“Men seemed to have failed completely to comprehend the power of
Eros, for if they did comprehend it, they would have built to him the
greatest altars and temples and offered the greatest sacrifices, whereas
he is given none of these honors, although he should have them most of
all…”
From Aristophanes’ Speech in the Symposium
Please
use any of the myths we read about love to critique or support this
quotation? In your response, react, evaluate, challenge, or contemplate.
(Please complete this blog response by 2:30p.m. on Tue., Oct. 4th, 2016.)
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25 comments:
With the quote I think it depends on what kind of "power" or what the man is trying to achieve. All the gods had different powers or were in charge of different things. They wanted to accomplish different objectives and they ultimately wanted to do different things. Some of the Greek gods have proven that "ero" has benefited their journey for what they wanted and others have shown that a love they once have that was separated really effected them. Other Greek Gods didn't really have it. So I think it's just different for every Greek God
The story about Pyramus and Thisbe goes well with this quote, as it shows the sheer power that love can hold, in their story eventually turning the berries of the mulberry tree red. It's a much more powerful force than they knew.
Love is actually one of the more complex emotions of human nature. Love is commonly interpreted as joyful but love can also create sadness and tragic events. Happiness is seen at the end of the Cupid and Psyche myth after Psyche completes the trials presented by Venus. However, when Psyche betrayed Cupid's trust there was sadness in their relationship. In the "Eight Brief Tales of Love", love seems to be more tragic and brings upon more sadness. Like the "Pyramus and Thisbe" myth, it ends in sadness and tragedy. Sadness in the sense that both of the lovers can't see each other and tragedy in the sense that both of them commit suicide.
Overall, I disagree with Aristophanes' quote that Eros needs to have places of worship and rituals because honestly, love can be a painful emotion for humans. I feel as though Aristophanes' didn't consider the other emotions and consequences of love.
To support Aristophanes's quotation, I’m going to relate it to the Demeter/Persephone myth. It was said that Persephone was taken away from Demeter by Hades, and Persephone was only allowed to spend ⅔ of the year with her mother. But while Demeter was still grieving over the loss of her daughter, the Earth was slowly dying as Demeter didn’t have the will to take care of crops. Demeter’s supporters knew that it was very important to keep Demeter as happy as possible because it truly meant life or death to them. So they built Demeter great altars and temples, and offered her great sacrifices so that Demeter might just keep them alive. So, the people did not fail to recognize the power of Demeter as she was given all the honors people could give a god, just so that the power of Demeter wouldn’t destroy them all.
I don't necessarily agree with the quote because first off he doesn't deserve really anything because he didn't do anything for the men. I think that "With great power, comes great responsibility." If he expects to get something from giving that's not what its all about. Love is about never giving up just like in the Cupid myth where Cupids wife never gives up despite the hardships. Eros doesn't have love for the humans, because true love is unconditional and he shouldn't want all of these useless items that humans can give him. I think that this is a selfish quote and that it takes more than objects to show love.
I think love is all about your relationship with someone not about the things that you can give them. In Cupid and Psyche, cupid blind folds psyche and she falls in love with his words and his heart. Not about what he gives to her or the way he looks.
Love actually is a very powerful thing and should be appreciated by others like some kind of divine power and Cupid should've had temples built for him because of this.In the story of Cupid and Psyche love triumphs over everything and is the main driving force of the story then it should be considered a great power and Cupid be made a more praise worthy god.
This idea can be greatly related to the myth of Demeter and Persephone. When Persephone was taken away from her mother to live in the underworld, it caused a great deal of suffering from Demeter, and she nearly starved the people of Earth. However, with Cupid, he wasn't built any temples or places of worship of a god of love. Despite that, Cupid continued sharing his love with the people of Earth.
Eros has not been given the credit that he deserves, everyone knows him and everybody needs him to fall in love, yet he doesn't have altars and nobody ever thanks him. People just take him for granted even though he is always there. In the Demeter and Persephone myth, Hades abducts Persephone and it nearly kills the entire population on the world because her grief was so great, Eros doesn't have there "life or death" powers, so he doesn't need altars to keep happy since he can't really do anything to them.
The power of love has been shown in many stories in the past, love can transcend everything and can make changes in our lives and make us do things that we didn't know we could accomplish. In the story of Cupid and psyche the power of love pushes psyche to find Cupid and complete the tasks that were given to her and the power of love brought Cupid and psyche together and showed them how much they were willing to do for each other.
This quote argues that the power of love is so great, that mankind should be more focused to pray to the god of love. The myth of Pryamus and Thisbe a perfect example for how powerful love is. Love can be a great thing but it can also cause great agony and pain as seen in this myth. Love ends up killing both Pryamus and Thisbe. I do think it is interesting how Eros is not valued more by the ancient Greeks. So many of their stories and myths revolve around love and the consequences of love.
This quote shows the complications of love and this all related back to the quote of "can love exist where there is no trust". It is a hard and complicated emotion to figure out and make work. The story of "Pyramus and Thisbe" is very relative to this because the failure seems to have occurred again and ends in a very great deal of sadness and tragedy. Both lovers dead. In the big picture this quotation means that love is an equal playing field. Both sides have to do their part and give and take. All these temples and sacrifices are not given to the ruler and therefore he does not have trust in his people.
Throughout mythology, love has perhaps had the biggest influence of all. Take for instance the Trojan War. Everything about that myth is about what happened because a Paris fell in love with Helen. A long war is fought and countless lives are lost for the sake of love. In a different myth, Hades kidnaps Persephone because he falls in love with her. This causes Demeter's sadness and therefore was the reason the seasons changed. In this quote, the author argues that love is underappreciated. In ancient Greece people made sacrifices to gods like Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter and Hera when perhaps they should have been sacrificing to Eros, the god of love.
Looking at the past myths that we have read, many can connect back to love. Demeter loved her daughter so dearly that when she was gone the humans suffered with no harvest. Psyche loved Cupid so much that she was willing to go to the underworld and undergo many challenges for him to love her. Pyramus and Thisbe were so in love they died for each other. Love is one of the strongest forces aiding man kind. Everyone wants to love and be loved whether it be romantically or not. Love can drive one to do crazy and spontaneous things.
There's a difference between love and worship. This quote seems to be leaning more towards the idea that if someone loves something, they should give it all the respect and worship it "deserves." It's almost a habit to give someone everything they want if you love them because you want to please them and make them happy. But simply giving someone something, like an alter or a temple, not reflect love. In the story of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche went through those challenging tasks brought upon her by Venus to prove that she truly loved Cupid. Sometimes, putting yourself through the trouble of suffering to prove their love to someone is the greatest way to show it. Men might not comprehend love, or Eros, because they aren't actually loving, they are simply fixating themselves on materialistic things.
This idea of love and how to define has baffled men since the beginning, making it a concept hard to understand. Even today we lack a decent understanding as to what love is and how it works. This is likely why there weren't great honoring and offerings to Eros, likely because he was something that was much to difficult to understand. Or it could be that ancient Greeks didn't hold love to the degree it is seen as today. As seem in most love stories in ancient Greece they often are tragic and rarely hold happy endings. Like Pyramus and Thisbe, who died due to a miscommunication, yet are meet together in the end as a mulberry tree. Or Eurydice and Orpheus, and how his love drove him to the ends of the world to win her back.
I wold have to agree with Aristophanes because it seems that man's interaction with love has become a much shallower experience in today's world people are less likely to go the extra mile for love. People today would much rather connect through an app, then connect face to face. Whereas back in the day people would risk or create anything for love. For example in the story of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche is willing to go through incredibly adverse odds so that she can be with Cupid. Although I do not believe humans have love for cupid nor does cupid for humans. Because love I believe is more personal than just blindly loving gods or gods just blindly loving humans.
I think that this quote means that love is sometimes incomprehensible, and it can cause us to do crazy and irrational things. A good example of this would be from the text of Cupid and Psyche, where these two characters fell in love, but could not contain themselves. Psyche was willing to risk it all to be with Cupid, but in the end could not stop herself from viewing the face of Cupid, causing him to flee.
I think the meaning of the quote is pretty simple. Just that people fail to realize the power of love prior to falling in it. If they did, they'd pay more homage to Eros. Also, since Eros isn't an Olympian, he's regarded as less powerful than the big 12. But Aristophanes says he isn't.
It seems like the meaning of this quote has sort of a more in depth look. The quote states that we underestimate Eros the god of love, possible meaning that we underestimate the power of love. Aristophanes states that if we did comprehend the power of Love or Eros then we would worship it more or take greater care in it. Love has driven a lot of points in history and stuff, look at the works of Shakespeare, his writing perfectly show love is not to be underestimated. Basically what I am saying is that Aristophanes is saying we underestimate the power of love too much when it is a very powerful thing.
It seems many or all of the ancient greek myths we have learned about thus far have involved some sort of romantic involvement. Love is obviously a major part of much of Greek Mythology. Eros, the Roman god of love, as quoted, should have been worshipped much more than he did because it seems men might have had better luck with women if they had.
I believe that this quote means that love is a much more powerful thing than some humans give it credit for. We portrayed the god of love, Eros/Cupid as a child maybe to signify the childish nature of love. When in reality love might not be so childish seeing as it is the only thing that any human has ever had over a god. With love the gods will do things for humans, maybe that's why Aristophanes thought Eros should have been more highly regarded.
I think Aristophanes is saying we take love for granted and it controls our lives more than we would like to think. Men want to be the strong one and they might not like to admit that they are in love because it might seem like a weakness. Instead of praying to Eros they might pray to more "manly" gods such as Ares. Men are very prideful and don't like to admit they have weaknesses but they do and they should pray to more gods like Eros who are neglected and not seen for their true power.
Love is a force that has a great deal of power over man and despite how hard man may try they often have no control over the people they fall in love with. Love is a force that has convinced cowards to kill, barbarians to settle down, and kingdoms to come to an end. If people had realized the tremendous power love holds over our daily lives than perhaps they would have spent more time praying to the god of love than the others. When the Greeks were praying to Ares and other gods they would have likely had more luck praying to the god of love. Love is both the most dangerous and most caring emotion known to man and if the Greeks had recognized this they would have had better luck and things could have turned out better for them. Unfortunately they did not see the full potential of this emotion and considered Eros to be a weaker god when he could have been their savior.
Love is one of, if not the most influential emotion in the human spectrum. It can overcome all other sense and wisdom and replace all reason with illusions and fantasy. It is because of this that the quote makes sense. The Greeks tended to lean towards the God's with the most raw power and might and the Gods that could cause the most destruction, but neglected the true influence and internal forces of love. Had they paid attention to this simple fact, they could have understood that no amount of power and no show of strength can overcome the power of love.
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