Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.1.5 · 1.1.5
He laughs at Eros
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καὶ εἴ τινα ἢ παῖδα καλὸν ἀκούσαι ἢ παρθένον εὔμορφον, κατεγέλα τῶν λεγόντων ὡς οὐκ εἰδότων ὅτι εἴη εἷς καλὸς αὐτός. Ἔρωτά γε μὴν οὐδὲ ἐνόμιζεν εἶναι θεόν, ἀλλὰ πάντη ἐξέβαλεν οὐδὲν ἡγούμενος, λέγων ὡς οὐκ ἄν ποτέ τις ἐρασθείη οὐδὲ ὑποταγείη τῷ θεῷ μὴ θέλων·
If he heard of a handsome boy or a lovely girl, he laughed at the people who said so, as if they did not know that there was only one beauty: himself. As for Eros, he did not even believe he was a god. He threw him out altogether and counted him as nothing, saying that no one would ever fall in love or submit to the god against his will.
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The setting
Book 1, chapter 1. The boast that sets the plot moving.
A note on this passage
Here is the offense the plot needs. In Greek story a mortal who refuses a god's power is punished by that power: Hippolytus scorns Aphrodite, and in Euripides' play she says so in the prologue and destroys him (Hippolytus 1–57). Habrocomes makes a specific claim: no one falls in love unwilling. μὴ θέλων, "not wanting it," is the phrase Eros will answer.
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