Episode 061 - The Perils of Romantic Love (Part 1)
Date: 03/12/21
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/1905-episode-sixty-one-the-perils-of-romantic-love-part-1/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Book Four lines 1037–1140: the opening of Lucretius’s extended treatment of romantic love. The episode begins with the transition passage on sleep and dreams — bed-wetting, nocturnal emissions — before moving into the love section proper, covering the wound/blood analogy for being struck by Venus, the warning against concentrating desire on one person, and Lucretius’s recommendation to seek “wandering Venuses” (Venus Pandemos) rather than fixate on a single lover. The panelists compare Brown, Munro, Stallings, and Martin Ferguson Smith translations and discuss whether Lucretius is condemning sex entirely or only its infatuated excess.
Elaine distinguishes infatuation, lust, and oxytocin bonding, arguing that infatuation involves idealizing someone you don’t know — which fits Lucretius’s complaint about impossible-to-satisfy desires. Cassius cites Principal Doctrine 10 on things that seem depraved being fine unless they lead to pain. Martin Ferguson Smith’s closing paragraph of Book 4 (the habit/water-drops-on-rock passage) is read as a preview of where the section ends. Charles flags coming misogyny in the next sections, and the episode closes with discussion of jealousy as a symptom of infatuation.
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to Episode 61 of Lucretius Today. I am your host, Cassius, and together with my panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com Forum, we’ll walk you through the six books of Lucretius’ poem and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself, and we suggest the best place to start is the book Epicurus and His Philosophy by Canadian professor Norman DeWitt. For anyone who’s not familiar with our podcast, please check back to Episode 1 for a discussion of our goals and our ground rules. If you have any questions about those, please be sure to contact us at EpicureanFriends.com for more information. In this episode, we’ll begin discussion of the well-known ending of Book 4, which addresses in great detail the perils of romantic love. Our text today is Latin lines 1037–1140. And now let’s join Elaine reading today’s text.
Elaine: And then what mighty deeds are men hurrying themselves about in their dreams? Then they show their valor and do wonderful exploits. They engage with kings and are taken captive, are in the confusion of battle. They cry out as if they were expiring on the spot. Some were the hottest in the fight and groan with the anguish of their wounds and fill the air with complaints, as if they were torn by the teeth of a panther or a fierce lion. Some in their sleep talk of the mysteries of state and frequently discover the treason of their own contriving. Some think they are dying away and others, falling from the dreadful precipices with all their weight upon the earth, are terrified and awake almost out of their senses and can scarce recover themselves from the hurry and distraction of their spirits. Another parched up with thirst sits on the river’s bank or by the side of a pleasant fountain and almost drinks down his throat the whole stream. And children in their sleep often fancy that they are near some sink or public pissing place. They think they are taking up their clothes, that they may make water freely. And so the Babylonian coverlid with its purple dye and the rich bedding are wet through.
And further, those who are in the heat of youth, whose ripening age has well-digested the semen through all the limbs, and such the images of every beauteous object strike deeply and show the lovely face and blushing cheek, which so provoke and stimulate the parts, swelling with seed and abundance, that they discharge, as if this deed were done, large floods of moisture and pollute the robe. For, as I said before, the seed begins to boil as soon as mature age has well-braced the limbs; other things are moved and provoked by other impressions, but nothing but the power of beauty can put the human semen into motion, which as soon as it is ejected from its little cells, flows through the limbs and through every part of the body, and being received into the receptacle of the nerves proper for it, in an instant stimulates the genitals. These parts grow turgid with the semen, and thence precedes the will to project it where the heat of lust strives to reach, for the mind drives furiously toward the lovely body from whence it received the wound of love.
Men generally fall upon their wound, and the blood gushes with violence toward the part from which we received the blow. If the murderer be near, the red liquor will spout all over him. So he that is stuck with the darts of Venus, whether some beauteous boy with female charms the arrow casts, or some more beauteous maid that shoots out love from every pore, tends to the part that gave the stroke. He is in raptures to enjoy, to inject and to consummate, for the hot desire to the act foreshadows the mighty pleasure that attends it. This is properly Venus to us. This is the deity of love. Hence the drops of sweet delight first strike upon the heart, and the burning fever of succeeding care follows it close, for if the object of your love be absent, her charming image is always before you, and her sweet name is ever thrilling in your ears.
But take care that you fly those images, and avoid those incentives to love. And divert your mind some other way; choose to bestow your favors in common. Don’t reserve your whole stock for one only, lest by that means you entail anxiety and certain sorrow upon yourself. For the ulcer spreads and grows stubborn by feeding it, the madness increases every day, and trouble becomes the heavier, unless you cure old wounds by new. Or like a rover, remove your first smart by wandering all over the sex, or turn the passion of your mind into some other channel.
Nor is he without the pleasures of Venus who disdains the fetters of love, but rather takes the sweet without the pain that follows it. For such a sober lover takes more certain and more unmixed delight than those wretches, those furious votaries whose mind in the very instant of enjoyment is tossed with a thousand doubts and fears. These know not what sweets they shall first rifle with their hands and eyes. What they fasten upon they strain hard and give pain to the body; they often fix their teeth in the fair one’s lips and pin her down with kisses. And for this reason, because the joy is imperfect, and some stings remain which provoke them to hurt the thing, whatever it is, that first put them into a rage. But Venus, in the encounter of love, gently soothes the pain, and the sweet pleasure intermixed restrains the lover’s teeth from biting too hard.
The lover hopes, perhaps, that his flame may be extinguished by the same object that first blew the fire. But experience shows the contrary of this, for this is the only thing which, the more we enjoy of it, our soul still burns with the eager desire of more. Meat and drink are taken down into the body because they fill up certain empty spaces; therefore the appetite of eating and drinking is easily satisfied. But from a lovely face and a fine complexion, the body can enjoy nothing but empty images and a fleeting hope scattered by every wind. As a thirsty man desires to drink in his sleep and has no moisture to allay the heat within, but vainly catches at the images of rivers and labors to no purpose and is parched up while he fancies himself quaffing a full stream. So in the business of love, Venus deludes the lover with empty images, nor can he quench his desire by gazing upon the charming object, nor bring away anything from the tender limbs with his hands, as he wanders with wild excess all over the body of his mistress.
Besides, when they sport in the flower of their age with their limbs mingled in the embrace, when their bodies feel the coming joy and Venus is employed to sow the female soil, though they eagerly twine with amorous folds and dart their humid tongues and bite and ardently receive each other’s breath, it is all to no purpose, for they can carry nothing away from the parts they strain, nor can bodies pierce or be in bodies lost. For this they sometimes wish, for this they contend when they engage, so eagerly are they entangled in the nets of love, that their very limbs are dissolved in the excess of pleasure. Then when the collected lust has burst from the nerves, a cessation of the violent ardor ensues for a while, but the same rage soon returns, the same fury is renewed, and again they strive to touch the point, the end of their desires. They can find no device to subdue the pain they feel, and so they pine and languish by a secret wound, and then they waste their strength and perish by the labor they go through, and more they lie under the power of another’s will, while their fortune decays and their debts increase, their duty is neglected and their tottering reputation sickens. Rich pearls and fine shoes of Sicyon shine upon the feet of their mistress, the large emeralds with their green luster are set in gold, and the blue vest is daily stained, and continually in use drinks up the sweat of lust. The family estate, acquired with honor, is changed into coronets of ribbons and headdresses sparkling with jewels, and is sometimes turned into costly gowns or garments of Milesian or Coan robes. Besides, they add to these the luxury of feasts and stately couches, plays, frequent carousals, crowns and garlands, but in vain, for some bitter bubbles up from the very fountain of his delight and poisons all his sweets. Either his own guilty mind stings him for leading such a life of sloth and murdering so large a part of his time, or his mistress has dropped some doubtful word which kindles in his fond heart like fire, or he thinks she has thrown her eyes too freely abroad and glanced upon another, and he discovers the remains of a smiling pleasure upon her face.
Cassius: Well, Elaine, thank you for reading today’s excerpt. That was long. Who would like to start? Martin, in general, before we go and tackle each paragraph?
Martin: I’m still a bit puzzled how he taps into this. When he’s talking about dreams, it somehow continues over into this section on what was the name for that — the passionate love or something like that. I saw some commentator make a connection between discussing war and love, as in Mars and Venus, and there’s some type of potential connection there. The idea of falling towards your wound and the blood spurting out in the direction of that which wounded you, it’s all very interesting. But somehow this doesn’t match my experience.
Cassius: Which part?
Martin: I never fell upon any wounds. I mean, I see this as a war, and this is a wound. It is not like that. Some parts later he observed similarly, but this one with the wounds, I just don’t get it. Or that later on that guy gets jealous — okay, that one maybe I was lucky, just lucky that I don’t get into this by nature or whatever. I’ve seen many men fall into that trap, but still the wounds, that’s puzzling me.
Cassius: I have this picture in my mind from the movies when somebody has been shot with an arrow or hit with a spear, and they grab the spear and they start staggering in the direction the spear came. And maybe when you had more spears and arrows and swords, people had more experience with the way you react to them. What if it hits you in the back? You’re not going to fall backwards. I’m not a forensic person. Usually there’s some basis for him coming up with something like that. But if you’re in a world where everybody’s using knives and swords and stabbing things, maybe you fall forward when you’re stabbed in the stomach.
Elaine: I have the picture of Julius Caesar being stabbed by Cassius, and when I see portrayals of that, he falls forward or something like that. Maybe we’ll have a forensic comment — if you’re stabbed 23 times, which direction do you go?
Martin: But I think there may be some truth in this connection between him thinking about war and fighting and then carrying over to love, as if you’re struck by something.
Elaine: He just didn’t have a good experience with his love, and it’s kind of like he got carried away.
Cassius: I agree with your comment that he might have got carried away here, Elaine, because it seems to me when I think back of what we’ve read so far and then I think forward to what I think is coming, there’s not an awful lot of detail in terms of specific things to do or not do in life — for food or other activities and so forth. He really doesn’t get into tremendous detail, but when he gets to this subject, boy, he gets into a lot of detail — to me more than was necessary probably. And this is just the first of at least one more week of another hundred lines, because this is only the beginning of his discussion of the details. It gets much more graphic than this.
Charles: Alright, cool.
Cassius: Well, why don’t we go back to the beginning and try to take it piece by piece? The first paragraph is the transition from the dreams section — as Martin pointed out — and you do immediately turn over into bed-wetting.
Elaine: I was just going to mention that this was a materialist explanation for bed-wetting. It’s interesting to me — of course we know bed-wetting is common developmentally, so of course it would have been happening back then. The damn kids wet the Babylonian coverlid with its purple dye — they thought it was a pissing place. It is a parasomnia, similar to sleepwalking and sleep talking — sleep peeing. It occurs in stage four sleep when children are less arousable. Bed-wetting alarms tend to wake up the parents better than they wake the kids. Most people outgrow it gradually as their developmental sleep cycles mature.
Cassius: Elaine, I’m thinking that this might be a clue about the direction of the whole last section of the book — we’re talking about things that you do when you lose control of your executive function. First, you’re asleep in this example when you wet the bed. And then when you move on to the passionate love discussion, you’re also to some extent intoxicated — your executive function is no longer doing what it’s supposed to do to keep you out of trouble.
Elaine: Yeah. What about the second passage?
Cassius: Wait a minute — that’s still the first passage. Go ahead.
Elaine: What is this bit about the semen throughout the limbs?
Cassius: Yeah, fascinating. The ripening age has well-digested the semen through all the limbs — as if it’s like the soul. He uses “limbs” pretty interchangeably throughout this book. But it sounds like he really thought the semen was going through the whole body. Considering how important it is to the propagation of the species, I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that he might have thought it was everywhere, like the soul or the nervous system.
Martin: Well, like if your arm was chopped off, semen would not be leaking out — like he was talking about the soul being divided. I still read this differently. I don’t think “semen” refers to the reproductive fluid. I think it reads more like the seeds, like I usually interpret it. If we interpret it as what we call semen, it really doesn’t make sense.
Cassius: But Martin, this is a translation — we’d have to look at the Latin to see if he meant something else. I can see what you’re getting at, because he says “as soon as it is ejected from its little cells” and talks about “large floods of moisture” — that does sound more like sweat, and because the semen which comes out is just a teaspoonful, that’s not “large floods.” But then look in the second part: when it stimulates the genitals, “these parts grow turgid with the semen, and thence precedes the will to project it where the heat of lust strives to reach.” So he is talking about an ejaculation during dreaming — a nocturnal emission. Some of it may be poetic hyperbole. When he says “these parts grow turgid,” he’s clearly referring to genitalia there. But nothing anybody’s saying would rule out him thinking this liquid could be circulating throughout the entire body.
Elaine: I would like to point out that in the second section — “nothing but the power of beauty can put the human semen into motion” — well, that’s not true. There are a small but significant percentage of people who are sexually stimulated by things that most of us would not consider beautiful. Some people are sexually stimulated by being peed on, or by being injured — the opposite of beautiful. It triggers endorphins similar to a runner’s high. And then Martin Ferguson Smith says different things are moved and stimulated by different causes, and human seed can be elicited only by the influence of a human being — and that’s not true either. Some people are stimulated by animals.
Cassius: That’s in Bailey’s translation — the same claim: “for man, only the influence of man stirs human seed.” But Martin Ferguson Smith is saying different things are moved and stimulated by different causes, and human seed can be elicited from the human body only by the influence of a human being. So there are two things going on — it’s not just beauty, and there are people sexually aroused by bridges.
Charles: I’ve heard of that. I’m not laughing at it. Bridges? Yes. I’m sorry — I just have never heard that specifically before.
Cassius: It sounds like Lucretius and Epicurus had not found out about it, but was it happening back then? I bet it was.
Elaine: I don’t know the exact name for it, but typically it’s manufactured things or things that are constructed.
Cassius: All right, this discussion could easily go the wrong direction. Let’s try to rein it in — but I do intend to leave it in the recording, for those interested. The content warning would be NSFW. Both of the things Elaine pointed out are interesting: the beauty part doesn’t appear to be the right translation, and the “human and human only” piece would also be of clinical interest.
Elaine: Yes. Interesting.
Cassius: I wonder what Stallings says. Charles, do you have it?
Charles: Sure, I do, but I’d have to look for it.
Cassius: All right. The second part of that second paragraph is what we discussed about falling towards the wound — which we apparently don’t have personal experience to document. But I think what he’s doing is using that as a transition, because he’s now going to discuss receiving the dart of Venus and falling toward whoever wounds us. I found the Stallings — it just says “for different things are stimulated each a different way to stir up human seed; from man requires human sway.” So basically the same as what Bailey is saying.
Martin: Yeah.
Cassius: This is a very poetic section, so it would be good to include some parts of Stallings in this discussion. If we’re ready to go to the next passage — this next sentence has always been interesting to me: “This pleasure is Venus for us. From it comes Cupid, our name for love.” Why should this particular pleasurable activity be called Venus? Because initially, when he introduces the whole book with Venus, we took Venus to be pleasure. Obviously he’s saying sex is pleasurable, but it almost sounds like he’s limiting it to that here. Or maybe he’s just saying: this is pleasure, this is Venus, it’s not bad, it’s a good thing — because it just follows him saying “the mighty pleasure that attends it, this is Venus.” So he’s endorsing sex as pleasurable. Martin Ferguson Smith says: “This is what we call Venus. This is also what gives us our name for love. This is the source of that honey drop of Venus’s sweetness that is first distilled into our heart, to be followed by chilling care.”
Cassius: Okay, we’re getting now into the material that I think is important to discuss — whether this is intended to be a flat prohibition against love and sex, or whether it is, like other recommendations, contextual. I’m curious what Martin and Charles have to say about the section “if the object of your love be absent.”
Charles: Well, in the later sections of this book he mentions that it is better to have sex with somebody you don’t have any attachments to.
Cassius: Pretty close to what he’s saying in this section already. And Martin Ferguson Smith is much more straightforward: “It is advisable to shun such images, to abstain from all that feeds your love, and to turn your attention elsewhere. You should ejaculate the accumulated fluid into any woman’s body rather than reserve it for a single lover who monopolizes you and thus involve yourself in inevitable anxiety and anguish.” That is much more clear. In Martin Ferguson Smith he also says “unless you obliterate the old wounds with new blows and heal them while still fresh by taking at random some random roaming Venus.” And Stallings translates it as “with the Venuses of easy virtue, cure the flesh.”
Charles: What does Munro say? Which section is this again?
Cassius: That’s the third section at the end. Munro says “roaming abroad after Venus the Pandemian.” I looked up that word — it makes me think of pandemic — but the definition is: of or relating to the senses or sense organs, strongly or unduly inclined to gratification of the senses. So basically a woman who enjoys sex and is not worried about conventional ethical expectations.
Elaine: So I think this is really fascinating, because he’s basically recommending — I thought at first when I read it he was recommending polyamory, which is becoming a little more popular now, but it sounds more like he’s recommending one-night stands rather than true polyamory. Definitely not monogamy.
Cassius: Well, okay, that’s a good point. As we’re reading this, somebody who hasn’t read to the end needs to keep in mind that the final passage does get back to something closer to monogamy. We’re going to go several weeks on this. Let me read Martin Ferguson Smith’s final paragraph of Book 4:
“It is not due to divine intervention or the arrows of Venus that a woman with little pretension to beauty sometimes comes to be loved. Not infrequently the woman herself, by her behavior, by her obliging ways, and by the scrupulous neatness of her person, easily accustoms a man to spend his life with her. Furthermore, mere habit generates love: for anything that is struck by incessant blows, no matter how lightly, in long lapse of time is overpowered and made to yield. Have you not noticed that even drops of water falling upon a rock in long lapse of time hollow out that rock?”
And those are the final words of Book 4, which will follow after the long discussion of the pitfalls of romantic love that we’re talking about now.
Martin: I don’t think “blows” is the right word to use there.
Cassius: But Martin Ferguson Smith does include the phrase “easily accustoms a man to spend his life with her” — so that would not necessarily be a statement that everybody ought to be monogamous. He could make a very strong argument that you could spend your life with a homely woman like that and also find the wandering Venuses.
Martin: It doesn’t imply that he’s not having sex somewhere else.
Cassius: That’s right. That’s true too.
Charles: There’s a lot of clarification to come in this chapter, because the next few sections will start to get a little bit into misogyny. There’s decent evidence that humans are not evolutionarily likely to really be monogamous — it’s more of a social thing. Being a good observer, I think he has noticed that. But for most people who wind up having more than one partner, it’s not because they have this endless frustrated desire — it’s more that they get tired of each other. And he doesn’t mention that at all.
Cassius: It takes you back to the general discussion of variety and whether variety is something we seek, and yet it’s not really necessary to have a life full of pleasure. You don’t necessarily have to continually replace the components of pleasure. But as Elaine has mentioned herself before, if you get tired of the same thing, then that’s a form of lack of pleasure — to be tired of it, to be over-accustomed. Go ahead, Elaine.
Elaine: And there’s a great book — if any of our listeners are interested in religious influences on sexuality — by Darrel Ray: Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality. I got to meet him. I went on an atheist cruise a few years ago, and he was the speaker. Here we are on this cruise boat and he’s giving us science lectures on sex — how different organisms are, and we’re humans following that. So if you’re interested in that kind of thing, it’s a great book.
Charles: That sounds like something out of a Libertine novel. What — the cruise? Yeah, the cruise, everything.
Cassius: Okay, before I forget to say this — Lucretius, pretty early on, used the analogy about looking up at the sky: the first time you look, you’re amazed, but the more you look, the less amazed you get, and eventually you don’t even bother to look up anymore. So he had previously acknowledged the idea of growing tired and bored of the same thing over and over, but he doesn’t bring it in here.
Elaine: I’ve noticed that. But this may be just his experience — that he just felt like he couldn’t get to whatever it was he was going for. I’m thinking about the modern understanding of this whole complex of love and romance: there is infatuation; then there’s lust, which can be purely sexual; and then there’s attachment, which is that kind of oxytocin bonding. People have them in different orders. We think of infatuation at the onset, with lust and infatuation going hand in hand, and then bonding coming later. For some people, the romance comes after bonding as friends first. Some people don’t get infatuation; some don’t get a lot of bonding — there are many ways this can be. When I looked up “Pandemian” I wanted to see if it had a connection to demisexuality — the idea of attachment coming first before lust.
Charles: It didn’t. But that is the one thing I was talking about — demisexual or demiromantic — exactly what you were just describing about attachment coming first.
Cassius: So what about this part here — the pain aspect — in the fourth section? He says what they’ve sought, they tightly squeeze and cause pain of body and often imprint their teeth on the lips. He’s explaining that people sometimes bite each other during sex because they’ve been subject to hidden stings making them want to hurt the other person.
Elaine: What I’ve read as the explanation is that pain stimulates endorphins — these pleasure molecules — and people have learned that will get them there. But he’s saying it’s because you’ve had hidden stings to yourself that makes you want to hurt the other person.
Cassius: “Germs of frenzy.” That could be the title of a book.
Martin: But there must be another mechanism as well. This explains why one would accept being bitten, but why would people have the drive to bite? There has to be something else that drives a lover to bite their partner. You don’t think it’s because it causes them pleasure?
Elaine: A lot of animals bite each other as a sign of affection. Stallings says: “what they long for, that they hurt the flesh by their possessing, often sinking teeth in lips and crushing as they kiss, since what the lovers feel is not some pure and simple bliss — rather there are stings that lurk beneath, that pains that shoot, goading them to hurt the thing that’s made madness take root.”
Martin: I don’t think that is the mechanism. I still don’t recognize that it matches with reality.
Elaine: I think people do it because it creates pleasure, not because they’re mad. It’s the same as hot pepper — it stimulates endorphin release.
Martin: No, no — this is to get bitten, but to bite is different. You mean receiving the bite is different from the biting?
Elaine: Yes, yes.
Cassius: Well, if you know that it causes pleasure to your partner, doesn’t that cause you pleasure if you care about your partner?
Martin: My experience is asymmetric, and the partner doesn’t know it. So it’s something that drives the partner, and it’s really limited to close to climax — there has to be a mechanism that drives that. I haven’t seen a proper explanation anywhere.
Elaine: I bet there’s been some research on that. It would be interesting.
Cassius: We move on to the next section. He contrasts sex with meat and drink: meat and drink are taken down into the body and fill up certain empty spaces, so the appetite of eating and drinking is easily satisfied. But from a lovely face and fine complexion, the body can enjoy nothing but empty images and a fleeting hope. Martin Ferguson Smith makes this very clear.
Elaine: So it sounds like Lucretius just really did not get sexual satisfaction, because my experience is totally different. When I eat, I do get hungry again, and if I’ve had sex, I will want sex again at some time — but it’s not that fast, and it’s not unsatisfiable. There is a definite ability to experience satisfaction. I feel sorry for Lucretius, and for Epicurus if Epicurus thought this, because that does seem like a disappointing state of affairs.
Cassius: Now when you say something like that — anybody listening today should be sure to listen to the next several weeks as well, because this is a long section and it’s going to take twists and turns that not everybody’s going to like. I think in the end it comes down to: I’m reading words like “frenzy,” and as Elaine said, infatuation and madness and furious passion and rage — what he’s ultimately advising against is never giving in to that force of intoxication or infatuation. He’s not necessarily saying don’t engage; he’s certainly not saying don’t engage in sex. He’s going to say at the end that you can even spend your whole life with another person. I think he’s ultimately advising that when you’re intoxicated, you’re going to get burned. You’re going to have a hangover. I think most of us would testify that romantic relationships are some of the most dangerous things we can engage in in life — they can lead to tremendous pain if not handled properly.
Charles: Yeah, I agree. I see what you’re saying, Cass, and I’m glad you said that.
Cassius: As Charles has indicated, in the following sections, much of it is devoted to how to prevent yourself from getting overly attached to somebody. He’s saying: think about X, Y, and Z, and if you think about these things, then you won’t be so intoxicated. Go ahead, Elaine.
Elaine: So, what I think about — because I dislike infatuation; I don’t like it. For some people it might be fine, but I think it’s purely cultural that we have that promoted. I’m fine with bonding and lust, but infatuation before you know somebody — what it really requires is that you idealize this person because you don’t know them. And to me, that does fit in with the impossibility of satisfying desires for non-existent things. If you have idealized someone into some kind of archetype or goddess and you don’t have any idea who they really are, you’re never going to be satisfied, because the person you’ve imagined and projected doesn’t exist. And that I would totally agree with. He doesn’t exactly say that, but I could buy that that’s what he’s talking about.
Cassius: But he’s going to say it very soon — as soon as we get to that passage. He’s going to say specifically that, and he’s going to give a long list. Charles used the word “misogyny” earlier, and I don’t know that that’s the appropriate word, but he’s going to go on a long list of different types of women and things you should think about to make sure that you don’t over-idealize somebody. Charles, that’s what you’re talking about.
Charles: The section where I think it can kind of delve into that is where he talks about the type of passion that women experience and how that is conversely different from men, which — we know today that’s not true. And that’s something I wanted to talk about a few months back, but I wanted to wait until we were here in the podcast. I’ve got something lined up for it on the forums.
Cassius: And let’s postpone it until we get to that point, because we really haven’t finished today’s section yet and we’re already running a little bit long on time. So Elaine, how do we begin to bring it home for the end of this episode?
Elaine: Yes, I don’t want to skip any of these paragraphs. So whatever you see, go ahead.
Cassius: This last one is talking about infatuation — if you’re infatuated, you’re going to neglect everything else and spend your whole fortune on your lover.
Elaine: I guess if it’s resulting in pain to you and you wind up not having anything to eat and you regret it, then yeah. But otherwise, I wouldn’t really see any problem. What good is an estate if you’re not using it for pleasure? If your partner enjoys having beautiful jewelry — I love buying things for people I care about. It gives me pleasure, and I can’t think of a better use for money than to cause happiness. But if you don’t have a place to sleep and you don’t have anything to eat, then you’ve probably gone too far for your own pleasure.
Charles: There’s a whole phenomenon slash subculture that’s very new that I would like to tie into the next weeks — I’ll make a thread about it.
Cassius: Epicurus says in Principal Doctrine 10 that the things that we think may be depraved are fine except for the fact that they lead to pain in the end. So there is nothing intrinsically bad or intrinsically wrong with doing the things he’s listing here — buying jewels and carousing and so forth. It’s just a matter of whether there will be a bill to be paid for that. If you can somehow avoid paying that bill, then okay. He says “the conscience-stricken mind gnaws itself with remorse to think it is passing a life of sloth and murdering so large a part of his time.” So I would say if that conscience is a sort of artificial social construction, and you have the money to enjoy a life of sloth and brothels, and you want to do it and it’s not making you unhappy — I don’t think Epicurus would object. I kind of wish Lucretius had questioned where is this conscience coming from: is it based in reality, or is it based in idealistic social expectations?
Charles: I think this is a situation where you’d also consider that he’s talking to Memmius, and when he says “the family estate acquired with honor” — he’s talking to a Roman senatorial class type of person. There’s a lot of judgment about Roman virtues and values there.
Cassius: And it’s interesting for people who think that an Epicurean life consists of this sort of watered-down idea of ataraxia — that you’re sitting doing nothing as the best thing. Here he’s saying a life of sloth is bad. That’s a good point. This might be one of the better passages to use against somebody like that, because he’s clearly saying that a life of sloth and inattention to your duties and your family estate and your reputation — he’s implying that’s a bad thing. Now here is Lucretius the master Epicurean taking the position that you should be concerned about the family estate and your honor and your reputation. But I would say: if it bothers you, then okay — I don’t think we should tell people those things should bother them if they don’t bother them. Philosophically, the point is the goal is pleasure, and you can’t prejudge in any individual situation what has to be the case.
Cassius: Listen, we don’t want to close today without talking about the last part of that last paragraph — the jealousy — because I think that’s kind of a memorable part: “he thinks she has thrown her eyes too freely abroad and glanced upon another, and he discovers the remains of a smiling pleasure upon her face.” I think that’s the jealousy passage.
Elaine: Jealousy — and I am somebody who does not naturally experience that kind of jealousy. It sounds miserable. This is something that polyamory is a cure for — you’ve set it up so that you don’t have that kind of problem, or various kinds of open relationships.
Cassius: I’m too lazy to go around to brothels really. My sloth doesn’t include brothels — that’s too much work. But jealousy sounds just awful. I don’t recommend it either. But it is a very common emotion among many people, right Charles?
Charles: Yes. I’ve personally experienced the downsides of an open relationship and I do not recommend it after that.
Martin: That part is social, I think, and he’s putting it here like it’s an optional thing — you don’t have to have it. He’s not saying that you have to be jealous of people. Is he?
Cassius: What he’s saying is that the jealousy you will feel upon the potential loss of your loved one is part of the terrible pain that can result if you’re not successful in your relationship.
Charles: Yeah — because he is talking about infatuation. If you try to rein in the infatuation part, maybe the jealousy would be connected to that. Maybe that’s why I don’t really have a problem with jealousy myself. My experience certainly doesn’t speak for everyone.
Elaine: The jealous lover and the rage they go through is sort of a classic situation that everybody can understand, whether they’ve gone through it or not. It looks miserable — empathetically I can feel the thing they’re feeling and I feel bad for them while they’re having that.
Cassius: Well, I just think one of the things to take away from this is that Lucretius finds this subject deeply interesting — as most people do. He really seems to get carried away in the level of detail he goes into. We may have not just one but maybe two more hundred-line segments before we get to the end of Book 4, and there’s going to be a lot more discussion of how to tame your emotions and avoid being infatuated and carried away. This section is like 600 lines long — it’s one of the most important activities of life, and one that if you mishandle can be extremely painful. So it deserves the attention he gives it. Let’s begin to close for the day. Closing thoughts to Martin?
Martin: Oh, no — I’m still not completely wrapped around all this so I couldn’t give any consistent comment right now.
Cassius: Okay, Charles.
Charles: I don’t think romantic partners are infinitely interchangeable.
Cassius: Yes. God. Okay. All right, Elaine.
Elaine: I would say it’s really wonderful how these are still timeless topics, very important to talk about, and I think we benefit from openness and plain speaking when discussing them rather than making them taboo topics. Then we can learn how to handle this important part of life in a pleasurable way.
Cassius: As we close — for some reason it strikes me at this moment how different this is from a standard Christian, Jewish, or Muslim view: God created man and woman, and all the stuff that’s wrapped into the religious viewpoint of sexual relationships. It’s just a very different approach. Okay, anybody have anything else for the day? Otherwise we’ll close.
Martin: Nothing for me.
Cassius: All right, we’ll come back in a week or so. Thanks everybody.
Elaine: Thank you for your time today.
Cassius: All right, good week. Bye bye.
Charles: Thanks and bye.