The annals of all nations contain similar recordsthough probably among none has the ideal of this love been quite so enthusiastic and heroic as among the post-Homeric Greeks. It is well known that among the Polynesian Islandersfor the most part a very gentle and affectionate people, probably inheriting the traditions of a higher culture than they now possessthe most romantic male friendships are (or were) in vogue. Says Herman Melville in Omoo (chap. 39), The really curious way in which all Polynesians are in the habit of making bosom friends is deserving of remark. In the annals of the island (Tahiti) are examples of extravagant friendships, unsurpassed by the story of Damon and Pythiasin truth much more wonderful; for notwithstanding the devotioneven of life in some casesto which they led, they were frequently entertained at first sight for some stranger from another island. So thoroughly recognised indeed were these unions that Melville explains (in Typee, chap. 18) that if two men of hostile tribes or islands became thus pledged to each other, then each could pass through the enemys territory without fear of molestation or injury; and the passionate nature of these attachments is indicated by the following passage from Omoo (another book of Melvilles):Though little inclined to jealousy in ordinary love-matters, the Tahitian will hear of no rivals in his friendship.
Even among savage races lower down than these in the scale of evolution, and who are generally accused of being governed in their love-relations only by the most animal desires, we find a genuine sentiment of comradeship beginning to assert itselfas among the Balonda15 and other African tribes, where regular ceremonies of the betrothal of comrades take place, by the transfusion of a few drops of blood into each others drinking-bowls, by the exchange of names,16 and the mutual gift of their most precious possessions; but unfortunately, owing to the obtuseness of current European opinion on this subject, these and other such customs have been but little investigated and have by no means received the attention that they ought.
When we turn to the poetic and literary utterances of the more civilised nations on this subject we cannot but be struck by the range and intensity of the emotions expressedfrom the beautiful threnody of David over his friend whose love was passing the love of women, through the vast panorama of the Homeric Iliad, of which the heroic friendship of Achilles and his dear Patroclus forms really the basic theme, down to the works of the great Greek agethe splendid odes of Pindar burning with clear fire of passion, the lofty elegies of Theognis, full of wise precepts to his beloved Kurnus, the sweet pastorals of Theocritus, the passionate lyrics of Sappho, or the more sensual raptures of Anacreon. Some of the dramas of Æschylus and Sophoclesas the Myrmidones of the former and the Lovers of Achilles of the latterappear to have had this subject for their motive17; and many of the prose-poem dialogues of Plato were certainly inspired by it.
Then coming to the literature of the Roman age, whose materialistic spirit could only with difficulty seize the finer inspiration of the homogenic love, and which in such writers as Catullus and Martial could only for the most part give expression to its grosser side, we still find in Vergil, a noble and notable instance. His second Eclogue bears the marks of a genuine passion; and, according to some,18 he there under the name of Alexis immortalises his own love for the youthful Alexander. Nor is it possible to pass over in this connection the great mass of Persian literature, and the poets Sadi, Hafiz, Jami, and many others, whose names and works are for all time, and whose marvellous love-songs (Bitter and sweet is the parting kiss on the lips of a friend) are to a large extent, if not mostly, addressed to those of their own sex.19
Of the mediæval period in Europe we have of course but few literary monuments. Towards its close we come upon the interesting story of Amis and Amile (thirteenth century), unearthed by Mr. W. Pater from the Bibliotheca Elzeviriana.20 Though there is historic evidence of the prevalence of the passion we may say of this period that its ideal was undoubtedly rather the chivalric love than the love of comrades. But with the Renaissance in Italy and the Elizabethan period in England the latter once more comes to evidence in a burst of poetic utterance,21 which culminates perhaps in the magnificent sonnets of Michel Angelo and of Shakespeare; of Michel Angelo whose pure beauty of expression lifts the enthusiasm into the highest region as the direct perception of the divine in mortal form;22 and of Shakespearewhose passionate words and amorous spirituality of friendship have for long enough been a perplexity to hide-bound commentators. Thence through minor writers (not overlooking Winckelmann23 in Germany) we pass to quite modern timesin which, notwithstanding the fact that the passion has been much misunderstood and misinterpreted, two names stand conspicuously forththose of Tennyson, whose In Memoriam is perhaps his finest work, and of Walt Whitman, the enthusiasm of whose poems on Comradeship is only paralleled by the devotedness of his labors for his wounded brothers in the American Civil War.
It will be noticed that here we have some of the very greatest names in all literature concerned; and that their utterances on this subject equal if they do not surpass, in beauty, intensity and humanity of sentiment, whatever has been written in praise of the other more ordinarily recognised love.
And when again we turn to the records of Art, and compare the way in which mans sense of Love and Beauty has expressed itself in the portrayal of the male form and the female form respectively we find exactly the same thing. The whole vista of Greek statuary shows the male passion of beauty in high degree. Yet though the statues of men and youths (by men sculptors) preponderate probably considerably, both in actual number and in devotedness of execution, over the statues of female figures, it is, as J. A. Symonds says in his Life of Michel Angelo, remarkable that in all the range of the former there are hardly two or three that show a base or licentious expression, such as is not so very uncommon in the female statues. Knowing as we do the strength of the male physical passion in the life of the Greeks, this one fact speaks strongly for the sense of proportion which must have characterised this passionat any rate in the most productive age of their Art.
In the case of Michel Angelo we have an artist who with brush and chisel portrayed literally thousands of human forms; but with this peculiarity, that while scores and scores of his male figures are obviously suffused and inspired by a romantic sentiment, there is hardly one of his female figures that is so,the latter being mostly representative of woman in her part as mother, or sufferer, or prophetess or poetess, or in old age, or in any aspect of strength or tenderness, except that which associates itself especially with romantic love. Yet the cleanliness and dignity of Michel Angelos male figures are incontestable, and bear striking witness to that nobility of the sentiment in him, which we have already seen illustrated in his sonnets.24
This brief sketch may suffice to give the reader some idea of the place and position in the world of the particular sentiment which we are discussing; nor can it fail to impress himif any reference is made to the authorities quotedwith a sense of the dignity and solidity of the sentiment, at any rate as handled by some of the worlds greatest men. At the same time it would be affectation to ignore the fact that side by side with this view of the subject there has been another current of opinion leading peopleespecially in quite modern times in Europeto look upon attachments of the kind in question with much suspicion and disfavour.25 And it may be necessary here to say a few words on this latter view.