Then thrice I kissed him all beblooded there;
His mouth I kissed, his eyes, his every bruise;
More fragrant far than frankincense, I swear.
Was the fierce chrism that from his brows did ooze."
"I do not care for curls or tresses
Displayed in wily wildernesses;
I do not prize the arts that dye
A painted cheek with hues that fly:
Give me a boy whose face and hand
Are rough with dust or circus-sand,
Whose ruddy flesh exhales the scent
Or health without embellishment:
Sweet to my sense is such a youth,
Whose charms have all the charm of truth:
Leave paints and perfumes, rouge, and curls,
To lazy, lewd Corinthian girls."
The palæstra was the place at Athens where lovers enjoyed the greatest freedom. In the Phædrus Plato observes that the attachment of the lover for a boy grew by meetings and personal contact [1] in the gymnasiums and other social resorts, and in the Symposium he mentions gymnastic exercises, with philosophy, and paiderastia, as the three pursuits of freemen most obnoxious to despots. Æschines, again describing the manners of boy-lovers in language familiar to his audience, uses these phrases: "having grown up in gymnasium and games," and "the man having been a noisy haunter of gymnasiums, and having been the lover of multitudes." Aristophanes, also, in the Wasps, [2] employs similar language: "and not seeking to go revelling around in exercising grounds." I may compare Lucian, Amores, cap. 2, "you care for gymnasiums and their sleek oiled combatants," which is said to a notorious boy-lover. Boys and men met together with considerable liberty in the porches, peristyles and other adjuncts to an Attic wrestling-ground; and it was here, too, that sophists and philosophers established themselves, with the certainty of attracting a large and eager audience for their discussions. It is true that an ancient law forbade the presence of adults in the wrestling-grounds of boys; but this law appears to have become almost wholly obsolete in the days of Plato. Socrates, for example, in the Charmides, goes down immediately after his arrival from the camp at Potidæa into the palæstra of Taureas to hear the news of the day, and the very first question which he asks his friends is whether a new beauty has appeared among the youths. [3] So again in the Lysis, Hippothales invites Socrates to enter the private palæstra of Miccus, where boys and men
