We now take up our
sixth ingredient--Hyperbole--which has done more than any other to
confuse the minds of scholars as regards the antiquity of romantic
love, for the reason that it presents the passion of the ancients in
its most poetic and romantic aspects.
GIRLS AND FLOWERS
Amorous hyperbole may be defined as obvious exaggeration in praising
the charms of a beloved girl or youth; Shakspere speaks of
"exclamations hyperbolical ... praises sauced with lies." Such
"praises sauced with lies" abound in the verse and prose of Greek and
Roman as well as Sanscrit and other Oriental writers, and they assume
as diverse forms as in modern erotic literature. The commonest is that
in which a girl's complexion is compared to lilies and roses. The
Cyclops in Theocritus tells Galatea she is "whiter than milk ...
brighter than a bunch of hard grapes." The mistress of Propertius has
a complexion white as lilies; her cheeks remind him of "rose leaves
swimming on milk."
Lilia non domina sunt magis alba mea;
Ut Moeotica nix minio si certet Eboro,
Utque rosae puro lacte natant folia.
(II., 2.)
Achilles Tatius wrote that the beauty of Leucippe's countenance
"might vie with the flowers of the meadow; the narcissus was
resplendent in her general complexion, the rose blushed upon
her cheek, the dark hue of the violet sparkled in her eyes,
her ringlets curled more closely than do the clusters of the
ivy--her face, therefore, was a reflex of the meadows.
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