Love and MythA website by Studio Esoterico CornelioLegendary couples
Every civilisation has told its own story partly through its pairs of lovers. In this section we meet twenty of them, chosen from Greek and Latin myth, chivalric romance, Persian poetry, Indian epic and the legends of the Far East. Some are divine figures,…
ExploreDeities of love
Every civilisation has given desire a face. In this section we meet the deities who, in the religions of the world, ruled over love, attraction and union: from the Greek Aphrodite born of the sea foam to the Roman Venus, mother of Aeneas, from the winged boy…
ExploreLove rites and customs
Every age has invented gestures to say that two people belong to each other. This section tells the history of those gestures: the ring worn on the fourth finger because of an imaginary vein, the clasped hands of Scottish handfasting, the sugared almonds of…
ExploreSymbols of love
Every age has sought images able to speak of love without the need for words. Some come from nature, such as the rose, myrtle, the pomegranate, the dove and the swan; others are objects made by human hands, such as the ring, the key, the knot or the wedding…
ExploreLove in literature
Love is perhaps the oldest and most often renewed theme in literature. This section traces its history through the great texts that taught the West how to speak of it: from the fragments of Sappho to Catullus's poems for Lesbia, from Latin elegy to the irony…
ExploreTen readings
- Orpheus and Eurydice: the song that defied deathLegendary couples · 3 min read
- Aphrodite between Hesiod and Homer: the goddess born of the sea foamDeities of love · 3 min read
- The vena amoris: why the ring goes on the left ring fingerLove rites and customs · 3 min read
- The stylised heart: how a shape became the symbol of loveSymbols of love · 3 min read
- Sappho of Lesbos: the poet who gave desire a voiceLove in literature · 3 min read
- Pyramus and Thisbe, the lovers of Babylon and the blood-stained mulberryLegendary couples · 3 min read
- Kamadeva and Rati: the Indian god of desire and his consortDeities of love · 3 min read
- Qixi, the Chinese lovers' festival and the bridge of magpiesLove rites and customs · 3 min read
- The swans of Venus: elegance, fidelity and metamorphoses of loveSymbols of love · 3 min read
- Plato's Symposium: six speeches in praise of ErosLove in literature · 3 min read
Love myths: legendary couples, gods and symbols
«Love and Myth» is an educational website devoted to one of the oldest themes in human culture: love as told in myths, in literature and in the customs of peoples. Here you will find a hundred articles, in Italian and English, retracing legendary love stories and the divine figures of desire, from the Greece of Hesiod and Homer to the Persia of the poets, from the India of the Puranas to the shrines of Japan.
The famous couples of mythology and literature take centre stage: Orpheus and Eurydice, Cupid and Psyche, Tristan and Isolde, Paolo and Francesca, Layla and Majnun, down to Romeo and Juliet. Alongside them you will meet the gods of love of the world's religions, from Aphrodite and Venus to Freyja, Hathor, Ishtar, Kamadeva and Oshun, together with the sources that have handed down their worship and their images.
Another part of the site is devoted to the symbols of love and to the history of wedding traditions. The stylised heart, the rose of Venus, myrtle, the dove and the love knot each have a precise history that can be followed through texts and works of art; the same is true of the ring worn on the fourth finger, sugared almonds, the bridal veil and Saint Valentine's Day. The love potions mentioned by Greek and Latin sources are described as historical documents, never as recipes.
Finally, the section on love in literature follows the theme from Sappho and Catullus to Ovid's Ars amatoria, from the Song of Songs to the courtly love of the troubadours, from Dante and Petrarch to Shakespeare and Romanticism. The site is curated by the Studio Esoterico Cornelio, which devotes its educational projects to the history of symbols and traditions: every article separates what is documented from what belongs to legend and names the works from which each story comes.
Frequently asked questions
Who was the goddess of love in Greek mythology?
She was Aphrodite, whom the Romans identified with Venus. In the Theogony Hesiod has her born from the sea foam that gathered around the genitals of Uranus, while Homer presents her as the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Wife of Hephaestus and lover of Ares, she had the dove, myrtle and the rose among her symbols; her most famous sanctuaries stood on Cyprus, on Cythera and at Corinth.
Who were Cupid and Psyche?
They are the protagonists of a tale told by Apuleius in the Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass, in the 2nd century AD. Psyche, a girl of extraordinary beauty, becomes the bride of Cupid on condition that she never sees his face. When she breaks the prohibition she loses him and must pass the trials set by Venus before being reunited with him and gaining immortality. The story has often been read as an allegory of the soul.
Why is the engagement ring worn on the left ring finger?
The custom is linked to an ancient anatomical belief, reported by Latin authors such as Aulus Gellius and Macrobius, that a vein or nerve ran from the fourth finger of the left hand straight to the heart. The name vena amoris is later and appears in English legal treatises of the early modern period. The belief has no anatomical basis, but it fixed a tradition that is still widespread across much of Europe.
What does courtly love mean?
It is the ideal of love developed at the courts of southern France in the 12th century and sung by the troubadours, who called it fin'amor. The poet declares himself the servant of a high-ranking lady, often married, and love becomes a discipline that refines the lover. Andreas Capellanus codified its rules in De amore. The term «courtly love» itself was coined only in 1883 by the philologist Gaston Paris.
Where does the heart symbol come from?
The stylised heart shape, with two lobes and a point, appears as a symbol of love in 13th and 14th century Europe, in the miniatures of courtly romances and later in coats of arms and playing cards. There are several hypotheses about its origin, from the ivy leaf of ancient art to the silphium seed shown on the coins of Cyrene, but none has been proved. What is certain is that it does not reproduce the real anatomy of the human heart.
Why is Saint Valentine's Day the festival of lovers?
Little is known about the martyr Valentine, venerated on 14 February, and the ancient sources do not link him to love. The connection appears in the 14th century, in Geoffrey Chaucer's poem Parlement of Foules, where Saint Valentine's Day is the day on which birds choose their mates. From then on the occasion spread through the English and French courts and, with the printed cards of the 19th century, became a popular festival.