Poesy

A Divinity of Love Trialed Into Triumph

A haiku using #eros and the stories behind it

Photo by Lex Melony on Unsplash

You might think, I know about Eros. It’s that statue on top of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain in Piccadilly Circus, London, sculpted by Sir Alfred Gilbert in 1893, commissioned in 1883 to memorialize the philanthropy of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, who was a known social reformer for the down and out of society.

But, actually that wouldn’t be completely correct, as that statue was actually Eros’ brother, Anteros — the god of returning love and the castigator of scorners of love and unrequited love.

In Greek, Antérōs means,

“love returned’ or ‘counter-love”.

But the brothers were just different sides to the phenomenon of love (the divinity of love that could be returned when loved — Anteros’ powers — and the carnal passionate lustful kind — Eros’ powers). They were also similar in appearance: both were winged, youthful, and armed with magical weapons of archery, though, Anteros was with longer hair and wings as the butterfly; Eros’ wings were as the bird.

Eros originates from the ancient Greek mythological gods — ἔρως (Greek) for “desire” and according to the earliest ancient Greek sources of poetry, Theogony (c…