reason, the rose is considered the most lovely among flowers, because its beauty so quickly fades. There are two species of beauty among mortals, each bestowed by its presiding goddess, the one of heaven, the other of earth; the former chafes at being linked to what is mortal, and quickly wings its flight to heaven; the latter clings to earth, and cleaves to mortal bodies. Would you have a poet's testimony of the ascent of heavenly beauty? hear what Homer sings: Ganymede

Fairest of human kind, whom for that cause

The gods caught up to heav'n that he might dwell

For ever there, the cup-bearer of Jove.

But no woman, I trow, ever ascended to heaven for her beauty's sake, though Jove had abundance of intrigues with women; grief and exile were the portion of Alcmena; the chest and the sea were the receptacle of Danae; and Semele became food for fire; but -mark the difference when Jove became enamored of a Phrygian youth, he took him up to heaven to dwell with him, and pour out his nectar, depriving his predecessor of this office, she being, I rather think, a woman.

(Smith, pp. 396-7)

Our hero now launches into a eulogy of affairs heterosexual which, when it passes from the mythological to the mundane experiences of the hero with whores, is too much for Prof. Gaselee, who sweeps into Latin, but not for the more broad-minded Rev. Smith. Leaving the exact text for some scholarly issue of Playboy, we return to Menelaus, who continues where he left off on his previous high-minded, Plato-inspired views. We now come to the famous passage, never before published in a complete and accurate translation.

one

(The present translation is based on a comparison of the Latin of Prof. Gaselee and Rev. Smith, together with the 1902 via-French translation, with reference to original Greek text for the most delicate parts). It will be readily seen why this passage, by means pornographic, would be too much for the sensibilities of the average heterosexual reader: On the other hand, a youth's beauty needs none of these false and borrowed perfumes his flesh exhales a fragrance sweeter than all your female cosmetics. Moreover, prior to sexual embraces, you can take him in your arms on the wrestling mats, grasping him tightly, doing this openly and without any embarrassment. Nor does he offer soft/slimy* flesh that yields too much in sexual embrace but rather another solid body to strike against and struggle with in mutual sexual passion. Furthermore, a youth's kisses lack a woman's artificiality, nor does he bring with his lips a whore's deceitfulness. Indeed, he knows how to give kisses that are inspired not by any artfulness but by natural proficiency. Truly, for a youth's kisses there is only one comparison they are as from nectar solidified and changed into lips.

Finally, in the kissing of a youth, you can never be satiated. The more you are filled with his kisses, the more you thirst for them; nor can you withdraw your mouth from his until you withdraw your kisses in ultimate satisfaction of your passion.

To the homosexual, this passage is remarkable not only for so precisely reflecting the sexual views of so

*The Greek, Lygroteti sarkon, can mean either flesh soft or slimy: The Latin of Gaselee has it "lubricae carnes" (slimy), Smith "carnis teneritas" (soft).