Greek Women Part 8

Sappho loves flowers with a personal sympathy. She feels for the hyacinth:

"As when the shepherds on the hills Tread under foot the hyacinth, And on the ground the purple flower lies crushed."

She sings also of the golden pulse that grows on the sh.o.r.es, and of the pure, soft bloom of the gra.s.s trampled under foot by the Cretan women as they dance round the fair altar of Aphrodite. The rose seems to have been her favorite flower, for, says Philostratus, "Sappho loves the rose, and always crowns it with some praise, likening beautiful maidens to it."

The birds, too, found in her a most sympathetic friend. Her ear is open to:

"Spring's messenger, the sweet-voiced nightingale,"

and she pities the wood-doves as "their heart turns cold and their wings fall," under the stroke from the arrow of the archer.

Sappho's love for nature is only surpa.s.sed by her love for art, for splendor and festivity, as they appeal to the aesthetic nature. She loves her lyre, the song and the dance, garlands, purple robes, and all that attended the worship of Aphrodite and the Muses. Her lyre she thus addresses:

"Come, then, my lyre divine!

Let speech be thine."

And to Aphrodite she utters this appeal:

"Come, Queen of Cyprus, pour the stream Of nectar, mingled lusciously With merriment, in cups of gold."

She also calls about her the Muses and the Graces:

"Hither come, ye dainty Graces And ye fair-haired Muses now!"

And again:

"Come, rosy-armed, chaste Graces! come, Daughter of Jove."

And yet again:

"Hither, hither come, ye Muses!

Leave the golden sky."

In the worship of Aphrodite and the Graces, garlands are appropriate for the devotees:

"Of foliage and flowers love-laden Twine wreaths for thy flowing hair With thine own soft fingers, maiden, Weave garlands of parsley fair;

"For flowers are sweet, and the Graces On suppliants wreathed with may Look down from their heavenly places, But turn from the crownless away."

Such was the joy of the devotees of the Muses. Sappho believed in the adornment of the soul as well as of the body, and she thus addresses one who neglected the services of the Muses:

"Yea, thou shalt die, And lie Dumb in the silent tomb; Nor of thy name Shall there be any fame In ages yet to be or years to come; For of the flowering Rose, Which on Pieria blows, Thou hast no share: But in sad Hades' house Unknown, inglorious 'Mid the dark shades that wander there Shalt thou flit forth and haunt the filmy air."

"I think there will be memory of us yet in after days," said Sappho, and the sentiment is one which later poets have often imitated. Thus the poetess had intimations of the immortality that is justly hers, and the reader will heartily enter into the spirit of Swinburne's paraphrase:

"I, Sappho, shall be one with all these things, With all things high forever; and my face Seen once, my songs once heard in a strange place, Cleave to men's lives, and waste the days thereof In gladness, and much sadness and long love."

Sappho sings of love and its manifestations, of longing and pa.s.sion, of grief and regret, of natural beauty in sea and sky, by day and by night, of the birds and trees and flowers, and "all this is told us in language at once overpowering and delicate, in verse as symmetrical as it is exquisite, free, and fervid, through metaphor simple or sublime; each word, each line, expressive of the writer's inmost sense; with an art that, in its Greek constraint, comparison, and sweetness, and in its Oriental fervor, is faultless and unerring."

Not only as a poet is Sappho of interest to the women of our day, but also because she was the founder of the first woman's club of which we have knowledge. This Lesbian literary club did not engage, however, in the study of current topics, or seek to gather sheaves of knowledge from the field of science and history, but was consecrated strictly to the service of the Muses. Sappho attracted by her fame young women of Lesbos and of neighboring cities. She gathered them about her, gave them instruction in poetry and music, and incited them to the cultivation of all the arts and graces. Many of these maidens from a distance doubtless sought the society of Sappho because they were weary of the low drudgery and monotonous routine of home life that fell to the lot of women in Ionian cities, and because they felt the need of a freer atmosphere and more inspiring surroundings.

Sappho eagerly sought to elevate her s.e.x. She showed them that, through the more perfect training of mind and body, their horizon would be enlarged, their resources for happiness increased, and their homes become centres of inspiring influences for husband and children.

Never was there a teacher more eager to possess her pupils' love and confidence. Maximus of Tyre compares her relations with her girl friends to Socrates's relations with young men. At times, men have seen fit to censure these intimate friendships of Socrates and Sappho with their pupils, and to see in them immoral relations such as characterized the pa.s.sionate devotion of many Greek men to beautiful youths; but there is no ground for such imputations. While manifesting the beauty and sweetness and satisfaction in woman's love for woman, Sappho did not attempt to make this love a subst.i.tute for the love of men. She herself was married; and there are intimations in her poems that certain of her girl friends exchanged the pleasures of aesthetic comradeship for the joys of wedded life.

From the fragments of her songs, we know the names of at least fourteen of her pupils, and it pleases the fancy to attempt to reconstruct a picture of that delightful band of girl friends, who spent their days in the study of poetry and music and their evenings in every elevating form of recreation. A writer has thus sketched the picture: "Let us call around her in fancy the maidens who have come from different parts of Greece to learn of her. Anactoria is here from Miletus, Eunica from Salamis, Gongyle from Colophon, and others from Pamphylia, and the isle of Telos. Erinna and Damophyla study together the composition of Sapphic metres. Atthis learns how to strike the harp with the plectrum, Sappho's invention; Mnasidica embroiders a sacred robe for the temple. The teacher meanwhile corrects the measures of the one, the notes of another, the strophes of a third; then summons all from their work, to rehea.r.s.e together some sacred chorus or temple ritual; then stops to read a verse of her own, or to denounce a rival preceptress. Throughout her intercourse with these maidens her conduct is characterized by pa.s.sionate love, as between equals in mind and heart, and is expressed in fervid and high-wrought language embodying a purity that cannot be misunderstood or cavilled away."

VII

THE SPARTAN WOMAN

It was from Sparta that Paris in the Heroic Age bore away to his Phrygian home Argive Helen, fairest of mortals, the Greek ideal of feminine beauty and charm. But never since that fateful day--as, indeed, never before it--was there in Sparta any woman to compare with her; for the Spartan maidens of historical times, though comely and vigorous and noted for physical beauty, were cast in a firmer, st.u.r.dier mould than that which characterized Helen, the flower of grace and loveliness. Yet the traveller in Sparta in her prime must have marvelled at the splendid maidens and matrons he saw amid the hills of Lacedaemon--trained in athletic exercises, fleet of foot, vigorous and well-proportioned, and showing in their very bearing how important they were to the well-being of the State.

In Sparta, woman was the equal of man--in Athens, his inferior. In this fact lies the secret of the training that was given her, for the character of the education of woman is an index to the position a.s.signed her by the spirit of the State. Spartan legislation concerning woman was controlled by one idea--to develop in the maiden the mother-to-be. This idea is so beautiful, so profound, that, after all the centuries which have elapsed, one cannot find a better principle for feminine education.

Like mother, like son--and the Spartan ideal of the son was the warrior strong, brave, and resolute, enduring hardship and living solely for the State. Hence the mother must be strong, brave, and resolute, sacrificing every womanly tenderness to the prevailing conception of patriotism.

Great is the contrast between the women of the various peoples of Greece. The Achaean woman, in Homeric times, played no prominent part in public affairs; her home was her palace, and she manifested those domestic traits and womanly qualities that in this day still const.i.tute womanly charm. The life of the Ionian woman was a secluded one; she was under the domination of the sterner s.e.x, and compelled to devote herself largely to the varied duties of the household. The aeolian woman, on the contrary, had a.s.serted her freedom, and lived on terms of social and intellectual comradeship with men. She devoted herself to the cultivation of every womanly grace, and was the earnest follower of Aphrodite and the Muses. In contrast to these, the Spartan woman presents an altogether unique type. She was merely a creature of the State, the cultivation of her higher nature being under the control of a rigid system. As such, she contributed in a large degree to the public welfare, but it was at the sacrifice of many feminine attributes. In her, natural affection and womanly sympathy were sacrificed to a single virtue--patriotism. But one function was emphasized--that of motherhood.

All her training was devoted to but one end--that of producing soldiers.

The life of the individual was strictly subordinated to the good of the State. Such a system evolved a remarkable type of womanhood, and the Spartan matron has won an immortal name in history.

From the central ma.s.s of the mountain system of the Peloponnesus in Arcadia, two chains, Tagetus and Parnon, detach themselves and extend southward, terminating in the two dangerous promontories of Taenarum and Malea. Between the two ridges the river Eurotas winds its way in a southeasterly course. In the undulating valley formed by the bed of the stream, and shut in by the mountain ranges, lay ancient Sparta. The country, by nature and climate, was such as to make men hardy and determined. Euripides styles it "a country rich in productions, but difficult to cultivate; shut in on all sides by a barrier of stern mountains; almost inaccessible to the foe." Its hidden situation in the Eurotas valley made it a well-guarded camp, and the Dorian conquerors of the Peloponnesus, surrounded by enemies and threatened by warlike neighbors, soon saw that the only hope of holding their conquests and extending their power lay in the maintenance of a warlike race.

Lycurgus, usually reputed to have lived in the ninth century before Christ, was the founder of the legislation which const.i.tuted the greatness of Sparta. He was one of the originators of the principle, so characteristic of antiquity and in such contrast to the spirit of modern times: "The citizen is born and lives for the State; to it his time, his strength, and all his powers belong." Nowhere was this maxim so rigidly enforced as at Sparta. Lycurgus established inst.i.tutions of a public nature which gave a centralized administration of the most rigid sort, and regulations relating to private life which would develop a warlike type of citizen, the whole system tending to make Sparta supreme in the Peloponnesus, and her soldiers invincible in war. To accomplish this end, the daily life of every individual, both male and female, was under the control of the State. The effect of such a system on the character has been happily expressed by Rousseau: "He strengthened the citizen by taking away the human traits from the man."

Lycurgus saw that the salvation of Sparta depended on its citizens being a nation of warriors. Only by being always ready for war and by possessing an invincible body of soldiery could the State fulfil its destiny in the work of the world. He realized further that the natural antecedent of a nation of men strong physically and intellectually is a race of healthy, st.u.r.dy, able-bodied women. Hence his training of the daughters of Sparta was the corner-stone of his system. Valuing woman only for her fruitfulness, his legislation in regard to her had but one object in view--fitting her to be the mother of a powerful race of men.

Maidens, therefore, as well as youths, were subjected to the most rigid physical training.

From the moment of birth, the Spartan boy or girl was in the hands of the State. The infant was exposed in the place of public a.s.sembly, and if the elders considered it frail and unpromising, or for any reason regarded its existence of no value to the State, the child was thrown off a cliff of Mount Tagetus,--a usage shocking to modern sensibilities, but accepted as a necessity by Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers. The able-bodied child was restored to its mother, and she directed the early training of her charge under the eye of the magistrates. Though the Spartan girl was not, as the youth, removed altogether from the mother at the age of seven and brought up in the barracks, yet her training was scarcely less severe than that of the boys. The feminine tasks of spinning and weaving, customary for free women of other peoples, were by the Spartans committed to female slaves, and the State so ordered the lives of the free maidens that they might become in the future the mothers of robust children. "He [Lycurgus]

directed the maidens," says Plutarch, "to exercise themselves with wrestling, running, throwing the quoit, and casting the dart, to the end that the fruit they conceived might in strong and healthy bodies take firmer root and find better growth." These gymnastic exercises they practised in public, clad in little else save their own modesty, thus overcoming fear of exposure to the air, as well as overgreat tenderness and shyness. Similarly clad, they took part in processions along with the young men, and were trained in singing and dancing in the public choruses. This carefully regulated comradeship between youths and maidens was encouraged with a view to stimulating the young men to deeds of valor. The maidens on these occasions would make, by means of jests, befitting reflections on the young men who had misbehaved themselves in the wars, and would sing encomiums upon those who had done gallant actions. Thus the young men were spurred on to greater endeavor by the dread of feminine ridicule, and were inspired by feminine praise to the performance of great deeds. It was always the part of the Spartan maiden, then, to keep bright the fires of patriotism and heroic endeavor. The mother, by precept and example, taught the daughter to repress every emotion of womanly tenderness, to elevate the State to the first place in her heart and life, and to find her destiny in bearing brave sons to defend her country. Thus admitted to the freedom of companionship with their brothers in the games and processions, and stimulated by the instructions of their mothers, they early caught the spirit and purpose which animated one and all--the spirit of unselfish patriotism. It was natural, therefore, that they accepted without a murmur the tyranny of a single idea and found in it their glory and pride. Many stories are told of their remarkable devotion to the State.

A Spartan mother who has lost her boy in battle exclaims: "Did I not bear him that he might die for Sparta?" To another, waiting for tidings of the battle, comes a messenger announcing that her five sons have perished. "You contemptible slave," she replies, "that is not what I wish to hear. How fares my country?" On hearing that Sparta is victorious, she adds, without a tremor: "Willingly, then, do I hear of the death of my sons."

Marriage is the determining factor in the economic conditions of society, and the regulations prescribed concerning it are an excellent index to the character of any people. Under the Lycurgan system, marriage was strictly under the control of the State. The G.o.ddess of love was practically banished from Sparta. Only one temple to Aphrodite stood in Lacedaemon; and in this the G.o.ddess was represented armed, not with her magic girdle, but with a sword, and seated with a veil over her head and fetters upon her feet, symbolizing that she was under restraint. History records many instances of affection between husband and wife, but considerations of love did not enter into the marriage contract. No frail woman was allowed to marry. The age of marriage was fixed at the period which was considered best for the perfection of the offspring, usually about thirty years in the case of the men, and about twenty for the maidens. Plutarch describes in uncolored language the chief features of the marriage relations of the Spartans:

"In their marriages, the husband carried off his bride by a sort of force; nor were brides ever small and of tender years, but in their full bloom and ripeness. After this, she who superintended the wedding comes and clips the hair of the bride close round her head, dresses her up in man's clothes, and leaves her upon a mattress in the dark; afterward comes the bridegroom, in his everyday clothes, sober and composed, as having supped at the common table; and entering privately into the room where the bride lies, unties her virgin zone, and takes her to himself; and after staying some time together, he returns composedly to his own apartment, to sleep as usual with the other young men. And so he continues to do, spending his days and indeed his nights with them, visiting his bride in fear and shame and with circ.u.mspection, when he thought he should not be observed; she also, on her part, using her wit to help to find favorable opportunities for their meeting, when company was out of the way. In this manner they lived a long time, insomuch that they sometimes had children by their wives before ever they saw their faces by daylight. Their interviews being thus difficult and rare, served not only for continual exercise of their self-control, but brought them together with their bodies healthy and vigorous, and their affections fresh and lively, unsated and undulled by easy access and long continuance with each other, while their partings were always early enough to leave behind unextinguished in each of them some remaining fire of longing and mutual delight.

"After guarding marriage with this modesty and reserve, Lycurgus was equally careful to banish empty and womanish jealousy. For this object, excluding all licentious disorders, he made it nevertheless honorable for men to give the use of their wives to those whom they should think fit, that so they might have children by them; ridiculing those in whose opinion such favors are so unfit for partic.i.p.ation as to fight and shed blood and go to war therefor. Lycurgus allowed a man, who was advanced in years and had a young wife, to recommend some virtuous and approved young man, that she might have a child by him, who might inherit the good qualities of the father, and be a son to himself. On the other side, an honest man who had love for a married woman upon account of her modesty and the well-favoredness of her children might, without formality, beg her company of her husband, that he might raise, as it were, from this plot of good ground worthy and well-allied children for himself."

Regulations such as these, though shocking to modern sensibilities, seem not to have been detrimental to public morals while Sparta submitted to the severe austerity of the laws. It seems surprising that, while a woman might lawfully be the recognized wife of two husbands, no such duplication of spouses was allowed to a man. This rule is ill.u.s.trated by its one historical exception In the case of King Anaxandrides, who, says Herodotus, when the royal Heraclidaean line of Eurystheus was in danger of becoming extinct, married his niece, who bore him no children. The people besought him to divorce her, and to contract another marriage; but, owing to his love for his wife, he positively refused. Upon this, they made a suggestion to him as follows: "Since then we perceive thou art firmly attached to the wife whom thou now hast, consent to do this, and set not thyself against it, lest the Spartans take some counsel against thee other than might be wished. We do not ask of thee the putting away of the wife thou now hast; but do thou give to her all that thou givest now, and at the same time take to thy house another wife in addition to this one, to bear thee children." When they spoke to him after this manner, Anaxandrides consented, and from this time forth he kept two separate households, having two wives, a thing which, we are told, was not by any means after the Spartan fashion.

Every inducement was offered to encourage matrimony, and bachelors were the objects of general scorn and derision. "Those who continued bachelors," says Plutarch, "were in a degree disfranchised by law; for they were excluded from the sight of the public processions in which the young men and maidens danced naked, and in the winter-time the officers compelled them to walk naked round the market place, singing, as they went, a certain song to their own disgrace, that they justly suffered this punishment for disobeying the laws." Furthermore, at a certain festival the women themselves sought to bring these misguided individuals to a proper sense of their duty by dragging them round an altar and continually inflicting blows upon them. Without doubt, the maidens were all inclined to matrimony, as it enhanced their influence and enabled them to fulfil their mission; and the rulers were ever ready to provide husbands for them.

A kind of disgrace attached to childlessness. Men who were not fathers were denied the respect and observance which the young men of Sparta regularly paid their elders. On one occasion, Dercyllidas, a commander of great renown, entered an a.s.sembly. A young Spartan, contrary to custom, failed to rise at his approach. The veteran soldier was surprised. "You have no sons," said the youth, "who will one day pay the same honor to me." And public opinion justified the excuse.

The effects of the athletic training upon the physical nature of woman were most commendable. The Spartan maiden was renowned throughout Greece for preeminence in vigor of body and beauty of form. Even the Athenian was impressed by this. Lysistrata, in the play of Aristophanes, in greeting Lampito, the delegate from Sparta, who has come to a women's conference, speaks thus: