While reading his Memoirs, I was particularly interested in the childhood of Symonds. We often think childhood memories are important because they lead to the development of character for the rest of our lives. Symonds also had this idea, writing in his Memoirs “No one, however, can regard the first stirrings of the sexual instinct as a trifling phenomenon in any life” (Symonds 99). While Symonds remained unsure about the ultimate origin of his (or anyone’s) sexual orientation, he thought that its ultimate form must have first taken in childhood. After reading the chapter about his childhood love, I wanted to further examine his childhood loves and how they contributed to his character in his later life. 

The first figure I would like to discuss is Adonis. In his Memoirs, Symonds discusses how he fell in love with Adonis by reading the poem Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare. 

“Now the first English poem which impressed me deeply—as it has, no doubt, impressed thousands of boys—was Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis […] Adult males, the shaggy and brawny sailors, without entirely disappearing, began to be superseded in my fancy by an adolescent Adonis. The emotion they symbolized blent with a new kind of feeling. In some confused way I identified myself with Adonis; but at the same time I yearned after him as an adorable object of passionate love. Venus only served to intensify the situation. I did not pity her. I did not want her. I did not think that, had I been in the position of Adonis, I should have used his opportunities to better purpose.”

Symonds Memoirs 101

I found Symonds’s love for Adonis interesting because he did not fall in love only with the physical beauty of Adonis but also with the beauty of the poem describing Adonis. From this, I was easily able to find one impact love for Adonis led to Symonds; Adonis sparked his love for the poem (and for poetry), which eventually helped to led him to become a poet himself. At the same time, Adonis is also figure from Greek myth, so it would have contributed to his becoming a classicist. 

At the same time, as Symonds himself admitted, there was a dual sense of his love toward Adonis. He identified himself with Adonis, but he pursued Adonis at the same time. In the perspective of Greek love, Adonis would be the perfect example of eromenos, the “beloved.” The problem is that Symonds was too young to be the erastes, the “lover.” He rather fits the profile of the eromenos, which is why he partly identifes with Adonis. Maybe that’s why the feeling for Adonis was complex for Symonds, as if he knew he had to be eromenos from the perspective of ancient Greek sexuality. Thus, by expressing his love toward Adonis and identifying with Adonis simultaneously, he is presenting himself as both erastes and eromenos.

After looking at Symonds’s love for Adonis, I became curious whether he looked for more sources for Adonis in his adulthood—in another poet’s poetry, for example. When I first searched for Adonis in the Lost Library, I was disappointed to find out that there weren’t any books with the title “Adonis.”. Then, our newly constructed Lost Library in Hathitrust allowed me to do a keyword search, and I found a total of 101 books that contain “Adonis” at least once. For example, in Essays on Poetry and Poets, Roden Noel discusses the pathetic fallacy—the attribution of human nature to non-humans—in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis (Noel 34). Here, Noel thinks loving Adonis provides and example of the pathetic fallacy because in myth Adonis changed into a flower after his death. Similarly, Adonis’s name can be seen in the botanical dictionary, Alpine Flowers for English Gardens, as one of the flowers. Thus, Adonis frequently appeared even in Symonds’s adult life in many different forms.

The other figure Symonds fell in love with is the statue of Cupid: 

“A photograph of the Praxitelean Cupid:  that most perfect of antiques They call the Genius of the Vatican, Which seems too beauteous to endure itself In this mixed world—  taught me to feel the secret of Greek sculpture. I used to pore for hours together over the divine loveliness, while my father read poetry aloud to us in the evenings.”

Symonds Memoirs 118

Once again, it was straightforward to find the connection of love for Cupid to Symonds’s later life. Picture of the statue of Cupid allowed him to find interest in statues, and artworks in advance. Cupid is also a Classical figure, so it further sparked his interest in Classics. Thus, along with Adonis, Cupid might have motivated Symonds to study Classics. 

Then, there is a question of whether Symonds actually saw this photograph in his childhood. Shane Butler, in The Passions of John Addington Symonds, points out the earliest photograph of Cupid was taken between 1855 and 1859, which is after the time Symonds claimed he saw the photo (Butler 208).

If we think Symonds fell in love with the statue of Cupid as an adult, this would fit into Greek pederasty by having Symonds as erastes and Cupid as eromenos. However, that does not seem to be the intention of Symonds. As he already did in the case of Adonis, he is presenting himself as erastes in his childhood. With this, he is emphasizing that his love for male youth occurred before he became an adult.

The final figure I would like to discuss is actually Symonds’s earliest but most peculiar love: his erotic vision of naked sailors. 

“Among my earliest recollections, I must record certain visions, half-dream, half-reverie, which were certainly erotic in their nature, and which recurred frequently just before sleeping. I used to fancy myself crouched upon the floor amid a company of naked adult men: sailors, such as I had seen about the streets of Bristol. The contact of their bodies afforded me a vivid and mysterious pleasure. Singular as it may appear that a mere child should have formed such fancies, and unable as I am to account for their origin, I am positive regarding the truth of this fact. The reverie was so often repeated, so habitual, that there is no doubt about its psychical importance.”

Symonds Memoirs 100

This fantasy draws on something Symonds would have seen in his daily life, as he mentions that he regularly saw sailors on the streets of Bristol in his youth. At the same time, Symonds notes that this vision was “halfdream” and “half-reverie,” meaning this imagery was not exactly what he had seen. Thus, his imagery of naked sailors was the combination of what he actually saw in his daily life and his imagination.

From the perspective of Greek love, this fantasy of naked sailors seems problematic. Symonds as a boy was too young to be erastes, and sailors too old to be eromenoi. In fact, according to Greek love, it is Symonds who has to be eromenos and the naked sailor erastes. Also, the imagery of naked sailor has less connection with the other two figures he fell in love with: Adonis and Cupid.

Indeed, this vision of naked sailors could be seen as the outlier. He even admits that this vision “began to be superseded” by Adonis. At the same time, Symonds stresses the importance of vision of naked sailors by saying it happened often. He also says the vision did not entirely disappear even after he fell in love with Adonis (Symonds 101). That’s why I looked at his adult life to see if his love for adult male re-emerges.

Then, reading a draft of my colleauge Rex Xiao’s blog allowed me to recall that Symonds fell in love with Angelo Fusato on his trip to Venice. In his Memoirs, Symonds describes Angelo Fusato when he first met him:

“He was tall and sinewy, but very slender—for these Venetian gondoliers are rarely massive in their strength. Each part of the man is equally developed by the exercise of rowing; and their bodies are elastically supple, with free sway from the hips and a Mercurial poise upon the ankle […] Short blond moustache; dazzling teeth; skin bronzed, but showing white and delicate through open front and sleeves of lilac shirt.”

Symonds Memoirs 513-514

Some characteristics of Angelo Fusato, tall and sinewy but slender, are characteristics of Greek youths. Angelo Fusato was also younger than Symonds. Meanwhile, Angelo Fusato had mustache, which is against Greek youth as they are beardless or just began to have their beard growing. t is also interesting to see that Angelo Fusato’s occupation was gondelier, so there is loose connection with sailor. Given this, his fantasy toward an adult male reappeared when he fell in love with Angelo Fusato, but com, combined with his love toward youth. 

After examining three fantasies of Symonds in his childhood to adolescence, I found unique common aspects. Symonds’s love, as he describes it, was primarily directed at the beauty of the male body. It is also interesting that all three figures were out of reach. Likewise, it is important to note that he fell in love with the statue of Cupid from the photograph, so he was not able to actually touch the statue of Cupid (much less Cupid himself). Even imagery of naked sailors is half-manipulated, and they appeared in half-dreams.

What would this mean? For one, I think this shows that Symonds’s desires were strongly visual, described in terms of privilege watching rather than doing. For instance, he leaves a comment after he mentions one incident when he watched a handsome boy masturbating in his presence:

“The attractions of a dimly divined almost mystic sensuality persisted in my nature, side by side with a marked repugnance to lust in action, throughout my childhood and boyhood down to an advanced stage of manhood.”

Symonds Memoirs 100

For one, this might be because he was too young to understand sexual intercourse. However, in his later adolescence period in Harrow, he hated the sexual relationship between male students. Probably this rejection of sexual action was already present in his childhood and developed in his adolescence. Thus, it may be no coincidence that several of the figures he loved were seen from afar.

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Works Cited

Butler, Shane. (2022). The Passions of John Addington Symonds. Oxford University Press.

Noel, R. (1886). Essays on poetry and poets. London: K. Paul, Trench & Co..

Robinson, W. (William)., Bailey, W. Whitman. (1879). Alpine flowers for English gardens. 3d ed. London: Murray.

Symonds, John Addington. (1883). A Problem in Greek Ethics. 

Symonds, John Addington. (2016). The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical 

Edition, (Amber K. Regis, Ed.). Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. London.

When I first learned about John Addington Symonds and his studies of homosexuality in the Classical era, one figure came to my mind: Sappho. Sappho is often known as a female Greek poet considered homosexual. After all, the term lesbian came from the island Sappho lived on: Lesbos. Because of this, I thought Symonds would have studied the life of Sappho and probably left some comments about her in his work.

Indeed, in the Lost Library of Symonds, I found Sappho: Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings, and a Literal Translation by Henry Thornton Wharton. Symonds received this book as a gift copy from the author. In this book, Wharton cites Studies of the Greek Poets by Symonds. He even gives thanks to Symonds in his preface to the first edition of this book:

The translations by Mr. John Addington Symonds, dated 1883, were all made especially for this work in the early part of that year and have not been elsewhere published. My thanks are also due to Mr. Symonds for much valuable criticism.

Wharton Sappho xvi

Looking at Symonds’s contribution to this book, I realized how much he was interested in Sappho. Thus, I thought it would be a good starting point for Symonds’s thoughts on Sappho.

Wharton’s Sappho is a collection of Sappho’s poems and fragments with English translation, but he devotes one chapter to the life of Sappho. Though Sappho’s life is generally unknown due to a lack of records, Wharton provides details. Sappho was native to an island in the Aegean Sea called Lesbos. According to Herodotus, Sappho’s father was Scamandrymus, and her mother was Cleis. She also had a brother called Charaxus and Larichus. Suidas says Sappho was married to Cercolas and had a daughter named Cleis. Though the exact date is unknown, Sappho lived in the late 7th century BCE and early 6th century BCE. It is also unclear how long she lived, but Sappho describes herself as γεραιτέρα, somewhat old in fragment 75.

Wharton then cites Symonds’s Studies of Greek Poets to talk about the unique social condition of Lesbian poets. Symonds claims that Aeolian custom allowed women more social and domestic freedoms than the rest of Greece. This allowed women to be highly educated, interact freely with male society, and express their sentiments. This social condition of Lesbian women, Symonds suggests, allowed them to form clubs of poetry and music and develop their unique art. Sappho was at the center of this artistic society.

Meanwhile, Wharton examines Sappho’s pursuit of the beautiful young man named Phaon and her leap from Leucadian rock after she was rejected. Despite the uncertainty of whether it really happened, many ancient writers, including Ovid, mention this story. When I first looked at Sappho’s love for Phaon, I thought this would have been a potential counterexample of Greek male love proposed in Symonds’s A Problem in Greek Ethics, mainly Greek pederasty. Usually, the erastes, the lover, is limited to adult males, while eromenos, the loved, can be young males, females, or enslaved persons of either gender. However, in Sappho’s pursuit of Phaon, though she was unhappy and unsuccessful, she represents the adult woman acting as an erastes, which breaks the rule. I was interested in seeing Symonds’s response to this outlier.

However, Wharton states the story does not have a firm historical basis, since unlike the story of Sappho’s leap toward the sea, there are ancient records that she was buried in a grave (Wharton, 15). He also suggests that the entire story was derived from the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis, since Adonis is called Phaon in Greek (Wharton, 20). Also, the legend does not appear until Attic Comedy in 395 BCE, which is 2 centuries after Sappho’s death.

Symonds does not seem to consider Sappho’s pursuit of Phaon significant, but for a different reason. He briefly mentions the story of Sappho and Phaon in his Studies of Greek Poets:

About her life— her brother Charaxus, her daughter Cleis, her rejection of Alcæus and her suit to Phaon, her love for Atthis and Anactoria, her leap from the Leucadian cliff— we know so very little, and that little is so confused with mythology and turbid with the scandal of the comic poets, that it is not worthwhile to rake up once again the old materials for hypothetical conclusions. There is enough of heart-devouring passion in Sappho’s own verse without the legends of Phaon and the cliff of Leucas.

Symonds Studies of the Greek Poets 310

Symonds argues that the story of Sappho and Phaon and other stories of her pursuit are confused with mythology, as Wharton thinks. Then, he goes beyond by saying Sappho’s own verse is enough to show her passion. This shows that his interest was in Sappho’s own verse, on the assumption that it represents her actual voice.

Meanwhile, some fragments of Sappho’s poems describe female beauty and her love for another woman. Among many fragments, I found fragment 1 of Sappho, also known as “Hymn to Aphrodite”, worth discussing. This is the fragment that Symonds translated twice: once in his Studies of Greek Poets in 1877 and another time for Wharton’s Sappho in 1883.

Glittering-throned, undying Aphrodite, 
Wile-weaving daughter of high Zeus, I pray thee.
Tame not my soul with heavy woe, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish!

But hither come, if ever erst of old time
Thou didst incline, and listenedst to my crying.
And from thy father’s palace down descending,
Camest with golden

Chariot yoked: thee fair swift-flying sparrows
Over dark earth with multitudinous fluttering,
Pinion on pinion, thorough middle ether
Down from heaven hurried.

Quickly they came like light, and thou, blest lady,
Smiling with clear undying eyes didst ask me
What was the woe that troubled me, and
wherefore I had cried to thee:

What thing I longed for to appease my frantic
Soul; and whom now must I persuade, thou askedst,
Whom must entangle to thy love, and who now,
Sappho, hath wronged thee?

Yea, for if now he shun, he soon shall chase thee;
Yea, if he take not gifts, he soon shall give them;
Yea, if he love not, soon shall he begin to
Love thee, unwilling.

Come to me now too, and from tyrannous sorrow
Free me, and all things that my soul desires to
Have done, do for me, queen, and let thyself too
Be my great ally!

Symonds, 1877

Star-throned incorruptible Aphrodite,
Child of Zeus, wile-weaving, I supplicate thee,
Tame not me with pangs of the heart, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish.

But come thou, if erst in the days departed
Thou didst lend thine ear to my lamentation,
And from far, the house of thy sire deserting,
Camest with golden

Car yoked: thee thy beautiful sparrows hurried
Swift with multitudinous pinions fluttering
Round black earth, adown from the height of heaven
Through middle ether:

Quickly journey they; and, O thou, blest Lady,
Smiling with those brows of undying lustre,
Asked me what new grief at my heart lay, wherefore
Now I had called thee,

What I fain would have to assuage the torment
Of my frenzied soul; and whom now, to please thee,
Must persuasion lure to thy love, and who now,
Sappho, hath wronged thee?

Yea, for though she flies, she shall quickly chase thee;
Yea, though gifts she spurns, she shall soon bestow them;
Yea, though now she loves not, she soon shall  love thee,
Yea, though she will not!

Come, come now too! Come, and from heavy heart-ache
Free my soul, and all that my longing yearns to
Have done, do thou; be thou for me thyself too
Help in the battle.

Symonds, 1883

In general, this poem shows Sappho’s prayer to Aphrodite for her love toward another woman, along with Aphrodite’s response. The 6^th stanza of the poem, which I highlighted, is Aphrodite’s respond to Sappho saying her love shall be accomplished. In the 1877 translation, the pronoun is “he,” or masculine, while in the 1883 translation, the pronoun is “she,” or feminine.

What does this change mean? To begin with, the gender of the pronoun (αί) is feminine. However, many scholars translated this pronoun as masculine. This can be also seen in Wharton’s Sappho, where every translator who translated this fragment used masculine pronoun in 6^th stanza. It was only Symonds, in his 1883 edition, who followed the gender of original poem.

Meanwhile, this change of pronoun suggests that Symonds is also viewing Sappho’s love as homosexual. At first he also followed others and used masculine pronoun in 6^th stanza, stating Sappho’s lover as male. However, by changing pronoun to feminine, he boldly stated that Sappho’s lover is female, and that she is expressing homosexual love.

Indeed, in his famous A Problem in Greek Ethics Symonds also mentions Sappho and Lesbian poets:

“It is true that Sappho and the Lesbian poetesses gave this female passion an eminent place in Greek literature. But the Aeolian women did not found a glorious tradition corresponding to that of the Dorian men. If homosexual love between females assumed the form of an institution at one moment in Aeolia, this failed to strike roots deep into the subsoil of the nation.”

Symonds A Problem in Greek Ethics 78

Here, Symonds views Sappho and her companions as potentially an example of female homosexuality. While he admits that female homosexual love was not as developed as male homosexual love in Greek, as its tradition did not continue, Symonds indeed considers Sappho and her Lesbian poets as outliers in the general trend of Greek love.

Finally, both Wharton and Symonds express their interest in Sappho’s talent in her poems. In his book, Wharton describes how ancient people appreciated Sappho’s poems. Many writers use the epithet “beautiful” for the sweetness of her songs (Wharton, 20). Likewise, Symonds expresses his pleasure of Lesbian poets in his Studies of the Greek Poets:

When we read their poems, we seem to have the perfumes, colours, sounds and lights of that luxurious land distilled in verse. […] The voluptuousness of Aeolian poetry is not like that of Persian or Arabian art. It is Greek in its self-restraint, proportion , tact. We find nothing burdensome in its sweetness.

Symonds Studies of the Greek Poets 138

Then Symonds especially comments on Sappho in:

All is so rhythmically and sublimely ordered in the poems of Sappho that supreme art lends solemnity and grandeur to the expression of unmitigated passion. The world has suffered no greater literary loss than the loss of Sappho’s poems. […] Of all the poets of the world, of all the illustrious artists of all literatures, Sappho is the one whose every word has a peculiar and unmistakable perfume, a seal of absolute perfection and inimitable grace. In her art she was unerring.

Symonds Studies of the Greek Poets 138-139

Ultimately, both Wharton and Symonds state that Sappho was called “The Poetess,” like Homer was “The Poet” (Wharton, 27 and Symonds, 138). By comparing Sappho to Homer, one of the most influential poets in Greek poetry, both Wharton and Symonds are stressing the importance of Sappho.

Among many aspects of Sappho, the one I find most significant is her usage of the Sapphic meter, which though Sappho probably did not invent it, gained its name from her frequent usage. Wharton also describes the strophe of the meter:

Wharton, Sappho 45

            He then gives fragments of contemporary poet Algernon Swinburne’s Sapphics that follow Sapphic meter in English.

            All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,

Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,

Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron

Stood and beheld me.

Swinburne Sapphics 1866

While presenting Swinburne’s Sapphics, Wharton comments that these lines ring in the reader’s ear, and he can almost hear Sappho herself singing (Wharton, 46). Here, Wharton suggests a sense of her voice preserved in another person’s poem in another language by following her meter.

This was the part where I was fascinated because, indeed, a poem is not only about words but also rhythm. Considering this, reintroducing Sappho’s poem in English is introducing content and the rhythem at the same time which, in sum, reconstructs her memory.

Symonds also uses the Sapphic meter in his translation of Sappho’s fragment. One example would be Sappho’s fragment 1, which I presented earlier. With this, Symonds also attempted to maintain Sappho’s memory, just as he preserved Cellini and Gozzi’s memory by translating their memoirs.

In his Memoirs, Symonds said his work with Cellini and Gozzi motivated him to write his own memoir (Memoir, 1). Though Symonds only credits Cellini and Gozzi, it is possible that Sappho could be seen as another motivator.

Works Cited

Sappho., Wharton, H. Thornton. (1887). Sappho: memoir, text, selected renderings and a literal translation. 2nd ed. London: D. Stott.

Symonds, John Addington. (1877). Studies of the Greek poets. 2d ed. London: Smith Elder.

Symonds, John Addington. (1883). A Problem in Greek Ethics.

Symonds, John Addington. (2016). The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition, (Amber K. Regis, Ed.). Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. London.

Swinburne, A. Charles. (1866). Poems and ballads.. London: John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly.