SHAWORDS

An enormous fig tree let fall its flat leaves and its lilac coloured f — Pierre Louÿs

"An enormous fig tree let fall its flat leaves and its lilac coloured fruit like a carpet over the balustrade. On the left the park was massed with its magnolias which had already lost their flowers, its shuddering eucalyptus, its squat Japanese palms, its magnificent lunar sago trees. A hedge of aloes hemmed in the dark garden and the plain stretched beyond, to the Stars."
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Pierre Louÿs
Pierre Louÿs
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Pierre-Félix Louÿs was a Belgian poet and writer, most renowned for lesbian and classical themes in some of his writings. He is known as a writer who sought to "express pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection". He was made first a Chevalier and then an Officer of the Légion d'honneur for his contributions to French literature.

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"If, in the course of their stray amours, they conceived a son, he was brought up in the temple-enclosure in the contemplation of the perfect form and in the service of its divinity. If they were brought to bed of a daughter, the child was consecrated to the goddess.On the first day of its life, they celebrated its symbolic marriage with the son of Dionysos, and the Hierophant deflowered it herself with a little golden knife; for virginity is displeasing to Aphrodite. Later on, the little girl entered the Didascalion, a great monumental school situated behind the temple, and where the theory and practice of all the erotic arts were taught in seven stages: the use of the eyes, the embrace, the motions of the body, the secrets of the bite, of the kiss, and of glottism."
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Pierre Louÿs
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"I will leave the bed as she has left it, unmade and rumpled, the covers wrinkled, in order that the imprint of her form may remain by the side of mine.Until to-morrow I will not go to the bath, I will not wear my clothing, and I will not comb my hair, for fear lest I efface one of her caresses.I will eat neither this morning nor this evening, and upon my lips I will put neither rouge nor powder, in order that her kisses may remain.I will leave the shades closed, and I will not open the door, for fear lest the memory she has left behind should fly away on the wind."
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Pierre Louÿs