Eros the Bittersweet

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"According to the ancient Greeks, harming your lover may mean you’re a terrible person, but it doesn’t mean you’re not in love… Love’s amorality is proverbial." <div id="p5sketch"></div> <> <<script>> $(document).one(':passageend', function () { setup.p5promise.then(function () { new p5(setup.mySketch, 'p5sketch'); }); }); <</script>> <<endnobr>> Are you the [[lover]] or the [[beloved]]? tw: some of the writing may have dark themes

<img alt="man kneeled before woman" src="adoration.jpeg"> [[Adoration|lover1]], (1903) [[by|lover2]] Stephan Sinding <> <<if $saw_lover1 == 1 && $saw_lover2 == 1 >>\ “I am not the target. I am the [[archer.|desire]]” Antigone, Sophocles & Seamus Hanney <<endif>>\ <<endnobr>> <><<set $saw_lover to 1>><<endnobr>>

<img alt="woman & skull painting" src="vanitas.jpeg"> [[Vanitas|beloved1]] (1999) [[by|beloved2]] Roberto Ferri <> <<if $saw_beloved1 == 1 && $saw_beloved2 == 1 >>\ Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been [[loved?|desire]] Ovid <<endif>>\ <<endnobr>> <><<set $saw_beloved to 1>><<endnobr>>

“You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll [[blight|lover2]] you - they'll damn you. You loved me - what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. [[Do I want to live?|lover]] What kind of living will it be when you - Oh, God! would you like to lie with your soul in the grave?” Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë <> <<set $saw_lover1 to 1>> <<endnobr>>

[[Here lies|lover1]] something new like you’ve never seen before a venomous Creature just outside your door She’s hungry and greedy with Talons and Teeth this monstrous Witch Fiending for a Feast knock knock. She’ll find her way in. She’ll lurk in dark corners. She’ll feed on your sin. Guard your bitter heart from Her lockjaw maw this dreadful Bitch will eat it raw While I grasp your throat and squeeze, Beg and Plead and fall on your knees. And just when you think that [[you can’t breathe,|lover]] then tell me, tell me what do you think I could be? a Gruesome sight, covered in Gore here lies a Woman like you’ve never seen before <> <<set $saw_lover2 to 1>> <<endnobr>>

How this tart fable instructs And mocks! Here's the parody of that [[moral mousetrap|beloved2]] Set in the proverbs stitched on samplers Approving chased girls who get them to a tree And put on bark's nun-black Habit which deflects All amorous arrows. For to sheathe the virgin shape In a scabbard of wood baffles pursuers, Whether goat-thighed or god-haloed. Ever since that first Daphne Switched her incomparable back For a bay-tree hide, respect's Twined to her hard limbs like ivy: the puritan lip Cries: 'Celebrate Syrinx whose demurs Won her the frog-colored skin, pale pith and watery Bed of a reed. Look: Pine-needle armor protects Pitys from Pan's assault! And though age drop Their leafy crowns, their fame soars, Eclipsing Eva, Cleo and Helen of Troy: For which of those would speak For a fashion that constricts White bodies in a wooden girdle, root to top Unfaced, unformed, the nipple-flowers Shrouded to suckle darkness? Only they Who keep cool and holy make A sanctum to attract Green virgins, consecrating limb and lip To chastity's service: like prophets, like preachers, They descant on the serene and seraphic beauty Of virgins for virginity's sake. Be certain some such pact's Been struck to keep all glory in the grip Of ugly spinsters and barren sirs As you etch on the inner window of your eye This virgin on her rack: She, ripe and unplucked, 's Lain splayed too long in the tortuous boughs: overripe Now, dour-faced, her fingers Stiff as twigs, her body woodenly Askew, she'll ache and wake Though doomsday bud. Neglect's Given her lips that lemon-tasting droop: Untongued, all beauty's bright juice sours. Tree-twist will ape this [[gross anatomy|beloved]] Till irony's bough break. Virgin in a Tree, Sylvia Plath <> <<set $saw_beloved1 to 1>> <<endnobr>>

[[pretty|beloved1]] please just let me rot until i'm something new. what am i when i'm alone? peel off my skin and take my eyes; replace them with unseeing stones. slice me open and feed the flies; they’ll [[strip me down|beloved]] til' i'm just bones and then from there, we’ll go. <> <<set $saw_beloved2 to 1>> <<endnobr>>

The reach of desire is defined in action: [[beautiful]] (in its object), [[foiled]] (in its attempt), endless (in time).

<img alt="women dancing around a fire" src="firedance.jpeg"> [[Fire Dance|beautiful1]] (1889) [[by|beautiful2]] Joseph Tomanek <> <<if $saw_beautiful1 == 1 && $saw_beautiful2 == 1 >>\ "I'm restless. Things are [[calling me|endless]] away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again." Anaïs Nin <<endif>>\ <<endnobr>> <><<set $saw_beautiful to 1>><<endnobr>>

In trying to [[let go|foiled2]] of one thing, it seems [[I’ve lost|foiled1]] something else instead. <> <<if $saw_foiled1 == 1 && $saw_foiled2 == 1 >>\ “You said I killed you--haunt me, then! [...] [[Be with me|endless]] always-take any form-drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!” Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë <<endif>>\ <<endnobr>> <><<set $saw_foiled to 1>><<endnobr>>

"ELEKTRA: [[I|beautiful2]] am the [[shape|beautiful]] you made me. Filth teaches filth." Elektra, Sophocles & Anne Carson <> <<set $saw_beautiful1 to 1>> <<endnobr>>

"I will be wild. I will be brutal. I will [[encircle|beautiful1]] you and conquer you. I wll be more powerful than your boats and your swords and your blood lust. I will be [[inevitable|beautiful]]." Iphigenia, Rachel Swirsky <> <<set $saw_beautiful2 to 1>> <<endnobr>>

There’s a stain on me It’s woven into the fibers of my heart With strings that are knotted and matted and unraveling at the seams Scrubbing and tearing into myself until I’m raw… and there it is still, oily and seeping deeper. I think I made it worse I’ve pushed it so far that I can’t sort out the [[fabrics…|foiled2]] What’s mine, what’s clean? It’s in my soul now In my mind Behind my eyes Whispering in my ears Choking me Binding my hands and Cementing my feet. And I can’t move anymore Can’t breathe Can’t do anything but think And think That now I don’t need you Because I can tear myself apart [[All on my own|foiled]] <> <<set $saw_foiled1 to 1>> <<endnobr>>

"I may think of you softly from time to time. But I'll [[cut|foiled]] off my hand before I ever [[reach|foiled1]] for you again." The Crucible, Arthur Miller <> <<set $saw_foiled2 to 1>> <<endnobr>>

<> <<if $saw_lover == 1 && $saw_beautiful == 1 >>\ “Eros is an issue of boundaries. He exists because certain boundaries do. In the interval between reach and grasp, between glance and counterglance, between “I love you” and “I love you too,” the absent presence of desire comes alive. But the boundaries of time and glance and “I love you” are only aftershocks of the main, inevitable boundary that creates Eros: the boundary of flesh and self between you and me. And it is only, suddenly, at the moment when I would dissolve that boundary, I realize I never can.” Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson, pg. 33 <<endif>>\ <<endnobr>> <> <<if $saw_lover == 1 && $saw_foiled == 1 >>\ ερέω τε δτηντε κονκ ερέω και μαίνομαι κού μαίνομαι. I'm in love! I'm not in love! I'm crazy! I'm not crazy! cries Anakreon. [PMG 428] Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. I hate and I love. Why do I do this, you might ask… I don’t know, but I feel it happening and I’m crucified. Catullus 85 <<endif>>\ <<endnobr>> <> <<if $saw_beloved == 1 && $saw_beautiful == 1 >>\ In parallel position we move Then in the way eyes meet For a moment eternity To share an axis About which we turn to sway with one another Across the event horizon with suspension there’s release a catastrophic counterbalance We break, we syncopate together apart yet never still a collapsing singularity In time, we unravel <<endif>>\ <<endnobr>> <> <<if $saw_beloved == 1 && $saw_foiled == 1 >>\ pray, pray let sweet nothing hold me tight and cradle me in silence sleep for millennia days pass and grow long veiled in the in between did you notice she’s gone? pray, pray help me, i’m afraid my bones rattle my heart is crushed her tower burns like ashes to ashes but she’s still there collecting dust <<endif>>\ <<endnobr>>