Do You Know the Origin of Love?

Over 2,400 years ago, Plato came up with one of the most progressive theories behind why people fall in love.

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Art by Xaviera Lopez.

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Included in his philosophical text, the Symposium, is a soliloquy from Aristophanes: The Origin of Love. In this strange soliloquy describing the mythological history of love, Aristophanes states that humans used to look very different than they do now!

“Primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike… He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast.”

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Art by Xaviera Lopez.

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AllThatsStrange.com gives a great description of these strange, fused humans, describing them as having three sexes, not two as we have today. Some sexes were male in both halves, some were female in both, and others were mixed. The male halves were called The Children of the Sun, the female halves The Children of the Earth, and those who were mixed The Children of the Moon.

These people were notoriously fierce and caused trouble for the Gods. In retaliation, the Gods decided the best way to punish the people would be to split them in half, dooming them to walk the earth forever searching for their other piece. Male searching for male, female searching for female, and male and female searching for each other.

“After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one.”

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Art by Xaviera Lopez.

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This story was immortalized forever in the 2001 cult rock musical HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, about a transgender punk-rock girl from East Berlin, with the iconic song The Origin of Love. Watch the music video below!

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The Origin Of Love Lyrics

When the earth was still flat,

And the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky,
Sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth
Like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.

The origin of love

And there were three sexes then,

One that looked like two men
Glued up back to back,
Called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
Were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
Rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
Part daughter, part son.

The origin of love

Now the gods grew quite scared

Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all
With my hammer,
Like I killed the giants."
And Zeus said, "No,
You better let me
Use my lightening, like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh,
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above
Into great balls of fire

And then fire shot down

From the sky in bolts
Like shining blades
Of a knife.
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the children of the sun
And the moon
And the earth.
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly
To remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane,
To scatter us away,
In a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves,
To wash us all away,
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hopping round on one foot
And looking through one eye.

Last time I saw you

We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.

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I can’t help but notice that it’s Valentines Day today, and so here’s my message to you:

Love is Love is Love is Love. Whoever your other half is.

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Art by Xaviera Lopez.

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Hi friend! Thanks for stopping by, I’m really glad you’re here!

I’m an artist, writer, and creative consultant based in the Pacific Northwest. I see steemit as an incredible asset to artists and creatives as a way to share their work and connect with like-minded people. You can check out my intro post, read more about the theatre projects I work on, or follow me! I’m especially interested in finding other performing artists on this site. If that’s you, please say hello! See you around the steemosphere! @lilyraabe

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