M. Anyone who attends the least to the subject will be convinced how unbecoming this joy is. And as they are very shameful who are immoderately delighted with the enjoyment of venereal pleasures, so are they very scandalous who lust vehemently after them.
And all that which is commonly called love (and, believe me, I can find out no other name to call it by) is of such a trivial nature that nothing, I think, is to be compared to it: of which Caecilius says,
“I hold the man of every sense bereaved
Who grants not Love to be of Gods the chief:
Whose mighty power whate’er is good effects,
Who gives to each his beauty and defects:
Hence, health and sickness; wit and folly, hence,
The God that love and hatred doth dispense!”
An excellent corrector of life this same poetry, which thinks that love, the promoter of debauchery and vanity, should have a place in the council of the Gods! I am speaking of comedy, which could not subsist at all without our approving of these debaucheries. But what said that chief of the Argonauts in tragedy?
“My life I owe to honor less than love.”
What, then, are we to say of this love of Medea?—what a train of miseries did it occasion! And yet the same woman has the assurance to say to her father, in another poet, that she had a husband
“Dearer by love than ever fathers were."
And all that which is commonly called love (and, believe me, I can find out no other name to call it by) is of such a trivial nature that nothing, I think, is to be compared to it: of which Caecilius says,
“I hold the man of every sense bereaved
Who grants not Love to be of Gods the chief:
Whose mighty power whate’er is good effects,
Who gives to each his beauty and defects:
Hence, health and sickness; wit and folly, hence,
The God that love and hatred doth dispense!”
An excellent corrector of life this same poetry, which thinks that love, the promoter of debauchery and vanity, should have a place in the council of the Gods! I am speaking of comedy, which could not subsist at all without our approving of these debaucheries. But what said that chief of the Argonauts in tragedy?
“My life I owe to honor less than love.”
What, then, are we to say of this love of Medea?—what a train of miseries did it occasion! And yet the same woman has the assurance to say to her father, in another poet, that she had a husband
“Dearer by love than ever fathers were."
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.32
Most of the people I know will find Cicero’s rant here to be stuffy and prudish, though I fear this is because they do not perceive why the greatest joys are always temperate.
I choose to say very little about the sexual morality of the day, because the hot-button topics aren’t really about sex at all, but rather about our more fundamental estimation of the human good. If I know what is true, I will know what to love, and how to love, and I will not need to seek out gratification at the expense of the virtues.
While we are made to love, our confusion about the very meaning of the word brings us nothing but trouble. The immediate association is to describe it as a feeling of affection, and then of sexual attraction as its more intense form. Such emotions are certainly a critical part of our human nature, yet they are meant to be subsumed under the intellect and the will, such that love is ultimately more of a choice that it is a feeling.
The old Thomist in me still defines love as willing the good of another, and standing by this model has never steered me wrong.
Love only brings me grief when it is really just lust, an inordinate desire for receiving, instead of a deliberate commitment to giving. I certainly feel the greatest joy from loving, yet the pleasure itself is never my aim. It’s wonderful how we are the most satisfied when we think the least of our own satisfaction.
I always suggest The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis to anyone who wishes to make sense of it all. I won’t even bother to briefly summarize it here, since I’d probably botch it up. If you approach the book with good will and an open mind, I am fairly certain it will improve your life.
Unlike the “common” conception of love, I have loved at my best when I am completely in control of myself, not when I am swept away by longing. Yes, I may feel twitterpated, as I like to call it, but that is a part of the magical initiation, not the beauty of the fulfilling consummation. Those who love, whatever the form or the degree of their bond, are at peace with one another, not in a state of frenzy.
As much as I am also a hopeless romantic, love is there to help me see, not to make me blind. For me, Venus is always a retainer to Athena, and Dionysius is a bondsman of Apollo. Do not assume I am any “less” passionate because I have my hands on the reins—the ecstasy is in service to the understanding, and the heart is in harmony with the mind.
I take neither Jason nor Medea as ideals in this regard; they were poor creatures of lust and rage. I think rather of Orpheus and Eurydice, or Beren and Luthien, for whom love, whatever their mortal failings, was always something divine.
Most of the people I know will find Cicero’s rant here to be stuffy and prudish, though I fear this is because they do not perceive why the greatest joys are always temperate.
I choose to say very little about the sexual morality of the day, because the hot-button topics aren’t really about sex at all, but rather about our more fundamental estimation of the human good. If I know what is true, I will know what to love, and how to love, and I will not need to seek out gratification at the expense of the virtues.
While we are made to love, our confusion about the very meaning of the word brings us nothing but trouble. The immediate association is to describe it as a feeling of affection, and then of sexual attraction as its more intense form. Such emotions are certainly a critical part of our human nature, yet they are meant to be subsumed under the intellect and the will, such that love is ultimately more of a choice that it is a feeling.
The old Thomist in me still defines love as willing the good of another, and standing by this model has never steered me wrong.
Love only brings me grief when it is really just lust, an inordinate desire for receiving, instead of a deliberate commitment to giving. I certainly feel the greatest joy from loving, yet the pleasure itself is never my aim. It’s wonderful how we are the most satisfied when we think the least of our own satisfaction.
I always suggest The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis to anyone who wishes to make sense of it all. I won’t even bother to briefly summarize it here, since I’d probably botch it up. If you approach the book with good will and an open mind, I am fairly certain it will improve your life.
Unlike the “common” conception of love, I have loved at my best when I am completely in control of myself, not when I am swept away by longing. Yes, I may feel twitterpated, as I like to call it, but that is a part of the magical initiation, not the beauty of the fulfilling consummation. Those who love, whatever the form or the degree of their bond, are at peace with one another, not in a state of frenzy.
As much as I am also a hopeless romantic, love is there to help me see, not to make me blind. For me, Venus is always a retainer to Athena, and Dionysius is a bondsman of Apollo. Do not assume I am any “less” passionate because I have my hands on the reins—the ecstasy is in service to the understanding, and the heart is in harmony with the mind.
I take neither Jason nor Medea as ideals in this regard; they were poor creatures of lust and rage. I think rather of Orpheus and Eurydice, or Beren and Luthien, for whom love, whatever their mortal failings, was always something divine.
—Reflection written in 1/1999
IMAGE: Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Fountain of Love (c. 1785)
No comments:
Post a Comment