rest of a dear one's soul--which alone might have partly excused her heartless and unromantic ignoring and desertion of her lover--is bereft of all its nobility by her equally heartless declaration that she would not have thus given her life for a husband or a child. These Greek poets knew so little of true femininity that they could not draw a female character without spoiling it.

[304] The unduly extolled [Greek: Epos] chorus in the _Antigone_ expresses nothing more than the universal power of love in the Greek conception of the term.

[305] In Müller's book on the Doric race we read (310) that the love of the Corinthian Philolaus and Diocles "lasted until death," and even their graves were turned toward one another, in token of their affection. Lovers in Athens carved the beloved's names on walls, and innumerable poems were addressed by the leading bards to their favorites.

[306] Compare Ramdohr, III., 191 and 124.

[307] I have before me a dictonary which defines Platonic love as it is now universally, and incorrectly, understood, as "a pure spiritual affection subsisting between the sexes, unmixed with carnal desires, a species of love for which Plato was a warm advocate." In reality Platonic (i.e. Socratic) love has nothing whatever to do with women, but is a fantastic and probably hypocritical idealization of a species of infatuation which in our day is treated neither in poems nor in dialogues, nor discussed in text-books of psychology or physiology, but relegated to treatises on mental diseases and abnormalities. In fact, the whole philosophy of Greek love may be summed up in the assertion that "Platonic love," as understood by us, was by Plato and the Greeks in general considered an impossibility.

[308] In the _Deipnosophists_ of Athenaeus (III., Bk. XII.) we find some other information of anthropological significance: "Hermippus stated in his book about lawgivers that at Lacedaemon all the damsels used to be shut up in a dark room, while a number of unmarried young men were shut up with them; and whichever girl each of the young men caught hold of he led away as his wife, without a dowry." "But Clearches the Solensian, in his treatise on Proverbs, says: 'In Lacedaemon the women, on a certain festival, drag the unmarried men to an altar and then buffet them; in order that, for the purpose of avoiding the insults of such treatment, they may become more affectionate and in due season may turn their thoughts to marriage. But at Athens Cecrops was the first person who married a man to one woman only, when before his time connections had taken place at random and men had their wives in common.'"

[309] My critics might have convicted me of a genuine blunder inasmuch as in my first book (78) I assumed that Plato "foresaw the importance of pre-matrimonial acquaintance as the basis of a rational and happy marriage choice." This was an unwarranted concession, because all that Plato recommended was that "the youths and maidens shall dance together, seeing and being seen naked," after the Spartan manner. This might lead to a rational choice of sound bodies, but romantic love implies an acquaintance of minds, and is altogether a more complicated process than the dog and cattle breeder's procedure commended by Plato and Lycurgus. I may add that in view of Lycurgus's systematic encouragement of promiscuity, the boast of the Spartan Geradas (recorded by Plutarch) that there were no cases of adultery in Sparta, must be accepted either as broad sarcasm, or in the manner of Limburg-Brouwer, who declares (IV., 165) that the boast is "like saying that in a band of brigands there is not a single thief." Even from the cattle-breeding point of view Lycurgus proved a failure, for according to Aristotle (_Pol._ II., 9) the Spartans grew too lazy to bring up children, and rewards had to be offered for large families.

[310] See the evidence cited in Becker (III., 315) regarding Aristotle's views as to the inferiority of women. After comparing it with the remarks of other writers Becker sums up the matter by saying that "the virtue of which a woman was in those days considered capable did not differ very much from that of a faithful slave."

[311] In the _Odyssey_ (XV., 418) Homer speaks of "a Phoenician woman, handsome and tall." He makes Odysseus compare Nausicäa to Diana "in beauty, height, and bearing," and in another place he declares that, like Diana among her nymphs, she o'ertops her companions by head and brow (VI., 152, 102). However, this manner of measuring beauty with a yard-stick; indicates _some_ progress over the savage and Oriental custom of making rotundity the criterion of beauty.

[312] Compare Menander, _Frag. Incert._, 154: [Greek: gunaich ho didaskon gpammat ou kalos poiei].