II
Before the cherub. Before Valentine’s Day. Before the greeting-card heart.
Before Cupid
Eros appears near the beginning. Fairest among the deathless. Already helping a cosmos move.
- 116Chaosthe gap, the opening
- thenGaiawide-bosomed Earth
- thenTartarusin the depth of the wide-pathed earth
- thenErosfairest among the deathless. Limb-loosening.
who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them.
Hesiod, Theogony 120 to 122. Evelyn-White, 1914.
Hesiod’s Theogony says that first Chaos came to be, and next wide-bosomed Earth, dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed earth, and Eros, fairest among the deathless gods.
Gaia, Tartarus and Eros come to be after Chaos. They belong with Chaos among the first realities.
In the same poem, when Aphrodite is born from the sea-foam, Eros accompanies her and beautiful Himeros follows. Desire is both primordial and attendant. Already, inside one archaic text.
Why would desire appear so close to the beginning of a world?
Notes · 2
- Hesiod, Theogony 116–122, in Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (London: William Heinemann, 1914). Public domain. Source
- Hesiod, Theogony 188–206 (Evelyn-White, 1914).
Eve
Before Cupid
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