Love

At the beginning of the third stasimon the chorus says something that just really caught my eye. They have this to say about love:

In battle the victory goes to Love;
Prizes and prosperities fall to Love.
Love dallies the night
On a girl’s soft cheeks,
Ranges across the sea,
Lodges in wild meadows.
O Love , no one can hide from you:
You take gods who live forever,
You take humans who die in a day,
And they take you and go mad.

Destroyer Love, you seize a good mind,
And pervert it to wickedness:
This fight is your doing,
This uproar in the family.
And the winner will be desire,
Shining in the eyes of a bride,
An invitation to bed,
A power to sweep across the bounds of what is Right.
For we are only toys in your hands,
Divine, unbeatable Aphrodite!

The way that love is personified in this selection really spoke to me. Giving love human characteristics speaks to the power love often has in life and especially literature. Often in stories love has more influence over people than anything else in the whole story. The story of Antigone is no different. It is her love for her brother that drives Antigone to go against her uncle and ultimately causes her death. Also, the death of Haemon is caused by his love for Antigone and Eurydice’s demise caused by the loss and love of Haemon.

Love has a lot of power over people. We don’t have the saying “Love makes you do funny things” for no reason. Even in modern culture love is known to have almost “magical” powers. Many people will do almost anything for love and in North American culture it is what everyone seeks in life and if/when it’s found people are essentially fulfilled in many aspects of their life.

My favorite part of this quotation is when they say “For we are only toys in your hands.” This is something that really speaks to me. I believe that we as humans are at love’s mercy. We have no control over it and it is a crazy, wild, experience. Whether you’ve fallen for a boy, a girl or have only experienced familial love you know its power. As the selection says it affects us all at some point, I believe in many aspects it is inescapable, but as love has the power to give happiness it also has the power to cause indescribable pain. People we love die or we break up with a girlfriend/boyfriend and we think that life will never go on. Love always comes again and if one love fades another is there to ease the hurt. This quote speaks to the power, fickleness and the universal aspects of love.