love

Visiting Scholars

Open House | How to Talk About Love, with Professor Armand D’Angour

We were pleased to welcome Professor Armand D’Angour, of Jesus College, Oxford, who joined members of the Kosmos Society for an Open House discussion on “How to Talk about Love: Plato’s Symposium.” The earliest and most brilliant philosophical treatment of Love is Plato’s dialogue Symposium. In it, a group of seven men, including the comic playwright Aristophanes and the philosopher Socrates, offer speeches describing what they think love is. The… Read more

Topic for Discussion

Love and passion

Louise Marie-Jeanne Hersent: Daphnis et Chloe 19th century For the young and innocent Daphnis and Chloe, the first stirrings of love and desire are uncomfortable experiences: Hearing the name of Eros for the first time soothed the pain in their souls [psūkhē]. At night, they returned to the folds and began comparing their own experiences with what they had heard from Philetas. “Those in love [erân] are in pain [algeîn].… Read more

Book Club

Book Club | February 2023: Longus Daphnis and Chloe

I was hunting on the island of Lesbos when I saw the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in the grove of the Nymphs. It was a story about Eros. The grove was a beautiful place, abounding in trees and flowers. Streams of water gushed down, flowing from the same spring that nourished the trees and flowers. But I found more pleasure in the painting, instilled as it was… Read more

Topic for Discussion,  Word Study

Aphrodite who excites desire

I was familiar with some of the longer Homeric Hymns, which are available in the Text Library in translations by Gregory Nagy[1], but I had not previously paid much attention to the shorter Homeric Hymns. Gregory Nagy, in “The Earliest Phases in the Reception of the Homeric Hymns,”[2] has explained that the setting for the Homeric Hymns were festivals; and that they started with a prooemium. He also points out… Read more

Book Club

Book Club | February 2020: Ovid’s The Art of Love

Should anyone here not know the art of love, read this, and learn by reading how to love. By art the boat’s set gliding, with oar and sail, by art the chariot’s swift: love’s ruled by art. Inspired by Valentine’s Day, our selection this month is The Art of Love, or Ars Amatoria, by the Roman poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso). As always, you can read any translation you like.… Read more