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Omnia vincit Amor
An excerpt from The Rule of Four, which I think is pretty good:
... we're all fishermen telling stories about the one that got away. But to this day, I'm not sure how Chaucer's Prioress interpreted Virgil, or how Virgil interpreted love. All that stays with me is the picture my father showed me, the part he never said a word about, where the two naked women are watching Love bully the satyr. I've always wondered why Carracci put two women in that engraving, when he only needed one. Somewhere in that is the moral I took from the story: in the geometry of love, everything is triangular. For every Tom and Jenny, there is a Julius; for every Katie and Tom, there is a Francesco Colonna; and the tongue of desire is forked, kissing two but loving one. Love draws line between us like astronomer plotting a constellation from stars, joining points into patterns that have no basis in nature. The butt of every triangle becomes the heart of another, until the roof of reality is a tessellation of love affairs. Taken together, they have the pattern of netting; and behind them, I think, is Love. Love is the only perfect fisherman, the one who casts the broadest net, which no fish can escape. His reward is to sit alone in the tavern of life, forever a boy among men, hoping someday to tell stories about the one that got away.
Filed under: Books
... we're all fishermen telling stories about the one that got away. But to this day, I'm not sure how Chaucer's Prioress interpreted Virgil, or how Virgil interpreted love. All that stays with me is the picture my father showed me, the part he never said a word about, where the two naked women are watching Love bully the satyr. I've always wondered why Carracci put two women in that engraving, when he only needed one. Somewhere in that is the moral I took from the story: in the geometry of love, everything is triangular. For every Tom and Jenny, there is a Julius; for every Katie and Tom, there is a Francesco Colonna; and the tongue of desire is forked, kissing two but loving one. Love draws line between us like astronomer plotting a constellation from stars, joining points into patterns that have no basis in nature. The butt of every triangle becomes the heart of another, until the roof of reality is a tessellation of love affairs. Taken together, they have the pattern of netting; and behind them, I think, is Love. Love is the only perfect fisherman, the one who casts the broadest net, which no fish can escape. His reward is to sit alone in the tavern of life, forever a boy among men, hoping someday to tell stories about the one that got away.Filed under: Books
6 Comments
a) Author's father has always been obsessed with a book (Hypnerotomachia Poliphili), so much so that it intrudes on his marriage
b) Author's father knows it, but cannot do anything about his obsession. Eventually dies.
c) Author once had a secret crush on a girl. Devastated when girl did not reciprocate. Felt that "Omnia vincit Amor" (Vergil's "Love conquers all") was a big fat lie.
d) Father shows author the art, tells him the little boy who bullies the satyr is Love.
e) Author suspects that his father's point is that we are all powerless in Love's complete dominion over us, whether it is in the form of obsession or unrequited crushes.
Quite a different spin to the often romanticized Latin saying. There's also a painting by Michelangelo Caravaggio with the same name, which has the more conventional Cupid.
So Love, looks like an innocent little boy is actually a little monsterous brat that dares bully a satyr. Although I wonder who wouldn't dare bully a satyr (as described by wikipedia as roughish but faint-hearted folk)
So is it a good read then?
Yep. I found Rule of Four a good read. Very on the edge. Way ahead of Dan Brown's books.
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