Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying--
Lady make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
--Dorothy Parker
Polonius:
This is the very ecstasy
of love,
Whose violent property
foredoes itself
And leads the will to desperate
undertakings
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures.
-- William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark.
Here are sweet waters, prettily in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine, that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds.
--Dorothy Parker
I have hidden myself from you,
Lo, you always at my side!
I cannot shake myself free.
In the evening stillness
With your cold eyes you sit watching,
Longing, hungering still for me;
I will open my heart and give you
All my blood, at last.
--John Gould Fletcher
"Who wants to fall in love, who wants the waiting for a voice, a footstep, a cough, who would choose this?"--John Cheever, The Journals of John Cheever.
in an overheated
room and feeling
suddenly from the seat
behind me his hands
helping me with the sleeves.
-Brady Earnhart
"Talking to [the enlisted men in the prison camp] I would find myself assailed by a fierce kind of tenderness for them, that was like fire. I wonder if anyone, except perhaps Wilfred Owen, has ever paid enough attention to this kind of male tenderness that men feel for flesh and blood in war, not even exclusively flesh and blood of their own kin but also of their enemy. It is so perhaps, because the British have this ridiculous feeling of embarrassment when faced with emotion and feeling . . . " Col. Laurens van der Post, The Prisoner and the Bomb
Pausanias: " . . .the earthly Aphrodite's Love is a very earthly Love indeed, and does his work entirely at random. It is he that governs the passions of the vulgar. For first, they are as much attracted by women as by boys; next, whoever they may love, their desires are of the body rather than the soul; and finally, they make a point of courting the shallowest people they can find, looking forward to the mere act of fruition and careless whether it be a worthy or unworthy consummation . . . . But the heavenly Love springs from a goddess whose attributes have nothing of the female, but are altogether male, and who is also the elder of the two, and innocent of any hint of lewdness. And so those who are inspired by this Love turn rather to the male, preferring the more rigorous and intellectual bent." --Plato, Symposium
"The rhetorician Diophanes read . . . in Plato's 'Symposeum' . . . that a pupil for the sake of advancing in the study of virtue should submit himself to carnal intercourse with his master if the master desired it. Plotinus repeatedly started up to leave the meeting, but restrained himself, and after the end of the lecture he gave me, Porphyry, the task of writing a refutation. Plotinus liked it so much he said 'So strike and be a light to men.' "--Porphyry, On The Life of Plotinus.
"When I think of Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Aeschines, Cebes and that whole band of men who sanctioned affection between men, and thus guided the youth onward to learning, leadership and virtuous conduct . . . I am inclined to emulate their example . . . [n]ow we ought indeed to drive away those whose desire is for mere beauty, but to admit without reserve those who are lovers of the soul. . . . An effort should be made to yoke in marriage those who cannot resist their desires, and who are deaf to admonitions." Plutarch, The Education of Children.
"Modern English has no standard term for same-sex partners in a permanent, committed relationship, so it is virtually impossible to translate ancient terms for this (of which there were many) accurately into contemporary English." --John Boswell, Same-sex Unions in PreModern Europe.
And splashed the prostrate noon!
O Water-boy more pallid
Than any watery moon!
O Lilies round him turning!
O broken Lilies strewn!
O silver Lutes of Morning
O Red the Drums of Noon!
O ebon Swans of Care--
I sought thee on the Morrow,
And never found thee there!
I breathed the vapor-blended
Cloud of dim despair:
White lily, is it ended?
Gold lily-- oh, golden hair!
I hardly knew again,
So black it was, and swelling
With bitter wind and rain.
'Mid the bowed leaves I lingered
Lashed by the blast of Pain
Till evening, storm-rose-fingered,
Beckoned to night again.
Over the unstelled skies;
Full moon lashed out a-riot:
Near her I dreamt thine eyes
Afloat with night, still trembling
With captured mysteries:
But sulfured wracks, assembling,
Redarkened the bright skies.
Safe at white nymph's feet,
Listless, while I, slow-dying,
Twist my gaunt limbs for heat!
Yet I'll to Earth, my Mother:
So, boy, I'll still entreat
Forgive me--for none other
Like earth, is Honey-sweet.
--James Elroy Flecker
'Tis a most insipid passion,
To choose out for your happiness!
The idlest part of God's creation.
Things designed for dirty slaves,
Drudge in fair Aurelias womb,
To get supplies for age, and graves.
Henceforth, ev'ry night to fit,
With my lewd well natur'd friend,'
Drinking, to engender wit.
And if busie Love intrenches,
There's a sweet soft page, of mine,
Does the trick worth forty wenches.
--John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
My working week, my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
--W.H. Auden
"Romantic love as Americans conceive it does not exist. Hence the enormous divorce rate. When sexual desire cools there is often not much left . . . . Haven't I proved my point by living with someone for twenty-four years? That's obviously not being in love. You don't live with the person you love. At least I've known very few cases of it. You live with a friend and that is something quite different from having a grand passion or love affair." --Gore Vidal
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
Are closing in asthma, or tumor, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns
Then you will find-- its your own affair
But... You've given your heart to a dog to tear.
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone-- wherever it goes-- for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em the more do we grieve:
For when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-term loan is as bad as a long--
So why in-- Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
--Rudyard Kipling
Socrates: "Callicles . . . I have observed that you and I have undergone much the same experience, for each of us is in love with two objects: I with Alcibiades, son of Clinias, and philosophy, and you also with two, the Athenian demos and Demos, son of Pyrlampes. Now I notice on every occassion that clever though you be, whatever your favorite says and however he describes things to be, you cannot contradict him, but constantly shift to and fro. In the Assembly, if any statement of yours is contradicted by the Athenian demos, you change about and say what it wishes, and you behave much the same way toward the handsome young son of Pyrilampes . . . [but I speak always the same for] my favorite, philosophy . . . is much less unstable than my other love, the son of Clinias who is at the mercy now of one argument, now of another--philosophy holds always to the same. And you must either disprove that to do wrong and evade punishment for wrongdoing is the worst of all evils, or if you leave this unrefuted, then by the dog that is god in Egypt, Callicles himself will not agree with Callicles, but you will be at variance with yourself thoughout your life." Plato, Gorgias
"If they palter him in a double sense, it may be that they lie like truth, but I think they lie, and it is a fraud." --Lord Blackburn
Love the reeling midnight through
For tomorrow we shall die
(But, alas, it's never true.)
--Dorothy Parker
