True Love
Love is a continuing human obsession that is full of mystery and magic. Its power is legendary. The idea that there is such thing as love is neither recent nor culturally bound. For centuries there have been many stories, legends, and myths that illustrate its capabilities. "Love is so deeply ingrained within our culture that it passes without question. Its delights, pains and complexities are explored in novels, plays, and television soap operas, maundered over in pop songs, and celebrated in romantic fiction"(Tyse, 7). By examining the myth of Eros and Psyche we can see true love exemplified but does our concept of love compare to that of the myth?
Eros, the son of Aphrodite, is depicted as a young "winged" boy who is ready to shoot his bows and arrows at the heart of any mortal or god in order to rouse them to desire. He had two different types of arrows: leaden arrows with owl feathers that caused coldness or, golden ones with dove feathers that provoked love. He was always at his mothers' side assisting her with her godly affairs until the day he too fell in love. As the myth goes -- Aphrodite was very jealous of the beauty of a young mortal by the name of Psyche. In her fit of envy she instructed her son to shoot his arrow into the heart of Psyche causing her to fall in love with a hideous monster. Eros agreed to follow his mothers command but upon seeing the beautiful
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young woman, he found himself deeply in love. He would visit her every night in complete darkness due to the fact that he was a god and she a mortal. Psyche too fell madly in love with Eros even though she could not see him however; one night curiosity got the best of her. She obscured a lamp and while Eros slept she lit the lamp to reveal his true identity. In doing so she accidentally dropped a little hot oil on the sleeping god causing him to awaken. Her disobedience caused her to lose the "true" love in her life. In Psyche's search for Eros she undertakes a series of cruel and difficult tasks set by Aphrodite in hopes of winning him back. After many trials and tribulations Eros could no longer witness her suffering and he appealed their case to the gods.
...s talk and the two sisters become awfully jealous of her. After they try to find out the truth of Psyche and her husband, they leave with some jewels. The night after the two sisters leave, Psyche can’t sleep at night and order her servants to bring her a lamp. She sneaks into her husband’s room, to find a beautiful creature with great, white folded, feathered wings. He is the son of Aphrodite’s, Eros – she says. As she quietly moves away, her oil lamp drops oil on Eros burning him and waking him up. He explains to Psyche that “mortals and gods are forbidden to marry” (p.137) that’s why she couldn’t see him and now he must go away from her. In this play we see that Pandora should’ve listened to her husband, Eros, and it caused herself bad in not listening to Eros, but we see that things can work out after something terrible occurs, such as the birth of a child.
“EΡΩΣ” by Robert Bridges has a contradictory concept of what humans view as love, thus the negative and positive comparisons are between Eros different angles in love and lust. For instance, Eros is described as both having “exuberant flesh so fair” yet “Ere from his chaste marmoreal,” thus stating he has both a sexual, savage appearance, yet a pure and smooth one also. The speaker also states, “Surely thy body is thy mind, for thy face is nought to find…” where Eros is being described as a pretty boy who beyond his looks has no brain. Both these descriptions, of a sexual appearance and having no brains, depict that ...
Sappho’s works exemplify the recognition of Aphrodite by including her as a vital role in the lyric poems. By recognizing Aphrodite, Sappho is able to convey her emotions and sentiments about love. For example, in Poem 1, the speaker calls out to Aphrodite pleading for unrequited love for a person. Sappho begins with addressing her as “deathless Aphrodite”. This use of terms emphasizes Aphrodite immortality. Throughout the poem, Sappho, once more, uses “deathless” as a way to describe Aphrodite, displaying her everlasting life, furthermore emphasizing her capabilities as a goddess. Her tone towards Aphrodite often changes from a praising tone to a satirical sense from lyric poem to lyric poem. For example, Poem 1 shows her praising Aphrodite and pleading for help over her unrequited love. On the other hand, Fragment 102 uses the phrase “slender Aphrodite” in a more
In Greco-Roman mythology, the son of Laius and Jocasta unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, thus fulfilling the statements of the divine oracle at Delphi. Similarly, the sister of Orestes aided Orestes, himself, in avenging the death of Agamemnon, their father, by killing their mother, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus. These two yet to be identified mythological figures, Oedipus and Electra, respectively, have lent their names to modern psychology. Oedipus and Electra complexes are characterised by perverse manifestations in w...
Psappo’s poetry was the model from which ancient cultures defined love. Her views on love have influenced many works of literature, including The Aeneid of Virgil. Love is an uncontrollable force that strikes an individual from the outside and can occur suddenly as well as unexpectedly. Love is often depicted as a positive emotion that causes people to feel blissful, but this can easily turn into furor; furor is the aspect of love associated with violence and insanity. Dido’s love for Aeneas exemplifies the internal turmoil that afflicts individuals when they are deprived of the love that they crave so ardently. Virgil accomplishes this through the incorporation of the symbol of fire and through the platonic metaphor of the war between reason and appetite in his work.
She tempted many, even Zeus: “she beguiles even his wise heart . . . mates him with mortal women, unknown to Hera” (Hesiod). The goddess of love, “she was a particular favourite with the city’s many prostitutes but also supervised the sexual life of married women” (Blundell, 1998). To curb her promiscuity, Aphrodite was married to Hephaistos (god of the forge), who cared deeply for her, and made he...
The lessons, the knowledge, and the influence the Family has on the soul are essential to the psychology of Eros. By accepting the importance of the family archetype, Moore maintains the notion that “It’s possible to look at anything through the image of family . . . [and] the family serves as a metaphor” to develop the soul (193). Through the image of the family, the soul encounter lessons and experiences that contributes to laying the foundation it needs to live on with a purpose of maintaining Eros. Therefore, Hillman argues the idea of family members as myths: the abandoned child, the hero’s mother, the senex, the
Among the gods and goddesses that dominate the world of Greek mythology stands Aphrodite. Aphrodite is the goddess of love, beauty, and eternal youth. Aphrodite is the Goddess of Love and Beauty. Her origins differ depending on the story in which her tale is told. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Aphrodite arose from the foam of Paphos’
Love is a funny thing. Love between two people is often confusing and hard to understand. Many people don’t know how or why we fall in love. Eros, in Greek mythology, refers to the god of love, and Eros is essentially the reason for love. Eros explains how people fall in love or why for that matter. The term Eros is used to refer to the part of love that constitutes an intense desire for something, often referenced to a particular sexual desire that one has toward another. Eros is a “now” feeling, or what the more common phrase would be which is “love at first sight.” Eros is all about the moment, about the feeling, the intensity right here, right now. The intense desire for immediate sexual and physical attraction, as well as intense passion
When we all hear the name Aphrodite, we can all reach agreement that the first point that comes to mind is love and beauty. In the “Ancient Roman Mythology” book, she is des...
In today’s popular culture, the Greek god Eros is more widely known by his Roman name, Cupid, and in his cherubic rather than blindfolded, young male form. In the poems “EΡΩΣ”, by Robert Bridges, and “Eros”, by Anne Stevenson, both poets refer to the youthful male form of the god of love portrayed by the Greeks, rather than the angelic baby the Romans and modern Valentine’s Day depict. Despite their similar use of Greek Eros, the poems differ in the fact that Bridges’ poem is a monologue that praises and esteems the god, while Stevenson holds a rather argumentative dialogue with the young Eros.
In the Aeneid, love is depicted as an uncontrollable emotion. Venus and Juno promote the romance between Dido and Aeneas. Dido, the queen of Carthage, begins to fall in love with Aeneas, even though she has vowed to her late husband that she would set her “face against marriage” (Virgil 975). Aeneas falls in love with Dido and remains with her in Carthage, even though he knows that he must continue his travel to Rome. Love is a passion which consumes the soul in spite of its will. It is an “inward fire” (Virgil 976). Juno arranges it so that Dido and Aeneas consummate their love in a cave during a storm. Again, mortals have little or no control over their loves. The gods are the ones who cause people to fall in love.
The speech by Pausanius in Plato’s Symposium divides the goddess Aphrodite into two beings, each responsible for a different aspect of love. To prove the existence of her double life he cites her creation. There are two versions of the birth of Aphrodite, one coming from Hesiod’s work, Theogony, where she is borne out of Uranus’ castrated genitals as they splash into the sea; the other is from Homer’s work, the Illiad, where she is said to be the daughter of Zeus and Dione. (Notes on Plato’s Symposium 180e) From these two vastly different creations she takes on two vastly different forms. Pausanius describes one of her forms as “Celestial” love. This type of love springs out of the Aphrodite created from Uranus’ genitals. This form is “wholly male” (Symposium 180c) which inspires men to be a...
In the ancient world there were two different images that could be presented of the god Eros. The first was that of a young man with wings and rings in his hands, illustrated by a statue that was created around 400 BCE by the sculptor Praxiteles (Fig.1). Second is the depiction of a mischievous baby by an unknown sculptor from the first century BCE (Fig.2). This second depiction also had wings but once again the bow was missing. If the god Eros is depicted as a child he is generally with Aphrodite his mother. Of these two depictions the most common in the modern world is the baby depiction. Even though the baby depiction is the most common, in some instances whoever is working with the depiction will choose to use the young man.