Happy Valentine’s Day from the Sweet Swan of Avon

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned. Song of Solomon 8:7

These words of Solomon’s proved true in another kingdom . . . a kingdom of Shakespeare’s creating . . . in Love’s Labour’s Lost. In a breathtaking production, set in 1914 England*, the Royal Shakespeare Company tells the story of the King of Navarre and his faithful friends (Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville) and how they swear off women for three years in order to focus on their studies. But as soon as the men pledge their oaths of abstinence to one another, the Princess of France and her ladies arrive, forcing the four men to question the oaths they’ve just made.

Cupid’s arrows slay them, one by one, and each, in turn, struggles as he falls for the woman and away from his vow to his friends. Here is what Berowne says as he wrestles with his new feelings of love for Rosaline:

And I to sigh for her! to watch for her! To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague That Cupid will impose for my neglect Of his almighty dreadful little might. Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan: Some men must love my lady and some Joan.

In the end, loves wins out, proving that love has a power beyond words to move us in new directions. As the men, in a hysterical rooftop scene discover that each has broken his vow, they pledge to woo the women together. Here is Berowne’s testimony to love that gives them courage:

But love, first learned in a lady’s eyes, Lives not alone immured in the brain; But, with the motion of all elements, Courses as swift as thought in every power, And gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices. It adds a precious seeing to the eye; A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound, When the suspicious head of theft is stopp’d: Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockl’d snails; Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste: For valour, is not Love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical As bright Apollo’s lute, strung with his hair: And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were temper’d with Love’s sighs; O, then his lines would ravish savage ears And plant in tyrants mild humility.

Love has a power beyond our understanding. That’s what happened with the priest Valentine in the third century. He was so moved by the love of young people that he continued to marry them in defiance of the Emperor Claudius’ decree against marriage (Claudius wanted to keep men single so they’d be unencumbered by wives and children and more willing to be conscripted into his army). For that, he lost his life . . . on February 14, 269. But in his martyrdom, he has won sweet recognition of the power of love to outlast the kingdoms of men.

Celebrate that power of love today as you celebrate Valentine’s Day . . . and look for all of the ways that love has brought delight into your life (even when you weren’t looking for it).

*For those of you who are avid Downton Abbey fans, you would have loved the production (and may be able to see it on video—it was aired at cinemas all over the world just a few days ago). The set design was based on Charelcote Park, an estate just outside of Stratford that would very much remind you of the Downton Abby!