What's Love, After All?
As the hydra in Greek mythology, love can take many forms –
surely many more forms than the nine heads of most versions
of the hydra of Lake Lerna…
Filial and paternal love, as found in Corinthians («Love is
patient, love is kind…»), is just one form of love. As it is
passionate love, the love involving a man and a woman, the
most eulogised form of love, described by Shakespeare in
Romeo and Juliet as a «smoke made with the fume of
sighs», and as a «fire sparkling in lovers' eyes», and a
«sea nourished with lovers' tears», when vexed.
There are indeed many other forms of love, besides these:
the love of friends, of life, of ideas, of animals, of music
and other forms of art. Or the love of God, of power, of
money, of cruelty…
Yes. Love may involve the bad side of the hydra myth. Some
of the forms of love are clearly perversions (to love money,
for instance), or monstrosities (the sadistic love, of some
executioners and psychopaths...)
And unfortunately there isn’t any radical way of suppressing
the monster. We can’t kill it, as Heracles killed the bad
hydra. The source from where perverted love sprouts is the
same one that feeds the magnificent unperverted ones. The
monster side of love is associated with Beauty (as in the
Beauty and the Beast story), and we simply can’t destroy it.
We need it. It gives meaning to our lives (including the
lives of those who cultivate the love of money, or to hate).
The only thing we can do is to fight the bad heads of the
hydra, denouncing them.
Great authors Quotations
What’s
Love, after all?
Shakespeare
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes,
Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, English poet, Romeo and
Juliet
Plato
At the touch of love every one becomes a poet, even though he
had no music.
Plato, 428-347 b.C., Greek philosopher, Symposium
He whom love touches not walks in darkness.
Plato, 428-347 b.C., Greek philosopher, Symposium
Aristotle
To love is to rejoice
Aristotle, 384-322 b.C., Greek philosopher, The Nicomachean
Ethics
Victor Hugo
The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are
loved.
Victor Hugo, 1802-1885, French writer, Les Miserables
Seneca
You might say that love is friendship gone mad.
Seneca, 4 a.C.-65 d. C., Roman philosopher and politician,
Letters to Lucilius
There can be no doubt that the desire lovers have for each other
is not so very different from friendship – you might say it was
friendship gone mad.
Seneca, 4 a.C.-65 d. C., Roman philosopher and politician,
Letters to Lucilius
Santayana
The most ideal human passion is love, which is also the most
absolute and animal and one of the most ephemeral.
George Santayana, 1863-1952, American philosopher, Reason in
Religion
Novalis
Love is the supreme poetry of nature.
F. Novalis, 1722-1801, German writer, Heinrich von
Ofterdingen
Bible, Corinthians
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not
boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs; it
does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth; it bears
all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures
all things.
Bible, Corinthians 13
Alberoni
The love passion is the dawning state of collective movement of
two beings.
Francesco Alberoni, Italian essayist, Le choc amoureux
Saint-Exupéry
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each
other but in looking outward together in the same direction
A. Saint-Exupéry, 1900-1944, French writer, Wind, Sand and
Stars
Stendhal
To love is to derive pleasure from seeing, touching and feeling
through all one’s senses and as closely as possible, a lovable
object who loves us.
Stendhal, 1783-1842, French writer, On Love
Lisa Hoffman
Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important
Attributed to Lisa Hoffman, American artist
Books, Films,
Cultural Stuff on these and
other related issues? See
Love Essays Store
(in association with Amazon)
What's Love? See also:
Contradictions
of Love
Love of People
Love is Nothing
Mockeries
on Love
Love cycles:
time to war, time to love
Love, time, habit
Love
and art
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