Gay Love as Paradox
Love, who is wisdom’s pupil gay ~ Euripides
Euripides goes on to say that love
Leads on to virtue, often. Note that one
Word, though: “often,” for love is not above
Dementing men with a rot-like passion. Stun
Them, that is what love does, like a wasp that
Stings grubs and makes them helpless and then lays
Its eggs inside them; maybe like a bat
That sucks men’s jugulars and makes them blaze
Immortally with a fever of the heart;
Perhaps like corpses mummified who wait
To be transported past the stars. Love’s dart
Is not a promise of a joyful fate.
..The playwright, though, implies quite the reverse—
….Unless you think that virtue is a curse.