The Origin of Love
Greek mythologies and ideas on love. The great men just know how to think it through. They even held a seminar on it!
From here:
The story delivered by Aristophanes started with the idea that originally human-beings had three genders (Plato, 2005, p 26). There were males born of the sun, women born of the earth and the androgynous a mix of the two born of the moon. These early human-being were quite different from their current incarnation, having two of everything, two faces, two pairs of legs (Plato, 2005, p. 27). These human-beings were according to the myth, stronger and more ambition and tried to assault the Olympian gods. Zeus desiring the continued worship of the gods refrained from destroying the human race for their insolence (Plato, 2005, p. 27). Deciding upon another form of punishment, that of cutting the humans in half. Creating individuals who are merely half of a whole, Zeus designed these individuals with more weakness, deficient in their isolation and incompleteness (Plato, 2005, p 29).... Love is therefore according to Aristophanes, the volition to become whole (Plato, 2005, p. 31).More about this Creation Myth by Aristophanes here.
this theory was critqued by Socrates in Diotima's theory:
"According to this story, Poverty wishing to alleviate her condition decided to sleep with Resource. The prodigy of this union was love; love gained its nature from the dual characteristics of its parents. From Poverty love inherited that quality of always being in need and from resource love schemes after that which is beautiful (Plato, 2005, p 49). The short story elucidates the nature of lack and desire within loves dynamic as expressed by Diotima’s theory. Love is not itself an object of desire but a desire for an object. The object of loves desire is that which is good. Diotima counters the theory which Aristophanes represented by arguing that we love another not because they constitute our other half but rather because they have the quality of being good (Plato, 2005, p.52).....interesting, no? i find the idea of 2 halves seeking for a whole a very novel and romantic idea..
Aristophanes held that we love another for the unique singularity that they are, as they constitute our other half. Love is the desire to attain a connection with that other half and gain completeness. This theory renders the nature of isolation and feelings of alienation which is not captured in Socrates theory. But Aristophanes is severely critiqued by Socrates position, when Diotmia argued that we do not love another for their unique singularity but rather the qualities which make them beautiful.
When the earth was still flat,
And the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky,
Sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth
Like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.
The origin of love
And there were three sexes then,
One that looked like two men
Glued up back to back,
Called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
Were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
Rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
Part daughter, part son.
The origin of love
Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all
With my hammer,
Like I killed the giants."
And Zeus said, "No,
You better let me
Use my lightening, like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh,
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above
Into great balls of fire
And then fire shot down
From the sky in bolts
Like shining blades
Of a knife.
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the children of the sun
And the moon
And the earth.
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly
To remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane,
To scatter us away,
In a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves,
To wash us all away,
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hopping round on one foot
And looking through one eye.
Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.
And the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky,
Sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth
Like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.
The origin of love
And there were three sexes then,
One that looked like two men
Glued up back to back,
Called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
Were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
Rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
Part daughter, part son.
The origin of love
Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all
With my hammer,
Like I killed the giants."
And Zeus said, "No,
You better let me
Use my lightening, like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh,
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above
Into great balls of fire
And then fire shot down
From the sky in bolts
Like shining blades
Of a knife.
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the children of the sun
And the moon
And the earth.
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly
To remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane,
To scatter us away,
In a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves,
To wash us all away,
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hopping round on one foot
And looking through one eye.
Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.
posted by AlexisCheong.com @ 2:20 AM
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