If the golden stars knew my grief, they would
come down from their heights to whisper consolation to
me."
This phase of amorous hyperbole also was known to the ancient poets.
Theocritus (VII., 74) relates that Daphnis was bewailed by the oaks
that stood on the banks of the river, and Ovid (151) tells us, in
Sappho's epistle to Phaon, that the leafless branches sighed over her
hopeless love and the birds stopped their sweet song. Musaeus felt
that the waters of the Hellespont were still lamenting the fate which
overtook Leander as he swam toward the tower of Hero.
ROMANTIC BUT NOT LOVING
If a romantic love-poem were necessarily a poem of romantic love, the
specimens of amorous hyperbole cited in the preceding pages would
indicate that the ancients knew love as we know it. In reality,
however, there is not, in all the examples cited, the slightest
evidence of genuine love. A passion which is merely sensual may
inspire a gifted poet to the most extravagantly fanciful expressions
of covetous admiration, and in all the cases cited there is nothing
beyond such sensual admiration. An African Harari compares the girl he
likes to "sweet milk fresh from the cow," and considers that coarse
remark a compliment because he knows love only as an appetite. A gypsy
poet compares the shoulders of his beloved to "wheat bread," and a
Turkish poem eulogizes a girl for being like "bread fried in butter.
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