Valentine's day...

interesting facts I didn't know and had no business looking up, since i have a bazillion (my fav word :) things to do, including get the last of those #&@^$* vintage clothes ready to go ...



Roman mythology - Cupid:
~ is the god of erotic love and beauty
~ is Latin for cupido, meaning "desire"
~ also known by another Latin name - Amor (is this where we get the word "amore"
~ is the son of goddess of love, Venus and messenger god, Mercury
~ is frequently shown shooting his bow to inspire romantic love
~ is an icon of Valentine's Day
~ personification of love and courtship in general
~ often depicted with wings, a bow, and a quiver of arrows
~ Caravaggio's Amor Vincit Omnia
~ In painting and sculpture, Cupid is often portrayed as a nude (or sometimes diapered) winged boy or baby (a putto) armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows.
~ is prominent in ariel poetry*, lyrics, elegiac love**, and metamorphic poetry***
~ is frequently invoked as fickle, playful, and perverse
~ is often depicted as carrying two sets of arrows - one set is gold-headed - to inspire love in the target, the other set is lead-headed to inspire hatred
~ cult following is associated with Venus (his mother)
~ he was worshipped as seriously as Venus
~ his power was greater than his mother's
~ had dominion over:
~ ~ the dead in Hades
~ ~ the creatures of the sea
~ ~ the gods in Olympus

~ if the son of Night and Hell(?) cult following says he mated with Chaos to produce men and gods - so that gods were the offspring of love
~ in the more recent book series of Artemis Fowl - character Holly Short's great-great grandfather is Cupid (I have yet to read these - I know! I know! book lover me! :)

Varying accounts of Cupid's lineage:
Cicero provides three different lineages
~ ~ son of Mercury (Hermes) and Diana (Artemis)
~ ~ son of Mercury and Venus (Aphrodite)
~ ~ son of Mars (Ares in Greek mythology) and Venus

Plato mentions two of these

Hesiod's Theogony
~ ~ Cupid was created coevally with Chaos and the earth

~ in most writings, either there are two different Cupids, or there are two sides to Cupid ( - oh - that makes sense )
.... if the son of Jupiter (Zeus) and Venus - he's a lively youth who delights in pranks and spreading love
.... if the son Nyx and Erebus - he's known for riotous debauchery.

~ most famous story about Cupid is a revised(?) interpretation of an old woman's writings in Lucius Apuleius' novel "The Golden Ass" - written in the 2nd century AD
(Lucius Apuleius's Metamorphoses(?))
from wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_and_Psyche:
"...
When Cupid's mother Venus became jealous of the princess Psyche, who was so beloved by her subjects that they forgot to worship Venus, she ordered Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the vilest thing in the world. When Cupid saw Psyche, however, he was so overcome by her beauty that he fell in love with her himself.

Following that, Cupid visited Psyche every night while she slept. Speaking to her so that she could not see him, he told her never to try to see him. Psyche, though, incited by her two older sisters who told her Cupid was a monster, tried to look at him and angered Cupid. When he left, she looked all over the known world for him until at last the leader of the gods, Jupiter, gave Psyche the gift of immortality so that she could be with him. Together they had a daughter, Voluptas, or Hedone, (meaning pleasure) and Psyche became a goddess. Her name "Psyche" means "soul."
..."


~ In the Hindu the character Kāma also has a very similar description as Cupid
~ is usually shown amusing himself with childhood play, sometimes driving a hoop, throwing darts, catching a butterfly, or flirting with a nymph
~ often depicted with his mother Venus, playing a horn
~ some images show his mother scolding or spanking him due to his mischievous nature
~ is also shown wearing a helmet and carrying a buckler, perhaps in reference to Virgil's Omnia vincit amor or as political satire on wars for love or love as war
~ is pleasure, sensual gratification, sexual fulfillment, pleasure of the senses, desire, eros, the aesthetic enjoyment of life
~ is regarded as the third of the four goals of life (purusharthas)(duty (dharma) - worldly status (artha) - salvation (moksha) )
~ Kama-deva is the personification of this
~ Kama-rupa is a subtle body or aura composed of desire
~ Kama-loka is the realm this inhabits



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* elegiac love, poetry - classical elegiac meter has two lines, making it a couplet
Elegiac couplets are a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than those of epic poetry. The ancient Romans frequently used elegiac couplets in love poetry, as in Ovid's Amores. As with heroic couplets, the couplets are usually self-contained and express a complete idea.

Elegiac couplets consist of alternating lines of dactylic hexameter and pentameter: two dactyls followed by a long syllable, a caesura, then two more dactyls followed by a long syllable.

The following is a graphic representation of its scansion. Note that - is a long syllable, u a short syllable, and U either one long or two shorts:

- U | - U | - U | - U | - u u | - -
- U | - U | - || - u u | - u u | -

illustrated by the following English example written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column,
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.


(source of above - mostly from wikipedia - that renowned source - lol )
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now - aren't you glad you read this? :D


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well, in case you are bored - here's more interesting facts - on this day in history:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=50490

278 - a holy priest named Valentine was executed under the orders of Roman emperor Claudius the Cruel. Claudius, after determining soldiers wouldn't join the army because of their unwillingness to leave their families, banned all marriages - Valentine continued to perform marriages - Valentine was imprisoned - became friendly with the jailers daughter (?! :) and before being executed, sent her a farewell note, signed "From Your Valentine". Later became a saint - hence, "St. Valentine"

1779 - Captain Cook killed in Hawaii (his third trip there)

1779 - Patriots defeat Loyalists at Kettle Creek - 340 Patriots defeated a larger force of 700 Loyalist militia

1842 - Fans of Charles Dickens organize the elite - and expensive at the time - $10 tickets - "Boz Ball" for Dickens, who arrived in the United States for a five-month tour - Why "Boz"? Dickens' earliest works were published under the pseudonym "Boz"

1864 - Union General Sherman enters Meridian, Mississippi during a winter campaign that served as a precursor to Sherman's "March to the Sea."

1884 - Theodore Roosevelt’s beloved wife and his mother die only hours apart - his mom Mittie of typhoid fever, later in the day, his wife of 4 years, Alice, of Bright’s disease (severe kidney ailment) - she had just given birth to their daughter Alice, 2 days earlier - Theodore was devastated - married Edith 2 years later - became Vice-President under McKinley in 1901 - several months later, to become the 26th President, after the assasination of McKinley.

1886 - First trainload of oranges grown by southern California farmers leaves Los Angeles via transcontinental railroad

1896 - Edward Prince of Wales (would become King Edward VII) became the first member of the British Royal Family to ride in a motor vehicle

1919 - President Wilson presents the draft for League of Nations


1927 - English director Alfred Hitchcock's first suspense film, "The Lodger" opens

1929 - Penicillin discovered by Fleming (plate of staphylococcus bacteria uncovered - mold that had fallen on the culture had killed many of the bacteria)

1929 - Valentines Day Massacre - Alphonse Capone intended the order to kill rival Bugs Moran, but only Moran's 7 henchmen were killed at a warehouse on the pretense of buying bootleg whiskey (Moran wasn't there)

1938 - Hedda Hopper's first gossip column appears in the Los Angeles Times

1942 - Anti-fascist radio series "This Is War" debuts - featured Hollywood stars James Stewart, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, and Tyrone Power in shows that promoted the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

1943 - Battle of the Kasserine Pass, site of the United States' first major battle defeat of the war. German General Rommel launched offensive against Allied defensive line in Tunisia, North Africa. Battle of El Alamein August 1942 British General Montgomery pushed Rommel out of Egypt and into Tunisia - taking several months to regroup, Rommel set his sites of Tunis, Tunisia's capital and strategic key for both Allied and Axis forces, finally breaking through several days later - More than 1,000 American soldiers were killed by Rommel's offensive

1948 - NASCAR held its first race for modified stock cars on a 3.2 mile-course at Daytona Beach

1962 - First televised tour of the White House hosted by First Lady Jackie Kennedy

1962 - Kennedy authorizes U.S. advisors in Vietnam to fire in self-defense if fired upon."...but we have not sent combat troops in the generally understood sense of the word..." - stated so because he wanted to downplay any appearance of increased American involvement

1970 - Gallup Poll states a majority - 55 percent - oppose an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam (President Nixon had taken office in January 1969 promising to bring the war to an end)

1988 - Speed skater Dan Jansen competing for gold medal at the 500-meter race at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary - falls during the competition only hours after learning his sister had died of cancer - nicknamed heartbreak kid - finally captured an Olympic gold medal in 1994.

1989 - Leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua agree to free elections and free some political prisoners, after a meeting of the presidents of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and El Salvador

2000 - Tornadoes sweep through southern Georgia in the early morning hours, killing 18 people - most intense was an F3 tornado with winds in excess of 158 miles per hour that struck the town of Camilla - blasted through a housing development and destroyed 200 mobile homes

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