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Love and Relationship Ideas Summary - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Love is natural - Eryximachus says it is in nature, Aristophanes focuses on it as a part of our incomplete nature to want to become complete again
      - Physical desire - Socrates 'on fire' in Charmides, Common Love discussed by Pausanias, first rung in Socrates' ladder, sexual language in Phaedrus when sexual desire urges the soul to take flight ('sweat and unwonted heat,' 'the quills of the feathers swell')
      - Desire for self-improvement - Phaedrus and Pausanias on love as a path to virtue and mental enrichment, Socrates on path to philosophy, Alcibiades' love for philosophy and for Socrates
    - - Motivation to achieve virtus - love is 'preferable' and allows us 'to have someone I can die for ... can follow into exile, for whose death I might exchange my own,' 'You must live for another, if you want to live for yourself'
      - Reason not desire - desire was caused by lust which brings a 'dishonourable stain' on those it affects, as a Stoic he believed in trying to live by reason to achieve apatheia. Reason tells us we should only engage in friendship as it is 'preferable'
    - - Physical/sexual desire - 'The most beautiful sight in the whole world ... is the one you love,' 'her dress aroused you,' 'When I see you, even for a moment, I can no longer speak ... I am greener than grass,' 'Around the beautiful moon, the stars hide away their gleaming brilliance'
      - Divine intervention - 'Aphrodite ... do not overpower my heart with anguish,' 'I am smitten by a boy because of slender Aphrodite,' 'bitter-sweet, invincible creature that he is,' 'Aphrodite has honoured you above all others'
      - Family connections - 'You bring back the child to its mother,' 'I have a beautiful daughter ... I love her more than all of Lydia,' '[about brothers] May we be delivered quickly from great heaviness of heart'
    - - Divine intervention - 'those who are favoured by Venus and her boy,' 'Cupid, I'm your latest prize,' 'Phoebus, his nine companions, the creator of the vine, they made me as I am, and Amor, who gives me to you,' 'a love not lit by chance unwitting, but by Cupid's spiteful wrath,' 'Beauty's a gift from the gods'
      - Physical/sexual desire - 'I'll start with how you look,' 'We're captivated by elegance,' 'not the least part of charm is in walking: it attracts men don't you know,' 'I want to kiss your shoulder, as far as it's shown'
      - The excitement of forbidden romance - 'Wrongs relight the dying fires,' 'safe loving should be mixed with fright, lest he consider you hardly worth a night,' 'what you give me secretly, you give him by force of law'
    - - Similarities between partners - the similar intelligence and cunning of Penelope and Odysseus, particularly when Penelope fools Odysseus with the bed
      - Greed - the suitors partly love Penelope for the reputation and wealth that she offers
      - For utility purposes - 'there were moments when I found you useful' (Medea)
      - Physical beauty - statues, Praxilla's 'To Adonis,' 'Lust and only lust!' (Medea)
      - The gods - 'Our goddess is everywhere ... She plants love' (Hippolytus), 'Eros with his faultless arrows who persuaded you to save me and nothing else' (Medea), 'Eros of the golden locks used a purple ball to make me play with a child' (Anacreon)
      - Intoxication - 'Please, Dionysus!' (Anacreon), 'Beautiful servant of noisy loves of mind-spinning wine' (Ion of Chios)
    - - Family connections - relationships between parent and child in the Aeneid are shown as key, especially with Aeneas/Anchises and Aeneas/Venus
      - Divine intervention - Venus sends Cupid to make Dido fall for Aeneas in Aeneid Book 1, the Fates determine Aeneas' marriage to Lavinia
      - Physical/sexual desire - 'Cynthia was the first, to my cost, to trap me with her eyes,' 'I tormented my loins and sides,' Dido for Aeneas with the 'old fires,' Turnus and his 'lust for battle'
  - - - The path to virtue - both Phaedrus and Pausanias discuss this idea, it also features in Socrates' ladder which ascend to knowing truth (philosophy)
      - A sense of completion and belonging - Aristophanes' spheres theory about finding our 'other half,' attraction to what you do not have (Eryximachus and later Socrates), Agathon says love 'gives the feeling, not of longing, but of belonging'
      - Common Love and Heavenly Love - Pausanias says Common Love is sexual love, Heavenly Love is the desire for mental enrichment (draws a distinction between this and pederasty)
      - Socrates - to Alcibiades, Socrates is love embodied as in him there is knowledge and virtue (story of the battlefield)
      - Friendship/desire - in Laws Plato defines love as an 'intense' feeling of friendship, divided into that which involves bodily desire and that which is purely soulful with 'soul lusting really for soul'
      - Obsession/lust - Alcibiades' attitude towards Socrates
    - - Friendship - love is 'friendship gone mad' and is not necessary but 'preferable' for the Stoic. Love is 'pure'
      - Altruistic - love is more about what you do for others rather than for yourself, 'You must live for another, if you want to live for yourself,' not about gaining advantages but 'to have someone I can die for...'
      - Love must be mutual - 'If you want to be loved, then love.' Love is more a state shared with another, like friendship, than a one-way sense of desire
      - Romantic love - Seneca would call this lust not love, this 'fires up souls into desire for the beautiful object' which leads to 'foul passion' (sex). He sees lust as a 'dishonourable stain' on all those it affects, so sees this form of 'love' as full of vice
    - - A force of nature - 'Love shook my soul like a wind buffeting oak trees on a mountain,' 'Love which loosens the limbs once again shakes me! Bitter-sweet, invincible creature that he is,' references to Aphrodite
      - Desire - uses eros for 'love' meaning passion/desire as well as love, thumos for 'heart' and 'soul' to show the depth of anguish/pain as well as powerful desire, pothos used to indicate powerful desire
      - Fickle in nature - 'Come to me again now, Queen,' 'I used to love you, Atthis,' 'Atthis ... you run off to Andromeda'
      - Adoration of a family member - use of 'agapata' which Homer had only used for sons to refer to her daughter, 'I love her more than all of Lydia'
    - - Love as a skill/game - 'Ars' could be translated as skill, 'your art was lacking,' 'Only playful passions will be learnt from me,' 'Have fun while its allowed,' 'She should play the chess match warily not rashly,' 'playing often brings on love,' 'always dangle your bait,' 'inscribe on your/his trophies: 'Ovid was my master''
      - Love as a battle - 'it's not fair for armed men to battle with naked girls,' 'arms remain to give to you Penthesilea and your Amazon troop,' 'inscribe on your/his trophies: 'Ovid was my master''
      - Love as a disease - 'some natural ill, some normal malady,' 'The madness of my love,' 'Not ivory still, he's sure'
    - - A form of lust/madness - 'Lust and only lust!', 'overwhelming lust brings neither honour nor glory to any one' (Medea), links to Dionysus
      - Appreciation of youthful beauty - 'The most beautiful thing I miss is the sun's light, second, the bright stars, the moon's face,' statues and pottery, depictions of beauty in the Odyssey (e.g. Calypso)
      - Family ties - Homer suggests the strength of father-son ties in particular in the Odyssey, and also between mother and son with the meeting of Odysseus and Anticleia
      - A useful union/arrangement in society - 'from love all we mortals are born,' 'I found you useful,' Odysseus uses love to get Circe and Calypso to help him (and perhaps Nausicaa?)
    - - Family ties - parent/child relationships in the Aeneid, notion of pietas in Aeneid and Augustan propaganda
      - External force - 'I've been struck by love's heavy dart,' 'while fate allows, let's join in love,' 'Cynthia was the first ... to trap me with her eyes'
      - A trap for men - 'trap me with her gaze,' 'can never set me free, only another infatuation [can do that],' 'if any hears my warning too late, O with what agony he will remember my words!'
      - Love is a sickness/madness - 'lingered lovesick,' 'so ill an affliction,' 'madness for Inachia,' 'till he taught me, recklessly, to scorn pure girls and live without sense, and this madness has not left me for one whole year now'
      - Love is arbitrary/indiscriminate - 'Burn with passion for tender boys, with passion for tender girls'
  - - - Improved virtue - Phaedrus discusses this for pederasty, Pausanias includes it when talking about Heavenly Love, Socrates suggests it with his ladder (link to Republic and Guardians?)
      - Stronger community - love brings 'harmony' according to Eryximachus, leads to 'strong friendships' and strong state due to 'army of lovers,' 'sense, not of longing, but of belonging'
      - Reproduction - physical with a woman, mental with a man and spiritual with truth, allows us to achieve immortality
      - Happiness - feeling of completion with 'other half' with Aristophanes' spheres, assumed happiness from knowing the truth
      - Spiritual benefits - imagery of the soul taking flight in the Phaedrus, deep spiritual connection with 'soul lusting really after soul' in the Laws
      - Can lead to shameful behaviour - mainly the effect of Common Love according to Pausanias, but also 'the slavery a lover is prepared to endure,' and how unordered Eros can bring 'wickedness' to society
      - Emotional suffering - when lovers mislead their beloved hence why lovers must be tested, when humans are incomplete we yearn to be together again
      - Loss of control - story of Aristophanes' spheres seemed like overwhelming desire that went against reason, Alcibiades embodies this loss of control in his speech of love for Socrates
    - - Improved virtue - love/friendship allows you to practice virtues which is the only good according to Stoics
      - Spiritual benefits - 'love of virtue' is good for the soul (vice is detrimental)
      - Better self-care - we take better care of ourselves so we can take care of others, as Seneca does as he cares for his wife
      - Better community - 'community of interest' is created where we look after each other to achieve aims
      - Moral corruption - lust is a vice, so romantic love which 'fires up souls into desire for the beautiful object' and leads to the 'foul passion' of sex (but would Seneca call this love?)
      - Reproduction - lust can be a good thing for the 'propagation of the human race'
    - - Pleasure/satisfaction of desire - 'a tremor seizes me all over and I am greener than grass,' 'you satisfied your desire,' 'you soothed my soul which was burning with desire,' 'release me from this great distress'
      - Means of remembrance - 'no one will remember you,' 'I want to remind you ... that we had good times'
      - Destructive - references to the Trojan War, 'My tongue breaks and immediately a delicate fire runs beneath my skin,' 'on the point of death,' 'my soul which was burning with desire,' 'A certain longing to die grips me,' 'longing consumes her flighty soul,' 'Love which loosens the limbs once again shakes me!'
      - Emotional suffering - 'do not overpower my heart with anguish,' 'strikes terror into the heart in my breast,' 'Weeping, she was leaving me'
      - Distracts from duties/immoral - 'abandoned her husband,' 'led her astray,' 'I cannot weave my web'
    - - Enjoyment/pleasure - 'playful passions,' 'Have fun while it's allowed,' 'Pleasure that comes with safety's less enjoyable,' 'man and woman equally should enjoy'
      - Motivates (rashness) - 'he, borne on the wings of love, ran faster,' 'passing little by little from her rash breast'
      - Winning - 'let them win, those who are favoured by Venus and her Boy,' 'inscribe on your trophies: 'Ovid was my master,'' 'the bird doesn't show the hunter where to find it'
      - Destructive - 'What destroyed you all, I ask? Not knowing how to love,' 'How often a doubting lover's been set on fire by letters,' 'You've pierced a loving heart,' '[Cupid's bow] shall vanquish [Apollo]'
      - Brings out bad human nature - 'in a game the naked heart's exposed: anger enters, ugly mischief, desire for gain, quarrels and fights and anxious pain ... there's no honour'