Extracts
On Eros
Selected from the Winter 2009 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly.
Rowing in Eden – Ah, the Sea! Might I but moor – Tonight – In Thee! —Emily Dickinson, c. 1861
Love is born into every human being: it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.
—Plato, c. 378 BC
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. —The Bible, Song of Songs, c. 950 BC
It is the Man and Woman united that make the compleat human Being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason; he, her Softness, Sensibility, and acute Discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the World.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1745
Stay not till I learn the way, How to lie, and to betray: He that has me first, is blest, For I may deceive the rest. —John Dryden, 1694
If the spirit be stronger than the flesh, because it is also of higher birth, it is through our own fault that we follow the weaker.
—Tertullian, c. 210
“What do you want?” I asked. “To be with you in hell,” he said. I laughed, “It’s plain you mean to have us both destroyed.” —Anna Akhmatova, 1914
Bodily desire, like a morass, and adolescent sex welling up within me exuded mists which clouded over and obscured my heart, so that I could not distinguish the clear light of true love from the murk of lust. Love and lust together seethed within me.
—Saint Augustine, c. 397
There’s a sigh for yes, and a sigh for no, And a sigh for “I can’t bear it!”— O what can be done, shall we stay or run? O cut the sweet apple and share it! —John Keats, 1818
What reason weaves, by passion is undone.
—Alexander Pope, 1972
When someone asks what it means to “die for love,” point: Here. —Rumi, c. 1250
The seeker to whom they give such a cup at dawn is an infidel to love if he will not worship wine. O ascetic, go, and don’t quibble with those who drink the dregs, for on the eve of Creation this was all they gave us. —Hafez, c. 1365
Do not swear at all; Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry, And I’ll believe thee. —William Shakespeare, 1597
One may like the love and despise the lover.
—George Farquhar, 1706
The best moment of love is when the lover leaves in the taxi.
—Michel Foucault, 1982
Sex is the last refuge of the miserable.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968
Sex: in America, an obsession; in other parts of the world, a fact.
—Marlene Dietrich, 1962
When Americans had sex with each other, they were really just having sex with themselves.
—Dagmar Herzog, 2009
Among the several thousand portrayals of human coitus in the art left by ancient civilizations, there is hardly a single portrayal of the English-American position.
—Alfred Kinsey, 1948
Samantha: Plus, the sense of power is such a turn on. Maybe you’re on your knees, but you’ve got him by the balls. —Darren Star, 1998
No woman needs intercourse; few women escape it.
—Andrea Dworkin, 1978
She calls to me from her balcony. I hurry upstairs. She is standing on the threshold, holding out her hand in friendly fashion. “I am ashamed of myself,” she says while I embrace her, and she hides her head against my breast.
—Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, 1869
Sometimes she waved from a window and he could see her smile and he wondered if there were tears in her eyes, for there sometimes were in his.
—Charles Mingus, 1935
Less and less do you hear now: “While I, who am yours, am dying all night long, you, Lydia, are sleeping?” —Horace, 23 BC
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
—Pablo Neruda, 1924
I sometimes try to tell you the truth, and then I find that I have no words at my command which could possibly convey it to you.
—Vita Sackville-West, 1929
A maid that laughs is half taken.
—John Ray, 1670
Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
—Jonathan Swift, 1738
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EROS
Winter 2009