Chapter IV

Scattered throughout Shelley’s writings we find many indications of his bisexual disposition. For example, his heroes, Laon, Athanase, and his heroines, Laone, Beatrice, etc., each combine masculine energy and intellect with a feminine grace and gentleness. His ideal of human beauty as of character, was bisexual, as can be seen from his comments on the Greek sculpture in Italy.[19] His highest praise is given to the statues of adolescent boys--a Ganymede, an Apollo: “It was difficult to conceive anything more delicately beautiful than the Ganymede; but the spirit-like lightness, the softness, the flowing perfection of these forms, surpass it. The countenance, though exquisite, lovely, and gentle, is not divine. There is a womanish vivacity of winning yet passive happiness, and yet a boyish inexperience exceedingly delightful.” On an Olinthus, he remarks:

“Another of those sweet and gentle figures of adolescent youth, in which the Greeks delighted.”

His description of the “Bacchus and Ampelus” is worth quoting at some length. “The figures are walking as it were with a sauntering and idle pace and talking to each other as they walk, and this is expressed in the motions of their delicate and flowing forms. One arm of Bacchus rests on the shoulder of Ampelus, and the other ... is gracefully thrown forward corresponding with the advance of the opposite leg.... Ampelus, with a beast skin over his shoulder, holds a cup in his right hand, and with his left half-embraces the waist of Bacchus. Just as you may have seen (yet how seldom from their dissevering and tyrannical institutions do you see) a younger and an elder boy at school walking in some remote grassy spot of their playground, with that tender friendship towards each other which has so much of love.”[20]

In a letter from Naples (December 22, 1818) he tells Peacock of one statue: “A Satyr, making love to a youth: in which the expressed life of the Sculpture and the inconceivable beauty of the form of the youth, overcome one’s repugnance to the subject.”

Personally I have never visited the Naples gallery, but I have been credibly informed that this statue is one of the very few indecently homosexual pieces. If so, it is curious that Shelley should have singled it out for mention, for he had a horror of everything crude or obscene.

Another statue that evidently fascinated him was the Louvre “Hermaphrodite,” for he refers to it in a fragment for _Epipsychidion_ as:

That sweet marble monster of both sexes,
That looks so sweet and gentle, that it vexes
The very soul that the soul is gone
Which lifted from her limbs the veil of stone.

His delight in bisexual forms is also evident in his description of the angelic being, called “Hermaphroditus,” which was created by the Witch of Atlas.

A sexless thing it was, and in its growth
It seemed to have developed no defect
Of either sex, yet all the grace of both,
In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked,
The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,
The countenance was such as might select
Some artist, that his skill should never die,
Imaging forth such perfect purity.

One of the most peculiar traits in Shelley’s psychology was his interest in the theme of incest between a brother and sister. To most of his readers this pre-occupation with such a subject appears repulsive and inexplicable, for there is nothing attractive, or even interesting, in incest _per se_. Nevertheless, for some obscure reason, the subject fascinated Shelley; and I think we shall be able to explain this fact by connecting it with his general bisexual tendency. We have seen that his heroines and heroes were dual types, in whom the masculine and feminine traits were blended, and that, in _The Witch of Atlas_, he went a step further, and created an ideal Hermaphrodite, to symbolise his conception of perfect being. Surely it was in the same mood that he originally created Laon and Cythna to be brother and sister; thus emphasising their absolute similarity, and, by their incestuous union, achieving a more complete fusion of the two sexual natures. Swedenborg went a step further in this direction, when he said that two true lovers became, in Heaven, one angel.

It is important to remember that love, in Shelley’s mind, depended upon the perception of the similarity of two lovers; not upon any polar, or complementary attraction. Thus Alastor’s mind “thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself”; while Laon refers to:

“That _likeness_ of the features which endears the thoughts expressed by them.” It was for this reason that Shelley made the Spirit of the Earth fall in love with his sister, the moon.

In real life, too, Shelley always sought for a similar soul to mate with. Thus, he calls Hogg: “The Brother of my soul”; and Miss Hitchener, before he knew her intimately, was his “spiritual sister.” And in the same key he cries to Emilia:

“Would we two had been twins of the same mother!” From all these considerations, I think we may suggest that Shelley’s pre-occupation with the theme of incest between brother and sister (for other forms of incest did not occupy his mind at all, except in the one instance of _The Cenci_, where the interest is purely dramatic) was in reality nothing but a disguised expression of his own bisexual nature; and that Hermaphroditus represents the logical development of this expression.

There can be little doubt that if Shelley had survived a few more years his true nature would have forced itself into his conscious recognition. He seems to have had a predilection for such classical authors as Theocritus, Moschus, and Plato, in all of whom there is an atmosphere of “ideal homosexuality.” He translated a sonnet of Dante’s to Guido Cavalcanti, and another by the latter to Dante, and he had obviously appreciated the significance of Shakespeare’s _Sonnets_.

If any should be curious to discover
Whether towards you I am Friend or Lover,
Let them read Shakespeare’s Sonnets

During the years 1817-18 he occupied himself much with Plato’s _Symposium_. He apparently only read this dialogue in Latin, but its thought fascinated him, and he set himself to translate it, and also to write a commentary on its subject. The manner in which he achieved this is significant. In spite of the fact that homosexual love is the theme of the dialogue, and in spite of the fact that this dialogue so fascinated him that its lore became an integral part of his philosophy, his translation omits all the definitely homosexual passages that can possibly be omitted. For example, he omits an entire passage in Alcibiades’ speech, where the drunken youth relates his unsuccessful siege of Socrates, and praises the philosopher for his (to the speaker) superhuman chastity.

The most important omission, however, occurs in the speech of Aristophanes. Plato imagines that Hephæstus appears to two lovers, as they lie inarmed, and offers to grant them their dearest wish, namely, to melt them permanently together into one being. The point of the passage is that the lovers are both male, for Plato wishes to maintain that such lovers are purer, nobler, and less selfishly sensual than the lovers of women. These latter, he says, are sections of the original androgyne, and are for the most part lascivious and adulterous. But the sections of the original double-male, those who seek the love of men, “are the best and most manly of youths.”

We might conclude from these omissions that Shelley, like many a prudish and normal translator, wished to gloss over passages which offended him. But this view is really quite untenable. Shelley was remarkably courageous and frank, and all the evidence shows that he was attracted, and not repelled, by what has been called “ideal homosexuality.” Moreover, he had no need to translate the _Symposium_ at all, and only did so because it fascinated him. In a letter to Peacock dated August 16, 1818, the following instructive passage occurs: “I have translated, and Mary has transcribed, the _Symposium_, as well as my poem; and I am proceeding to employ myself on a discourse upon the subject of which the _Symposium_ treats, considering the subject with reference to the difference of sentiments respecting it, existing between the Greeks and Modern Nations: a subject to be handled with that delicate caution which either I cannot or I will not practise in other matters, but which here I acknowledge to be necessary. Not that I have any thought of publishing either this discourse or the _Symposium_, at least till I return to England, when we may discuss the propriety of it.”

The discourse referred to was begun but never completed. It is given in his prose works, usually under the title _On the Arts and Manners of the Athenians_. In reading through this discourse we are forcibly struck by a marked timidity and caution, quite foreign to Shelley’s nature. Here is an author who frankly advocated “lawless love” and defended incest; and yet he was quite unable to face the question of Greek Paiderastia. He set out to write an essay on that one theme, for that is the subject of the _Symposium_, if one differentiates between Greek Love and Love in Modern Nations. Yet when his essay, after a general introduction, demands a statement and description of this custom he at once hedges, and digresses into vague general statements, and finally breaks off.

It is obvious that mere respect for the prejudices of publishers or readers would not have deterred Shelley had he wished to describe or even to defend Paiderastia; moreover, he wrote in Italy, and states that he had no particular intention of publishing the discourse, nor even the _Symposium_. It is possible that he deferred somewhat to the feelings of his wife, for one can hardly suppose that Mary would enthuse over certain passages of Plato. On the whole, however, his timidity and weakness in handling this theme sprang from internal subjective causes. Instinctively he shrank from a definite conscious revelation of his own half-repressed impulses, even if that revelation were only made to himself. And yet Shelley was vaguely aware, in a quite general way, of a conflict within himself, even although he could not specify precisely the sources of the trouble. He rightly attributed his constant melancholy to this cause, as his self-analysis in _Prince Athanase_ shows:

For all who knew and loved him then perceived
That there was drawn an adamantine veil
Between his heart and mind--both unrelieved
Wrought in his brain and bosom separate strife.

The fact that he was thus dimly aware of a conflict proves that the repressed impulses were somewhat near the surface, and were not entirely subjugated.