300,000 Kisses Quotes

“It is for lovers alone that Hades ceases to be implacable. So, my friend, although it is a good thing to be initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, I say that the celebrants of Love’s mysteries have a better place in Hades.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“one of the few gods whose commands are obeyed by Hades is Eros.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“As for Heracles, it would take too long for me to list all his loves. Even to this day, lovers worship and honour Iolaüs, exchanging vows over his tomb, believing him to have been beloved by Heracles. Some also say that Heracles saved the life of Alcestis to please Admetus, her husband, who had been one of Heracles’ beloveds. They also say that Apollo loved Admetus, and served him every day for a year.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“And it isn’t only the most warlike nations, the Cretans and the Boeotians and the Spartans, who are the most amorous, or the most susceptible to love, but the great old heroes too: Meleager, Achilles, Aristomenes, Cimon and Epaminondas. In fact, Epaminondas loved two young men. Their names were Asopichus and Caphisodorus. Caphisodorus died with Epaminondas at Mantinea and is buried by his side, and Asopichus was such a fierce warrior that the man who eventually killed him won honours from the Phocians.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“He knew that Love is the only invincible general; for men in battle will desert their tribesmen and relatives and even, god knows, their children and their parents; but no enemy can drive themselves between a lover and his beloved.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“In your city, Thebes, is it not customary for a lover to give his beloved a full suit of armour when the boy becomes a man?”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“provides as evidence this popular song from Chalcis: O noble boys, O handsome lads, don’t hide your love, don’t be shy before brave men – for in Chalcis, Love is looser of limbs, and thrives side by side with courage.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“But among the spoils there was a bitter wound. Cleomachus was killed in the charge. Even now, the people of Chalcis will point to a huge pillar in the marketplace of the town, under which sits his tomb. Whereas, in the time before the battle, the people of Chalcis had derided the love between men and boys, after Cleomachus had won victory and died for them, they honoured this sort of love above all others.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“Cleomachus asked his beloved, for the handsome boy was by his side, if he would witness the battle. His beloved said that he would, and embraced him and kissed him tenderly and placed his helmet on his head for him.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“If he has Eros with him, he is ready, at the call of his friend, ‘to cross through fire and rough seas and through the winds themselves’.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“A man filled with love has no need for Ares, the god of war, to fight his enemies.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“Nero dressed Sporus in the finest clothes, like an empress, and took him to all the markets and fairs of Greece, and then through the Street of the Images in Rome, where he bent occasionally to give Sporus a tender kiss.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“The Satyricon (late first century AD) – a work of Latin fiction sometimes described as a novel, and written in a mixture of prose and verse – follows the strange, sometimes disturbing and always outrageous adventures of the narrator, Encolpius, and his handsome sixteen-year-old slave and boyfriend, Giton.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“His mind is wounded by love, and yearns for the one who dealt the blow, just as a soldier falls in the direction of the wounding sword or a gash spurts blood towards its inflictor. So, someone pierced with the dart of Venus – whether by a boy with svelte and girlish limbs, or by a woman – turns to the source of his hurt, and longs for union, longs to shoot his seed. The images of desire are urgent and sweet. Though they are wordless, they speak of many joys to come.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“It arrives when adolescence comes and strengthens the body; the seed wakening in us, stirring the limbs, and some present or remembered image of another person invades the mind, bringing the look of a lovely face, the human scent – young boys are visited by dreams of those images each night, and brought to a point of heat, so the seed (as though the act had been achieved) bursts through them and floods across their sheets.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“If there is no afterlife, and no divine intervention, Lucretius suggests that the principal object of life is pleasure.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“I left aflame, radiant with your face, your wit”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“Alfenus, my forsaker, fickle in friendship to comrades and lovers alike – have you forgotten me? Was it so easy to throw off my love like an old coat? Ah, the gods in the heavens are watching, Alfenus, and you have left me fallen, you have walked away. Is there nothing a man can trust? No faith in friendship? Once, you drew me out of myself – ribboned my soul into yours, unspooled my cares in your hands. But now, with you letting go, the winds have blown all of me away. Everything is lost, all those days hurried into the clouds. But the gods, from your ways, have made a seed. Soon, they will crop its bitter herb, and give it to you to taste.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“Catullus appears as a lover who has been dumped, cast off like an old coat. Having been betrayed, he has lost all sense of trust in the world. It’s not long, though, before the spikier side of Catullus’ voice returns: trusting to a sort of divine justice, he warns his ex-lover that it won’t be long before he’ll get a taste of his own medicine.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“It makes my heart flutter, my chest uneasy to watch the two of you. I try to speak, but my voice is lost with the sight of you.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“Sappho’s poems were written to be sung to the accompaniment of music. Though most are lost,”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“Though the poem tries to count kisses, it realizes between the lines that kisses cannot be counted as coins or hours can. The more we kiss, Catullus seems to say, the more kisses we make. The more we kiss, the more kisses we want.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“What I love about this lyric is its keen sense of the interplay between abundance and satisfaction.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“Make her do it for Sophia, daughter of Isara. For her alone. Yes, chthonic king, burn, burn, and ignite, inflame her heart, her liver, her spirit, with love and desire for me. Drive her mad for me. Torment her constantly. Force her running through the streets and houses. Enslave her to Sophia. Let her give up all she possesses. Let her give up herself. O terrible demon of the underworld, read the spell on this tablet and translate it into action.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“After all, Amphitryon’s brave son, whose heart seemed cased in bronze, could hold his own against a savage lion, but not against a boy.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“One of the most enduring and popular of the Greek myths, the tale of Heracles and Hylas – two Argonauts accompanying Jason on his mission to steal the Golden Fleece – is featured throughout Western art. John William Waterhouse’s painting Hylas and the Nymphs (1896) shows a scene of close erotic temptation between the young Hylas and the nude deities draped in waterweeds and lilies, and the tale has been used by queer writers like Christopher Marlowe and Oscar Wilde as an archetypal image of mourning.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“Anyway, just before you get to this city, on the right-hand side of the road, you’ll see the grave of Sostratus. He came from the city, and was the beloved of Heracles, who outlived him and built a tomb for the young man, cutting an offering of hair from his own head as a symbol of grief and piety. Even now, if you visit the grave, you’ll see a figure of Heracles cut into the surface of the main slab. I’m told the local people still make sacrifices to Sostratus, who is remembered as a hero in the city.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“Pausanias draws his readers’ attention to a small tomb, a landmark, which holds the body of Sostratus, the beloved of Heracles (also known by the Greek equivalent Hercules). The passage shows us how queer tales were immortalized physically in the ancient world.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“One day, when he was drunk, he went to watch a contest, and saw his favourite – Bagoas – among the dancers, and Bagoas won the prize. Afterwards, Bagoas walked across the theatre, still in his dancing costume, wearing his new crown, and he sat beside Alexander. The crowd cheered and applauded him, and called for the king to kiss the winner. Finally, Alexander agreed; and with a smile on his face, he pulled Bagoas into his arms and kissed him tenderly.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

“you. I have always been united with the commonwealth in loving good and virtuous men.”
― Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World