Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c13.79

v2.c13.79

sensuality is often quite repulsive. An instructive compilation is given us by Th. Krabbes (Marburg, 1884) on the bearing of the “*Frau im altfranzösischen Karls-Epos*”. It is very well put in the Busant (Hagen’s *Gesamtabenteuer*, i, p. 34): “She offered her mouth, he gave the kiss”—the woman woos, as among the French, the man grants, is “drawn on by the eternal woman”. It is probably indeed more or less the same elsewhere, too, in the world: “Thou thinkest to push, and thou art pushed.” But with this long array of medieval ladies it goes much too far, who of course are all highly praised for their chastity and purity. It was truly no easy thing in the Middle Ages to be a famous hero. If such a one came to a strange castle and was lying tired out at last in bed, thinking like Wallenstein to have a good sleep, then suddenly there appeared the daughter of the lord of the castle or the prince, or the lady of the castle herself, and sank aflame with passion into the arms of the warrior, quite unknown to her till now. A very long list of such maidens and married women extraordinarily forward in things of love is given by Schultz, *Das höfische Leben*, i, 595-8, and it is not at all complete. How skilled in the attack, nay shameless, women in love are among various peoples, especially the more or less uncultured—as to this there are interesting accounts to be found, for instance, in Finck, *Primitive Love*, 109 ff.; 380 f.; 476 f. Among the old Greeks also the woman is seen to be far more greedy of love, and far less reserved than the man. Rohde, *Der griech. Roman*¹, espec. 34; 35; Finck, 114 ff.