In other cases, the poets
still feel called upon to teach these women how to make men submissive
by withholding caresses from them. Thus in Lucian, Pythias exclaims:
"To tell the truth, dear Joessa, you yourself spoiled
him with your excessive love, which you even allowed
him to notice. You should not have made so much of him:
men, when they discover that, easily become
overweening. Do not weep, poor girl! Follow my advice
and keep your door locked once or twice when he tries
to see you again. You will find that that will make him
flame up again and become frantic with love and
jealousy."
In the third book of his treatise on the Art of Love, Ovid advises
women (of the same class) how to win men. He says, in substance:
"Do not answer his letters too soon; all delay inflames
the lover, provided it does not last too long.... What
is too readily granted does not long retain love. Mix
with the pleasure you give mortifying refusals, make
him wait in your doorway; let him bewail the 'cruel
door;' let him beg humbly, or else get angry and
threaten. Sweet things cloy, tonics are bitter."
MODESTY AND COYNESS
Feigned unwillingness or indifference in obedience to such advice may
perhaps be called coyness, but it is only a coarse primitive phase of
that attitude, based on sordid, mercenary motives, whereas true modern
coyness consists in an impulse, grounded in modesty, to conceal
affection.
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