"
In whatever sense we take this, as referring to sensual or sentimental
love, or a combination of the two, it explains why erotic writers of
all times make such lavish use of superlatives and exaggerations.
Their strong feelings can only be expressed in strong language.
"Beauty inflicts a wound sharper than any arrow," quoth Achilles
Tatius. Meleager declares: "Even the winged Eros in the air became
your prisoner, sweet Timarion, because your eye drew him down;" and in
another place: "the cup is filled with joy because it is allowed to
touch the beautiful lips of Zenophila. Would that she drank my soul in
one draught, pressing firmly her lips on mine" (a passage which
Tennyson imitated in "he once drew with one long kiss my whole soul
through my lips"). "Not stone only, but steel would be melted by
Eros," cried Antipater of Sidon. Burton tells of a cold bath that
suddenly smoked and was very hot when Coelia came into it; and an
anonymous modern poet cries:
Look yonder, where
She washes in the lake!
See while she swims,
The water from her purer limbs
New clearness take!
The Persian poet, Saadi, tells the story of a young enamoured Dervish
who knew the whole Koran by heart, but forgot his very alphabet in
presence of the princess. She tried to encourage him, but he only
found tongue to say, "It is strange that with thee present I should
have speech left me;" and having said that he uttered a loud groan and
surrendered his soul up to God.
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