The author of an anonymous poem in the Greek Anthology wishes he were a breath of air that he might be received in the bosom of his beloved; or a rose to be picked by her hand and fastened on her bosom.  Others wish they were the water in the fountain from which a girl drinks, or a dolphin to carry her on its back, or the ring she wears.  After the Hindoo Sakuntala has lost her ring in the river the poet expresses surprise that the ring should have been able to separate itself from that hand.  The Cyclops of Theocritus wishes he had been born with the gills of a fish so that he might dive into the sea to visit the nymph Galatea and kiss her hands should her mouth be refused.  One of the goatherds of the same bucolic poet wishes he were a bee that he might fly to the grotto of Amaryllis.  From such fancies it is but a short step to the “were I a swallow, to her I would fly” of Heine and other modern poets.

NATURE’S SYMPATHY WITH LOVERS

In the ecstasy of his feeling Rosalind’s lover wants to have her name carved on every tree in the forest; but usually the lover assumes that all things in the forests, plants or animals, sympathize with him even without having his beloved’s name thrust upon them.

     For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
     And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
     Or if they sing, ’t is with so dull a cheer,
     That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

“Why are the roses so pale?” asks Heine.

“Why are the violets so dumb in the green grass?  Why does the lark’s song seem so sad, and why have the flowers lost their fragrance?  Why does the sun look down upon the meadows so cold and morose, and why is the earth so gray and desolate?  Why am I ill and melancholy, and why, my love, did you leave me?”

In another poem Heine declares: 

“If the flowers knew how deeply my heart is wounded, they would weep with me.  If the nightingales knew how sad I am, they would cheer me with their refreshing song.  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