After the initial revelation,
love does demand a strategy:
that this is often
the beginning of the end
makes it no less imperative.
Murdoch (Black Prince 239) (reformatted)
...love, rather than being an elemental force, almost resembles a literary genre. ...love is not an instinct, but rather a creation...
Ortega
You can't just rest on your laurels
it's time for action
My love is my weight: because of it I move.
st. Augustine (xx 354-430)
You have to be available if he should come seeking you
you clear the deck, wind down that old thing
you redefine it-- "it's on its last legs, failing, it's failed"
(a bird in the hand..., the wise voice murmurs)
a new loyalty begins
I had to stay in my rooms all the time in case Anne should decide to call.
Murdoch [Word Child 117]
Suppose she had telephoned, suppose she had come, when I was away?
Murdoch (Black Prince 242)
(Or you try to keep both flames alive, and secret from each other?)
It awakens your instinct for survival
[Manon was] all that could attach me to life.
Abbe Prevost (France 1697-1763) Manon Lescaut (1731)
You give me reason to live
You give me reason to live
You give me reason to live...
Randy Newman (USA b.1943)
You must win his esteem
inspired to new levels of investment
how much must I sacrifice to be allowed into his heart?
I'll give up anything, everything
it will be an honor to pay,
money means nothing in comparison
Who travels for love finds a thousand miles not longer than one.
Japanese proverb [L'A]
When you are in love, ...whether you are packed in a gallery listening to political speeches or riding at full gallop under enemy fire to relieve a garrison, you are always... finding new and apparently ideal ways of making her love you more.
Stendhal (111)
...O pale flower,
grow, grow, and blossom out, and fill the air,
feed on his richness, grow, grow, blossom out,
and fill the air, and be enough for him.
Augusta Webster
"The Happiest Girl in the World" [OOTH]
...Love straightaway joined battle with him; and the thoughts Love sends into its own folk entered deeply into his heart, and from thenceforth he became a liegeman of love...
Stendhal (170)
You want to look good to her
better than anyone else
put on your best face
smile your best smile
think positive
deepen your voice (animals. size & pitch)
you work to arrange your psychic envelope
pat your hair, clear your throat, retire to the powder room
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
attrib. to "Thomas Parke D'Invilliers"
in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Christ, I think he's even combed his hair!
Rickie Lee Jones (USA b.1955) "Chuck E's in Love"
Shape up, you're being observed
(time to start leading a double life, hypocrisy, lies)
wash your clothes, scrub your neck
hairdresser, barber
buy clothes-- changing fashions
(you've never really paid attention to these things before)
you have to take chances
you make embarrassing fashion mistakes
(you make an okay choice but it's in the wrong setting
you have blind spots)
(You skip a chance to see him
coz your clothes aren't quite right)
You study your appearance
(before you can change
you must see how you look to others
how you are, no illusions)
compare yourself with others looking for ways to be better
stare critically in the mirror, grimacing
rummaging through your closet, your dresser drawers
looking for an outfit that will please her
Can I make myself seem more right?
hide my brains, manufacture a degree
take up his interests [Chekhov- The Darling]
optimize my market value
She may propose a quest,
suggest it even by the way she holds herself
his will becomes your will (in mystic union)
your own desires fade to nothing
you're blocked out, inadequate
there's a moral barrier he's erected between you
a challenge
it will take time and thought, attention, energy, risk
you might even die,
but you are inspired, already enslaved
ready to join his army
you will raise her esteem by service, by valor
submission, bowing head, burrowing in
you try guessing what he wants, what she'd like
what she says she wants (does she know? is she honest?)
(you offer defense, service, flattery, praise)
I'll make thee glorious by my pen
And famous by my sword;
I'll serve thee in such noble ways
Was never heard before...
James Graham (England 1612-50/56*)
"I'll Never Love Thee More" (c1643)
No matter how much trouble it will give me,
whatever you say,
I will make it my duty
to give you what you want,
that we may increase your happiness,
And you may do what you like.
Swahili lyric
I know thee what thou art,
I serve thee with my heart,
And fall before thee.
in Hume's Musical Humours (1605) [Ault1]
...he eats and drinks very little, and if he is persuaded to sip the wine, he does so remembering his beloved. He thinks and acts only for her!
Nizami "Layla"
Not a word can I bear
Spoken against you.
Edward Thomas (296)
ffor Love my breast doth fill
with such a fyre,
as what soe E're you will
is my desyer.
17th C. lyric (191)
"Whatever you go on wanting will be the law of my being."
Murdoch (Black Prince 326)
I loved you, so
I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars.
T.E. Lawrence (England 1888-1935)
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
If you are really devoted to one woman, then bow your head and yield your neck to the yoke.
Juvenal (Rome 40-125)
"...all I want is to be caught."
Tolstoy (Anna Karenin 141)
I had a deep relieved happy consciousness of surrender to her will.
Murdoch [Word Child 224]
(And this:)
If I were fortunate enough to be allowed to do something for her, my first impulse would be to keep it a secret.
Stendhal (102)
You'll break the law for her
risk Hell to have her
O Sorrow, in thy tangled paths I go,
The Kaaba's gateway I no longer know,
But bend my head wherever I see rise
The arch that curves o'er the Beloved's eyes.
Khwaja Mir Dard? (India 1721-85)
(tr. from Urdu by Khan and Westbrook)
(the Kaaba is Islam's most holy monument)
Thus am I still provoked to every evil
By this good wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.
Michael Drayton (England 1563-1631) "Idea" (1599) [A1]
Sir, a man becomes a scoundrel without even meaning to. A pretty girl makes him lose his head. He fights for her, an accident happens, he's forced to live in the mountains, and from a smuggler he becomes a bandit before he knows it.
Prosper Merimee "Carmen"
Cherchez la femme!
Alexander Dumas (France 1803-70)
"Les Mohicans de Paris"
You'll take the blame for her
"Rebecca Thatcher (Tom glanced at her face-- it was white with terror)... did you tear this book?" A thought shot like lightning through Tom's brain. He sprang to his feet and shouted, "I done it!"
Mark Twain (USA 1835-1910) "Tom Sawyer"
You'll lie (to enemies of your love)
She felt herself clad in an impenetrable armor of falsehood. She felt that some invisible power was assisting and supporting her.
Tolstoy (Anna Karenin 157)
Take on her preferences
Prosaic is a new word which I used to think ridiculous... but the contessina Leonore used the word prosaic, and I love to write it.
Stendhal (218)
You'll die for her (love and the death instinct)
(give up your immortality)
Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me:
And hast command of every part
To live and die for thee.
Robert Herrick
"To Anthea, Who May Command Him Anything" (1648)
...I would gladly plunge my hand into a hat to take out one of two tickets: 'Be loved by her' or 'Die at once'...
Stendhal (114)
That living and dying in love are but one I have proved,
This only know I
That I live by the beauty of the Beloved
For whom I would die.
Ghalib (tr. Khan and Westbrook)
But had I as many hearts as hairs,
As many loves as love has fears,
As many lives as years have hours:
They should be all and only yours.
"A Lover's Legacy"
in Playford's Select Airs (1659) [Ault2]
She in her left hand bears a leafy quince;
When with her right she crooks a finger, smiling.
How may the King hold back?
Royally then he barters life for love.
Robert Graves "To Juan at the Winter Solstice"
True love makes the thought of death frequent, easy, without terrors; it becomes merely a standard of comparison, the price one would pay for many things.
Stendhal (225) (Fr. 46) (but see below- bereavement)
It's deeper than you are
you have to swallow, stand up straight, get serious, look within
your habitual attitudes are not good enough
you need to come up with something deeper
you'll be cleansed by your love,
humbled by your longing for love
this old dog will learn all new tricks
you're not falling in love, you're rising in love
[good intentions are rarely carried through?
it's a miracle when they are]
(there's always temptations to backslide)
Heaven, who knew best what man would move
And raise his thoughts above the brute,
Said, Let him be, and let him love!
That must alone his soul improve,
Howe'er philosophers dispute.
Anne Finch, countess of Winchilsea (England 1666-1720)
"On Love" (1694) [Ault2]
Will naught my love avail?
Naught my desire?
Hold it as gold that is
Cleansed of impurities
Tried in the fire.
Abru (tr. Khan and Westbrook)
When the soul understands and wakes to find
Thou hast within the heart of man Thy throne,
It sees how arrogant and blind
The self that but its mortal self hath known.
Zahir (tr. Khan and Westbrook)
If thou wouldst become a pilgrim on the path
Of love
The first condition is
That thou become as humble as dust
And ashes.
Ansari of Herat (12th C. Arabic) [ILWL]
I was petty-minded, before I fell in love, precisely because I was occasionally tempted to consider myself great.
Stendhal (102)
O burnish well the mirror of thy heart
And make it fair,
If thou desirest the image of thy Love
To shine reflected there.
Hatim (India 1699-1781) (tr. from Urdu by K & W)
No more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man
But teach high thought and amiable words
And courtliness, and the desire of fame
And love of truth, and all that makes a man.
Tennyson "Idylls"
...being in love one simply has to tell the truth all the time...
Murdoch (Black Prince 368)
Contact with a high-minded woman is good for the life of any man.
Henry Vincent
The Eternal Feminine draws us upward.
Goethe (Germany 1749-1832) Faust II
... the feelings of courtoisie... allow even the most vilain to be gentil.
Peter Dronke (1968)
"Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love Lyric"
Base men being in love have then a nobility in their natures more than is native to them.
Shakespeare "Othello"
The more one loves the nearer he approaches God, for God is the spirit of infinite love.
R.W. Trine
Transformation belongs to passionate pursuit, Apollo seizing Daphne...
Murdoch [Word Child 78]
You try to choose what's best for her
unselfishness, not pursuing your own desires
but trying to please him
cheering her victories
you pray for his well-being
True love finds nothing good but what it knows will please its beloved.
12th C. Code of Love
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."
Blake "The Clod and the Pebble" (but see also above)
What measure Fate to him shall mete
Is not the noble Lover's care;
He's heart-sick with a longing sweet
To make her happy as she's fair.
...And, holding life as so much pelf
To buy her posies, learns this lore:
He does not rightly love himself
Who does not love another more.
Coventry Patmore "Love Serviceable" [ELP]
...love itself is, by nature, a transitive act in which we exert ourselves on behalf of what we love.
Ortega (47)
...love flows in a warm affirmation of the beloved...an intense affirmation of another being, irrespective of his attitude towards us.
Ortega (48)
Ah, even once, to will another rather than oneself!
Murdoch (Black Prince 217)
O love, of this wise love no word be said,
it will be solved in a diviner bed,
where the divine dance teaches self-love this,
that when we kiss it is a god we kiss.
Conrad Aiken "The Lovers" [MW]
"When you really love somebody you can't help feeling that you do them good by loving them."
Murdoch [Word Child 197]
O Yoko
my love will turn you on.
John Lennon
Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
"Look what I have!-- And these are all for you."
Edna St. Vincent Millay "Fatal Interview"
(fatal, because he loves her not)