Dark history behind Valentine's Day

in #love5 years ago (edited)

hearts.jpg

I have memories as a child passing out Valentine's Day cards to all the boys and girls in my class.

It was required that every student give a card to all the students. I ended up with 24 cards that said, "You're mine." If I was lucky there was some candy involved with the exchange. This is what I knew about Valentine's Day. It was the day teachers gave us red construction paper to make hearts and pass out Valentine's Day Cards and do Cupid word searches. To this day I cannot see the correlation between Cupid and Valentine.

What's up Doc? Source

In Chicago only a few blocks from the house I grew up but fifty years before there was the biggest North Side South Side clash ever where Bugs Bunny got his rabbit ears popped off. It makes my stomach cringe and makes me sad to think that some sociopath would repeat it in 2018 and at a school.

When I hear the word "Valentine" the correlating word is Claudius.

No I don't have any special affection for Claudius. He is just another bronze stature if you asky me.

Claudius II

Don't get this Claudius confused with the less handsome and partly deaf crippled Claudius who killed his nephew Caligula. This is Marcus Aurelius Valerius Claudius Augustus of the third century who seems to have no blood relationship to any of the people included in his long name. Even wikipedia introduces him as the bastard son of Gordian. Kind of a Kyle Laren figure in the Roman empire.

A couple hundred years later he is recorded in the Passio Marii et Marthae as the man who killed Saint Valentine on February 14th, 278 AD. The story there is that the Priest Valentine is going around the Roman Empire ministering to people. Among them was a Roman official. His daughter was suffering terribly from disease and Valentine prayed for her and she was healed. The whole family was converted to Christianity. When the Emperor Claudius who held firmly to Pagan tradition got word of this he had Valentine beaten with clubs and beheaded on February 14th. This seems to be about the closest to the bloody truth history has gotten about Valentine's Day.

Now 1800 years later this is the day in Korea you can buy one chocolate and get one free 1+1.

In Korea this is the day a girl buys chocolate for the boy she likes. Then a month later on White Day March 14th the boy buys candy for the girl she likes . Then a month later on April 14th is Black Day the day people go to the restaurant and order noodles and eat them alone.

Something happened from the sacrificial eternal love of a martyr to the fleeting love of buy one get one free noodle day. I would have to say it started as a compromise during the fifth century. Every February 15 people would sacrifice to the fertility god Lupercalia. The compromise of the church led by Pope Gelasius was to establish Saint Valentine's Day in place of the Lupercalia celebration. The two got pretty much intermingled.

Then around the fourteenth century the poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the first Valentine's Day poem on the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia.

Maybe this poem about birds mating became the beginning of sending Valentine's Day greetings.


A gardyn saw I, ful of blosmy bowes
Upon a ryver, in a grene mede,
There as swetnesse everemore inow is,
With floures whyte, blewe, yelwe, and rede,
And colde welle-stremes, nothyng dede,
That swymmen ful of smale fishes lighte,
With fynnes rede and skales sylver bryghte.

On every bow the bryddes herde I synge,
With voys of aungel in here armonye;
Some busied hem hir bryddes forth to brynge;
The litel conyes to here pley gonne hye.
And ferther al aboute I gan espye
The dredful ro, the buk, the hert and hynde,
Squyrels, and bestes smale of gentil kynde.

Of instruments of strenges in acord
Herde I so pleye a ravyshyng swetnesse,
That God, that makere is of al and lord,
Ne herde nevere beter, as I gesse.
Therwith a wynd, unnethe it myghte be lesse,
Made in the leves grene a noyse softe
Acordaunt to the foules songe alofte.

Th'air of that place so attempre was
That nevere was grevaunce of hot ne cold.
Ther wex ek every holsom spice and gras;
No man may there waxe sek ne old;
Yit was there joye more a thousandfold
Than man can telle; ne nevere wolde it nyghte,
But ay cler day to any mannes syghte.

References:

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Parlement of Foulys. D.S. Brewer, ed. London,
Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1960.

Jack Oruch, "St. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February"

The poem speaks for itself. The story of the birds and the bees. It has come a long way to the red candy boxes with two hearts stamped "I love you."

This is the part in the post I talk about my darling and our beautiful relationship for twenty years. She is ever as lovely as when I first saw her. True love should grow through the years. It is a mystery by a dying of self and a transformation to becoming one.

"Greater love has no one than than this, that one lay down their life for a friend."

This is a picture I drew of me and my wife after twenty years. We have grown a lot, mostly sideways.

Valentine.JPG

Original drawing on Krita with no tablet, just a mouse by me.

I am Italian.

Happy Valentines Day,

I love you

Woodstock Source

@mineopoly 2.14.19

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Loved your Valentine writeup and the drawing of you and your wife. Haha, I think most of us have grown sideways. 😂

Thank you @redheadpei,

I was curious about the sources of what people say about Valentine's Day and I couldn't actually find any reliable sources. The stories are great though. I like your article and it made me feel good about Valentine's Day.

It's not about what it was or what it is but what we make it.

Thanks Christopher. I’m glad my post made you feel good about the Love Day.
True indeed, it is what we make it. ❤️

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wife told me she would buy me the air fryer for valentines. we went to emart but it was sold out. i bought her cake from "twosome place". unfortunately i didn't have any of the cake because i'm cutting out all sugar atm. happy friday man.

Wow,

The gift exchange story is heart moving. She buys an air fryer that isn't there and you get a cake but couldn't eat it. Truly classic Valentine's Day.

Enjoy your weekend. I'm trying to do nothing for a few days. I have new teachers to work with and a new textbook in March. I'm also assigned to teach two classes for welfare kids in the school. I'm also considering starting a ginseng garden on our lot. I think it would would cover my second son's college tuition if the bugs didn't get at it. Right now we are just growing bamboo there. I'll call next week and maybe we can find some healthy food before the semester begins in March.

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