This loyalty offends and infuriates the women of
Thracia, who divine in it a spirit inimical to a life in harmony with
nature. One night, during the celebration of the Dionysian rites, they
attack the poet--the representative of the higher Hellenic poetical
ideals--and rend him limb from limb. But as the head of the murdered
singer floats down the river, the pale lips still frame the beloved
name: Eurydice! It is certain that in those remote legendary days such
love did not exist. But the prophetic Greek spirit contrasted
promiscuous intercourse with love for a single woman.
So far we have encountered only a general, not an individualised, sexual
instinct and, in a limited measure at least, a struggling tendency
towards individualisation. But even so it was merely a question of
instinct, and did not bear the least resemblance to love as we
understand it to-day. _Love_ did not exist in the old world. I admit
that in the legend of Orpheus we are face to face with a sentiment which
is not unlike modern love, but, as far as I am aware, this is an
isolated case in Greek history, and may be regarded as a divination of
something new, just as we find unmistakable anticipations of
Christianity in Plato's writings.
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