“In truth at first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of al the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them.” 1
Eros stringing his bow, Roman copy of statue by Lysippos , 4th c. BC
Museo Capitolino
Since then, “without warning
as a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
love shakes our hearts”… 2
Couple hiding under the same cloak, fragment of a red-figure cup, ca. 525 BC–500 BC, found in Athens.
…and “like a ram racing in the heavens
breaking the branches of the stars” 3
Love hovers “over the oceans and distant lands
and
no immortal god, nor man with his measured days
escapes ” it. 4
Nikos Engonopoulos
Though it can also be “… a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables” 5, parent of strife and fountain of tears 6, love is “all we have, the only way that each can help the other”. 5
Pastichio with walnuts for lovers
“Beat 6 egg yolks with 300 gr of sugar until thick and pale and add 300 gr ground walnuts, ground cloves and cinnamon. Beat the egg whites very well and fold them into the mixture. Bake in medium oven.” (Ephimeris ton Kyrion, February 1899)
1 Hesiod, Theogony, 120 Crane, Gregory R. (ed.)
2 Sappho
3 Odysseas Elytis, Monogram IV, transl. C.Neophytou
4 Sophocles, Antigone, act II, 781
5 Sappho.
6 Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 446 ff
7 Euripides.
“Love, invincible in battle….”, Sophocles, Antigone.