Did you receive a love letter this morning which made you go all limp and reflective, like this lovely lady, imagined by the Victorian artist John Callcott Horsley?
It’s Valentine’s Day, of course, a day when w ...
Did you receive a love letter this morning which made you go all limp and reflective, like this lovely lady, imagined by the Victorian artist John Callcott Horsley?
It’s Valentine’s Day, of course, a day when we celebrate love, but there’s a bit of confusion among our staff as to what kind of love we should be thinking of. For me it is all about secret admirers – a chance to declare a long held admiration anonymously or with a cipher for the recipient to work out. That’s the really exciting card to get! But others say it is for all couples – a great moment to stop and think about what brought them and why they love each other. I can’t, in all fairness, complain about that – sounds like a lovely thing to do too.
Valentine’s greetings became a big thing in Victorian times when the Royal Mail promoted the sending of cards as a way of increasing business but the red rose that the gentleman holds has a long symbolic history which begins in Greek and Roman iconography, where it was tied to Aphrodite, or Venus, the goddess of love.
Early Christians associated it with the virtue of Virgin Mary, Shakespeare used it and Robert Burns gave us the endlessly quoted, ‘my love is like a red, red rose’. But, I digress – how did we get to celebrate love on Saint Valentine’s day?
Nobody really knows for sure is the answer. Some say it was preceded by a Roman pagan fertility festival, called Lupercalia, held in mid February. The church bolted on its own saint day to crush the more vulgar practice which involved goats, dogs and slapping women with blood-soaked hides. There were at least three Valentines elevated by the church to saint status to choose from and there’s a possible story attached to each. The one I like tells that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death (in February).
A nice little aside to this story involves the semi-precious stone amethyst. This particular saint Valentine is said to have worn a purple amethyst ring which was usually worn by Christian bishops with an image of cupid engraved on it. Roman soldiers would see the ring and ask him to marry them. It may have been this association which led to the stone being chosen as the birthstone for the month of February and invested amethyst with special powers to attract love. A great excuse for a new ring.
