'…and Other Love Tips from Lucretius'
Alex Barrientos at Classical Wisdom.
"According to Lucretius, the body is the source through which the 'mind is pierced by love.' Think, for instance, of how the wounded person falls 'in the direction of their wound', how the 'blood spurts out towards the source of the blow', and how the 'enemy who delivered it, if he is fighting at close quarters, is bespattered by the crimson stream.' Similarly, Lucretius tells us, when someone is 'pierced by the shafts of Venus', that person 'strives towards the source of the wound and craves to be united with it and to transmit something of his own substance from body to body. His speechless yearning is a presentiment of bliss.' This yearning, this striving to be united with the source of the wound, is the very origin of love — 'that drop of Venus’ honey that first drips into our heart, to be followed by numbing heart-ache.'"
See Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, in Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 12, (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 11.
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