woman to know how to read or dance. These futile accomplishments were left to the courtesan, the Bayadere.”
HINDOO LOVE MAXIMS
That such a state of affairs was not favourable to Romantic Love is obvious. Nevertheless there appears to have been a period—about 1200 or 1500 years ago—when some of the inhabitants of India were familiar with most of the emotions which enter into Modern Love. This evidence is contained in the Seven Hundred Maxims of Hâla, a collection of poetic utterances dating back not further than the third century of our era, and comprising productions by various authors, including as many as sixteen of the female persuasion. They are written in a sister-language of Sanscrit, the Prâkrit; and their form indicates that they were intended to be sung. Herr Albrecht Weber remarks in the Deutsche Rundschau with reference to this collection: “At the very beginning of our acquaintance with Sanscrit literature, towards the end of the last century, it was noticed, and was claimed forthwith as an eloquent proof of antique relationship, that Indian poetry, especially of the amatory kind, is in character remarkably allied to our own modern poetry. The sentimental qualities of modern verse, in one word, were traced in Indian poetry in a much higher degree than they had been found in Greek and Roman literature; and this discovery awakened at once, notably in Germany, a sympathetic interest in a country whose poets spoke a language so well known to our hearts, as though they had been born among ourselves.”
Some of these maxims apparently depict the family life of the lower classes; others appear rather as if they had been intended to be sung by the Bayaderes, or singing and dancing girls of the Buddhist temples, who emancipated themselves from the domestic and educational restrictions placed on other women, and sought to fascinate men with their wit, love, and æsthetic accomplishments. This suggestion is borne out by the fact that most of the maxims are feminine utterances, and often of questionable moral character. Although, therefore, some of these revelations of early Aryan Love have an unpleasant by-flavour, they are yet extremely interesting as showing how dependent Romantic Love is on the freedom and the intellectual and æsthetic culture of woman.
We find in the maxims of Halâ evidences of that important overtone of Love, Ecstatic Adoration or Poetic Hyperbole, which we have not encountered elsewhere, so far. What could be more modern than this:—
“Although all my possessions were burnt in the village fire, yet is my heart delighted, since he took the buckets from me when they were passed from hand to hand.”
Or this:—
“O thou who art skilled in cookery, restrain thy anger! The reason why the fire refuses to burn, and only smokes, is that it may the longer drink in the breath of your mouth, fragrant as the red potato-blossoms.”
The following two show how Personal Beauty was appreciated:—
“He sees nothing but her face, and she too is quite intoxicated by his looks. Both, satisfied with each other, act as if in the whole world there were no other women or men.”
“Other beauties likewise have in their faces beautiful, wide black eyes, with long lashes—but no one else understands as she does how to use them.”
How Love establishes his Monopoly in heart and mind, tolerating no other thought, is thus shown:—
“She stares without a (visible) object, draws a deep sigh, laughs into empty space, mutters unintelligible words—forsooth, there must be something on her heart.”
Ovid himself might have written the following, showing Love’s inconstancy:—
“Love departs when lovers are separated; it departs when they see too much of each other; it departs in consequence of malicious gossip; aye, it departs also without these causes.”
The nature of Coyness is evidently understood, for the lover is thus admonished:—
“My son, such is the nature of love, suddenly to get angry, to make up again in a moment, to dissemble its language, to tease immoderately.”
And yet the poet deems it necessary to tell a sweetheart that—
“By forgiving him at first sight, you foolish girl, you deprived yourself of many pleasures—of his prostration at your feet [a trace of Gallantry], of a kiss passionately stolen.”
The sadness of separation thus finds utterance:—
“As is sickness without a physician; as living with relatives when one is poor—as the sight of an enemy’s prosperity—so is it difficult to endure separation from you.”
Thus we find in Ancient Aryan Love some of the leading features of modern romantic passion.
GREEK LOVE
The Greeks, too, were Aryans, and they were the most refined and æsthetic nation of antiquity; yet we look in vain in their literature for delineations of that Romantic Love which, according to our notions, ought to accompany so high a degree of culture.
FAMILY AFFECTIONS
Conjugal tenderness and the other family affections appear; indeed, to have been known and cherished by the Greeks at all times, in the days of Athenian supremacy, when women were kept in entire seclusion, no less than in Homeric times, when they seem to have enjoyed more liberty of action. Plutarch tells us in his Conjugal Precepts that “With women tenderness of heart is indicated by a pleasing countenance, by sweetness of speech, by an affectionate grace, and by a high degree of sensitiveness;” and Mr. Lecky thus eloquently sums up the evidence that the Greeks appreciated the various forms of domestic affection:—
“The types of female excellence which are contained in the Greek poems, while they are among the earliest, are also among the most perfect in the literature of mankind. The conjugal tenderness of Hector and Andromache; the unwearied fidelity of Penelope, awaiting through the long revolving years the return of her storm-tossed husband, who looked forward to her as the crown of all his labours; the heroic love of Alcestis, voluntarily dying that her husband might live; the filial piety of Antigone; the majestic grandeur of the death of Polyxena; the more subdued and saintly resignation of Iphigenia, excusing with her last breath the father who had condemned her; the joyous, modest, and loving Nausicaa, whose figure shines like a perfect idyll among the tragedies of the Odyssey—all these are pictures of perennial beauty, which Rome and Christendom, chivalry and modern civilisation, have neither eclipsed nor transcended. Virgin modesty and conjugal fidelity, the graces as well as the virtues of the most perfect womanhood, have never been more exquisitely portrayed.”
NO LOVE-STORIES
But Mr. Lecky, ignoring, like most writers, the enormous difference between conjugal and romantic love, forgets to notice the absolute silence of Greek literature on the subject of pre-matrimonial infatuation.
